Mr. Banks and Timothy Fletcher stood in Captain Wigmore's hall, breathing quietly and straining eyes and ears. All was silent. All seemed safe. Banks opened the door. The little porch was empty. He stepped across the threshold, followed closely by the staggering Fletcher. They pushed open the door of the porch, and stumbled out of that horrible house, into the frosty moonshine, onto the crisp snow. No lurking danger confronted them. They were free.
"Thank God!" cried Harvey P. Banks, hysterically.
The air was bitterly cold, and the two fugitives were without overcoats. They were so overjoyed to find themselves free men again, however, that they felt no discomfort from the gnawing of the frozen air. The little servant clung to the big sportsman; and so they moved down the narrow path and through the gate onto the highway.
"He's played his last dirty trick on me—or any one else," mumbled Fletcher. "I've stood 'im too long—too long! Now, he'll go back where he come from—the grinnin' snake!"
He leaned heavily on Banks' arm and laughed shrilly.
"Which way?" asked Banks.
"Don't care," replied Fletcher.
"We'll head straight for Rayton's, then," said Banks. "It seems a month since I've seen Reginald. Then we'll smoke a cigar. Then we'll hunt up our friend—and put the boots to him."
The cold, clean air strengthened them, and they were soon stepping out at quite a respectable pace. They even crawled over fences and took short cuts across snow-drifted meadows and pastures. They did not meet or see a human being, for by this time the searchers were all miles away from the settlement. They rested for a minute against Rayton's front gate, then went quickly up the long, twisting road toward the low house and glowing windows.
"There's company," said Timothy. "Maybe they're havin' another game o' poker." He grinned at Banks. "Oh, you're easy! A baby could fool the lot o' you," he added.
"Right you are. That is the sitting-room window. The curtains are not drawn tight. Let's look in and see who's there," said Banks.
Banks took the first look.
"Reginald and Nash," he whispered. "And the girl—yes, and Jim and Dick. And who's that sitting with his back to the window?"
Old Fletcher edged himself into the place of vantage.
"It'shim!" he whispered. "It's that snake!"
"Quiet!" cautioned the other. "Look! He's on his feet. He's wiping his eyes. There's been trouble. They have hurt his feelings, the poor, dear old saint!"
Old Timothy Fletcher trembled like a wet dog.
"I'll saint 'im!" he hissed. "Come on! Come on!"
They left the window, opened the back door noiselessly, crossed the kitchen on tiptoes, and threw open the door of the sitting room. Fletcher pushed past Banks, and darted up to within a foot of Captain Wigmore.
"You lyin', murderin', stinkin' old lunatic!" he screamed. "You thought you'd leave me to starve, did you? It's back to the mad-house for you—damn you!"
Every one in the room was standing, staring breathlessly. For a moment Wigmore gaped at his old servant, his mouth open, his eyes like stones. Then, with a choking cry, he reeled aside. Mr. Banks gripped him by the shoulder, and shook him furiously.
"You devil!" he roared. "You smirking hypocrite! You've come to the end of your deviltries!"
Wigmore made a dash for the door. Timothy Fletcher sprang in front of him, and was hurled to the floor. Then Mr. Banks jumped after Wigmore, caught the back of his coat, and at the same moment tripped over the prostrate Timothy and crashed to earth. The little room was now in tumult and confusion. Nell Harley crouched in a corner. Rayton stood guard in front of her, his sound arm extended. Jim Harley sat upon the shoulders of the big New Yorker, crying: "No murder here! No murder here! What d'ye mean by it?"
Timothy, lying flat, clung to Wigmore's right leg.
"Stop him!" he yelled. "Stop him! He's mad—a ravin' lunatic!"
Wigmore kicked his old servant in the face, and wrenched himself clear. In another second he would have been out of the room and away—but just then Dick Goodine and Doctor Nash closed with the terrible old man, crushed him to the floor, and held him there. They had their hands full, but they continued to hold him down.
There came a brief lull in the terrific tumult—but the excitement was not yet over. Mr. Harvey P. Banks was indignant. A madman had tried to starve him to death, and now a presumably sane man sat upon his back and called him a murderer. All his natural blandness was burned out—scorched to a flake of ash. The passions of fur-clad, pit-dwelling ancestors flamed within him. He arose furiously, twisted around, and flung Jim Harley aside. He gripped him by the breast with his left hand, by the right wrist with his right. He was quick as a lizard and strong as a lion. The lumberman was like a child in his hands.
"You fool!" he cried, glaring. "What d'you mean by it? So you are on Wigmore's side, are you?—on the side of the man who tried to murder his servant and me—yes, and who marked and dealt those cursed cards! You'd sit onmyback, would you? For two pins I'd pick you up and heave you against the wall. Tell me—were you in league with this old devil? Tell me quick—or I'll finish you! Did you know Wigmore was marking those cards?"
"The cards!" cried poor Jim. "No, no! On my soul, I didn't know it! So help me God, I thought it was the family curse!"
"You fool!" exclaimed Banks, loosening his grip and turning away. His rage had also fallen to ashes, leaving his big face drawn and gray, and his great limbs trembling. His eyes were dim.
"That snake poisons the air," he muttered.
He stepped across to where Goodine and Nash held down the squirming captain.
"Let him get up. He has a good many things to explain to us," he said quietly.
Just then poor old Fletcher raised his head, showing a cut and bleeding mouth. Banks lifted him in his arms, and laid him on the couch.
"Don't stand there like a wooden image!" he said to Jim Harley. "Your inactivity has done quite enough harm already. This old man has been gagged, bound, and starved for days. Get him some brandy."
As Nash and Goodine removed their knees and hands from Captain Wigmore, that old sinner began to laugh immoderately. Still laughing, he got nimbly to his feet, bowed to right and left, and sat down in an armchair.
"Mad as a dog," mumbled Fletcher, with his bleeding lips. "He never was rightly cured, anyhow!"
"Mad?" queried the captain. "If you mean insane, my good fellow, you are very much mistaken. That's right, Jim. Give him a drink—but first wipe the blood off his lips. Don't spoil the flavor of good whisky with bad blood."
"If you are not insane," said Banks, "then you are utterly evil—a thing to crush out like a poisonous snake. But to look you in the eyes is to read the proof of your insanity."
Wigmore frowned. "Banks," he said, "you are feeble. You have the mind and outlook upon life of a boy of ten—of a backward boy of ten. But even so, I believe you have more intelligence than our friends here. However that may be, you managed to blunder across the right trail at last. That's why I took you in hand."
"You seem to forget that I have escaped you," said Banks.
Wigmore nodded. "I made the mistake of underestimating your bodily strength," he admitted. "I don't understand even now, how you managed to get out of that closet. You couldn't kick down the door—even with those boots."
"Never mind about that!" exclaimed Jim Harley, white with excitement. "Tell me about the cards! What do you know about the cards?"
The old man gazed at him for a second or two with a face of derisive inquiry, and then burst again into furious laughter.
"Absolutely cracked," said Doctor Nash. "Absolutely, utterly, hopelessly off his chump!"
Wigmore ceased his wild laughter so suddenly that every one was startled.
"Jim," he said, with a bland leer, "you are so simple and unsuspecting that I hate to tell you the truth. But I have to do it, Jim, just to prove to Banks and the rest that I am not insane. Jim, my boy,I am the chosen instrument of Fate."
A brief, puzzled silence followed, which was broken by the croaking voice of old Timothy Fletcher.
"Forget it!" snarled Timothy. "D'you mind the time you was the Sultan of Turkey?"
Wigmore smiled at his servant, then glanced around the room, and tapped his forehead suggestively with a finger.
"Instrument of Fate? Sultan of Turkey?" queried Banks.
Jim Harley leaned forward, clutched the old man's shoulder, and shook it violently.
"What do you know about those cards?" he cried. "Tell me that—quick!"
"You seem to be in a terrible hurry, all of a sudden," replied the captain. "Oh, well, it does not matter; but if you really knew just who I am—if you fully realized who I am—you'd treat me with more consideration. I am the chosen husband of your sister. I am herdestiny."
"Whoareyou?" asked Harley, scarcely above a whisper.
"I am the instrument of the Fate that haunts the steps of your mother's daughter," replied Wigmore. "I am the chosen instrument. I deal the cards—and the blow falls. I do not have to soil my hands—to strike the blows. I mark the cards, and deal them—and Fate does the rest, through such tools as come to her hand."
He leered at Dick Goodine.
"Then you admit that you marked and dealt the cards!" cried Harley.
"Certainly, my dear boy. It was my duty to do so—just as it was my duty to quiet Banks when he came blundering into my affairs. I am the keeper of the curse—the instrument of Fate—the—the——"
He pressed both hands to his forehead, and sighed.
"The star boarder at the Fairville Insane Asylum," snarled Timothy Fletcher, "an' may the devil catch that fool doctor who said you was cured!" he added.
Wigmore lifted his face.
"I am John Edward Jackson," he said pleasantly, as if introducing himself to strangers, "Captain Jackson—the exile."
"Jackson!" cried Jim Harley. "Jackson? What do you mean? NottheJackson?"
The old man nodded. "That's right, Jim. That's why I marked the cards. I came here on purpose to look after Nell, you know. It was my duty."
"He is mad," said Banks. "He is not responsible for what he says or does. He must be taken back to Fairville."
"Yes, I am Captain Jackson," continued old Wigmore. "I had to go away from my home, so I took to seafaring for a while. What was the trouble? Sometimes I remember and sometimes I forget. I got hold of a mine and made money. Then I made a voyage back to my own country, on very important business."
"That's one of the stories he used to tell me when I was his keeper in the lunatic asylum," said Timothy Fletcher. "Sometimes he was Jackson an' sometimes he was the Grand Turk."
"Youkeep your mouth shut till you are spoken to," screamed Wigmore, in sudden fury.
Harley stooped and gazed anxiously at the old man.
"Did you murder my father?" he asked, his voice shaking.
For a second the other stared at him blankly.
"Certainly not!" he cried indignantly. "All I have to do is place the card! I engaged an old sailor, or something of the kind, to dispatch your father. I indicate. Fate destroys."
Then he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.
Jim Harley's face twisted and stiffened like a grotesque and hideous mask; his honest eyes narrowed and reddened; for a little while he stood there, motionless as a figure of wood; then his tongue flickered out and moistened his dry lips, and the fingers of his big hands opened and closed several times. The strong fingers closed so desperately that the nails furrowed the skin of his palms and came away with a stain of red.
"Damn you!" he cried, in a voice so terrible and unnatural that it startled his hearers like a gun-shot in the small room. "Damn you, you accursed murderer! You tell me that you murdered my father—and you sit there and laugh. You devil! I'll kill you where you sit—with my empty hands."
He sprang forward; but Banks threw out an arm like iron and grappled with him in the nick of time. Of the others Rayton alone moved to help in the protection of the old man who sat laughing in the chair. Dr. Nash looked on with interest, Dick Goodine folded his arms and Fletcher snarled, "Kill the old devil. Crazy or sane, he stinks to Heaven an' cumbers the earth."
Banks and Harley staggered like drunken men within a foot of the old man's chair. Harley was blind with rage. Every drop of blood, every muscle, leapt to be at the slayer of his father. Nell, who had fled from the room a moment before, now returned and ran to her brother, crying out to him to be reasonable. Rayton followed the stumbling and reeling of the wrestlers, too weak to assist Banks but plucking constantly at a coat or shoulder. This time Harley was no child in the big sportsman's arms. He fought like a mad man, possessed and a-fire with the determination to destroy his father's murderer.
"It is a devil!" he cried. "Let me at him, I say," and twice he tripped Banks and had him down with one knee on the floor. But he could not get clear of the big fellow, nor overthrow him. And still Captain Wigmore sat in the chair and laughed as if he should die of unholy mirth.
The superior weight of Mr. Banks told at last. He crushed Jim Harley to the carpet and held him there, staring down at him with a flushed, moist face. Harley glared up at him, still squirming and wriggling.
"Lie still," said Banks, breathlessly. "Do you want to add another murder to the list of tragedies?"
"That's what I want to do," gasped Jim. "But it wouldn't be murder to clean the face of the earth of that devil. Let me up, you big slob."
"You'll thank me for this, some day," replied Mr. Banks, sitting firmly and heavily upon Jim Harley's heaving chest. By this time, Nell Harley had subsided into Reginald's anxious and ready arms.
Captain Wigmore stopped laughing suddenly and glanced from Banks and Jim on the floor to the girl and her lover.
"It's as good as a play," he said. "Banks, all this unseemly and ungentlemanly struggle is thrown away. My young friend Jim was powerless to do me any injury. I am beloved of the gods. I am the chosen instrument of fate—of the fate of the Harley family. Reginald, you silly young ass, I see you hold that lady in your arms with no other feeling than that of pity for yourself. The fates have ordained that I am to be her husband. Timothy, you glowering old fool, bring me a drink of whisky. Don't stand there, sir! Step lively when I speak to you, or I'll send for the bosun to put you in irons."
"Forget it," snarled Timothy Fletcher. "You'll never set yer lips to another taste of whisky in this world, you old reprobate. I see death in yer eyes now—an' already the flare of hell fire. It's a drink of water ye'll be hollerin' for pretty soon."
"Let me up," said Jim Harley. "I promise you I won't touch him."
So Mr. Banks and Jim arose stiffly from the floor.
Captain Wigmore, or Captain Jackson, or the Sultan of Turkey—call him what you will—glared at Timothy in silence for several seconds, with hate and despair in his eyes. His long, slender fingers plucked at his ashen lips. Again, as suddenly as a change of thought, he burst into mad laughter; this laughter grew and thinned to shrieking, then fell presently to sobbing and muttering. He seemed to crumple and shrink; and slowly he slid from the low chair to the floor. The company looked on without moving or speaking, some in a state of helpless horror, the doctor and old Timothy Fletcher with harsh curiosity. Nell Harley hid her face against Reginald's shoulder.
The murderer squirmed on the floor, sobbing and muttering; and by the time Doctor Nash had decided that he was really having a fit the old devil had finished having it. He was dead! Nash turned him over and felt for his heart. The heart was still.
"The ugliest death I ever saw," said Nash, glancing up at the horrified company.
"And the ugliest life," said old Timothy Fletcher.
Reginald led the girl from the room. They stumbled along the hall and sat side by side upon the bottom step of the stairs. Then the girl began to weep and the shaken young man to comfort her.
Old Wigmore's secret had not escaped with his wild and twisted spirit.
"Hoist him onto the sofa," said the doctor. "We'll sit on him here and now."
All agreed that the so called Captain Wigmore had died in a fit. Then Dick Goodine left the house, saying that a little fresh air would make him feel cleaner. Mr. Banks lit a cigar, remarking that he would fumigate this chamber of horrors. Then Dr. Nash, as coroner, and Jim Harley, who was a justice of the peace, agreed that they had the authority to search the belongings of the deceased. Timothy Fletcher said that he knew where the old devil kept all his private papers. So Rayton took Nell home, and Nash, Banks, Harley and the old servant drove over to the dead man's house, taking the shrunken and stiffened clay along with them in the back of the pung. They entered the empty house and Timothy lit a candle and led the way upstairs to the captain's bedroom. He pointed to a large, iron-bound wooden chest which stood at the foot of the bed.
"There's where he keeps his ungodly secrets," he said. "Mind the corp, gentlemen, or it'll turn over in agony when we unlock the box. Hell! how I do wish the old sinner was alive to see it. I shouldn't wonder but we'll find some bones of dead men in that box."
"Where is the key?" asked Banks, shivering at Timothy's words and puffing nervously at a freshly lit cigar.
Timothy chuckled at the big man's discomfort and borrowed a strong knife from Jim Harley. He went to a mahogany secretary which stood at the head of the bed, opened the top drawer and applied the blade of the knife to the front of a secret compartment within the drawer. He turned in a moment and tossed a bunch of keys to Mr. Banks. Nash took the keys from the New Yorker's hands and knelt down before the chest. Jim Harley held the candle. The chest had three locks and each of the three called for a separate key. At last the heavy lid was freed and lifted. The top of the trunk was full of clothing. They lifted out a tray and found more clothing. They lifted out another tray and found, in the bottom of the chest, books, nautical instruments, a chart or two, a small bag of English gold, a brace of revolvers and a small iron dispatch-box. In the dispatch-box they found many documentary proofs of the old man's claim to the style and title of Captain John Edward Jackson. They found his ship-master's certificate, an appointment to the command of a gun-boat in the Brazilian navy, title deeds to several mining properties in Brazil, a yellow clipping from a St. John newspaper recording the marriage of Captain Thomas Harley, and another reporting and commenting upon Harley's sudden and deplorable death at the hands of an unknown assassin.
"This little snake was the murderer. There can be no doubt about it," said Jim Harley.
"He is answering for it now," said Mr. Banks, quietly.
"I am afraid we must turn all these things over to the Crown," said Nash. "I don't know anything about the law; but I imagine it is the business of the Crown to take care of these things and look for heirs."
Mr. Banks nodded.
"I think the lawyers will find it a very pretty thing," he remarked. "As for Samson's Mill Settlement, it will become known to the world."
"But we'll burn these newspaper clippings," said Jim Harley, snatching them up and crushing them in his hand. "The murderer is dead and the curse is dead. We'll let the old story die, too."
"I wonder if the title-deeds are straight," murmured Nash. "Can the Crown collect, do you think? I'll make out my bill for professional services, anyway."
"Heaven only knows what the lawyers will make of it," said Banks.
Harley thrust the scraps of old newspaper into the flame of the candle, and as the blaze crawled up and threw red wavers of light around the room, Banks and Nash jumped as if they were on springs, and old Timothy Fletcher let out a yell.
"I thought the old varment was a-fire already an' lookin' over my shoulder," explained Timothy, a minute later. He lit several more candles and led the way downstairs and into the dining-room. He got out a decanter of whisky, glasses and water. All four helped themselves to stiff doses. Nash took a sip, then raised his glass.
"The old bounder started all manner of mischief in this place, between friends and neighbors," he said, "but now he's dead we'll have a little peace. Here's to peace! I wish Reginald Rayton was here to shake hands with me."
"A very proper wish," said Mr. Banks. "The old rascal made fools of every mother's son of us."
"He was a wonder," said Timothy Fletcher. "This place will be dull as ditch water now. He was a great pot cracked, a great bottle busted. I hope he stays dead, that's all. What yarns he used to tell me, when I was his nurse at Fairville—afore he begun to pretend he was cured. I used to think they was all lies; but now I guess they was true—the most of them, anyhow. Of course I never stood for the Sultan of Turkey story. An' he'd talk about the sea, an' foreign ports all smelly with sugar an' rum an' spice, until I was pretty near ripe to run away an' sign on with some skipper. An' the adventures! To hear him, gentlemen, you'd swear that in all his v'yages he'd never gone ashore without savin' the life of a beautiful woman nor glanced up at a window in the narrow street without havin' a rose or a letter chucked out to him. He was a wonder. Oh, yes, I admired his brains, even after I begun to hate him. He was a good master to me for awhile after we left the mad-house—until he commenced rollin' me up in blankets every now an' agin' an' jumping on top of me when I was sound asleep, yowlin' like a moon-struck dog. I should have spoke about all them things to one of you gentlemen, I know; but I figgered as how he might grow out of them tricks some day an' maybe remember me in his will. I'll miss him; but I ain't sorry to see the last of him, damn him! I got my wages all safe—an' he paid me well."
Captain Wigmore was buried in Samson's Mill Settlement, in a little graveyard on a spruce-sheltered slope behind the English church. A very young parson drove thirty miles to bury him; and as a Baptist minister had driven twenty miles for the same purpose a joint service was held.
"The old joker is safe buried, anyhow; an' I'm glad to know it," was Timothy Fletcher's comment at the side of the grave.
"I'll never dig him up, you may be sure," said Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks returned to New York a few days after the funeral, but not before he had learned the date set by Nell Harley for her wedding. He promised to be on hand to give the groom away. Timothy Fletcher bought three big dogs for companions and continued to occupy the late captain's house as caretaker. The dogs always slept in the same room with him and he burned night lights by the score.
The Crown took charge of the late captain's properties and discovered half a dozen heirs in the persons of Brazilian ladies who had considered themselves widows for years past. The Crown had its troubles. The Brazilian government stepped in generously to share these troubles. Lawyers set to work in several languages and divers systems of bookkeeping. What they made of it I don't know; but the wives were all discredited and proven null and void—and Dr. Nash's bill remains unpaid to this day.
Nell Harley and Reginald Rayton were married in June. Mr. Banks attended in a frock coat and silk hat that surpassed everything present in novelty and glory except the head-gear and coat of the groom. It was a wonderful wedding; and to top it, the young couple set out immediately for England to visit Reginald's people.
"That's what I call style, from first to last," said Mr. Samson. "Them's the kind of folk I like to associate with, so long's they don't set in to a game of cards."
Dick Goodine married Maggie Leblanc in July.
Poker is never played now in Samson's Mill Settlement. Timothy Fletcher still lives in the house that nobody seems to own and that somehow has been overlooked by the Crown, the Brazilian Government and the lawyers in both languages. He works now and again for the Raytons or the Harleys. Reginald has bought more land and built a new house and several cottages. His farm is the largest, the best and the best-worked in the country. Mr. Banks visits the Raytons every October, for the shooting, and every June for the fishing.
Davy Marsh is guiding over on the Tobique now. He never comes home to the settlement. I have heard that he is the most expensive guide on that river—but not the best, by a long shot.
Dr. Nash is still a bachelor. He dines twice a week with the Raytons, as a regular thing, and oftener when Mr. Banks is there. He is not a bad sort, when you really know him well, and he knows you; but of course he will always be something of an ass.
A Captain of Raleigh'sA Cavalier of VirginiaCaptain LoveBrothers of PerilHemming, the AdventurerRayton: A Backwoods MysteryComrades of the TrailsThe Red FeathersFlying Plover
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.