"STAY WHERE YOU ARE," HE COMMANDED
"STAY WHERE YOU ARE," HE COMMANDED
"Her method is fairly established. In a few minutes, I will permit you to see the trap between the ceiling of that cabinet room there and the floor of the room above. The trap is hollow; in it, for safety, she keeps those phosphorescent robes"—he nodded toward the white heap on the floor—"all her cabinet paraphernalia, and the notes on such as you. Full information on your love affair with Helen Whitton has been in that trap for weeks." Then, seeing how raw was the nerve which he had touched in the old man, he added:
"I beg your pardon again, sir; but I must speak of this. Mme. Le Grange there—my agent in this house—is an expert on such matters. She informs me that those notes are the work of a private detective—that the information comes from an old aunt of Helen Whitton who must have been her confidante. Do you see now what happened? Every night of a seance, Mrs. Markham has prepared for you by sending this girl to bed early—by sitting beside her and putting her to sleep. That is what Miss Markham, in her innocence, calls it. Itissleep—the hypnotic sleep. Miss Markham is in bad condition. Her nerves are those of the overworked hypnotic horse. Mrs. Markham has used that as a pretext for putting her to bed early. Shall I particularize? Do I need to go on?"
"Oh, pray do! You are very interesting!" spoke Mrs. Markham from the piano stool.
"I will—since you wish it," returned Blake with an equal sarcastic courtesy. "When sleep was established, Mrs. Markham made her rise and dress herself in those phosphorescent robes"—he pointed to the gauzy heap on the floor—"put her back on the couch, and gave her directions. She was to rise at a signal—you know it—'Wild roamed an Indian maid.' Must I tell you any more?" he burst out. "Do you know that three nights ago I looked into her sitting-room above that trap and saw her—saw her go down to you—heard what she said to you!"
Annette was gasping and moaning.
"Oh, did I do that?" she said.
"No, sweet,shedid it," he said. He turned to Rosalie. "Take this revolver and keep order for me. Annette ought not to stand any longer." Still keeping her head on his shoulder, he seated her beside him on a couch. "She has never heard this before, Mr. Norcross, and you must know what a shock she is suffering. This is a desperate case, and it required a desperate remedy. That accounts for this drama to-night. Mme. Le Grange there is housekeeper of this place, and my agent. Putting her in this house was part of the remedy. Fifteen minutes ago, she and I entered the room where Miss Markham lay in hypnotic trance, waiting to go down to you. I supplemented Mrs. Markham's suggestion by a command of my own—you know what it was. I took a risk. One never knows whether a hypnotic subject—even such a perfect one as this—will obey a supplementary suggestion. Had it failed, had she started back toward the ladder, I should have turned on the lights and seized the spook in the vulgar manner, and Mrs. Markham would have had the thousand excuses which a professional medium can give in such circumstances. But Annette obeyed—she even woke on my command before she had fulfilled the whole of Mrs. Markham's suggestion—because we love each other. That made the difference." He drew Annette's head closer on his shoulder. "I'm going to take her away to-night. She's done with all this." He turned to Mrs. Markham. Her hand still rested on the keyboard. Her face was pale, but her lips wore a sneering smile. "It is your turn, Madame," he said.
"I lose gracefully," answered Mrs. Markham, "yet if Mr. Norcross will think very carefully, he may realize that I am not all a loser."
Rosalie crossed the room to Dr. Blake. "Here, you take this thing," she said, extending the revolver, "it makes me nervous, an' I told you at the start there wasn't no use of it."
And now, something had clicked in Norcross again. His mouth had closed like a vise, light had come back to his eyes; he was again the Norcross of the street.
"You're a devil," he said, "but you're a marvelously clever woman—"
"So clever," responded Mrs. Markham in dulcet tones, "that I intend never to worry about finances again—by your leave, Mr. Norcross."
"That means blackmail, I suppose," said Norcross.
"Now, Mr. Norcross, I beg of you," protested Mrs. Markham, "I haveneverused harsh names for unpleasant truths with you! Do me the same courtesy. You will agree, I think, that the Norcross interests would suffer if people knew that Robert H. Norcross was running to spirit mediums—my business is little appreciated. The newspapers, Mr. Norcross—"
"Would any newspaper believe you?" asked Norcross.
"An admirable method," responded Mrs. Markham, "an admirable method of getting these people before the public as witnesses"—her gesture indicated Dr. Blake and Rosalie—"would be to sue for custody of my niece, whom this young man intends, I believe, to take away tonight. Certain unusual features of this case would charm the newspapers."
Rosalie shook Blake's shoulder.
"Doctor!" she cried, "can't you see what she's aiming at? She's trying to drag us into her blackmailing. She's tryin' to make this look like a plant." She whirled on Norcross.
"Listen, Mr. Norcross. I'll tell you what this was done for! Do you know a youngish lookin' man, smooth-shaven, neat dresser, gray eyes, about forty-five, got something to do with Wall Street, wears one of them little twisted-up red and white society buttons in his buttonhole, has a trick of holding his chin between his fingers—so—when he's thinkin'? Becausehestarted it. He's the nigger in your woodpile. He came here a week before you ever saw Mrs. Markham, bringin' the notes about Helen Whitton—the dope that she's been feedin' you. If you'll put that together with what the spirit—she—Miss Markham, told you tonight about declarin' dividends—"
"Mrs. Granger," interrupted Mrs. Markham, "you are a shrewd woman, but you carry your deductions a little far—"
"Deductions, your grandmother!" retorted Rosalie Le Grange, "To think how close you come to foolin' evenmethat's played this game, girl and woman, for twenty-five years! If I hadn't caught you so anxious to stop that little girl from seein' that you kept Practical Methods of Hypnotism' hid behind the bookcase, I'd have gone away from here believin' that she was deep in the mud as you was in the mire. You certainly sprung a new one on me!"
The eyes of Norcross lighted, as though with a new idea, and he broke abruptly into this feminine exchange:
"I do not believe that this is a plant. Mrs. Markham, shall we bargain?"
"I like the life in London," said Mrs. Markham. "I have been waiting to retire."
"Twenty-five thousand dollars?"
"Oh dear, no! Fifty."
Norcross drew a check book, flipped it on his knee. Mrs. Markham raised a protesting hand.
"Yes, you will—you'll take it in a check or not at all," he said. "I want this transaction recorded. I'll tell you why. It is worth just that to keep this story out of the papers. I was caught, and I pay. It is worth no more. I will give you this check to-night. You will cash it in the morning. I shall have the cancelled check as a voucher. If ever you ask me for a dollar more, you go to State's Prison for extortion—on the testimony of these three witnesses. My legal department is the best in the country. In short, it is worth fifty thousand dollars to me. It is not worth fifty thousand and one. Also, you sail to London within a week. Does that go?"
Mrs. Markham drummed a minute with her fingers, and her face went a shade paler.
"It does," she said in a low voice.
Blake bent over Annette.
"Do you hear that?" he asked. "Do you know what it means? It is called blackmail!"
"Oh, Aunt Paula, Aunt Paula!" whispered Annette. Her face settled closer on Blake's shoulder, and she burst into a torrent of weeping.
Rosalie tiptoed to the desk, bringing pen and ink, which she laid on the table beside Norcross. It was quite evident that one of their number was by this time enjoying the situation.
"Keep everybody here for three minutes—I'll be back," she said to Blake, and floated out of the door.
As Norcross handed over the check, Dr. Blake spoke:
"I am taking Miss Markham away. She is not to see this woman again—taking her to my aunt's house. I, too, want a witness. If I have done anything for you to-night, will you return it by setting us down in your automobile?"
"Certainly," responded Norcross. "I suppose I ought to thank you—but I've got to think this thing out." He scrutinized Blake closely. "How about you and the papers—I hadn't thought of you—"
Blake, still dropping soft love pats on Annette's hair and shoulders, looked into the eyes of the railroad king.
"I have earned that opinion, I suppose," he said. "I can't say that I feel myself greatly superior to—to anyone here—tonight. But I've done what I started to do. My name is Blake, Mr. Norcross—Dr. Walter H. Blake—lately army surgeon in the Philippines, if you take my profession as a voucher. My father was Rear-Admiral Blake, if family will help establish me. Or, better, I intend to marry this girl as soon as the license clerk will let me—and it isn't likely that I'll make public anything that involves my wife and her people. Does that satisfy you?"
Norcross ran his eye across them. It rested a moment upon Annette; and a ghost of that late emotion, of which she had been the instrument, flashed across his face.
"I guess I'm satisfied," he said.
Now Rosalie, in hat and wraps, stood at the door carrying her suit case.
"Sorry to leave without notice, Mrs. Markham," she said, "but you remember I haven't drawn no pay as housekeeper for doin' you up. I guess we'd all better be goin'. Here's your hat, Dr. Blake, and a fur coat and boots for Miss Markham."
Paula Markham, twirling the fifty thousand dollar check idly in her fingers, rose from the piano stool.
"I wish you to listen, Dr. Blake," she said, "although you may not believe it, I am really fond of Annette. The temptation to use her became too strong. Believe me, I have intended for some time to stop it. I had stopped it in fact, when this big fish came to my net. You have seen, no more keenly than I, how hard it was on her nerves. Take her away and give her a good time—she needs it. Indeed, had you come into her life a little later, I should have welcomed you—for after I found that she had no clairvoyance in her, I wanted her to be happy."
"You had an admirable way of showing it," responded Dr. Blake. "What about putting aside earthly love for strength?"
"It kept off the undesirables," said Mrs. Markham, "and just then—with this large order in hand—you were an undesirable. I shall not ask you to let me see her for the present—indeed, I am going away—but years from now, when you and she have softened—"
"When her will is built up—perhaps."
"May I kiss her?" For the first time in his experience of her, Blake traced a note of feminine softness in Mrs. Markham's tones.
Blake took the back of the little head firmly in his hand, pressed the face tightly on his shoulder.
"Her cheek—yes. You must not look into her eyes."
As Mrs. Markham lifted her face from Annette's cheek, the tears showed under her lids.
"But, oh, Annette," she whispered, "I ask you to believe that I am real—that once I was all real—but I fell like the rest."
For the first time Annette spoke coherently.
"Oh, Aunt Paula—it breaks my heart—but I will try to remember only how kind you were."
And now Rosalie had wrapped her for the street; and now the door closed between Mrs. Markham and her biggest operation.
Rosalie was first to quit the automobile—she had asked Norcross to drive her to a woman's hotel.
"Good-night, people," she said cheerily at the curb, "I hope it ain't good-by to any of you. Doctor, I'd like to be invited to the weddin', however private—that's my tip. When I git settled again, I'll send you my card an' address. Good-night, Mr. Norcross, I'm real pleased to have met you. I had a cousin who was a conductor on one of your roads an' he always spoke nicely of the way he was treated. An', oh, yes! Don't you worry aboutmegivin' any of this away. I'm a medium, all right, but I ain't in that kind of work. I ain't recommendin' myself, of course, Mr. Norcross, but if you git over this—they generally do—an' want some good, straight clairvoyant work done, write Mme. Rosalie Le Grange, care theSpirit Truth Bulletin, an' I'll recommend you to them that are strangers to graft. Good-night."
After they drove on, Blake, brazenly patting and caressing Annette toward calm and a right mind, furtively noticed Norcross as the bands of city light flashed his figure into view. He was huddled in a corner of the cushioned seat; he looked again the pitiful, broken, disappointed old man. But when he parted from the lovers at the curb of an old house in Lexington Avenue, his voice came out of him with certainty and ring.
"If I can do anything more for you in this matter, I am at your service," Blake had said.
"I will attend to the rest myself, thank you!" answered Norcross.
"It has occurred to me," continued Blake, "that Mrs. Markham will communicate at once with whatever confederates she had in this business. I hope you don't mind my mentioning it."
"Probably," responded Norcross, "she's at the telephone now. That's my part of it. Good-night."
MAINLY FROM THE PAPERS
(From the Wall StreetSun, Oct. 21, 190—)
Whatever motive impelled Robert H. Norcross to his mysterious operations in L.D. and M. during the past two days, it looks rather like stock manipulation than the larger financing which has hitherto marked his career. When, on Wednesday, the directors of the L.D. and M. adjourned without declaring a dividend, that stock, which had advanced somewhat owing to the speculative trading of the past three weeks, fell from 56 to 50, and closed weak at 49¼. Directly after the close of the exchange, Norcross, as though by program, reconvened the directors, who declared a dividend of one and one-half per cent. The news was about by the time the market opened yesterday, and L.D. and M. made the record jump of the year, going to 76 and closing strong at 75½. It scarcely went below that point to-day, and at two o'clock touched its highest notch—76¾. Considerable criticism of Norcross was heard on the street to-day.
(From the Wall StreetSun, Oct. 24, 190—)
BROKERAGE FIRM ASSIGNS
The firm of Bulger and Watson, promoters and Stock Exchange operators, made an assignment this morning. Liabilities $276,125; assets $81,300. This failure followed the collapse of the Mongolia Copper Mine in Montana, news of which reached New York last Saturday. Bulger and Watson were heavily interested in that property. An unusual feature of this failure, according to those on the inside, was the action of Arthur Bulger, senior member of the firm, in the L.D. and M. flurry of last Wednesday and Thursday. Bulger, it is said by those who know his affairs best, had speculated heavily in L.D. and M., playing for a rise. On the eve of the fluky directors' meeting of last Wednesday—which, it will be remembered, adjourned without action only to reconvene after market hours and declare a dividend—Bulger began through his brokers to unload. It is believed that he was acting upon some advance inside information of the directors' action. He was sold clean out of this stock when the market closed Wednesday afternoon. Had he held on, the firm would doubtless have been able to survive the Mongolia crash, for L.D. and M., following the unexpected action of the directors in declaring a dividend, jumped on Thursday from 50 to the neighborhood of 75. The failure will involve no other firms, it is thought.
As the curve of Sandy Hook blotted from sight the last, low glimpse of the skyscrapers which point Manhattan, Blake touched Annette's arm. She turned from her reveries; the distance faded from her eyes.
"It's the end of a life for you—that," he said. "We don't see New York again for two years. We're going back over the girlhood you never had—you're going to dance and motor and walk—yes and coquette, too—or as much as you care to with me as a husband. For two years, you're just going to play!"
Then, noticing the expression of the dog who beholds his master with which her sapphirine eyes regarded him, he dropped his hand on hers.
"But most of all, dearest," he added, "you're going to do what you want to do! Not what I or any one else commands, but just as your own sweet will dictates—Light of me!"
THE END