Eaton dismissed the man who had been waiting in his rooms for him; he locked the door and carefully drew down all the window-shades. Then he put his overcoat, folded as he had been carrying it under his arm, on the writing table in the center of the room, and from its folds and pockets took a "breast-drill" such as iron workers use in drilling steel, an automatic pistol with three clips of cartridges, an electric flashlight and a little bottle of nitroglycerine. He loaded the pistol and put it in his pocket; then he carefully inspected the other things.
The room he was in, the largest of his suite, resembled Santoine's study on the floor below in the arrangement of its windows, though it was smaller than the study. The writing-desk in its center occupied much the position of Santoine's large desk; he moved it slightly to make the relative positions coincide. The couch against the end wall represented the position of the study's double doors. Eaton switched out the lights, and starting at the windows, he crossed the room in the darkness, avoiding the desk, and stopping a few feet to the right of the couch; here he flashed his light upon the wall at the height of the little wall-safe to the right of the doors in the study below. A dozen times he did this, passing from the windows to the position of the wall-safe and only momentarily flashing his light.
He assured himself thus of being able to pass in the dark from the windows of Santoine's study to the wall-safe. As the study was larger than this room, he computed that he must add two steps to what he took here in each direction. He paid no attention to the position of the safe to the left of the doors, for he had kept watch of the vase on the table in the lower hall, and the only sign he had found there had told him that what he wanted was in the safe to the right.
He raised a shade and window, then, and sat in the dark. The night was cloudy and very dark; and the lake was smooth with barely a ripple. Near at hand a steamer passed, blazing with lights, and further out he saw the mast-head light of some other steamer. The lake was still ice-locked at its northern end, and so the farther of these steamers, he knew, was bound to some southern Michigan port; the nearer was one of the Chicago-Milwaukee boats. For some moments after it had passed, the waves of its wake washed in and sounded on the shore at the foot of the bluff. Next Eaton made out the hum of a motor-car approaching the house. It was Avery, who evidently had been out and was now returning; the chauffeur spoke the name in his reply to some question as the car swung away to the garage. Eaton still sat in the dark. By degrees all noises ceased in the house, even in the servants' quarters. Twice Eaton leaned forward looking out of the window and found all quiet; but both times he settled back in his chair and waited.
The wash of waves, as from a passing boat, sounded again on the shore. Eaton leaned nearer the window and stared out. There was no light in sight showing any boat; but the waves on the shore were distinct; indeed, they had been more distinct than those from the steamer. They must have been made by a large vessel or from a small ship close in and moving fast. The waves came in first on the north and swept south; Eaton strained his eyes and now saw a vague blur off to the south and within half a mile of shore—a boat without lights. If it had passed at high speed, it had stopped now. He watched this for some time; but he could make out no more, and soon he could not be sure even that the blur was there.
He gazed at the south wing of the house; it was absolutely dark and quiet; the windows of the first floor were closed and the curtains drawn; but to-night there was no light in the room. The windows of the room on the second floor were open; Basil Santoine was undoubtedly asleep. Eaton gazed again at the lower room. Then in the dark he moved to the table where he had left his overcoat, and distributed in his pockets and within his clothing the articles he had brought; and now he felt again in the overcoat and brought out a short, strong bar of steel curved and flattened at one end—a "jimmy" for forcing the windows.
Eaton slipped off his shoes and went to his room door; he opened the door and found the hall dark and quiet. He stepped out, closing his door carefully behind him, and with great caution he descended the stairs. Below, all was quiet; the red embers and glowing charcoal of wood fires which had blazed on the hearths gave the only light. Eaton crept to the doors of the blind man's study and softly tried them. They were, as he had expected, locked. He went to a window in the drawing-room which was set in a recess and so placed that it was not visible from other windows in the house. He opened this window and let himself down upon the lawn.
There he stood still for a moment, listening. There was no alarm of any sort. He crept along beside the house till he came to the first windows of the south wing. He tried these carefully and then went on. He gained the south corner of the wing, unobserved or at least without sign that he had been seen, and went on around it.
He stopped at the first high French window on the south. It was partly hidden from view from south and west by a column of the portico, and was the one he had selected for his operations; as he tried to slip his jimmy under the bottom of the sash, the window, to his amazement, opened silently upon its hinges; it had not been locked. The heavy curtains within hung just in front of him; he put out his hand and parted them. Then he started back in astonishment and crouched close to the ground; inside the room was a man moving about, flashing an electric torch before him and then exploring an instant in darkness and flashing his torch again.
The unexpectedness of this sight took for an instant Eaton's breath and power of moving; he had not been at all prepared for this; now he knew suddenly that he ought to have been prepared for it. If the man within the room was not the one who had attacked him with the motor, he was closely allied with that man, and what he was after now was the same thing Eaton was after. Eaton looked about behind him; no one apparently had been left on watch outside. He drew his pistol, and loosing the safety, he made it ready to fire; with his left hand, he clung to the short, heavy jimmy. He stepped into the great room through the curtains, taking care they did not jingle the rings from which they hung; he carefully let the curtains fall together behind him, and treading noiselessly in his stocking feet, he advanced upon the man, moving forward in each period of darkness between the flashes of the electric torch.
The man, continuing to flash his light about, plainly had heard nothing, and the curtains had prevented him from being warned by the chill of the night air that the window was open; but now, at the further side of the room, another electric torch flashed out. Another man had been in the room; he neither alarmed nor was alarmed by the man flashing the first light; each had known the other's presence before. There were at least two men in the room, working together—or rather, one was working, the other supervising; for Eaton heard now a steady, almost inaudible grinding noise as the second man worked. Eaton halted again and waited; if there were two, there might be others.
The discovery of the second man had not made Eaton afraid; his pulses were beating faster and hotter, and he felt the blood rushing to his head and his hands growing cold with his excitement; but he was conscious of no fear. He crouched and crept forward noiselessly again. No other light appeared in the room, and there was no sound elsewhere from the darkness; but the man who supervised had moved closer to the other. The grinding noise had stopped; it was followed by a sharp click; the men, side by side, were bending over something; and the light of the man who had been working, for a fraction of a second shot into the face of the other. It did not delay at all; it was a purely accidental flash and could not have been said to show the features at all—only a posture, an expression, a personality of a strong and cruel man. He muttered some short, hoarse imprecation at the other; but before Eaton heard the voice, he had stopped as if struck, and his breath had gone from him.
His instant's glimpse of that face astounded, stunned, stupefied him. He could not have seen that man! The fact was impossible! He must have been mad; his mind must have become unreliable to let him even imagine it. Then came the sound of the voice—the voice of the man whose face he had seen! It was he! And, in place of the paralysis of the first instant, now a wild, savage throe of passion seized Eaton; his pulses leaped so it seemed they must burst his veins, and he gulped and choked. He had not filled in with insane fancy the features of the man whom he had seen; the voice witnessed too that the man in the dark by the wall was he whom Eaton—if he could have dreamed such a fact as now had been disclosed—would have circled the world to catch and destroy; yet now with the destruction of that man in his power—for he had but to aim and empty his automatic pistol at five paces—such destruction at this moment could not suffice; mere shooting that man would be petty, ineffectual. Eaton's fingers tightened on the handle of his pistol, but he held it now not as a weapon to fire but as a dull weight with which to strike. The grip of his left hand clamped onto the short steel bar, and with lips parted—breathing once, it seemed, for each heartbeat and yet choking, suffocating—he leaped forward.
At the same instant—so that he could not have been alarmed by Eaton's leap—the man who had been working moved his torch, and the light fell upon Eaton.
"Look out!" the man cried in alarm to his companion; with the word the light of the torch vanished.
The man toward whom Eaton rushed did not have time to switch off his light; he dropped it instead; and as Eaton sprang for him, he crouched. Eaton, as he struck forward, found nothing; but below his knees, Eaton felt a man's powerful arms tackling him; as he struggled to free himself, a swift, savage lunge lifted him from his feet; he was thrown and hurled backwards.
Eaton ducked his head forward and struggled to turn, as he went down, so that a shoulder and not his head or back would strike the floor first. He succeeded in this, though in his effort he dropped the jimmy. He clung with his right hand to the pistol, and as he struck the floor, the pistol shot off; the flash of flame spurted toward the ceiling. Instantly the grip below his knees was loosed; the man who had tackled him and hurled him back had recoiled in the darkness. Eaton got to his feet but crouched and crept about behind a table, aiming his pistol over it in the direction in which he supposed the other men must be. The sound of the shot had ceased to roar through the room; the gases from the powder only made the air heavier. The other two men in the room also waited, invisible and silent. The only light, in the great curtained room, came from the single electric torch lying on the floor. This lighted the legs of a chair, a corner of a desk and a circle of books in the cases on the wall. As Eaton's eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, he could see vague shapes of furniture. If a man moved, he might be made out; but if he stayed still, probably he would remain indistinguishable.
The other men seemed also to have recognized this; no one moved in the room, and there was complete silence.
Eaton knelt on one knee behind his table; now he was wildly, exultantly excited; his blood leaped hotly to his hand pointing his pistol; he panted, almost audibly, for breath, but though his pulse throbbed through his head too, his mind was clear and cool as he reckoned his situation and his chances. He had crossed the Pacific, the Continent, he had schemed and risked everything with the mere hope of getting into this room to discover evidence with which to demand from the world righting of the wrong which had driven him as a fugitive for five years; and here he found the man who was the cause of it all, before him in the same room a few paces away in the dark!
For it was impossible that this was not that man; and Eaton knew now that this was he who must have been behind and arranging and directing the attacks upon him, Eaton had not only seen him and heard his voice, but he had felt his grasp; that sudden, instinctive crouch before a charge, and the savage lunge and tackle were the instant, natural acts of an old linesman on a championship team in the game of football as it was played twenty years before. That lift of the opponent off his feet and the heavy lunge hurling him back to fall on his head was what one man—in the rougher, more cruel days of the college game—had been famous for. On the football field that throw sufficed to knock a helmeted opponent unconscious; here it was meant, beyond doubt, to do more.
Upon so much, at least, Eaton's mind at once was clear; here was his enemy whom he must destroy if he himself were not first destroyed. Other thoughts, recasting of other relations altered or overturned in their bearing by the discovery of this man here—everything else could and must wait upon the mighty demand of that moment upon Eaton to destroy this enemy now or be himself destroyed.
Eaton shook in his passion; yet coolly he now realized that his left shoulder, which had taken the shock of his fall, was numb. He shifted his pistol to cover a vague form which had seemed to move; but, if it had stirred, it was still again now. Eaton strained to listen.
It seemed certain that the noise of the shot, if not the sound of the struggle which preceded it, must have raised an alarm, though the room was in a wing and shut off by double doors from the main part of the house; it was possible that the noise had not gone far; but it must have been heard in the room directly above and connected with the study by a staircase at the head of which was a door. Basil Santoine, as Eaton knew, slept above; a nurse must be waiting on duty somewhere near. Eaton had seen the row of buttons which the blind man had within arm's-length with which he must be able to summon every servant in the house. So it could not last much longer now—this deadlock in the dark—the two facing one, and none of them daring to move. And one of the two, at least, seemed to have recognized that.
Eaton had moved, warily and carefully, but he had moved; a revolver flashed before him. Instantly and without consciousness that his finger pulled the trigger, Eaton's pistol flashed back. In front of him, the flame flashed again, and another spurt of fire spat at one side.
Eaton fired back at this—he was prostrate on the floor now, and whether he had been hit or not he did not yet know, or whether the blood flowing down his face was only from a splinter sprayed from the table behind which he had hid. He fired again, holding his pistol far out to one side to confuse the aim of the others; he thought that they too were doing the same and allowed for it in his aim. He pulled his trigger a ninth time—he had not counted his shots, but he knew he had had seven cartridges in the magazine and one in the barrel—and the pistol clicked without discharging. He rolled over further away from the spot where he had last fired and pulled an extra clip of cartridges from his pocket.
The blood was flowing hot over his face. He made no effort to staunch it or even to feel with his fingers to find exactly where or how badly he had been hit. He jerked the empty cartridge clip from his pistol butt and snapped in the other. He swept his sleeve over his face to clear the blood from his brows and eyes and stared through the dark with pistol at arm's-length loaded and ready. Blood spurted over his face again; another sweep of his sleeve cleared it; and he moved his pistol-point back and forth in the dark. The flash of the firing from the other two revolvers had stopped; the roar of the shots had ceased to deafen. Eaton had not counted the shots at him any better than he had kept track of his own firing; but he knew now that the other two must have emptied their magazines as well as he. It was possible, of course, that he had killed one of them or wounded one mortally; but he had no way to know that. He could hear the click as one of the men snapped his revolver shut again after reloading; then another click came. Both the others had reloaded.
"All right?" the voice which Eaton knew questioned the other.
"All right," came the reply.
But, if they were all right, they made no offer to fire first again. Nor yet did they dare to move. Eaton knew they lay on the floor like himself. They lay with fingers on trigger, as he also lay, waiting again for him to move so they could shoot at him. But surely now the sound of the firing in that room must have reached the man in the room above; surely he must be summoning his servants!
Eaton listened; there was still no sound from the rest of the house. But overhead now, he heard an almost imperceptible pattering—the sound of a bare-footed man crossing the floor; and he knew that the blind man in the bedroom above was getting up.
Basil Santoine was oversensitive to sound, as are most of the blind; in the world of darkness in which he lived, sounds were by far the most significant—and almost the only—means he had of telling what went on around him; he passed his life in listening for or determining the nature of sounds. So the struggle which ended in Eaton's crash to the floor would have waked him without the pistol-shot immediately following. That roused him wide-awake immediately and brought him sitting up in bed, forgetful of his own condition.
Santoine at once recognized the sound as a shot; but in the instant of waking, he had not been able to place it more definitely than to know that it was close. His hand went at once to the bellboard, and he rang at the same time for the nurse outside his door and for the steward. But for a few moments after that first shot, nothing followed; there was silence. Santoine was not one of those who doubt their hearing; that was the sense in which the circumstances of his life made him implicitly trust; he had heard a shot near by; the fact that nothing more followed did not make him doubt it; it made him think to explain it.
It was plain that no one else in the house had been stirred by it; for his windows were open and other windows in bedrooms in the main part of the house were open; no one had raised any cry of alarm. So the shot was where he alone had heard it; that meant indoors, in the room below.
Santoine pressed the bells quickly again and sat up straighter and more strained; no one breaking into the house for plate or jewelry would enter through that room; he would have to break through double doors to reach any other part of the house; Santoine did not consider the possibility of robbery of that sort long enough to have been said to consider it at all; what he felt was that the threat which had been hanging vaguely over himself ever since Warden's murder was being fulfilled. But it was not Santoine himself that was being attacked; it was something Santoine possessed. There was only one sort of valuable article for which one might enter that room below. And those articles—
The blind man clenched his jaw and pressed the bells to call all the men-servants in the house and Avery also. But still he got no response.
A shot in the room below meant, of course, that in addition to the intruder there must be a defender; the defender might have been the one who fired or the one who was killed. For it seemed likely, in the complete silence now, that whoever had fired had disposed of his adversary and was undisturbed. At that moment the second shot—the first fired at Eaton—rang out below; Eaton's return fire followed nearly simultaneously, and then the shot of the third man. These explosions and the next three the blind man in bed above was able to distinguish; there were three men, at least, in the room below firing at each other; then, as the automatic revolvers roared on, he no longer could separate attack and reply; there might be three men, there might be half a dozen; the fusillade of the automatics overlapped; it was incessant. Then all at once the firing stopped; there was no sound or movement of any sort; everything seemed absolutely still below.
The blind man pressed and pressed the buttons on his bellboard. Any further alarm, after the firing below, seemed superfluous. But his wing of the house had been built for him proof against sound in the main portion of the building; the house, therefore, was deadened to noise within the wing. Santoine, accustomed to considering the manner in which sounds came to himself, knew how these sounds would come to others. Coming from the open windows of the wing and entering the open windows of the other parts of the house, they would not appear to the household to come from within the house at all; they would appear to come from some part of the grounds or from the beach.
Yet some one or more than one from his house must be below or have been there. Santoine pressed all the bells again and then got up. He had heard absolutely no sound outside, as must be made by any one escaping from the room below; but the battle seemed over. One side must have destroyed the other. From the character of the fighting, it was most probable that some one had secretly entered the room—Santoine thought of that one definitely now as the man he was entertaining as Eaton; a servant, or some one else from the house, had surprised him in the room and was shot; other servants, roused by the alarm, rushed in and were shot. Santoine counted that, if his servants had survived, one of them must be coming to tell him what had happened. But there was no noise now nor any movement at all below. His side had been beaten, or both sides had ceased to exist. Those alternatives alone occurred to the blind man; the number of shots fired within the confines of the room below precluded any other explanation. He did not imagine the fact that the battle had been fought in the dark; himself perpetually in the dark, he thought of others always in the light.
The blind man stood barefooted on the floor, his hands clasping in one of the bitterest moments of his rebellion against, and defiance of, his helplessness of blindness. Below him—as he believed—his servants had been sacrificing life for him; there in that room he held in trust that which affected the security, the faith, the honor of others; his guarding that trust involved his honor no less. And particularly, now, he knew he was bound, at whatever cost, to act; for he did not doubt now but that his half-prisoned guest, whom Santoine had not sufficiently guarded, was at the bottom of the attack. The blind man believed, therefore, that it was because of his own retention here of Eaton that the attack had been made, his servants had been killed, the private secrets of his associates were in danger. Santoine crossed to the door of the hall and opened it and called. No one answered immediately; he started to call again; then he checked himself and shut the door, and opened that to the top of the stairs descending to his study below.
The smoke and fumes of the firing rushed into his face; it half choked him; but it decided him. He was going to go down. Undoubtedly there was danger below; but that was why he did not call again at the other door for some one else to run a risk for him. Basil Santoine, always held back and always watched and obliged to submit to guard even of women in petty matters because of his blindness, held one thing dearer far than life—and that thing was the trust which other men reposed in him. Since it was that trust which was threatened, the impulse now, in that danger, to act for himself and not be protected and pushed back by any one who merely could see, controlled him.
He put his hand on the rail and started to descend the stairs. He was almost steady in step and he had firm grasp on the rail; he noticed that now to wonder at it. When he had aroused at the sound of firing, his blindness, as always when something was happening about him, was obtruded upon him. He felt helpless because he was blind, not because he had been injured. He had forgotten entirely that for almost two weeks he had not stirred from bed; he had risen and stood and walked, without staggering, to the door and to the top of the stairs before, now, he remembered. So what he already had done showed him that he had merely again to put his injury from his mind and he could go on. He went down the stairs almost steadily.
There was still no sound or any evidence of any one below. The gases of the firing were clearing away; the blind man could feel the slight breeze which came in through the windows of his bedroom and went with him down the stairs; and now, as he reached the lower steps, there was no other sound in the room but the tread of the blind man's bare feet on the stairs. This sound was slight, but enough to attract attention in the silence there. Santoine halted on the next to the last step—the blind count stairs, and he had gone down twenty-one—and realized fully his futility; but now he would not retreat or merely call for help.
"Who is here?" he asked distinctly. "Is any one here? Who is here?"
No one answered. And now Santoine knew by the sense which let him feel whether it was night or day, that the room was really dark—dark for others as well as for himself; the lights were not burning. So an exaltation, a sense of physical capability, came to Santoine; in the dark he was as fit, as capable as any other man—not more capable, for, though he was familiar with the room, the furniture had been moved in the struggle; he had heard the overturning of the chairs.
Santoine stepped down on the floor, and in his uncertainty as to the position of the furniture, felt along the wall. There were bookcases there, but he felt and passed along them swiftly, until he came to the case which concealed the safe at the left side of the doors. The books were gone from that case; his bare toes struck against them where they had been thrown down on the floor. The blind man, his pulse beating tumultuously, put his hand through the case and felt the panel behind. That was slid back exposing the safe; and the door of the safe stood open. Santoine's hands felt within the safe swiftly. The safe was empty.
He recoiled from it, choking back an ejaculation. The entry to this room had been made for the purpose which he supposed; and the thieves must have succeeded in their errand. The blind man, in his uselessness for pursuit, could delay calling others to act for him no longer. He started toward the bell, when some scrape on the floor—not of the sort to be accounted for by an object moved by the wind—sounded behind him. Santoine swung toward the sound and stood listening again; and then, groping with his hands stretched out before him, he left the wall and stepped toward the center of the room. He took two steps—three, four—with no result; then his foot trod into some fluid, thick and sticky and not cold.
Santoine stooped and put a finger-tip into the fluid and brought it near his nose. It was what he supposed it must be—blood. He raised his foot and with his great toe traced the course of the blood; it led to one side, and then the blind man's toe touched some hard, metal object which was warm. He stooped and picked it up and felt over it with his fingers. It was an electric torch with the light turned on. Santoine stood holding it with the warm end—the lighted end—turned away from him; he swiftly switched it off; what put Santoine at a disadvantage with other men was light. But since there had been this light, there might be others; there had been at least three men, perhaps, therefore, three lights. Santoine's senses could not perceive light so dim and soft; he stood trying fruitlessly to determine whether there were other lights.
He could hear now some one breathing—more than one person. From the house, still shut off by its double, sound-proof doors, he could hear nothing; but some one outside the house was hurrying up to the open window at the south end of the room.
That one came to, or just inside the window, parting the curtains. He was breathing hard from exertion or from excitement.
"Who is it?" Santoine challenged clearly.
"Basil!" Blatchford's voice exclaimed his recognition in amazement. "Basil; that is you! What are you doing down here?" Blatchford started forward.
"Wait!" Santoine ordered sharply. "Don't come any further; stand there!"
Blatchford protested but obeyed. "What is it? What are you doing down here, Basil? What is the matter here? What has happened?"
"What brought you here?" Santoine demanded instead of reply. "You were running outside; why? What was out there? What did you see?"
"See? I didn't see anything—except the window here open when I came up. But I heard shots, Basil. I thought they were toward the road. I went out there; but I found nothing. I was coming back when I saw the window open. I'm sure I heard shots."
"They were here," Santoine said. "But you can see; and you just heard the shots. You didn't see anything!" the blind man accused. "You didn't see any one going away from here!"
"Basil, what has happened here?"
Santoine felt again the stickiness at his feet. "Three or four persons fought in this room, Wallace. Some—or one was hurt. There's blood on the floor. There are two here I can hear breathing; I suppose they're hurt. Probably the rest are gone. The room's all dark, isn't it? That is you moving about now, Wallace?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for the light."
"Don't."
"Why, Basil?"
"Get help first. I think those who aren't hurt are gone. They must be gone. But—get help first, Wallace."
"And leave you here?" Blatchford rejoined. He had not halted again; the blind man heard his cousin still moving along the wall. The electric switch clicked, and Santoine knew that the room was flooded with light. Santoine straightened, strained, turning his head a little to better listen. With the flashing on of the light, he had heard the sharp, involuntary start of Blatchford as he saw the room; and, besides that, Santoine heard movement now elsewhere in the room. Then the blind man heard his friend's cry. "Good God!"
It was not, Santoine instantly sensed, from mere surprise or fright at finding some intruder in the room; that must have been expected. This was from something more astounding, from something incredible.
"What is it?" Santoine cried.
"Good God! Basil!"
"Who is it, Wallace?" the blind man knew now that his friend's incoherence came from recognition of some one, not alone from some sight of horror. "Who is it, Wallace?" he repeated, curbing himself.
"Basil! It is—-it must be—I know him! It is—"
A shot roared in front of Santoine. The blind man, starting back at the shock of it, drew in the powder-gas with his breath; but the bullet was not for him. Instead, he heard his friend scream and choke and half call, half cough.
"Wallace!" Santoine cried out; but his voice was lost in the roar of another shot. This was not fired by the same one who had just fired; at least, it was not from the same part of the room; and instantly, from another side, a third shot came. Then, in the midst of rush and confusion, another shot roared; the light was out again; then all was gone; the noise was outside; the room was still except for a cough and choke as Blatchford—somewhere on the floor in front of the blind man—tried again to speak.
Basil Santoine, groping with his hands, found him. The blind man knelt and with his fingers went over his cousin's face; he found the wound on the neck where Blatchford's life was running away. He was still conscious. Santoine knew that he was trying his best to speak, to say just one word—a name—to tell whom he had seen and who had shot him; but he could not.
Santoine put his hand over a hand of his cousin. "That's all right, Wally; that's all right," he assured him. And now he knew that Blatchford's consciousness was going forever. Santoine knew what must be most on his friend's mind at that last moment as it had been most on his mind during more than thirty years. "And about my blindness, Wallace, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd never have done what I have if I hadn't been blind."
Blatchford's fingers closed tightly on Santoine's; they did not relax but now remained closed, though without strength. The blind man bowed and then lifted his head. His friend was dead, and others were rushing into the room—the butler, one of the chauffeurs, Avery, more menservants; the light was on again, and amid the tumult and alarms of the discoveries shown by the light, some rushed to the windows to the south in pursuit of those who had escaped from the room. Avery and one or two others rushed up to Santoine; now the blind man heard, above their cries and alarms, the voice of his daughter. She was beside him, where he knelt next the body of Blatchford, and she put back others who crowded about.
"Father! What has happened? Why are you here? Oh, Father, Cousin Wallace!"
"He is dead," Santoine said. "They shot him!"
"Father; how was it? You—"
"There are none of them in the room?" he asked her in reply.
"None of them?"
Her failure to understand answered him. If any of the men who fought there had not got away, she would have understood. "They were not all together," he said. "They were three, at least. One was not with the others. They fired at each other, I believe, after one shot him." Santoine's hand was still in Blatchford's. "I heard them below." He told shortly how he had gone down, how Blatchford had entered and been shot.
The blind man, still kneeling, heard the ordering and organizing of others for the pursuit; now women servants from the other part of the house were taking charge of affairs in the room. He heard Avery questioning them; none of the servants had had part in the fight in the room; there had been no signal heard, Santoine was told, upon any of the bells which he had tried to ring from his room. Eaton was the only person from the house who was missing. Harriet had gone for a moment; the blind man called her back and demanded that she stay beside him; he had not yet moved from Blatchford's body. His daughter returned; her hand on his shoulder was trembling and cold—he could feel it cold through the linen of his pajama jacket.
"Father, you must go back to bed!" she commanded uselessly. He would not stir yet. A servant, at her call, brought a robe which she put over him, and she drew slippers on his feet.
"They came, at least some of them came,"—Santoine had risen, fighting down his grief over his cousin's death; he stood holding the robe about him—"for what was in your safe, Harriet."
"I know; I saw it open."
"What is gone?" Santoine demanded.
He heard her picking up the contents of the safe from the floor and carrying them to the table and examining them; he was conscious that, having done this, she stood staring about the room as though to see whether anything had escaped her search.
"What is gone?" Santoine repeated.
"Why—nearly all the formal papers seem to be gone; lists and agreements relating to a dozen different things."
"None of the correspondence?"
"No; that all seems to be here."
Santoine was breathing quickly; the trust for which he had been ready to die—for which Blatchford had died—seemed safe; but recognition of this only emphasized and deepened his perplexity as to what the meaning had been of the struggle which an instant before had been going on around him.
"We don't know whether he got it, then, or not!" It was Avery's voice which broke in upon him; Santoine merely listened.
"He? Who?" He heard his daughter's challenge.
"Why, Eaton. It is plain enough what happened here, isn't it?" Avery answered. "He came here to this room for what he was after—for what he has been after from the first—whatever that may have been! He came prepared to force the safe and get it! But he was surprised—"
"By whom?" the blind man asked.
"By whomever it is that has been following him. I don't attempt to explain who they were, Mr. Santoine; for I don't know. But—whoever they were—in doing this, he laid himself open to attack by them. They were watching—saw him enter here. They attacked him here. Wallace switched on the light and recognized him; so he shot Wallace and ran with whatever he could grab up of the contents of the safe, hoping that by luck he'd get what he was after."
"It isn't so—it isn't so!" Harriet denied.
Her father checked her; he stood an instant thoughtful. "Who is directing the pursuit, Donald?" he asked.
Avery went out at once. The window to the south, which stood open, was closed. The blind man turned to his daughter.
"Now, Harriet," he commanded. He put a hand out and touched Harriet's clothing; he found she had on a heavy robe. She understood that her father would not move till she had seen the room for him. She gazed about again, therefore, and told him what she saw.
"There was some sort of a struggle near my safe," she said. "Chairs—everything there is knocked about."
"Yes."
"There is also blood there—a big spot of it on the floor."
"I found that," said Santoine.
"There is blood behind the table near the middle of the room."
"Ah! A man fired from near there, too!"
"There are cartridges on the floor—"
"Cartridges?"
"Cartridge shells, I mean, empty, near both those spots of blood. There are cartridge shells near the fireplace; but no blood there."
"Yes; the bullets?"
"There are marks everywhere—above the mantel, all about."
"Yes."
"There is a bar of iron with a bent end near the table—between it and the window; there are two flashlights, both extinguished."
"How was the safe opened?"
"The combination has been cut completely away; there is an—an instrument connected with the electric-light fixture which seems to have done the cutting. There is a hand-drill, too—I think it is a hand-drill. The inner door has been drilled through, and the catches drawn back."
"Who is this?"
The valet, who had been sent to Eaton's room, had returned with his report. "Mr. Eaton went from his room fully dressed, sir," he said to Santoine, "except for his shoes. I found all his shoes in his room."
During the report, the blind man felt his daughter's grasp on his arm become tense and relax and tighten again. Then, as though she realized she was adding to his comprehension of what she had already betrayed, she suddenly took her hand from her father's arm. Santoine turned his face toward his daughter. Another twinge racked the tumult of his emotions. He groped and groped again, trying to catch his daughter's hand; but she avoided him. She directed servants to lift Blatchford's body and told them where to bear it. After that, Santoine resisted no longer. He let the servants, at his daughter's direction, help him to his room. His daughter went with him and saw that he was safe in bed; she stood beside him while the nurse washed the blood-splotches from his hands and feet. When the nurse had finished, he still felt his daughter's presence; she drew nearer to him.
"Father?" she questioned.
"Yes."
"You don't agree with Donald, do you?—that Mr. Eaton went to the study to—to get something, and that whoever has been following him found him there and—and interrupted him and he killed Cousin Wallace?"
Santoine was silent an instant. "That seems the correct explanation, Harriet," he evaded. "It does not fully explain; but it seems correct as far as it goes. If Donald asks you what my opinion is, tell him it is that."
He felt his daughter shrink away from him.
The blind man made no move to draw her back to him; he lay perfectly still; his head rested flat upon the pillows; his hands were clasped tightly together above the coverlet. He had accused himself, in the room below, because, by the manner he had chosen to treat Eaton, he had slain the man he loved best and had forced a friendship with Eaton on his daughter which, he saw, had gone further than mere friendship; it had gone, he knew now, even to the irretrievable between man and woman—had brought her, that is, to the state where, no matter what Eaton was or did, she must suffer with him! But Santoine was not accusing himself now; he was feeling only the fulfillment of that threat against those who had trusted him with their secrets, which he had felt vaguely after the murder of Gabriel Warden and, more plainly with the events of each succeeding day, ever since. For that threat, just now, had culminated in his presence in purposeful, violent action; but Santoine in his blindness had been unable—and was still unable—-to tell what that action meant.
Of the three men who had fought in his presence in the room below—one before the safe, one at the fireplace, one behind the table—which had been Eaton? What had he been doing there? Who were the others? What had any of them—or all of them—wanted? For Santoine, the answer to these questions transcended now every personal interest. So, in his uncertainty, Santoine had drawn into himself—withdrawn confidence in his thoughts from all around, from Donald Avery, even from his daughter—until the answer should be found. His blind eyes were turned toward the ceiling, and his long, well-shaped fingers trembled with the intensity of his thought. But he realized, even in his absorption, that his daughter had drawn away from him. So, presently, he stirred.
"Harriet," he said.
It was the nurse who answered him. "Miss Santoine has gone downstairs. What is it you want of her, Mr. Santoine?"
The blind man hesitated, and checked the impulse he had had. "Nothing," he replied.
Harriet Santoine, still clad only in the heavy robe over her nightdress and in slippers, went from her father's bedroom swiftly down into the study again; what she was going to do there she did not definitely know. She heard, as she descended the stairs, the steward in the hall outside the study calling up the police stations of the neighboring villages and giving news of what had happened and instructions to watch the roads; but as she reached the foot of the stairs, a servant closed the study doors. The great, curtained room in its terrifying disorder was brightly lighted, empty, absolutely still. She had given directions that, except for the removal of Blatchford's body, all must be left as it was in the room till the arrival of the police. She stood an instant with hands pressed against her breast, staring down at the spots upon the floor.
There were three of these spots now—one where Blatchford's body had lain. They were soaking brownly into the rugs but standing still red and thick upon the polished floor. Was one of them Eaton's?
Something within her told her that it was, and the fierce desire to go to him, to help him, was all she felt just now. It was Donald Avery's and her father's accusation of Eaton that had made her feel like this. She had been feeling, the moment before Donald had spoken, that Philip Eaton had played upon her that evening in making her take him to his confederate in the ravine in order to plan and consummate something here. Above her grief and horror at the killing of her cousin and the danger to her father, had risen the anguish of her guilt with Eaton, the agony of her betrayal. But their accusation that Eaton had killed Wallace Blatchford, seeing him, knowing him—in the light—had swept all that away; all there was of her seemed to have risen in denial of that. Before her eyes, half shut, she saw again the body of her cousin Wallace lying in its blood on the floor, with her father kneeling beside it, his blind eyes raised in helplessness to the light; but she saw now another body too—Eaton's—not here—-lying somewhere in the bare, wind-swept woods, shot down by those pursuing him.
She looked at the face of the clock and then down to the pendulum to see whether it had stopped; but the pendulum was swinging. The hands stood at half past one o'clock; now she recalled that, in her first wild gaze about the room when she rushed in with the others, she had seen the hands showing a minute or so short of twenty minutes past one. Not quite a quarter of an hour had passed since the alarm! The pursuit could not have moved far away. She reopened the window through which the pursuers had passed and stepped out onto the dark lawn. She stood drawing the robe about her against the chill night air, dazed, stunned. The house behind her, the stables, the chauffeurs' quarters above the garages, the gardeners' cottages, all blazed now with light, but she saw no one about. The menservants—except the steward—had joined the pursuit; she heard them to the south beating the naked woods and shrubbery and calling to each other. A half mile down the beach she heard shouts and a shot; she saw dimly through the night in that direction a boat without lights moving swiftly out upon the lake.
Her hands clenched and pressed against her breast; she stood straining at the sounds of the man-hunt. It had turned west, it seemed; it was coming back her way, but to the west of the house. She staggered a little and could not stand; she stepped away from the house in the direction of the pursuit; following the way it seemed to be going, she crossed the lawn toward the garage. A light suddenly shone out there, and she went on.
The wide door at the car driveway was pushed open, and some one was within working over a car. His back was toward her, and he was bent over the engine, but, at the glance, she knew him and recoiled, gasping. It was Eaton. He turned at the same instant and saw her.
"Oh; it's you!" he cried to her.
Her heart, which almost had ceased to beat, raced her pulses again. At the sound she had made on the driveway, he had turned to her as a hunted thing, cornered, desperate, certain that whoever came must be against him. His cry to her had recognized her as the only one who could come and not be against him; it had hailed her with relief as bringing him help. He could not have cried out so at that instant at sight of her if he had been guilty of what they had accused. Now she saw too, as he faced her, blood flowing over his face; blood soaked a shoulder of his coat, and his left arm dangling at his side; but now, as he threw back his head and straightened in his relief at finding it was she who had surprised him, she saw in him an exultation and excitement she had never seen before—something which her presence alone could not have caused. To-night, she sensed vaguely, something had happened to him which had changed his attitude toward her and everything else.
"Yes; it's I!" she cried quickly and rushed to him. "It's I! It's I!" wildly she reassured him. "You're hurt!" She touched his shoulder. "You're hurt! I knew you were!"
He pushed her back with his right hand and held her away from him. "Did they hurt your father?"
"Hurt Father? No."
"But Mr. Blatchford—"
"Dead," she answered dully.
"They killed him, then!"
"Yes; they—" She iterated. He was telling her now—unnecessarily—that he had had nothing to do with it; it was the others who had done that.
He released her and wiped the blood from his eyes with the heel of his hand. "The poor old man," he said, "—the poor old man!"
She drew toward him in the realization that he could find sympathy for others even in such a time as this.
"Where's the key?" he demanded of her. He stared over her again but without surprise even in his eyes, at her state; if she was there at all at that time, that was the only way she could have come.
"The key?"
"The key for the battery and magneto—the key you start the car with."
She ran to a shelf and brought it to him; he used it and pressed the starting lever. The engine started and he sprang to the seat. His left arm still hanging useless at his side; he tried to throw in the gears with his right hand; but the mechanism of the car was strange to him. She leaped up beside him.
"Move over!" she commanded. "It's this way!"
He slipped to the side and she took the driving seat, threw in the gears expertly, and the car shot from the garage. She switched on the electric headlights as they dashed down the driveway and threw a bright white glare upon the roadway a hundred yards ahead to the gates. Beyond the gates the public pike ran north and south.
"Which way?" she demanded of him, slowing the car.
"Stop!" he cried to her. "Stop and get out! You mustn't do this!"
"You could not pass alone," she said. "Father's men would close the gates upon you."
"The men? There are no men there now—they went to the beach—before! They must have heard something there! It was their being there that turned him—the others back. They tried for the lake and were turned back and got away in a machine; I followed—back up here!"
Harriet Santoine glanced at the face of the man beside her. She could see his features only vaguely; she could see no expression; only the position of his head. But now she knew that she was not helping him to run away; he was no longer hunted—at least he was not only hunted; he was hunting others too. As the car rolled down upon the open gates and she strained forward in the seat beside her, she knew that what he was feeling was a wild eagerness in this pursuit.
"Right or left—quick!" she demanded of him. "I'll take one or the other."
"Right," he shot out; but already, remembering the direction of the pursuit, she had chosen the road to the right and raced on. He caught the driving wheel with his good hand and tried to take it from her; she resisted and warned him:
"I'm going to drive this car; if you try to take it, it'll throw us both into the ditch."
"If we catch up with them, they'll shoot; give me the car," he begged.
"We'll catch up with them first."
"Then you'll do what I say?"
"Yes," she made the bargain.
"There are their tracks!" he pointed for her.
The road was soft with the rains that precede spring, and she saw in the bright flare of the headlights, where some heavy car, fast driven, had gouged deep into the earth at the roadside; she noted the pattern of the tires.
"How do you know those are their tracks?" she asked him.
"I told you, I followed them to where they got their machine."
"Who are they?"
"The men who shot Mr. Blatchford."
"Who are they?" she put to him directly again.
He waited, and she knew that he was not going to answer her directly. She was running the car now at very high speed; the tiny electric light above the speedometer showed they were running at forty-five miles an hour and the strip was still turning to higher figures.
Suddenly he caught her arm. The road had forked, and he pointed to the left; she swung the car that way, again seeing as they made the turn, the tire-tracks they were following. She was not able now to watch these tracks; she could watch only the road and car; but she was aware that the way they were following had led them into and out of private grounds. Plainly the men they were following knew the neighborhood well and had chosen this road in advance as avoiding the more public roads which might be watched. She noted they were turning always to the left; now she understood that they were making a great circle to west and north and returning toward, but well west of, her father's house; thus she knew that those they were following had made this circuit to confuse pursuit and that their objective was the great city to the south.
They were racing now over a little used road which bisected a forested section still held as acreage; old, rickety wooden bridges spanned the ravines. One of these appeared in the radiance of the headlight a hundred yards ahead; the next instant the car was dashing upon it. Harriet could feel the shake and tremble of the loosely nailed boards as the driving wheels struck; there was a crash as some strut, below, gave way; the old bridge bent but recoiled; the car bounded across it, the rear wheels skidding in the moist earth as they swung off the boards.
Harriet felt Eaton grab her arm.
"You mustn't do that again!"
"Why?"
"You mustn't do that again!" he repeated the order; it was too obvious to tell her it was not safe.
She laughed. Less than five minutes before, as she stood outside the room where her father's cousin had just been murdered, it had seemed she could never laugh again. The car raced up a little hill and now again was descending; the headlights showed another bridge over a ravine.
"Slow! Stop!" her companion commanded.
She paid no attention and raced the car on; he put his hand on the wheel and with his foot tried to push hers from the accelerator; but she fought him; the car swayed and all but ran away as they approached the bridge. "Give it to me!" she screamed to him and wrenched the car about. It was upon the bridge and across it; as they skidded upon the mud of the road again, they could hear the bridge cracking behind.
"Harriet!" he pleaded with her.
She steered the car on, recklessly, her heart thumping with more than the thrill of the chase. "They're the men who tried to kill you, aren't they?" she rejoined. The speed at which they were going did not permit her to look about; she had to keep her eyes on the road at that moment when she knew within herself and was telling the man beside her that she from that moment must be at one with him. For already she had said it; as she risked herself in the pursuit, she thought of the men they were after not chiefly as those who had killed her cousin but as those who had threatened Eaton. "What do I care what happens to me, if we catch them?" she cried.
"Harriet!" he repeated her name again.
"Philip!"
She felt him shrink and change as she called the name. It had been clear to her, of course, that, since she had known him, the name he had been using was not his own. Often she had wondered what his name was; now she had to know. "What should I call you?" she demanded of him.
"My name," he said, "is Hugh."
"Hugh!" she called it.
"Yes."
"Hugh—" She waited for the rest; but he told no more. "Hugh!" she whispered to herself again his name now. "Hugh!"
Her eyes, which had watched the road for the guiding of the car, had followed his gesture from time to time pointing out the tracks made by the machine they were pursuing. These tracks still ran on ahead; as she gazed down the road, a red glow beyond the bare trees was lighting the sky. A glance at Hugh told that he also had seen it.
"A fire?" she referred to him.
"Looks like it."
They said no more as they rushed on; but the red glow was spreading, and yellow flames soon were in sight shooting higher and higher; these were clouded off for an instant only to appear flaring higher again, and the breeze brought the smell of seasoned wood burning.
"It's right across the road!" Hugh announced as they neared it.
"It's the bridge over the next ravine," Harriet said. Her foot already was bearing upon the brake, and the power was shut off; the car coasted on slowly. For both could see now that the wooden span was blazing from end to end; it was old wood, swift to burn and going like tinder. There was no possible chance for the car to cross it. The girl brought the machine to a stop fifty feet from the edge of the ravine; the fire was so hot that the gasoline tank would not be safe nearer. She gazed down at the tire-marks on the road.
"They crossed with their machine," she said to Hugh.
"And fired the bridge behind. They must have poured gasoline over it and lighted it at both ends."
She sat with one hand still straining at the driving wheel, the other playing with the gear lever.
"There's no other way across that ravine, I suppose," Hugh questioned her.
"The other road's back more than a mile, and two miles about." She threw in the reverse and started to turn. Hugh shook his head. "That's no use."
"No," she agreed, and stopped the car again. Hugh stepped down on the ground. A man appeared on the other side of the ravine. He stood and stared at the burning span and, seeing the machine on the other side, he scrambled down the slope of the ravine. Eaton met him as he came up to the road again. The man was one of the artisans—a carpenter or jack-of-all-work—who had little cottages, with patches for garden, through the undivided acreage beyond the big estates. He had hastily and only partly dressed; he stared at Eaton's hurt with astonishment which increased as he gazed at the girl in the driving seat of the car. He did not recognize her except as one of the class to whom he owed employment; he pulled off his cap and stared back to Eaton with wonder.
"What's happened, sir? What's the matter?"
Eaton did not answer, but Harriet now recognized the man. "Mr. Blatchford was shot to-night at Father's house, Dibley," she said.
"Miss Santoine!" Dibley cried.
"We think the men went this way," she continued.
"Did you see any one pass?" Eaton challenged the man.
"In a motor, sir?"
"Yes; down this road in a motor."
"Yes, sir."
"When?"
"Just now, sir."
"Just now?"
"Not five minutes ago. Just before I saw the bridge on fire here."
"How was that?"
"I live there just beyond, near the road. I heard my pump going."
"Your pump?"
"Yes, sir. I've a pump in my front yard. There's no water piped through here, sir."
"Of course. Go on, Dibley."
"I looked out and saw a machine stopped out in the road. One man was pumping water into a bucket for another."
"Then what did you do?"
"Nothing, sir. I just watched them. Motor people often stop at my pump for water."
"I see. Go on."
"That's all about them, sir. I thought nothing about it—they wouldn't wake me to ask for water; they'd just take it. Then I saw the fire over there—"
"No; go back," Eaton interrupted. "First, how many men were there in the car?"
"How many? Three, sir."
Eaton started. "Only three; you're sure?"
"Yes, sir; I could see them plain. There was the two at the pump; one more stayed in the car."
Eaton seized the man in his intentness. "You're sure there weren't any more, Dibley? Think; be sure! There weren't three more or even one more person hidden in the tonneau of the car?"
"The tonneau, sir?"
"The back seats, I mean."
"No, sir; I could see into the car. It was almost right below me, sir. My house has a room above; that's where I was sleeping."
"Then did you watch the men with the water?"
"Watch them, sir?"
"What they did with it; you're sure they didn't take it to the rear seat to give it to some one there. You see, we think one of the men was hurt," Eaton explained.
"No, sir. I'd noticed if they did that."
"Then did they put it into the radiator—here in front where motorists use water?"
Dibley stared. "No, sir; I didn't think of it then, but they didn't. They didn't put it into the car. They took it in their bucket with them. It was one of those folding buckets motor people have."
Eaton gazed at the man. "Only three, you are sure!" he repeated. "And none of them seemed to be hurt!"
"No, sir."
"Then they went off in the other direction from the bridge?"
"Yes, sir. I didn't notice the bridge burning till after they went. So I came down here."
Eaton let the man go. Dibley looked again at the girl and moved away a little. She turned to Eaton.
"What does that mean?" she called to him. "How many should there have been in the machine? What did they want with the water?"
"Six!" Eaton told her. "There should have been six in the machine, and one, at least, badly hurt!"
Dibley stood dully apart, staring at one and then at the other and next to the flaming bridge. He looked down the road. "There's another car coming," he announced. "Two cars!"
The double glare from the headlights of a motor shone through the tree-trunks as the car topped and came swiftly down a rise three quarters of a mile away and around the last turn back on the road; another pair of blinding lights followed. There was no doubt that this must be the pursuit from Santoine's house. Eaton stood beside Harriet, who had stayed in the driving-seat of the car.
"You know Dibley well, Harriet?" he asked.
"He's worked on our place. He's dependable," she answered.
Eaton put his hand over hers which still clung to the driving wheel. "I'm going just beside the road here," he said to her, quietly. "I'm armed, of course. If those are your people, you'd better go back with them. I'm sure they are; but I'll wait and see."
She caught at his hand. "No; no!" she cried. "You must get as far away as you can before they come! I'm going back to meet and hold them." She threw the car into the reverse, backed and turned it and brought it again onto the road. He came beside her again, putting out his hand; she seized it. Her hands for an instant clung to it, his to hers.
"You must go—quick!" she urged; "but how am I to know what becomes of you—where you are? Shall I hear from you—shall I ever see you?"
"No news will be good news," he said, "until—"
"Until what?"
"Until—" And again that unknown something which a thousand times—it seemed to her—had checked his word and action toward her made him pause; but nothing could completely bar them from one another now. "Until they catch and destroy me, or—until I come to you as—as you have never known me yet!"
An instant more she clung to him. The double headlights flared into sight again upon the road, much nearer now and coming fast. She released him; he plunged into the bushes beside the road, and the damp, bare twigs lashed against one another at his passage; then she shot her car forward. But she had made only a few hundred yards when the first of the two cars met her. It turned to its right to pass, she turned the same way; the approaching car twisted to the left, she swung hers to oppose it. The two cars did not strike; they stopped, radiator to radiator, with rear wheels locked. The second car drew up behind the first. The glare of her headlights showed her both were full of armed men. Their headlights, revealing her to them, hushed suddenly their angry ejaculations. She recognized Avery in the first car; he leaped out and ran up to her.
"Harriet! In God's name, what are you doing here?"
She sat unmoved in her seat, gazing at him. Men leaping from the cars, ran past her down the road toward the ravine and the burning bridge. She longed to look once more in the direction in which Eaton had disappeared, but she did not. Avery reached up and over the side of the car and caught her arm, repeating his demand for an explanation. She could see, turning in her seat, the men who had run past surrounding Dibley on the road and questioning him. Avery, gaining no satisfaction from her, let go her arm; his hand dropped to the back of the seat and he drew it up quickly.
"Harriet, there's blood here!"
She did not reply. He stared at her and seemed to comprehend.
He shouted to the men around Dibley and ran toward them. They called in answer to his shout, and she could see Dibley pointing out to them the way Eaton had gone. The men, scattering themselves at intervals along the edge of the wood and, under Avery's direction, posting others in each direction to watch the road, began to beat through the bushes after Eaton. She sat watching; she put her cold hands to her face; then, recalling how just now Eaton's hand had clung to hers, she pressed them to her lips. Avery came running back to her.
"You drove him out here, Harriet!" he charged. "Dibley says so."
"Him? Who?" she asked coolly.
"Eaton. Dibley did not know him, but describes him. It can have been no one else. He was hurt!" The triumph in the ejaculation made her recoil. "He was hurt and could not drive, and you drove him out"—his tone changed suddenly—"like this!"
For the first time since she had left the garage she was suddenly conscious that she was in her night-dress with only a robe and slippers. She drew the robe quickly about her, shrinking and staring at him. In all the miles she had driven that night with Eaton at her side, she never a moment had shrunk from her companion or thought how she was dressed. It was not the exaltation and excitement of what she was doing that had prevented her; it went deeper than that; it was the attitude of her companion toward her. But Avery had thought of it, and made her think of it, at once, even in the excitement under which he was laboring.
He left her again, running after the men into the woods. She sat in the car, listening to the sounds of the hunt. She could see, back of her, in the light of the burning bridge, one of the armed men standing to watch the road; ahead of her, but almost indistinguishable in the darkness, was another. The noise of the hunt had moved further into the woods; she had no immediate fear that they would find Eaton; her present anxiety was over his condition from his hurts and what might happen if he encountered those he had been pursuing. In that neighborhood, with its woods and bushes and ravines to furnish cover, the darkness made discovery of him by Avery and his men impossible if Eaton wished to hide himself. Avery appeared to have realized this; for now the voices in the woods ceased and the men began to straggle back toward the cars. A party was sent on foot across the ravine, evidently to guard the road beyond. The rest began to clamber into the cars. She backed her car away from the one in front of it and started home.
She had gone only a short distance when the cars again passed her, traveling at high speed. She began then to pass individual men left by those in the cars to watch the road. At the first large house she saw one of the cars again, standing empty. She passed it without stopping. A mile farther, a little group of men carrying guns stopped her, recognized her and let her pass. They had been called out, they told her, by Mr. Avery over the telephone to watch the roads for Eaton; they had Eaton's description; members of the local police were to take charge of them and direct them. She comprehended that Avery was surrounding the vacant acreage where Eaton had taken refuge to be certain that Eaton did not get away until daylight came and a search for him was possible.
Lights gleamed at her across the broad lawns of the houses near her father's great house as she approached it; at the sound of her car, people came to the windows and looked out. She understood that news of the murder at Basil Santoine's had aroused the neighbors and brought them from their beds.
As she left her motor on the drive beside the house—for to-night no one came from the garages to take it—the little clock upon its dash marked half past two.