Now, it was plain to me, she did not approve of the way Henry was treating the reporter. A fleeting glimpse of his youth and good looks, so unlike Henry's description, seemed to increase her interest in him. Oldish, fat, and almost bald—indeed! Pity for the handsome young stranger had touched her heart; and pity so often borders on that emotional danger zone: love.
Of all the unlooked for contingencies which could have arisen, this seemed to be about the worst. While I shared with Henry the honest indignation he felt at what he considered unjustifiable trickery and intrusion, yet I knew, deep down in me, I would side with Pat should she take the reporter's part. On this she seemed determined, judging from the expression on her face, cold and resolute, as Henry entered the hall, still snorting with anger.
In the clatter of voices that followed his return from the field of storm and conflict, the voice of Pat rose in steady crescendo.
"Uncle Henry! How could you be so inhuman?" she exclaimed. "You make us all feel—so cheap."
Jane stretched out a warning hand. "Now, darling!" she admonished; "this is not necessary."
"It is necessary!" replied Pat. "Uncle Henry has behaved shamefully, and should be scolded. I've half a mind to go to the garage myself, and apologize to this reporter for Uncle's cruel and unspeakable behavior."
Henry regarded her quizzically for a moment, then smiled. "This has nothing to do with you, my dear," he said, as Orkins relieved him of his rain-coat and hat. "Why, I acted in the reporter's best interests. I sent him to the garage to be dried out when I should have booted him off the premises."
"But he's wet—and miserable—and disappointed," said Pat, gravely.
"And whose fault is it? Not mine, certainly." Henry chuckled.
"He hasn't a dry stitch on him," moaned Pat; "he may catch pneumonia. You should send him some dry clothes, and go yourself, and give him this information he's worked so hard to get. You really ought!"
"No!" thundered Henry, suddenly. "No matter if the papers send an army of reporters in motors, ships or airplanes, I refuse to give any information until the proper time, not if they tear the roof off." He took several fierce strides up and down the hall, then stopped dead, and again faced Pat. "Why, may I ask, are you so concerned in this driveling lunatic for news—this interfering, meddlesome young swine? Why?"
There was a pause. Pat's face took on a wistful look. Then she replied: "Why? Because I feel sorry for him, I guess. Oh, you don't know, Uncle, how wonderful this reporter seems to me. Never thinking of himself—taking dangerous risks—just to get news for his paper. I never realized until now how people who haven't much money, have to struggle to make a living. But I suppose life is like that—outside," she went on, half meditatively: "struggle and disappointment. In time, I dare say I'll find out more about life and get used to it, and pretend not to care—"
"Now, my dear, you're tired out," Jane broke in, in gentle solicitude. "You've had a tiring day." She laid an entreating hand on Pat's arm. "Better go to bed."
But once an idea was planted in Pat's brain, she clung to it tenaciously. Disregarding Jane, and still addressing Henry, she continued: "But I wouldn't get used to it, and I shall always care—always!"
"Care about what?" snapped Henry.
"Oh, just feeling I'm better than other people—poor, common people, and not caring what happens to them. No! I'll be darned if I will!"
"Patricia!" Jane chided.
"Oh, what's the good of pretending we are better than other people, just because we have everything," Pat retorted boldly. "If this reporter was in my own set, some young, rotten cad, and had driven up in a big motor car, and sent in his card, Uncle Henry would have received him with open arms. Because he is common and poor—"
"Will you be quiet?" Henry interrupted, resentfully. "You talk like a scullery maid, fed up on bolshevism. I don't feel a bit better than anybody else, although I am a Royce."
"Very well," murmured Pat, shrugging with hopeless resignation. Then she turned to Prince Matani, who all this time had stood by rigidly, like a soldier at attention, and who now clicked his heels together and said, brightly:
"Now, my dear Miss Patricia, you'll hear from me. Consider yourself under arrest for behaving so rudely to your uncle. And while this irrepressible reporter is being dried out, you shall be court-martialled for conduct unbecoming a—"
Pat stopped him. "Don't talk silly!" she said. Then she smiled thinly. "Perhaps I have been acting the little fool, but, please, don't rub it in." She walked away.
The Prince followed her, impetuously. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"Straight upstairs and to bed," she replied, wearily. "Why do you ask?"
"Because," said the Prince, raising his voice so that Henry might hear, "I'm afraid, on account of the storm, I shall have to spend the night here."
"So you shall, Your Highness," Henry responded, readily.
Until this moment, Olinski had contributed nothing to the controversial dialogue. With complete reconciliation in progress, he moved forward, and spoke.
"I am sure none of us have anything personally against this audacious reporter," he said. "Why should we? It's his profession, nosing into other people's business, that we object to. Anyway, no one wants a reporter running over the premises like a mouse looking for cheese. And now that our dear Patricia appears to have thought the matter over, and decided that she's made a mistake, I shall prepare to make my departure."
"No; I forbid you leaving the castle on a night like this," said Henry, supplementing his remark with a hearty slap on Olinski's shoulder.
Pat looked round at me, standing unmovable and silent, in the background. The glance that I gave her, I intended as a reminder that she had my complete understanding and sympathy. Presently she drifted over to me and whispered something rapidly. I nodded and left the room unconcernedly.
A few minutes later, I returned from the library, where I had telephoned to the garage, and learned that the reporter had slipped out and disappeared into the night while the two chauffeurs were having their bread and cheese and beer. Patricia did not seem unduly surprised at the news I brought her.
"This McGinity fellow," I said to her, on the quiet, "struck me, what little I've seen of him, as being the sort of young man who could play a game to the limit."
"I shouldn't wonder," she agreed, with a smile that signified a new interest in life had arisen in her heart.
The hall cleared rapidly. Jane went upstairs with Pat. Prince Matani was shown to his room by Orkins. I accompanied them in the elevator as far as the gallery overlooking the hall, where I settled myself comfortably in the welcome silence and semi-darkness.
I had a slight headache; my head seemed to be in a whirl after the stirring events of the evening; I wanted to be left alone to meditate. There was no use of my going to bed and trying to sleep. I glanced at my watch. It was still early—ten-thirty.
Henry and Olinski had remained behind, and were now seated, conversing in low tones, at a side table, where there were books and magazines. Intermittently, I could hear the rain beating against the window panes; the noise of the wind came in little moaning gasps and flutters.
In fancy, I pictured the reporter, wet and disheartened, making his way back to the village, over an unfrequented road, against the driving wind and rain. I felt truly sorry for him. Pat was right. Henry had treated him shamefully.
As we learned afterwards, the reporter's life had really been endangered, and he had a perfect right to call for help. In his efforts to outwit Henry, and knowing he would be stopped at our lodge-gate, he had hired a fisherman's row-boat, and was seeking entrance to the castle grounds, by way of our dock, in a second attempt to gain an interview.
Caught in the sudden storm, and losing one of his oars, his frail craft had been dashed onto the rocks at the foot of the cliff. Pitched out headlong among them, he had been rendered semi-unconscious. Coming to at last, with the waves threatening to engulf him, and unable to extricate himself, he had called for help. Finally he had managed to crawl to a safety spot on the shore, where the chauffeurs had found him.
My thoughts so occupied, and enjoying to the utmost the reposeful darkness and quiet of the gallery, but still reluctant to summon Orkins to fetch me a cigar and some whiskey, I was just beginning to feel thoroughly relaxed when I saw a slim, whitish figure, which I knew at once to be Pat's, come down the dark stairway that connected the gallery with the upper floor. That she, too, was restless and unable to sleep, was at once evident. Still, I made no move to accost her, being content to remain in my comfortable concealment. After a hurried glance down into the hall, from the head of the grand staircase, she returned the way she had come, soft and silent as a ghost.
By this time, the murmur of Henry's and Olinski's voices had risen into boisterous talk and laughter. Apparently they were bent on celebrating their scientific achievement. Prying a bit, I saw they were indulging in numerous whiskies and sodas, served by Niki, and smoking the big cigars of Henry's favorite brand. Orkins, I assumed, was on his usual round of the doors, in accordance with a time-honored custom of locking up the castle at eleven o'clock every night. Carrying the keys of some baker's dozen of doors, he usually began with the front door and ended up with the smaller ones.
With the soothing sense that the castle was being secured for the night; mightily pleased over Henry's and Olinski's startling and triumphant conquest, that extended to the very edge of the infinite universe, but wondering, too, if the riddle of Mars was really to be solved at last, and speculating what this would mean to the inhabitants of the earth, whose appetite for marvels is never satisfied; snug and secure from the battling elements, I fell into a doze.
Suddenly, I was awakened. Naturally puzzled to know what had roused me, I rose and stepped noiselessly to the gallery railing and took a view of what was occurring below, in the hall.
The front door-bell, an ancient contraption, was ringing—spasmodic, jerky rings, like a person would make who had hurried to a neighbor's house with some alarming news.
At Henry's command, Niki went to the door, unlocked it and looked out. As he did so, he gave voice to a sharp, surprised exclamation, causing me to wonder who would approach the castle at this hour, midnight, on such a tempestuous night.
V
The midnight visitor was the last person in the world I had thought of seeing, a district messenger boy, bringing a telegram for Henry. One of Henry's peculiarities was never to accept a radiogram or telegram relayed to the castle by telephone from the telegraph office in the village; it had to be delivered in person, no matter at what hour.
One glance at the messenger, as Henry bade him come in out of the rain, in tones of warm welcome, and I, like Niki, gave a sharp though suppressed exclamation. Completely enveloped in a black rubber cloak, which reached to the top of his puttees, and wearing one of those ugly rubber hats, with its broad brim turned down and extending well over his face, so that only his mouth and chin were exposed to view, he looked almost uncanny.
Catching the bright gleam of the nickel handle-bars of a bicycle parked outside, when Niki opened the door, I figured that the messenger must have had a hard pull in the storm. He had had no difficulty in entering the premises, I knew, as all district messengers were admitted at the lodge-gate without questioning. Looking uncertain and awkward, he leaned against the wall, just inside the door, while Niki handed the message to Henry. He made no move to remove his hat; either he was too embarrassed, or he didn't know any better.
There was nothing unusual, of course, in a message being delivered at this hour of the night; the unusual thing was the manner in which Henry received this one. Over his cups he had grown loquacious, but I never would have believed him capable of the silly flow, and the amount of it, that proceeded from his lips on this occasion, a condition in which Olinski contributed his share of inanities.
"Now, my friend," he began, "I will give you one million dollars if you can tell me the contents of this telegram before I open it. What do you think is in it, now?"
"I could do very nicely with the one million dollars," Olinski replied, "but I regret to say, at the present moment, my eye-sight does not carry very far beyond the end of my nose."
"You've been drinking too much," said Henry, rather crossly.
"Ah! That realization, at this very moment, crossed my mind," Olinski admitted. "And my great fear is that you have been drinking too much, yourself."
"There is the possibility, my friend," Henry returned, gruffly.
"Then you wouldn't advise our having another drink?" Olinski suggested.
"I would scarcely sanction it," said Henry. "Another drink between us, and we'll both be cock-eyed drunk."
Olinski laughed loudly.
"What are you laughing at?" Henry demanded, in a surly voice.
"That American expression, cock-eyed, it is so—so funny, and—and so beautifully illustrative of the way you look—to me, now."
"Do you mean to insinuate that I have drunk so much already I look—cock-eyed?" Henry retorted.
"There is that possibility, my dear friend," Olinski rejoined, rocking with mirth. "There—there is more than the possibility. You really do look—cock-eyed."
"No matter if I'm cock-eyed, or squint-eyed," said Henry, "my business is to ascertain the contents of this telegram—seeing you are too drunk yourself to tell me beforehand."
"Its contents, we can only conjecture," said Olinski. "My only hope is that it does not contain bad news. I am really distressed, for I have an intuition that it does contain bad news. Perhaps—er—another drink would alleviate my distress."
"You've had quite enough," said Henry. "My only anxiety is that we shall not be able to sleep off our cups before the sun, and sister Jane, have risen." As he finished speaking, he ripped the telegram open.
"That would be a great calamity," muttered Olinski, whose remark coincided with a smothered exclamation of rage from Henry. "Who is it from? What's happened?" Olinski inquired.
"It's from that damn reporter, McGinity," Henry roared. "For the third time tonight, he asks for an interview, and a confirmation of our discovery."
"But I thought he was in the garage—getting dried out," Olinski said.
"Apparently he's at the village." Henry glanced more closely at the telegram. "Yes; he's at the village, and he wants an answer—quick. Says he must have my confirmation before two-thirty this morning, which is the 'deadline' on his paper. Did you ever hear of such unmitigated gall?"
"These American reporters are capable of acting very shrewdly on occasions," said Olinski, whose brain seemed to be clearing somewhat.
"And so am I," thundered Henry. He tore the telegram into a thousand bits and scattered them over his own and Olinski's head. "I shall ignore his message," he continued. "Any sort of garbled, advance publicity will entirely spoil the effect of the news of our discovery. We shall announce it the day before the demonstration, so that it will come like a thunder-clap, and echo from one end of the world to the other."
"Still, our position, as far as this reporter, McGinity, is concerned, is very difficult," Olinski remarked, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "Some one, unbeknown to us, has, what you Americans call, 'tipped' his paper off. He may publish the rumor without the facts, which would be ruinous."
"He wouldn't dare!" Henry cried, hotly. "Besides, he has no facts to go on. How could he have? It's too tremendous for the human mind to grasp, without the main facts leading up to our discovery. With all our precaution for secrecy, how in the world could this reporter find out that we have not only received, but decoded, these strange radio messages from Mars, and definitely exchanged messages by short waves with a race of people as human as ourselves? He's trying to trick me into giving him the facts, as he did with my discovery of the comet. I'll bet you a million, he doesn't know what it's all about—hasn't the remotest idea—"
Olinski interrupted by lifting a finger to his lips, and giving a prolonged, "Shh!"
"Why the devil shouldn't I talk as I like?" Henry retorted, defiantly. On second thought, however, he glanced round the hall. Niki was just moving towards the front door, near which the district messenger still stood, patiently waiting for the telegram to be signed for; shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to another, and staring curiously, from under the rim of his rubber hat, at the various objects of art in the hall. Two suits of armor, on either side of the fire-place, seemed to hold his attention.
Leaning over towards Olinski, Henry voiced his growing suspicions in a low tone. "You don't imagine that this messenger boy wanted to listen, do you? Or had any motive in listening?"
He had no sooner spoken when he sprang from his chair, as if some idea, an intuition, had flashed across his mind. He started towards the front door, where Niki and the messenger were standing.
Olinski halted him by saying, in a low voice: "Here! Here! What are you doing, my friend? It's damned silly to think this messenger would be interested in what we've been talking about."
"Leave it to me," Henry counseled in a hoarse whisper. "I've my own ideas. I shan't be rough with him, but I shall be firm." Then he turned to Niki, at the same time, jerking his thumb in the direction of the messenger.
"Niki, will you kindly remove this young man's hat," he commanded.
The valet quickly obeyed his master's order.
"My God!" Henry gasped, staggering as if under the force of a blow. Quickly recovering, he stepped up to the messenger. "I might have guessed it would be you," he said. "You are, without exception, the most asinine and brazen reporter that ever was at large. How dare you enter my house under false representation, in this disguise?"
McGinity made no reply; just stood his ground.
"I dare say you know it's actionable, your coming here like this," Henry went on. "I'll report you to the telegraph company the first thing in the morning," snapping his fingers under the reporter's nose.
"The telegram was faked. I'll admit that," said McGinity, in a low and even voice. "But I'm not wearing a district messenger's uniform." He threw back his great rubber-cloak. "Just my own clothes, dried out, thanks to you."
"I'll report you to your City Editor," Henry persisted, angrily.
"I'm acting on my own responsibility," McGinity informed him. "My seeming persistence in making personal contact with you is based on the soundest principle in the news-getting game—'get your man.'"
"You'll get no information out of me," stormed Henry.
"Please don't forget, Mr. Royce," said the reporter, "that I've overheard what you and Mr. Olinski have been talking about for the last ten minutes."
"You—you listened?" Henry exclaimed, aghast.
"You can hardly imagine that I did not want to listen," the reporter replied; "especially as your conversation gave me sufficient information of your discovery, on which to build a big story. I can see it now, with headlines extending clear across the front page of the Daily Recorder. It's a great story, Mr. Royce, and I'm in luck to get it exclusive, before our deadline. An amazing discovery, a scientific achievement that will echo down the ages. Please, allow me to congratulate you, sir, also Mr. Olinski."
As McGinity concluded, he bowed low, bending from the waist, first to Henry, and then to Olinski. He bowed elegantly, as though he were an important guest having cocktails with the two old gentlemen, and not as an intruder, likely to be kicked out of the house at any moment.
Watching from the gallery, I was astonished at the young man's display of good breeding; so different from what I had expected to find in a reporter. I could see that Henry's anger was getting beyond his control. The reporter's civility seemed to flick him on the raw.
"I've half a mind to break your damned neck," he shouted, shaking his fist menacingly under McGinity's nose.
"Any attempt to do so—to break my neck—might detain me here unnecessarily," the reporter rejoined, calmly. "You would facilitate matters exceedingly if you would allow me to use your house phone to call my office in the city. I'll have the call reversed, so it won't cost you a penny. You see—" glancing at his watch "—I want to phone this story in in time for our last edition, the deadline for which, as I've already told you, is two-thirty."
Henry did not speak; he only growled, like an infuriated beast, ready to spring on its adversary.
"Very well, then," the reporter continued, "if you will not let me use your phone, I shall return to the village, and phone from there. I have about two hours before the paper goes to press. So I'll say good-night." He bowed again, very politely, and turned towards the door. But he never got to the door. Niki blocked his way.
"At him, Niki!" Henry cried furiously.
Niki's mighty arm shot out, and the blow he gave the reporter on the jaw was cruel and merciless; it was a knockout. McGinity staggered back against the wall, then crumpled in a heap on the floor. He never stirred after that.
"Now, you!" exclaimed Henry, shaking his fist at the reporter's prostrate figure; "you're not going to interfere any longer with my affairs. No story tonight, my boy! Deadline or no deadline!"
Olinski strode over to Henry. "What are you going to do with him?" he asked, excitedly.
"Lock him up for the rest of the night," Henry replied.
"Very good," Olinski agreed. "Then, in the morning, we shall bring him to terms. Bribe him, if necessary."
"That's it," Henry concurred. "That's it, exactly. A good idea. And he'll fall for it. Oh, he'll fall all right. Meantime," he added with a sardonic grin, "I shall make him as comfortable as possible for the night."
"Where on earth are you going to put him?" asked Olinski.
"Where there are no possible means of escape," replied Henry.
VI
Henry moved to the wall under the staircase and pressed a button, which set the mechanism of a secret panel in the wall into action. The panel slid back. Henry stepped through the opening, and switched on the lights at the head of the secret passage stairs.
Poking his head out, he beckoned to Niki. The valet picked up the senseless form of the reporter, flung it over his shoulder as easily as he might handle a bag of flour, then passed through the secret doorway and followed Henry down the steps into the cellar.
Never, in my wildest fancy, could I have believed my extremely law-abiding and kindly dispositioned brother capable of such an act; it smacked of the sinister days of mediaeval times. Realizing the state he was in, his mind frenzied by anger and alcohol, I decided to let him carry out his own nefarious plan, and get out of the mess he had made the best way he could.
As I pictured the reporter coming out of the knockout blow, in his prison-cell below, a cold shiver ran down my spine. To me, it would have been frightening beyond endurance. While not exactly a prison, this underground section, like the secret panel in the wall, had been copied from the ancient Normandy castle, of which ours was an exact model. Opening off a narrow corridor were five cell-like rooms of stone and cement, with heavy steel doors. Four of them were in use, for wine and general storage purposes. The fifth, at the end of the corridor, was empty. The place was kept scrupulously clean, of course; it had outside ventilation and was electrically lighted.
About five minutes later Henry re-appeared, accompanied by Niki, to whom he gave instructions to remain on watch in the hall for the remainder of the night. Closing the secret panel, and apparently satisfying Olinski that he had made his prisoner comfortable for the night, they finally stepped into the elevator and went upstairs to bed.
As soon as they had gone, Niki switched off the ceiling and wall lights in the hall, leaving only the dim illumination of a lamp on the side table. He then curled himself up on a divan, and must have gone immediately to sleep.
I looked up suddenly from the sleeping watchman-valet to see a slim, whitish figure dart from the far side of the gallery, and disappear up the rear stairs, where a soft gleam of light penetrated from the corridor above. Convinced that Pat was still wandering restlessly about the castle, and wondering if she, too, had viewed the regrettable scene in the hall below, I sank back in my chair and passed into unhappy meditation.
Feeling a certain curiosity as to what she might be up to, I remained in concealment to await events. I had not long to wait. Presently she re-appeared, creeping softly down the rear stairs. In her right hand she carried a flashlight; in the left, an object which glistened and jingled as she walked, which I took to be Orkins' collection of house keys.
She wore a satiny dressing gown of ivory-white, which trailed behind her like a bridal garment as she crossed the gallery and descended the staircase. Carelessly thrown over her lovely head was a filmy, white scarf, which billowed about her shoulders like a summer's cloud. There was every indication in her movements that she was on her way to locate the reporter, alleviate his distress, or, perhaps, release him. In spite of her hazardous undertaking, I could not avoid staring after her in deep admiration.
When she espied Niki on the divan, she switched off the flashlight. After satisfying herself, apparently by his heavy breathing, that he was asleep, she proceeded to open the secret panel. Its mechanism was familiar to her; she knew her way into the vaults below.
Immediately she had disappeared through the doorway in the wall, I went into action. Quietly but swiftly, I crept down the staircase. I stepped through the panel opening and stood at the head of the stone steps, where I watched her slow and careful descent of the winding stairs, in the shaky circle of light of her torch. I felt no trepidation over her safety; she was well acquainted with the geography of the place. My only fear was that the reporter might turn her adventurous visit to his own advantage. This seemed unlikely, for he had given me the impression that he was enough of a soldier of fortune to find amusement in his present predicament, despite his brutal treatment. This thought was uppermost in my mind when I heard his voice, raised in an exclamation of surprise.
I could well understand his note of surprise as he tried to connect the circumstances that had so recently and violently placed him in his present situation, with this after-midnight visit of a beautiful young lady in trailing white, lighting her way with an electric torch and jangling a bunch of keys.
"My dear young person, are you playing ghost—or what?" he addressed her, speaking through a small opening in his cell-door, through which, in its ancient pattern, food was passed to prisoners. "I am honored by your visit, of course, but isn't it a little—unconventional?"
"Lots of things are unconventional," was Pat's ready reply.
I could hear distinctly every word they said, owing to the peculiar acoustic properties of the cellar.
"Please don't tell me that you're bringing me a cup of tea!"
"I should adore some," said Pat.
"Adore some—what?"
"Some iced tea," she replied. "It's very hot and stuffy down here. You must be very uncomfortable."
"Oh, I'm okay," the reporter returned, sarcastically. "I've got a nice, soft cement floor to sleep on, and—oh, say! what I would really like is a good stiff highball. My jaw, you know—"
"Yes, I know all about it," Pat interrupted. "Niki must have given you an awful crack. I saw everything from the gallery in the hall!"
"Sympathetic, eh?"
"I very much regret to say I am," Pat answered. "I think my Uncle Henry is treating you outrageously. But he's rather eccentric, as you know, and tonight, I'm afraid he's a little tight, or he wouldn't have done a terrible thing like this."
"Ah, so you're Miss Patricia Preston, the society girl with so much money and leisure she doesn't know what to do with them," McGinity said quickly. "Your photo, sitting next to Prince Matani, at the polo tournament at Meadow Brook last week, in the box with your Aunt Jane, appeared in our Sunday rotogravure section. Don't tell me you've fallen for a foreign gink like that?"
Pat must have stared at him, thunderstruck, for she said, with a gasp: "How do you know so much?"
"I happen to know, and I have my own reasons for knowing," the reporter replied. "We won't discuss that for the moment. Suppose you answer my question?"
There was a pause, then Pat said: "No; it isn't like that. It isn't what you think at all."
"Well, I'm very glad to hear that," said the reporter. "Now, I'll tell you something you don't know. Your father, Allston Preston, and my dad were classmates at college—great pals."
"Really?"
"And on the same football team, at Columbia. Inseparable, until they each met the right girl and got married. Your father married into riches and society. My old man wed a poor but beautiful typist."
"I can hardly believe that they were friends," said Pat. "It seems so—fantastic." She paused, then went on, musingly: "Oh, but I would like to think they were—friends. I'm sure your father was capable and qualified, or he wouldn't have been such a close friend of my father."
"And, now, think what capabilities and qualifications his son, Bob McGinity, holds, also a graduate of Columbia."
"McGinity?" said Pat. "Bob McGinity! Oh, now, I remember. Surely—"
"Yes; I was the Columbia fullback, and I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut, I was photographed more often than you are, now. But being a college graduate and a fullback didn't get me anywhere, so I went into newspaper work. I'm only a cub, but I've got ambitions. After what happened tonight, I suppose you think I'm a pretty rotten reporter."
"I wouldn't express it in that way, exactly," said Pat. "You had your nerve and persistency all right, yet you failed in your immediate object, didn't you? that of obtaining honestly"—she emphasized the word honestly—"the confirmation of Uncle Henry's discovery."
"Then you think I deserved the awful crack the Filipino gave me, and this temporary imprisonment, I take it, until after my paper goes to press?"
"I would like to think that you didn't," said Pat complacently. "However, I'm not in sympathy with Uncle's plan of locking you up here for the night. I couldn't sleep with a clear conscience without making certain you were not seriously hurt. I know you must be nearly starved. So, if you'll agree not to try and escape, or get in touch with your office on the phone, I'll take you upstairs, and get you something to eat, also liniment for your jaw. I consider that you should be very grateful to me."
"Am I grateful?" the reporter replied; "I'm tickled pink. But, after all, what's the use?" he added, rather despairingly. "I've failed. Failed miserably."
"On the contrary, I believe you to be on the way to possible success, in getting all the information you want from Uncle Henry. But you've got to go after him in a different way. Perhaps you need an assistant—an ally."
"Do I need an ally? Oh, boy! And hungry? I could eat my shirt, really. But I'm not hurt as much as you think. What's a little sock in the jaw?"
"Then you'll agree to my proposition?"
A moment's pause, then: "How can my troubles interest you so much? Tell me."
With an attempt at bravado, Pat replied: "I have no personal interest. My whole idea is to get Uncle Henry out of the fix he's got himself into—with you."
The reporter sighed. "I'm incredibly foolish to imagine that you would be interested in me—personally. All the same, I'm eternally grateful, and give you my word I'll not give you the slip, or phone my office."
There was a heavy lock and bolt to negotiate, and when I heard the jingle of the keys and the snapping back of the lock, discretion counselled that I vanish from the scene. I had overheard enough to convince me that Pat was well able to look after herself. The comforting discovery that the reporter's father had been a close friend of Pat's parent had eased the situation immensely.
And yet the uneasy fear assailed me that Pat might get the worst of the bargain. How was one to know that the reporter was as honest and harmless as he sounded? At all costs, I felt, that remote contingency must be guarded against.
VII
I secreted myself in the elevator. A quarter of an hour passed. There was no sound of Pat and the reporter. My uneasiness grew by bounds. Finally, I decided to manifest my presence, if only for the sake of propriety. If Henry should appear unexpectedly and find these two together, alone, it would be hell let loose.
Emerging from my hideout, I found the hall in complete darkness. Not daring to risk rousing Niki, whom I still believed to be asleep on the divan, I stole quietly in the direction of a streak of light, on which my eyes had become focused in the dark. The light came from the dining room. I heard a low murmur of voices. The words were indistinguishable, but one of the voices was indubitably that of Pat's. Then, suddenly, I overheard her giving orders in a slightly raised voice:
"Cold chicken, and a salad.... See that you serve it promptly.... Wine, too—some sherry.... Now, look sharp about it.... And be as quiet as a mouse."
Peering cautiously between the curtains in the doorway, I had the surprise of my life. Pat was serving supper to McGinity in formal state. I could hardly believe my eyes. The reporter sat at the head of the long table, looking rather battered; his handsome, boyish face rather drawn and pale, his coal black hair dishevelled. His clothes looked like they badly needed pressing. The only illumination came from two burning candles in tall silver candlesticks on the table. Pat sat at the far end; a most discreet distance, which relieved my anxiety considerably.
My greatest surprise, though, came in discovering Niki. I gathered that Pat had roused him and pressed him into service. With the marvelous calm of the Oriental, he was placing the doilies and small silver before the reporter, to whom he had so recently delivered a knockout blow. He seemed most willing to assist Pat, to whom he always conceded absolute loyalty.
"Slippery little devil, isn't he?" McGinity remarked, after Niki had glided from the room. "But he's got an awful punch packed in that right arm," he added, as he rubbed his jaw, now slightly swollen and discolored.
"A glass of sherry will do your jaw good," said Pat.
"Supper for two," McGinity remarked, musingly. "It's too bad we haven't some music. You must dance divinely."
"You look utterly worn out," said Pat, steering with tact into another channel. "A shipwreck, and being cast ashore, a knockout blow, and a prison cell, is a whole lot for one evening."
"Another half hour of this—your delightful companionship—I'm sure, would quite finish me," said McGinity. "You've been a godsend."
"If you keep on like this, you'll make me angry, furiously angry," said Pat. "I'd much rather hear—well, how you chose to be a reporter."
"Temporary insanity, I guess," McGinity replied.
"Uncle Henry regards you as utterly insane, so far as news getting is concerned," said Pat.
"Well, then—a nebulous bank balance."
Pat seemed a little vexed. "If you can explain it in any other way, I shall be much obliged," she said, succinctly.
The reporter reflected for a moment, then spoke in a serious tone. "For one thing," he began, "you don't have to possess an intellect above the average to be a reporter. All you need is a nose for news, and lots of nerve. Most fellows use it as a stepping-stone into politics, the law, and the public relationship angle of the stage, screen and radio. Others stick to it all their lives; they can't break away. My dad was an editorial writer on the Herald up to his death. I thought I was cut out to be a lawyer, but I just couldn't click. I was born with the news instinct, I guess. Unlike my studious, conservative parent, I liked my news—hot. Perhaps I've got a yellow streak in me. That's why I'm on the Daily Recorder. I like sensation, big headlines.
"When I was at school, I thought life was learned from books," he went on, warming up a bit. "Life—I love it. And life at its utmost, that's reporting. Life that ticks off love, laughter, tears on every second. A foundling left on a door-step. Strange disappearance of a college girl. She's never seen or heard of again. Mystery. Death by misadventure. Murder. Fire-traps. Tenement fire—father, mother and grown-up kids burned to a crisp. Pet poodle, whining, discloses the baby under a bed, unharmed. Baby is adopted by a rich family. Poodle gets a decoration. Stories! Stories!"
He drew a deep breath, and continued: "The great thrill is putting your story over, hot off the press, satisfying the public's curiosity for news. Exclusive stories! The first thing the City Editor looks for. But there's no credit for them outside the office force. A pat on the shoulder, 'Good work, Bill!' and sometimes a 'by-line.' You write a good story, and you wallow in self-esteem. That's the only real compensation. No wallowing in wealth. The tragedy of reporting is that newspaper stories pay so little and die so quickly. You put your life's blood into them, your very soul. But they're not even yesterday's remembrance. In a couple of days they're dead—dead as a pickled herring!"
"Wonderful!" Pat breathed, as soon as the reporter had finished. "It all sounds so thrilling. I too love adventure—life, but until now—"
"Until you were nervy enough to take risks and rescue me from durance vile," McGinity broke in.
"Until now," Pat went on, "my adventures have been only in the pages of romantic and mystery books, although I've often tried to write myself—I really believe I have the talent. Anyway, I've often longed to step through those pages of romance and mystery, like Alice stepped through the looking-glass."
McGinity grinned. "Reporting isn't wonderland, by any means," he said; "it's the land of stark realities. I've had doors slammed in my face; I've been snubbed, insulted, double-crossed and kicked downstairs; but never—no, never in all my short experience as a reporter for a sensational tabloid sheet like the Recorder, have I ever had an experience like this one, tonight!"
"I'm sorry Uncle Henry was so ungracious and unkind," said Pat, in a low, sympathetic voice; "and Niki so cruel. I'm sure the valet didn't mean to knock you out."
McGinity grinned. "Oh, but I don't mean what you think I mean," he said. He leaned over the table towards her. "I mean this experience—you—at this moment. You—this incredulous you! A beautiful young princess, in these dark, ancient surroundings, and only forty-nine minutes from Broadway. An angel of mercy, too. It's all too fine and lovely to be true. I must be in a dream." He swept his hand across his eyes. "Maybe I haven't come to my senses yet—maybe—"
He stopped short as the telephone bell in the library began to trill sharply. He glanced at his watch. Two o'clock. Only half an hour before the last edition of his paper went to press. Time enough to get his story in, if only a flash. The old instinct—news instinct—loyalty to his paper, suddenly gripped him; it blotted out everything else—even Pat. He must get his story in. No longer would there be any interference with his plans. All danger—all obstacles—were past, and he was free at last to act.
He jumped to his feet, and with a bound, passed through the open doorway into the darkened library. The trilling of the bell guided him to the desk in the center of the room.
Pat sat staring after him. Then, suddenly, she understood his object. Instantly, she too sprang from the table, and darted into the library after him. A touch of the switch, and the room was flooded with light. McGinity was standing by the desk, in the act of lifting the receiver from the hook.
"I'm afraid you're forgetting yourself," Pat said coldly. "You agreed to follow out my instructions."
McGinity glanced at her strangely. "It's all okay. Everything's all right," he said, in an excited and husky whisper.
"Don't be absurd," said Pat. "Everything is not—all right. You're going to phone your story in, and you promised you wouldn't. Gentlemen always keep promises."
"I'm a reporter, and this is my business," McGinity retorted. "I've got to get this story in, and nobody's going to stop me."
"Very well, then," said Pat, and her voice was strangely flat and lifeless. "You're perfectly at liberty to do so, but—" she added, imperiously, "if this is your gratitude, the sooner we part company the better."
Even at this, his reason did not begin to assert itself. "This is my job," he exclaimed, heatedly. "I wasn't born rich like you. I've got to work for my living. I've got to make good on this story or I'm liable to be fired. You don't want me to lose my job, do you?"
Pat looked at him dumbly. "It means nothing to me—now," she said; "nothing in the least." She turned away from him, and re-entered the dining room.
"Please! Miss Preston!" he called after her. A thoughtful pause, and his lips went to the mouthpiece as though he were going to bite it. "You've got the wrong number," he angrily retorted to the insistent person at the other end of the wire. "Dammit! Get off the line!" He hung up the receiver, and swiftly followed after Pat. Coming up to her, he said, in a low, contrite voice: "I'm sorry if I seemed discourteous and ungrateful just now."
"It was most generous of you not to phone your story in," she said, and shrugged indifferently.
"I sort of lost my head the moment I heard that phone bell ring," he explained, "but a big story like this means a whole lot to me." He ran his hand nervously through his tousled hair. "At least, you might let me phone my office, and give the Night Desk some kind of a report about myself. They haven't heard beans from me since I was assigned to the story, early in the evening."
"Surely," Pat agreed. There was a little gentleness in her voice now. "I'll trust you."
Realizing that matters had approached a crisis, I resolved to make my presence known to Pat while the reporter was busy at the telephone, in the library. I could see she was suffering from nerves. The adventure was proving a little too much for her. When she saw my tall figure moving towards her, in the dimly-lighted dining room, she stifled a cry of alarm.
"It's all right, my dear," I said, taking her gently by the arm. "I've seen and heard everything. You've done nothing discreditable. Let's hope when morning comes, and Henry is sober, he'll act more sensible than he did tonight."
When McGinity returned, and saw me, his face went a little paler. He appeared relieved when I gave him a friendly smile.
"What's happened?" he asked, glancing at Pat, after she had introduced me.
"I don't want you young people to be alarmed," I said, "but there's no telling. Henry's a light sleeper, and he may drop in on you at any moment."
Just then Niki came in, bearing the reporter's supper on a huge silver tray. Niki was probably just as much surprised at seeing me there, as I was in discovering him, in the first place, but his face was still a stolid mask. While he busied himself at the table, I shepherded McGinity and Pat to one side, and said, in a low voice:
"Now, Mr. McGinity, you hurry and eat your supper, and I'll relieve Patricia, and act as your bodyguard until I've locked you up again safely in our cellar."
"But he isn't to be locked up again," said Pat, after McGinity had seated himself at the table. "I've already given orders to Niki to put him in the Blue Room."
I gasped. It was almost incomprehensible. The Blue Room was the most attractive and spacious guest-room in the castle.
"Mr. McGinity can remain comfortably there, without any disturbance from Uncle Henry," she continued, "until Niki serves him his breakfast. As a prevention against catching cold, after his exposure this evening, I've instructed Niki to give him a good alcohol rub-down, and also to massage his jaw. You've no objections, Uncle Livingston?"
"None," I replied. Not a hint that I was utterly flabbergasted.
McGinity heard nothing of this, or seemed to hear nothing. He was obviously engrossed in eating his supper. But not so absorbed as I thought when Pat said: "Well, good-night—all," and turned to leave the room.
Then he leapt to his feet. "Don't go, please!" he pleaded.
"Oh, but I must," Pat said, lightly.
"Okay, then," he said, dejectedly. "See you in the morning, I hope. Thanks for all you've done for me—thanks a whole lot."
A tired smile, a flutter of trailing white, and Pat was gone.
"She's the stuff all right," McGinity remarked, as soon as she had left the room; "true stuff." Then I heard him mutter to himself: "I wonder what she sees in that gink, Prince Matani?"
After that, he barely spoke a dozen words. He looked all in; even a glass of sherry did not seem to revive him. He acted a little dazed. When I told him he was to sleep in our best bedroom, he simply said: "Good."
At three o'clock I left him there, in the hands of Niki, and trudged off to bed myself, feeling like a wet rag, and wondering what the morning would bring forth.
VIII
At breakfast, Henry wore a puzzled and anxious look, for which Pat and I did not find it hard to account. Apparently urged by a twinge of remorse, he had paid a secret visit to the cellar earlier in the morning, and to his great consternation and alarm, had found the reporter missing. Up to breakfast time, he was, of course, unaware of Pat's doings, and had only his own knowledge to go on. Niki had kept his silence, for a very good reason, which was—Pat.
Olinski was a few minutes late in joining us. Luckily only the four of us were seated at the table. Prince Matani had caught an early train for the city. Jane had remained in bed with a nervous headache. Olinski lost no time in making inquiry about the imprisoned reporter. Leaning over to Henry, he asked, in a low voice: "Is everything all right?"
"Disappeared!" Henry replied, in a low aside, using his morning paper, the Times, as a screen for the sub rosa conversation, which then ensued. "Clean gone!" he added.
Olinski looked positively sick for a moment. "Odd, isn't it?" he remarked.
"The whole affair's odd," Henry returned, placing a finger to his lips, to indicate the need for secrecy and caution.
Pat and I were both listening attentively, but camouflaging our attention with some silly chatter and laughter, as if deprecating any idea that we wished to listen in.
"Supposing someone got rid of him—Niki, for instance," Olinski suggested, sotto voce. "Niki's an Oriental. He may have misunderstood your motives. Faithful servant, you know. Heard of cases of that sort myself, in the Orient, not in this country, though."
Henry's eyes seemed to pop, and his face blanched at the suggestion of murder. "Oh, but I think that's impossible," he asserted, unconsciously raising his voice.
"What's impossible, Uncle Henry?" asked Pat.
"Oh!" said Henry, taken wholly by surprise. "Mr. Olinski and I were—er—we were just discussing a rather peculiar happening of last night, after you'd gone to bed. Something of a mystery, which seems difficult of solution."
"Perhaps I can solve it for you," Pat suggested demurely, giving me a knowing wink.
Olinski, who was watching Pat attentively, signed to Henry to remain quiet, and said: "I'm afraid your distinguished uncle has got himself into a peck of trouble."
"The thing's done, and can't be undone," Henry protested vehemently.
"What's done, Henry?" I inquired in a perfectly innoxious tone.
As Henry hesitated, Pat spoke. "Oh, I may as well blurt it straight out," she said. "Uncle Livingston and I were going to announce it, in due form, but I'd just as soon tell you now. Mr. McGinity, the Daily Recorder reporter, whom you cruelly attacked and locked up in the cellar, last night, received proper attention, and was put to bed in the Blue Room, after you and Mr. Olinski had retired. He's now having his breakfast, very comfortably, I hope, in bed."
Henry stared at Pat incredulously. "Um!" he exclaimed at last.
Thereupon, she gave a plain, straightforward account of things. Told all she knew, while I corroborated and amplified her statements whenever necessary. And two more surprised-looking men, I never saw in my life before. As she proceeded, Henry's face cleared. "Um!" he said again, when the full story had been told.
"I don't think I'm much of a hand at advising in such matters," Pat went on, "but in view of the nice mess of things you've made, Uncle Henry—"
As she paused uncertainly, Henry caught my eye. "What do you say, Livingston?" he asked.
"Well, if you ask me, Henry, I agree entirely with Pat," I replied, with decision. "Assault of this reporter, and his detention in the cellar, rank as an act in contravention of the criminal code, the penalties for which, as you are no doubt aware, are very severe."
"We don't want any more scenes like last night, do we, Uncle Henry?" Pat put in, ingenuously.
"Um! Um!" said Henry, reflectively.
Mentally he must have seen a picture of what might be if he did not patch things up with the reporter, who was in a position to bring a civil action and mulct him in very substantial damages. "I—I suppose I did treat him rather roughly," he admitted finally, now that the ground had been cut from under his feet. "What would you suggest, Livingston?" he asked, meekly, again turning to me.
Struck by a sudden, happy thought, I replied: "I would suggest offering the reporter the exclusive rights for the story of your amazing discovery, on condition that he is not to publish it until you've given him permission, or set a release date. Try that, and see how it works."
"Excellent!" exclaimed Olinski.
"Very good," said Henry.
At that moment, Orkins came into the room, and informed Henry that McGinity was in the hall, and would be obliged if Henry would see him for a few minutes. Henry accordingly hastened into the hall, and, as we learned afterwards, greeted the reporter with an open hand and a cordial smile.
On returning from his interview with the reporter, I was surprised to see him kiss Pat affectionately on the cheek. "I want to thank you, my dear," he said, "for saving me from a world of trouble."
Pat blushed and smiled, and kissed him back, then turned away to hide her tears.
"Family pride is a powerful instinct," I remarked, "and we still bear an honored name, thanks to Pat."
Henry had good reason to be thankful to Pat, who had saved him from what might have been an extremely serious contretemps. We all had, for that matter. Pat had a head on her lovely shoulders. True to her romantic disposition, she waved adieu to McGinity from a mullioned window, high up in the castle, where she must have appeared to him in the likeness of a fairy princess, as he rode off, in company with Olinski, to the railroad station.
Henry appeared in a placid and cheerful mood during the rest of the morning. He had managed things pretty well so far. Knowing the value of publicity, I considered McGinity and the tabloid he represented, with its tremendous circulation, the best medium Henry would be able to find for the exploitation of his discovery. I knew he hated making terms with the reporter, his keen dislike and distrust of newspapermen seemed inherent, but McGinity had somehow to be caught and tamed, and unless it were done quickly, McGinity might be catching him. And that would never do.
Towards noon, Henry sent for me, and I joined him in the library, where I found him rummaging amongst the books and papers on his desk. He looked worried. There was something heavy bearing on his mind. As it turned out, there were several things that harassed him.
"What now?" I asked, a note of impatience in my voice.
"Livingston," he began, with a sudden compression of his lips, and motioning me to sit down, "will you answer a question that has been occurring to me all morning? During the time that this reporter, McGinity, and Pat were together, last night, did he show—well, any sentimental interest in her? I want to know—particularly."
"No, I'm sure he did not," I replied promptly. "I recall hearing him use such expressions as 'your delightful companionship,' 'this incredulous you,' and 'beautiful princess!'"
"What!" Henry exclaimed, with an awkward attempt to suppress an unbelieving smile; "do I understand you to say you attach no sentimental significance to such expressions?"
"Why, certainly," I answered. "I attributed his romantic talking to the after-effects of the knockout blow. At times, he appeared to be dazed."
Henry regarded me gravely for a moment, then he said: "Livingston, you are without a doubt the perfect ass!" He brought his fist down with a thud on his desk to emphasize more completely his opinion of me.
"Whatever do you mean?" I demanded.
"Listen to me," said Henry, leaning over the desk towards me. "What happened last night between Pat and this reporter is going to bring an alarming new situation in our household. Pat has become romantically interested in this young scallywag, and I feel sure he's fallen in love with her."
"You wouldn't say that unless you'd some grounds for it," I observed. "Have you?"
"Nothing that I can personally vouch for," was the reply; "it's only something that I suspect after putting two and two together. Now, after hearing you repeat those silly, sentimental expressions that fell from the reporter's lips, while Pat was treating him to supper, and speculating on what he may have said to her during the quarter of an hour you were secreted in the elevator, I feel I have grounds for my suspicions."
He leaned still further across the desk as he continued. "Now, this McGinity fellow was in his right mind and senses, take my word for it, when he called our Pat 'incredulous you,' 'beautiful princess,' and so on, and also in a perfectly normal state of mind, this morning, when he turned down my offer to square and hush up last night's unfortunate affair. I guess Olinski was right. I must have been 'cock-eyed.' Anyway, the amount I offered him was $50,000. It was a good bargain, a damned good bargain. What's surprising you?"
"Do you mean to say McGinity turned down such a large offer of money, which had nothing to do with holding out on the story, nothing in the nature of a bribe, simply a stated sum in lieu of damages, say for assault and detention?"
"I do," Henry replied. "The young nincompoop fixed his own price, and declared he would be well satisfied if he got it."
"And what was that?"
"All he wanted, he said—now, listen carefully to what I'm telling you—all he wanted was the exclusive rights to the Mars story, the release terms of which he promised faithfully to obey. As for last night's occurrences—assault and detention, as you term them—he simply said: 'Let's forget that.'"
"Is that a fact?" I asked, amazed.
Henry nodded, and continued. "Do you get it? He's in love with our Pat, or he wouldn't have turned my offer down. Think of it—$50,000. Enough to start him in the newspaper publishing business on his own hook."
"Supposing it's true, that a romantic attachment has sprung up between them, what shall you do?"
"I shall be ruthless," Henry replied, in a stern voice. "Ruthless," he repeated, and then gazed round the room, rather guiltily, as though Orkins might be there to hear him.
"By the way," I said. "What's happened to Orkins? I haven't seen him round the premises since Olinski and McGinity left, shortly after breakfast?"
"Ah!" said Henry. "That reminds me of another strange occurrence. Orkins has gone—gone for good."
"Well, that's a queer thing, isn't it?"
"Decidedly queer," Henry concurred. "He came to me quite unexpectedly this morning and resigned; said he was leaving at once. No explanation, simply that he was going and wanted his back pay. I remonstrated about his not giving the usual two weeks' notice, but he was adamant, so I paid him off and let him go."
"Leaving you no address?"
"No address at all. What do you make of it?"
"It certainly looks queer," I replied. "But I've been rather suspicious of Orkins from the very start."
"Why?" asked Henry.
"It's always been my opinion," I replied, "that he was mixed up in some secret, something that we know nothing about. He was too crafty and reticent to suit me."
"The mere fact that he was crafty and reticent doesn't prove anything," said Henry.
"Well, then," I said, rather testily, "if Orkins didn't sell you out on the comet business, who the devil did?"
"I've no idea," said Henry.
"I think it is pretty certain that he also tipped off the Daily Recorder about your latest discovery, and got well paid for it."
"Even so," said Henry, "these suppositions on your part can have no possible connection with his leaving so abruptly."
"I've got a notion about that too," I said. "Supposing that he did sell you out, in both instances, and was assured that his tips would be treated confidentially, then he must have got scared when McGinity turned up."
"Scared about what?" asked Henry.
"Well, after what happened to the Daily Recorder reporter last night, and Orkins must have known about it—you'd be astonished how quickly news travels among the servants—my idea is that he was afraid McGinity, in reprisal, would betray his duplicity. So he got away as quickly as possible to save his face. But it was a foolish thing to do."
"Foolish?"
"Yes; for newspapers never, under any consideration, betray their source of news information. I doubt if McGinity himself knew where the tips came from. He was simply assigned by his City Editor to get the stories, and Orkins did not figure in them at all as far as he was concerned."
"At any rate," said Henry, "I'm rather sorry to lose Orkins. While he had odd ways, I always felt he could be depended upon. He was the perfect English butler if ever there was one."
"Oh, but he's not English at all," I said. "I learned from one of the other servants, not so long ago, that he's a Slav by birth, and acquired his perfect English name, speech and manners during a long period of buttling in London. By the way, on whose recommendation did you employ him?"
"Can't say," Henry replied, as he lighted a cigar. "Ah!" he added, after a thoughtful pause. "I have it! I employed him on Dr. LaRauche's recommendation, from whom he brought the most exceptional references. It's not likely, though, that Dr. LaRauche would have any ulterior reason in wanting me to give his former servant a place."
"After all," I suggested, "there's no getting away from the fact that Rene LaRauche hates you worse than poison."
"You're wrong, Livingston," said Henry, with emphasis. "Dr. LaRauche is only suspicious of my scientific achievements. He regards me as a rank amateur. A top-notch scientist himself, of international reputation, it is only natural that he should be jealous of any intrusion upon that which he feels is his own field. But hatred? Oh, no!"
"If we're going in for mere theorizing," I said, "here's one to cogitate over. Supposing Orkins, the sly, crafty devil, was a plant in this house; put here by LaRauche to spy on your scientific research work? Then what?"
"Well, give me the truth," Henry answered. "Truth's not so easy to come at in these matters, and I doubt if we shall get any substantial contribution to your theory. Certainly not by remaining quietly here, with our hands folded. Come to think of it, LaRauche borrowed a valuable book of mine more than two years ago, Lowell's 'Mars as the Abode of Life,' which I should like very much to have him return. Now, supposing you drop in on him. Haven't the least idea what you'll get besides the borrowed book, and I doubt if you get that. Anyhow," he added significantly, "you may find out something—one way or another."
The curiosity instinct, which was my second nature, rose, strong and eager, when I heard this announcement. "All right," I said, with a suddenly roused alertness; "I'll call on LaRauche this afternoon."
IX
It was late in the afternoon when I reached the LaRauche house, a big, old-fashioned place, which stood within large enclosed grounds of its own, in a heavily wooded section, on a lonely and unfrequented road, about three miles south of Sands Cliff village.
Outwardly the residence was shabby, neglected, much in the want of fresh paint. The grounds in front were grown up with weeds. At the rear was a level stretch of meadow, backed by woods, which LaRauche used as a flying field. He owned and operated a small plane, in which he carried on experiments in wireless and meteorological observations. Ample private means enabled him to gratify his tastes to the full in the various fields of scientific research and exploration.
Astronomy held a particular attraction for him; he was a geologist and botanist as well. What with one thing and another, his life had been one long mad quest into the mysteries of the universe, and some of them he had solved. An astounding genius, if ever there was one, who was destined, I firmly believed, to spend his last days in a padded cell.
In appearance, he was a ramrod of a man, with hawk-like features surmounted by a mass of untidy, bushy white hair. Endowed with vast energy, he carried his sixty odd years with an air of perpetual youth and freshness. The man in the street who read of his scientific explorations into the unknown—recently he had been entertaining the reading-public with accounts of his plans and preparations to ride in a rocket to the moon—had no conception of the zeal that animated him as a scientific investigator, nor knowledge of the jealous fury that would seize him whenever he was outshone by the superior success of a fellow scientist.
Hot-headed, violently controversial, always quarrelsome, he had a malignant way of convulsing the various learned scientific bodies, to which he belonged, with stinging impeachments of his rivals. He had a turn for the sensational, which is rare in a man of his genius.
The breach between LaRauche and Henry dated back two years. It grew out of the first showing by LaRauche of several reels of motion pictures at the Exploration Club, depicting the life and customs of a hitherto unknown race of dwarfs, or midgets, he claimed to have discovered, living in a most primitive state in the jungles of Central Africa.
Henry and I attended the première, and Henry, in his rather dumb way, with no intention of wounding the feelings of LaRauche, or injuring his reputation, voiced his opinion to one of his intimates that the pictures were fictitious. His chance remark reached the ears of a member of the board of governors of the club, who made an official report of it to that body. Secret investigation by the board disclosed that LaRauche had, indeed, resorted to faking. The official inquiry revealed that he had recruited a small company of Negro midgets from Harlem, dressed them in skins of wild beasts and put them through various African jungle stunts in a wild and wooded section of New Jersey. The midget tribe he so cleverly portrayed subsisted mainly on insects, frogs and toads, and their eating live toads was one of the most realistic and clever fakes I have ever seen.
As a result, LaRauche was expelled from membership for conduct prejudicial to the club. The fact that the club's action was made public turned the current of public feeling against him for a time. It should have covered him with shame and confusion—a very foolish trick for a scientist of his standing to perpetrate in the declining years of his career—but he assumed an utterly contemptuous attitude, and readily admitted once he was cornered that the pictures were intended as a fake, to fool his rivals in the African exploration field.
Naturally, he blamed Henry for his crushing defeat. There was no mistaking his ill will thereafter towards my brother, and he endeavored in many ways to injure Henry's reputation as a scientist. He wrote him letters, couched in violent terms; called him an "amateur meddler" in science; he wanted war to the knife. But it takes two to make a quarrel, and Henry, in his easy way, declined to enter the controversy.
Another crushing blow to LaRauche was Henry's discovery of the comet, which increased his rancor and violent antipathy towards my brother. So it was with no little trepidation that I approached his house.
Parking my car at the side of the road, I paused a few moments at the entrance gate to take a rapid, estimating view of the estate, apparently the only human habitation anywhere about. The grounds were fenced by a dilapidated hedge, and rows of maples and poplars.
Suddenly, through the screen of trees, I noticed an old brick house, set in a hollow, at the base of a hill that sloped gently down from LaRauche's place. It was set far back from the road, in a clump of trees, and possessed a considerable range of stables and outhouses, the possible use of which immediately roused my curiosity, as there were no indications that farming was being carried on. It struck me as odd that they should be there. There was a reason for the several outbuildings I saw on LaRauche's grounds; a hangar, a small frame building, set between two tall antennae towers of steel, apparently used for broadcasting, and a glass-domed brick structure, where, no doubt, he carried on his astronomical observations.
All this was running through my mind, as I walked up the gravel-path towards the LaRauche house, when I heard a rustle in the hedge. Glancing in this direction, I was amazed to see a grizzly bear emerge from the hedge and make towards me. A cold sweat broke out on me. I was terrified. I quickened my step, so did the bear, a ferocious-looking beast. I broke into a run. The bear followed, close on my heels, in its peculiar loping fashion.
Before I reached the house, a loud, gruff voice, emanating from the other side of the hedge, stopped the bear's pursuit. I saw a middle-aged man on the far side of the hedge. From that fleeting glimpse I had of his general build and swarthy complexion, I judged him to be an Italian. I was greatly relieved when the bear disappeared through a hole in the hedge and joined his master on the other side.
But this was not the only unusual and surprising event of that afternoon. In answer to my ring, the door opened and revealed the tall, dignified figure of Orkins. I immediately deduced from his presence there that LaRauche had some hold on him which made him Orkins' master. I was also convinced that my theory that he had been planted in our household by LaRauche to spy on Henry's work, was a very probable one.
I suppose I let my suspicions show themselves in my face, for Orkins questioned me before I could speak. I was still a little breathless from running.
"You are no doubt surprised, Mr. Royce, to find me here?" he said.
"Yes—I suppose so," I replied, evasively.
"Dr. LaRauche was kind enough to re-engage me after my leaving your brother, Henry, so suddenly this morning," he went on. "How did your brother take it?"