CHAPTER XVITHE FALL OF SANTENEL.
With difficulty Frank Merriwell held himself in check. He was in a towering rage, and the impulse was strong in him to hurl himself on the prostrate form of Dion Santenel. He felt an awful thirst for the life of the wretch who lay on the floor before him, sent there by a mighty blow of his fist. Twice before had such a feeling come to him—once when he struggled with Sport Harris on the rotten bridge in England, and again when he overthrew Santenel in Louisville and held his life, as it were, in the hollow of his hand.
“You miserable whelp!” he panted, looking with loathing and contempt into the face of the man who had sought his father’s ruin and death.
He cast a quick glance at his father, who had dropped down, crouching, into the chair by the marble-topped center-table.
Though Santenel had now entirely recovered consciousness, he lay cowering on the floor, in deadly fear of the young athlete whose wrath he had felt. The fierce fire had gone out of his shining black eyes, to be replaced by a gleam that was full of subdued and cowardly hate.
Then he recollected that he had come to the room, not in the person of Dion Santenel, or Brandon Drood, or even of Hector King, but as “Fisher Stokes,” the mining speculator and stock-broker of Denver.
“You are making a mistake!” he cried quickly. “I don’t know why you knocked me down as you did. I’d have you know, sir, that I am Fisher Stokes, of Denver, stock-broker and mining speculator. And I shall have you arrested for this insult and for your unwarranted blow!”
“Bah!” Frank sneered. “Put these on, will you?”
He snatched up the false mustache and imperial which he had torn from the man’s face but a few moments before, and flung them at him.
Santenel sank back, pale and trembling. He saw that further lies and threats would not serve him. The fire died out of his eyes, to be replaced by a look of pleading. He glanced toward the door.
Frank turned to the colored boy, who stood dumb with amazement, and sent him with a hasty message to Inza, who was waiting below. The boy vanished, diving for the elevator with comical speed.
Santenel rose to his feet and looked longingly at one of the closed windows.
“You can’t go out by the door,” said Frank, “and if you pitch yourself out of that window it will be pretty sure to save the hangman an unpleasant job.”
Santenel groped weakly to a chair.
“You are making a great mistake,” he quiveringly urged. “On my honor, Mr. Merriwell, you are making a dreadful mistake!”
“Release him from that spell!” Frank ordered, in so commanding a tone that Santenel fairly leaped in his chair.
“Yes, yes!” the hypnotist replied, though he wanted to deny that the elder Merriwell was under any spell. But he did not dare to do this; and, with a word and a few passes of his long, thin hands, he removed the strange influence under which Charles Conrad Merriwell had been laboring.
The change produced was remarkable. The face resumed its accustomed appearance and the eyes held their natural light, except that Mr. Merriwell seemed to be stupefied by what he beheld. He recognized Frank, but it was clear that he did not recognize the man who was retreating from him and who soon again crouched uncomfortably in the chair.
“It’s all right, father. This is our mutual friend, Santenel.”
Frank said this with an unnatural and bitter laugh.
“Our mutual friend has struck again, and again he has failed!”
The elder Merriwell could hardly credit the words. He recalled the entrance into the room of “Fisher Stokes,” the pretended stock-broker. The man who crouched and whined in the chair wore the same clothing, yet the mustache and imperial and the jaunty business air were gone. What had occurred after the man’s entrance and their talk of a few moments Charles Merriwell could not remember. The interval was now a blank to him.
Yet, with eyes enlightened by Frank’s words, he perceived that this was really “Fisher Stokes,” minus the mustache and imperial, which he now saw on the floor; and Frank had assured him that the man was his bitter and deadly enemy, Dion Santenel.
Charles Merriwell’s brain whirled when he tried to comprehend this transition and the peril he had been in. A sense of terror filled him, giving to his face, under its crown of white hair, a pitiful look.
“It must be as you say!” he managed to articulate.
Santenel was racking his clever brain for something that would stand him in stead now, and trying at the same time to still the trembling of his limbs and subdue the fear that filled him.
“I am Santenel,” he gaspingly confessed. “But there is a great mistake.”
He saw the “confession” which he had forced Charles Merriwell to write, lying, as he had meant to leave it, on the marble-topped table. He put out his hand, hoping he might be able to secure it unobserved.
Frank Merriwell saw the movement, and, advancing to the table, secured the writing, his face darkening as he read it over, for it revealed in all its details Santenel’s cruel plan against his father. Nevertheless, Frank put it quietly in his pocket. He had regained control of himself.
Santenel sat with fear-filled face and blue lips, staring at him.
“What do you intend to do with me?” he asked, seeing that further efforts at evasion and concealment were useless.
There was a rap on the door, followed instantly by entering footsteps.
“This!” said Frank.
Two officers had come in, sent by Inza in response to the request conveyed to her by the colored boy. Santenel rose, after another hesitating glance at the closed windows. Then his coolness returned to him. He advanced toward the officers.
“I am informed that you have been sent for to place me under arrest. I demand to know with what I am charged, for I have committed no crime. You have no right to seize me without a proper warrant, merely on complaint of this person!”
The smaller officer smiled and produced a paper.
“We have a warrant,” he said. “It was sworn out by a young lady, Miss Inza Burrage, who charges that you cut the balloon-rope on the day of the Yale-Carlisle football-game, with the intention of causing her death and the death of Charles Conrad Merriwell, who was in the balloon with her. You will see, therefore, that we can do nothing but go ahead, and we place you under arrest.”