ICAME to my senses. I looked up slowly.
The thing was gone. I put out the light and fled like a hunted creature to my room. There I locked myself in and dropped down on my knees beside my bed.
At first it was entirely a battle with fear that kept me, rigid and silent, on my knees. I knew that unless I overcame the extremity of my nervous terror, I should lose my mind. If I went out of my room at all, it would be to go raving and shrieking down the hall and to alarm the house. Self-control was possible only if I should stay here and conquer the evil spirit of “The Pines”—conquer its effect upon my own steadiness and self-respect. I would not repeat the grotesque tragi-comedy of Jane and Delia and Annie, and present myself, gasping and wild-eyed, to Mrs. Brane demanding my dismissal on the spot. Neither would I be like the other three housekeepers. Even in that moment of prostration I am glad to say that I was not utterly a victim; the demon that had possessed the house had to a certain extent already met its match in me.
Of course, during those first hours, I did entertain the belief that I was possessed by a denizen from another world who had come to this house to terrify and to kill and had borrowed my astral body for its clothing—a horrid idea enough and not unnatural under the circumstances. If I remember rightly I decided that if the awful figure came again or if any other tragedy should happen at “The Pines” I should kill myself. Fortunately my reason, though badly shaken, did at least reassert itself. After all, I am not a natural believer in ghosts. The supernatural has never greatly interested or impressed me. It is not so much-that I am skeptical as that I am pragmatic—that is, I have to discern some use or meaning in spiritual experiences. It is this turn of mind, inherited, I think, from my French father, that saved me now. Very gradually, as I knelt there in that God-given attitude of prayer, an attitude whose subjective benefit to the human race no one will ever be able to measure, an attitude which, in its humility, in its resignation, in its shutting out of this world's light, so opens the inner eyes of the soul—as I knelt there, my mood began to change from one of insane superstition and fear to one of quiet and most determined thought.
In fact, my reason reasserted itself and powerfully. One by one, all the alarming incidents began to link themselves together, to suggest a plan, a logical whole. It was as though, with my eyes shut and hidden in my hands, I saw for the first time.
Three housekeepers, one after the other, had been frightened away from “The Pines.” The old servants of the house had been forced, also by supernatural fears, to leave. A most determined attempt had been made against Robbie's nerves and Mary's courage. And now, at the climax of the crescendo—for then it seemed to me, God forgive me! that my experience had been worse than Robbie's death—I, the fourth housekeeper, was being terrified almost out of my wits. All these things pointed to one conclusion. It was somebody's interest to isolate little Mrs. Brane. It was especially somebody's interest to frighten every one away from the northern wing. Somewhere in this house, and presumably in this part of the house, there was something enormously valuable, something to tempt evil spirits clad in substantial flesh and blood, as substantial, for instance, as that of the bolster-like figure of the Baron. And the leader of this enterprise, the master-spirit, was a hell-cat with red-gold hair and a face like my own.
This was a horrid thought in itself and almost an incredible one, but it was, at least, not supernatural. The creature that had seemed to rise up on the threshold of the bookroom was a living being, a woman of flesh and blood. I repeated this over and over to myself. I felt that I must possess my mind perfectly of this fact and lay hold of it so that no future manifestations might so nearly drive me to distraction as the manifestation of to-night. She was a real woman, a female criminal, wily and brave and very cunning. She had deliberately made use of this extraordinary chance resemblance, had artfully heightened it, had copied my habitual costume, for excellent reasons of her own. It was probably entirely by her agency that I had been brought to “The Pines.” With a blinding realization of my own stupidity I remembered the suspicious fashion in which I had learned of the position—a slip of paper handed to me on the street! I had been chosen deliberately, for my resemblance, by this thief for a double purpose of mystification and of diverting suspicion. What more convenient for a night-prowler than to possess a double in some authorized inmate of the house? Night-prowler?—why, she might walk up and down the house in broad daylight, and, providing only that she was careful not to be seen simultaneously with me, nor at too close intervals of time at an unreasonable distance from my known whereabouts, she might stand at Mrs. Brane's elbow or flit past Mary down the stairs or go through the kitchen under Sara Lorrence's very nose.
More light here broke upon me so brilliantly that it brought me to my feet. I began walking up and down the room in a fever of excited thought. I knew now why Henry Lorrence and the woman who called herself his wife, cringed when they met my eye, whitened at my lightest reproof, and, at the same time, could barely repress that leer of evil understanding. They, too, had been brought to “The Pines.” They were members of the gang of which my double was the leader. Only—and this cleared up a whole fog of mystery—they did not know the secret of the dual personality. They thought that the criminal and the housekeeper were one and the same person under a different make-up. They were evidently under strict orders not to betray, even by a word or look, even when there was no one by, their knowledge of collusion with Mrs. Brane's reputed housekeeper; but Sara had made a bad slip. She had spoken of “instruction” and she had said that she had not expected to see me come out of the kitchen closet in the daytime.
My God! What danger we were all in! While we shivered and shook over ghosts and nightmares, light footsteps in the wall and draughts of cold air going by, a dangerous gang of thieves had actually taken up its abode with us; one of them was hiding somewhere in the old house, the others served us, walked about amongst us, took our orders, spoke to us discreetly with soft voices and hypocritical, lowered eyes. We were entirely at their mercy and the only suspecting person in the house, Paul Dabney, suspectedme. Undoubtedly he, too, had explained to his own satisfaction the mystery of “The Pines,” andhisexplanation was—Janice Gale. He knew nothing about me, but he did—he must—know something about Mrs. Brane's mysterious fortune. Bobbie's nightmares, the strand of hair about his little fingers, were evidence enough against my innocence. I might be a sleep-walker,—he could not prove that I was not,—but in his heart he believed me to be a sleep-walker with a purpose. He was watching me, playing amateur detective in the house. He had constituted himself a guardian of Mrs. Brane. Perhaps he was in love with her.
You see, this is not only the history of the Pine Cone mystery. It is the history of my love for Paul Dabney. This must be understood, for it explains my actions. The part I managed to play, which it astounds me even now to think that I was able to play, would barely have been possible without the goad of my bitterness and pain and anger. I would have gone at once to Paul Dabney and have told him everything I knew and let him call in outside help. But, ever since he had held me by the wrist and, in spite of his very apparent mental abhorrence for me, had taken me into his arms, my pride was up. I would fight this thing through alone. I would make no appeal to him, rather I would save the household myself, and when I had exposed the real criminal and shamed Paul Dabney's cruelty to a lonely girl and humbled him in his conceit, I would go away and begin life again as far as possible from him.
This resolution utterly possessed me. Under its spur I began to think with great lucidity. I suppose it was then, at about four o'clock on that November morning, with the quiet house sleeping around me and the quiet world outside just faintly turning gray with dawn, that I began to see the weapon which lay within my grasp. It was a matter of turning the situation upside down. In fact, if we did that more often with our mental tangles, if suddenly in the midst of a train of thought we made avolte-face, and from looking at things from our own obvious viewpoint, we suddenly chose a right angle for contemplation, I am sure there would be many illuminations similar to mine that night. But I did not make anyvolte-facedeliberately. It was a sort of accident. Quite suddenly I saw the situation as though I were a criminal myself, a criminal or a sleuth, the mental attitude must be in some respects the same. What advantage did this fantastic resemblance give the woman downstairs that it did not also give me?
Now you have it, the whole astounding situation. You see what decision I was coming to. I would deliberately play out the dangerous game. For the woman's benefit I would pretend that I believed the apparition to be ghostlike, dreamlike, the fabrication of my own feverish mind, but to Sara and Henry and any other Barons that might visit us, I would play my vixen as skilfully, as informingly as Heaven and my own wits and courage would let me. I would discover the whereabouts of Mrs. Brane's fortune, I would save it for her, and I would trap the thieves. That was my resolve, the fruit of my night's vigil. Having made it, I undressed myself and went to bed. I fell asleep at once like an overwearied child.
IWAS surprised to find, when I examined myself in the glass next morning, that I did not look like a person that has seen a ghost. I had rather more color than usual and my eyes were bright; also the fact that I had controlled and overcome my nerves seemed to have acted like a tonic to my whole system. In some mysterious way I had tapped a whole reservoir of nervous strength and resilience. The same thing often happens physically: one is tired to the very point of exhaustion, one goes on, there is a renewal of strength, the effort that seems about to crack the muscles suddenly lightens, becomes almost easy again. I suppose the nervous system is subject to the same rules. At any rate, in my case, the explanation works.
Without any exaggerated horror I dressed again in my Quaker costume and I went down to breakfast. There must have been something in my face, however, for Mrs. Brane, after we had had our coffee, began to look at me rather searchingly, and at last she said, “You are getting very thin, Janice, do you know that?”
“I had n't noticed it. Perhaps.”
“Not perhaps at all. Certainly. Your gown is beginning to hang on you and your face is just a wedge between all that hair. You look a little feverish too. Suppose you try to take a little more exercise and fresh air. After all, keeping house at 'The Pines' does not demand so much strenuous desk work, does it? And now that Paul Dabney is away, you can neglect that endless library work.”
“Has he gone for good?” I asked, as lightly as possible, though my heart fell.
“No, my dear. You will still be able to torment him with your proud 'Maisie' looks and ways. He is coming back this evening on the afternoon train. He'll be late for tea, but we'll wait for him, shall we? He did n't want to be met, said he would walk up. I think he dreads that long, poky ride with old George nursing old Gregory through the sand. When you're a young man who flies about the country in a motor, 'The Pines' vehicle must be an instrument of torture. Janice, suppose you put on your cloak and hat and come out with me for a nice long walk. It would do us both good, I have n't had any heart for exercise. There seems to be nothing to live for now—but Dr. Haverstock—”
“You think Dr. Haverstock something to live for?” I asked, rather puzzled.
She laughed a little and blushed a great deal. “Mercy, no! I meant to say, 'But Dr. Haverstock has told me that I must take more exercise'—I don't know why I stopped that way—absent-mindedness. I was looking through the window at one of those men.”
“Do you think they are very useful members of society, Mrs. Brane? They seem to do very little work.”
She gave me an odd, half-amused, half-embarrassed look.
“They think they are useful, poor fellows! They are my pet charity.”
“Oh,” said I blankly. I was not sure whether she was joking or not.
“Come on, Janice. Don't worry your head over my extravagances. Your duty is just to be a nice, cheerful, young companion for me. It's a help to me to see that fiery gold head of yours moving about this musty old house. Don't wear your hat. It's not cold, and I love to see the sun on your hair.”
I tried to suppress my little shiver, but couldn't. She interpreted it very naturally, however. “Oh, it is n't a bit cold, not a bit.”
So we went out into the mild, soft day, and I went without my hat for the sake of letting her see the sun on my hair. As we walked down the ill-weeded drive on which the labors of the two men had made little or no impression, I wondered if narrow, green eyes under a mass of just such hair were watching us from some secret post of observation. I thought that I could feel them boring into my back. I could not restrain a backward look. The old house stood quietly, its long windows blank except for an upper one, out of which Sara was shaking a pillow. I wondered why she should be working in the nursery, but I did n't like to draw Mrs. Brane's attention to the fact.
To my surprise Mrs. Brane was a very energetic walker. She stepped along briskly on her tiny feet, and a faint color came into her poor, wistful face.
“I should be a different person, Janice,” she sighed, “if I could get away from this place and live in some more bracing climate, or some more cheerful country. How lovely Paris would be!”
She laughed her hollow, little laugh.
“My husband lived in Paris for a long time. Before that he was in Russia. He knew a great deal of Russian, even dialects. He was a great traveler. I met him at Aix-les-Bains. He was taking the baths, and so was I. We were both invalids, and I suppose it was a sort of bond. But invalids should not be allowed to marry. Of course, we had no serious disease; it was rheumatism with him, and nervous prostration with me. I wonder if there is n't such a thing as a nerve-germ, Janice.”
“I wondered,” absently. I was busy with my own thoughts, and she was a great chatterer.
“I think old houses get saturated with nerve-germs, truly I do. That's the real explanation of ghosts. I am sure rooms are haunted by the sorrows and mournful preoccupations of the people that die in them. I am not very superstitious, and I am so glad that you are n't. I trembled for you. You see those other housekeepers—”
“Do tell me about the other housekeepers,” I begged, “especially the one just before me. What was she like?”
“Oh, a little, fat thing, white as wax, very bustling, but with no real ability. She stayed with me for some time, though, and I was beginning to think that—you know, Janice, I owe you an apology.”
“Why, dear Mrs. Brane?”
“Because I never told you about those three housekeepers and their alarms. It was rather shabby of me not to warn you. But, you see, I did n't want to suggest fears to you. I hope I won't suggest them now. But all my other housekeepers have been haunted.”
“Haunted?” I asked with as much surprise as I could assume.
“Yes; the first heard a voice in the wall, and the second knew that some one was in her room at night. The third was so badly frightened that she would n't tell me what happened at all.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don't know. She went away leaving me no address, and I've never heard a word of her since. At first I thought she might have made away with something, some money or jewelry, but I have never missed anything.”
“Mrs. Brane,” I asked hesitatingly, “what is your explanation of these apparitions, of the things that alarmed the housekeepers, of the things that frightened Delia and Annie and Jane?”
As we talked, we had been coming down the long hill on top of which stood “The Pines,” and now were beginning to go towards that swamp, with its black, smothered stream, across which George had driven me on the day of my arrival. I did not like the direction of our walk; I did not like the swamp nor my memory of the oily-looking stream under the twisted, sprawling trees, draped with Spanish moss. But I supposed it was Mrs. Brane's business, and not mine. Besides, I was now interested in what she was saying.
She listened to my question, and seemed to ponder her reply rather doubtfully. At last she made up her mind to some measure of frankness.
“Of course, I have a sort of explanation of my own for their leaving,” she said; “rather a suspicion than an explanation. But, Janice,” she looked about her, drew closer and spoke very low, “if I tell you this suspicion you must promise to keep it very strictly to yourself. I am going against orders in speaking of it at all. And against my own resolution, too. But I feel as if I must have a confidante, and I do think that you are a person to be trusted.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brane,” I said half-tearfully, “indeed, indeed I am. You will not be sorry if you tell me everything, everything that has to do with these queer happenings at 'The Pines.'”
We came down the sandy slope to the bridge and on it we paused, leaning against the rail and looking far down at the sluggish, gray water. The black roots of the trees crawled down into it like snakes from the banks. It was the stillest, deadliest-looking water I have ever seen.
“Just underneath this bridge there is a quicksand,” said Mrs. Brane; “a mule was lost here two years ago, and a poor, half-witted negress killed herself by letting herself drop down from the bridge. Was n't it a dreadful death to choose—slow and suffocating? Ugh!”
“I hate this place,” I said half angrily; “why do we stay here? Let's go and do our talking somewhere else.”
“I have a fancy to tell you here,” she half laughed. The laugh ended in a little shriek. “Janice! There's some one under the bridge!”
I clutched the rail and leaned forward, though God knows, I was in no mind for horrid sights. This was neither horrid nor ghostly, however; no drowned negress haunting the scene of her death. The discreet, bewhiskered face of Henry Lorrence looked respectfully up at us. He was squatting on the bank of the stream under the shadow of the bridge, his coat lay beside him, and he was busy with some tools.
“What are you doing, Henry?” asked Mrs. Brane in rather a shrill voice. She had been startled.
“Mendin' up the bridge, ma'am,” said Henry thickly, for his mouth was full of rusty-looking nails. “There's a couple of weak planks here, ma'am, that I noticed the other afternoon, and they seemed to me dangerous to life and limb over this here stream at such a height. If a person fell through, ma'am, there would n't be much chance for him, would there?”
“I should think not. You're quite right.”
“Better wait till I've got it fixed before you goes acrost, ma'am. It will be a matter of a few hours, and I ain't sure't will be safe then. The whole bridge should be rebuilt.”
“We'll stay on this side,” said Mrs. Brane; “we can go back and walk along the ridge. I don't think the air is particularly healthy down in this swamp, anyway, even at this time of the year. We won't be back this way, Henry. Make a good job of it.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Henry, with one of his servile, thin-lipped smiles, “I mean to make a regular good job.”
He began to hammer away vigorously. He had quite an assortment of tools, a saw and an axe and some planks. It really looked as if he were going to make a thorough good job of it, and I hoped he would. A fall through the bridge into that thick, gray, turbid water with its faint odor of rottenness—it was not a pleasant thought. And even a very loud crying for help would not reach “The Pines.” There was no nearer place, and the road led only to us. Not a nice spot for an accident at all!
Mrs. Brane and I hastened back to the higher ground, where we found a path, soft with pine needles, where the sunlight sifted through wide branches to the red-brown, hushed earth.
“You see,” she said, “there is no safe place for confidence. If I had not happened to see Henry at just that instant, he would have heard my suspicions, and Heaven knows what effect they might have had on his dull, honest, old mind!”
An honest, old mind, indeed!—if my own suspicions were correct. I wondered if the whiskers were false. Henry was really too perfect an image of the reliable old family servant. He might have been copied from a book.
“Well, here we can look about us, at any rate,” I said; “there's no place for eavesdroppers to hide in.”
“After all, there is n't so much to tell. If I knew more, why, then, there would be no mystery, and I should be safely away from 'The Pines.' You see, I suspect that there has been an attempt at burglary which has failed.”
“An attempt at burglary? Oh, Mrs. Brane!” This was almost as perfect an imitation of the stereotyped exclamation of perfect ignorance as Henry's get-up was of the English house-servant. I blushed at it, but Mrs. Brane did not notice.
“My husband died of paralysis, a sudden stroke. He could not speak. And that is why I have never been able to leave 'The Pines.'”
“I don't understand,” said I, honestly this time.
“Of course you don't. You see, there were secrets in my husband's life. He had an adventurous past. I fear he was very wild.” She sighed, but I could see that his wildness was a pleasure to her. She was one of those foolish women to whose sheltered virtue the fancy picture of daring vice appeals very strongly. I was far wiser than she. There were some sordid memories in my life.
“When he married me, he was a man of quite forty-five, and he reformed completely. I think he had had a shock, a fright of some kind which served as a warning. Sometimes I fancied that he lived under a dread of trouble. Certainly, he was very watchful and secret in his ways, and, from being such a globe-trotter, he became the veriest stick-at-home. He never left 'The Pines,' winter or summer, though he would send Robbie and me away,”—she gave the pitiful, little sigh that came always now with Robbie's name. “He was not at all rich, though we were sufficiently comfortable on my small fortune. But at times he talked like a very wealthy man. He made plans, he was very strange about it. At last, towards the end of his life he began to drop hints. He would tell me that some day Robbie would be rich beyond dreams; that, if he died, I would be left provided for like a queen. He said, always very fearfully, very stealthily, that he had left everything to me, everything—and of course I thought I knew that he had very little to leave. He said that I must be braver than he had been. 'With a little caution, Edna, a very little caution, you can reap the fruits of it all.' Of course I questioned him, but he teased me and pretended that he had been talking nonsense. He made his will, though, at about this time, and left me everything he had, everything, and he underlined the 'everything.' One night we were sitting at dinner. He had been perfectly well all day, but he had taken a ride in the sun and complained of a slight headache. We had wine for dinner. I've never been able to touch a drop since—is n't it odd? Suddenly, while he was talking, he put his hand to his head. 61 feel queer,' he said, and his voice was thick. He grabbed the arms of his chair, and fixed his eyes upon me. 'Perhaps I had better tell you now, Edna,' the words were all heavy and blurred, 'it is in the house, you know—the old part.' He stood up, went over to the door, closed it carefully; he looked into the pantry to be sure that the waitress was not there. He came back and stood beside my chair, looking down at me. His face was flushed. 'You will find the paper,' he began; and then the words began to come queer, he struggled with them, his tongue seemed to stick to his mouth. Suddenly he threw up his arms and fell down on the floor.” Mrs. Brane wiped her eyes. “Poor Theodore! Poor fellow! He never spoke again. He lived for several days, and his eyes followed me about so anxiously, so yearningly, but he was entirely helpless, could not move a finger, could not make a sound. He died and left me tormented by the secret that he could not tell. It has been like a curse. Ithasbeen a curse. It has killed Robbie. I believe that it will some day kill me.”
Here the poor woman sank down on a log and cried. I comforted her as well as I could, and begged her to forget this miserable business. “No problematic fortune is worth so much misery and distress,” I said, “and if, in all this time, in spite of your searching—and I suppose you have searched very thoroughly—”
“Oh, yes,” she sighed, “I have worn myself out with it. Every scrap of paper in the house has been gone over a hundred times, every drawer and closet. Why, since Sara stirred me up with her cleaning in the old part of the house, I have been over everything again during this last fortnight, but with not the slightest result.”
“You see. It is useless. And, dear Mrs. Brane, I hope you won't mind my suggesting it, but, perhaps, the whole idea is a mistake, or some fantastic obsession of your husband's mind. He was ill towards the last, probably more ill than you knew. You may be wasting your health and life in the pursuit of a mere chimera. You have no further suspicions of any attempt at burglary, have you?”
“No.” My words had had some effect. She stood up and began to walk home thoughtfully and calmly. “No. There have been no disturbances for a long time. Sara and Henry have not been frightened nor have you. Mary has seen no ghosts. Perhaps you are right, dear, and the whole thing is a fiction.” She sighed. One does not relinquish the hope of a fabulous fortune without a sigh.
We were rather silent on the way home. I was planning an interview with Sara, my first move in the difficult and dangerous game that I had set myself to play. I was frightened, yes, but terribly interested. I left Mrs. Brane after lunch and went down to the kitchen. Sara was seated by the table peeling potatoes, the most commonplace and respectable of figures. She lifted her large, handsome face and stood up, setting down the bowl.
“Go on with your work, Sara,” I said, “I shall not keep you but a moment.”
She sat down and I stood there, my hand resting on the table. My heart was beating fast, and I was conscious of a tightening in my throat. Unconsciously, I narrowed my eyes, and tightened my lips till my expression must have been something like that mask of wickedness I had seen in the doorway of the book-room. I spoke in a low, hard voice, level and cruel, and I put my whole theory to the test at once; foolishly enough, I think, for I might have given myself away if my guess had not been correct in this detail.
“How goes it,Maida?” I asked. It was the name the Baron had used.
She started; the knife stopped its work. She looked up, glancing nervously about the room.
“God!” she said. “You're gettin' nervy, ain't you?”
No speech could have been more unlike the speech of the smooth and respectful Sara.
I smiled as evilly as I could. “Once in a while I take a risk, that's all. Don't refer to it again. But answer my questions, will you? Anything new?”
“God, no! I'm about done with this game. Housework is no holiday to me, and since they nabbed the Nobleman my heart's gone out of me. Our game's about up, unless we get that—“here she used a string of vile, whispered epithets—“this afternoon, and I don't think it's likely. He's got nine lives, that cat of a Hovey!”
My heart thumped. I dared not ask her meaning.
Sara went on, only it was certainly Maida that spoke in the coarse, breathless, furtive voice. “If the Nobleman has talked, they're coming back for us. There's a dozen chances the bridge trick won't work. And, even if it does, the whole pack will be down here to investigate. All very well for you to say that we need just twenty-four free hours to pull the thing off, but I tell you what, madam, Jaffrey and me are gettin' pretty sick—we'd like a glimpse of them jools.”
One phrase of this speech had struck me deaf and half blind. I made a sign of caution to the horrible creature, and I went out. I stopped in the hall to look at the tall grandfather's clock ticking loudly and solemnly. It was already very nearly five o'clock. Paul Dabney's train was in, and he was on his way to “The Pines.” I stood there stupidly repeating “the bridge trick” over and over to myself. The bridge trick! Henry had had a saw and an axe. He might just as easily have been weakening a plank as strengthening it. Had it not been for my presence, his entire reliance on my skill in diverting Mrs. Brane's suspicion, we should not have seen him at his work. But thinking me his leader, the real instigator of the crime, he had probably decided that for some reason I had brought Mrs. Brane purposely to watch him at his task. It was five o'clock. Paul Dabney would be near the bridge. He was probably bringing with him a detective, this Hovey, of whom Sara had spoken so vilely. And the red-haired woman did not mean them to reach “The Pines” that night. By this time she probably had some knowledge of the secret of the bookcase, and she must feel that she had successfully frightened away my desire to take out a book at night. She would rob the bookcase some time within the next twenty-four hours, before any one found the smothered bodies of Paul Dabney and his companion, and with her treasure she would be off. Sara and Henry would give notice. I stood there as though movement were impossible, and yet I knew that everything depended upon haste.
I began to reckon out the time. The train got in to Pine Cone at four-thirty, and it would probably be late. It was always late. It would take two men walking at a brisk pace at least an hour to reach the swamp. It was now just five o'clock. I had thirty minutes, therefore, in which to save the secret of the bookcase and to rescue the man I loved. It would take me at least twenty minutes to get to the bridge; once below the top of the hill I could run as fast as I liked. Every second was valuable now. I went into the bookroom and shut the door. Kneeling on the floor I tumbled out the books as I had seen the Baron, doubtless Sara's “Nobleman,” do. Then I removed the middle shelf and began tapping softly with my fingers. There was the hollow spot, and there, just back of the shelf I had removed, was a tiny metal projection. I pushed it. Down dropped a little sliding panel, and I thrust my hand into the shallow opening. I was cold and shuddering with haste and fear and excitement. My fingers touched a paper, and I drew it out. I did not even glance at it. I hid it in my dress, closed the panel, restored the shelf, and returned the books as quickly and quietly as I could. Then I went out into the hall.
The clock had ticked away fifteen of my precious minutes. If the train was late, I still had time. I went out of the front door and began, with as good an air of careless sauntering as I could force my body to assume, to stroll down the winding driveway. I longed to take a short cut, but I did not dare. I was sure that my double was on the watch. She would not leave that driveway unguarded on such an afternoon. I felt that my life was not a thing to wager on at that moment. I doubted if I should be allowed to reach the bridge alive. The utter importance of my doing so gave me the courage to use some strategy. I actually forced myself to return, still sauntering, to the house and I got a parasol. Then I walked around to the high-walled garden. Here I strolled about for a few moments, and then slipped away, plunged through a dense mass of bushes at the back, followed the rough course of a tiny stream, and, climbing a stone wall, came out on the road below the hill and several feet outside of “The Pines” gateway. My return for a parasol and the changed direction of my walk would be certain to divert suspicion of my going towards the bridge. Nevertheless, I felt like a mouse who allows itself a little hope when the watchful cat, her tail twitching, her terrible eyes half shut, allows it to creep a perilous little distance from her claws. As soon as I was well out of sight of the house, I chose a short cut at random, shut my parasol, and ran as I had never run before.
IHAVE always loved pine trees since that desperate afternoon, for the very practical reason that the needles prevent the growth of underbrush. My skirts were left free, and my feet had their full opportunity for speed, and I needed every ounce of strength and breath. Before I came to the top of the last steep slope that plunged down to the stream, I heard a hoarse, choking cry, that terrible cry for “Help! Help! Help!” It was a man's voice, but so thick and weak and hollow that I could not recognize it for Paul Dabney's. I did not dare to answer it, such was my dread of being stopped by some murderess lurking in the gnarled and stunted trees. But I fairly hurled myself down the path. There was the bridge. I saw that a great gap yawned in the middle of it. I hurried to the edge. Down below me in the gray, rotten-smelling shadows floated a desperate, white face. Paul Dabney's straining eyes under his mud-streaked hair looked up at me, and the faint hope in them went out.
“You again!” he gasped painfully. “You've come back to see the end...” He smiled a twisted, ironical smile. “If I could get my hand out of this infernal grave I'd let you wrap some of that hair of yours around my fingers. That's your trade-mark, is n't it? Did you come back for that?” He sank an inch lower, his chin had gone under. He lifted it out, bearded with filthy mud, and leaned back as though against a pillow, closing his eyes. He had given up hope.
All this, of course, took but a moment of time. I had been looking about, searching the place for help. Near the edge of the horrible, sluggish stream lay a board, left there by Henry after his devilish work, or, else, fallen when Paul Dabney had broken through. It lay on the farther bank. I stood up, measured the distance of the break in the bridge, and, going back a few paces, ran and jumped across. It was a good jump. I hardly looked to see, however, but hurried down the opposite bank and shoved out the board towards Paul Dabney. Only his face now glimmered like a death-mask on the surface of the mud.
“Paul,” I cried desperately, urgently, commandingly, “pull out your arm. I have come to save you.”
His eyes opened. He stared at me. Then life seemed to come back to his face. He made a frantic, choking, gasping struggle; once he went altogether down; then, with a sucking sound his arm came up, the fingers closed on my board. I caught his poor, cold, slimy hand. I pulled with all my strength. His grip was like a convulsion. Inch by inch I dragged him towards the bank. The stream surrendered its victim with a sort of sticky sob, and he lay there on the ground beside me, lifeless as a log, hardly to be recognized as a human being, so daubed and drenched was he with the black ooze that had so nearly been his death. My attempts to restore him were soon successful, for it was exhaustion, not suffocation, that had made him faint. He had taken very little of the mud into his mouth, but, struggling there in the bottomless, horrible slough for nearly half an hour had taxed his strength to the last gasp.
He opened his eyes and looked up at me with an expression of grave astonishment. I knew that he had not expected me to be such a serious criminal as to make this deliberate attempt on his life, and, yet, I was sure as his large, gray eyes searched me that he was deliberating the possibility. He sat up presently, and, taking my handkerchief, he wiped off his face and hair and hands.
“The rest is hopeless,” he said.
“The other man?” I asked him shudderingly, my eyes fixed on the smooth and oily water.
He looked at me with a puzzled face. “The other man! There was not any other man...” Then, stilt looking at me, a faint, unwilling flush stole up his cheek.
“Miss Gale,” he said, “you are without doubt my guardian angel. And yet, strangely enough, I had a dreadful vision of what you might be as another kind of angel. When I was going down,”—he shivered all over and glanced at the stream, whose surface was now as smooth as it would have been had he sunk beneath it,—“when I was going down, and at the last of my strength,—I was delirious, I suppose,—but I had a sort of vision. I thought you stood there on the bank above me, and looked down with your narrow face between its two wings of red hair, and mocked me. Just as I was settling down to death, you disappeared. And, just a few moments later, there you were again, this time with the aura of a saint... Miss Gale,”—and here he looked at me with entire seriousness, dropping his tone of mockery,—“do you believe in dual personalities?”
“Really, Mr. Dabney,” I said, “I don't think it's a very good time to take up the subject.”
He looked away from me, and spoke low with an air of confusion. “You called me 'Paul' when you shoved out that blessed board, which has gone down in my place...”
I paid no attention to this remark, but stood up. Silently he, too, rose and we laid a log across the deadly opening of the bridge and balanced carefully back to safety. I could not think of my leap of a few minutes before without a feeling of deathly sickness.
“You risked your life,” murmured Paul Dabney; “you risked your life to save me...” He stopped me as we climbed up the hill. It was very dark there amongst the trees. He took me by the wrists, and, “Janice Gale,” he said desperately, speaking through his teeth, “look up at me, for the love of God.”
I did look up, and he plunged his eyes into mine as though he were diving for a soul.
I put up no barriers between my heart and his searching eyes. It was so dusky there that he could not read any of my secrets. I let him search till at last he sighed from the bottom of his soul, and let my hands fall, passing his own across his forehead with a pitiful air of confusion and defeat.
“'La belle dame sans merci has thee in thrall,'” he murmured, and we went up into the glimmering twilight of the open spaces where the swallows were still wheeling high in search of the falling sun.
When we reached the house, I asked Paul Dabney timidly if he did not think it best to change and not to alarm Mrs. Brane by any sight of his condition. He agreed with a wry sort of smile, and went slowly up the stairs. I saw that he held tight to the railing, and that his feet dragged. He was very near, indeed, to collapse; the walk up the hill had been almost too much for him.
Nevertheless, he appeared at dinner-time as trim and neat as possible, with the air of demure boyishness, which was so disarming, completely restored.
Not only was he neat and trim in person, but he was mentally alert and gay. He ate hardly anything, to be sure, drank not at all, and sat, tight-strung, leaning a little forward in his chair, his hand in his pocket, as he laughed and talked. His eyes held, beneath bright, innocent surfaces, rather a harried, hunted look. But he was very entertaining, so much so that his pallor, the little choking cough that bothered him, and my own condition of limp reaction to the desperate excitement of the afternoon, passed entirely unnoticed by Mrs. Brane. Her better spirits of the morning had returned in force. She was very glad to see Paul Dabney, so glad that I suffered a twinge of heart.
“Oh,” she laughed, “but it's good to have a man in the house. Shakespeare is right, you know, when he says, 'a woman naturally born to fears.'”
“I don't think he was right at all,” Paul Dabney took her up. “I believe that the man is naturally the more fearful animal. Shakespeare ought to have said, 'a woman naturally feigning fear.' I'm with the modern poet, 'the female of the species is more deadly than the male.' Take the lady spider, for instance.”
“What does the lady spider do?” asked Mrs. Brane.
“She devours her lover while she is still in his embrace.”
“How horrible!”
“Horrible, but the creature is a very faithful and devoted mother. I think there are many women”—here his hunted and haggard look rested upon me—“who would be glad to rid themselves of a lover when his—particular—usefulness is over.”
“All women kill the thing they love,” I smiled, and I had a dreadful feeling that my smile was like the cruel and thin-lipped smile of the woman who had planned Paul Dabney's death.
That was one of the most terrifying consequences of the nervous shock I had suffered, that I had quite often now this obsession, as though the vixen were using me, obsessing my body with her blackened soul, as though gradually I were becoming her instrument. The smile left my shaken lips, and I saw a sort of reflection of it draw Dabney's mouth stiffly across his teeth. His pallor deepened; he looked away and began to crumble his bread with restless fingers.
Henry passed through, and we followed him into the drawing-room, where coffee was always served. When Paul Dabney had first come into the dining-room I had glanced shrewdly at Henry. The jaw behind the whiskers had dropped, the eyes had blinked, then discretion was perfectly restored. But I felt a threatening sort of gloom emanate from the man towards me, and I realized that my position was doubly dangerous. There was a spirit of mutiny in my supposed accomplices. I trusted my double, however, to control the pair. Their fear of her was doubtless greater than their dread of detection, and Henry probably was relieved of some portion of his fears by the non-appearance of the Hovey, whom Sara had so befouled with epithets, and whom she evidently so greatly feared.
Mrs. Brane excused herself early, and I, too, rose shortly after she had left the room. I moved slowly towards the door. Paul Dabney stood by the high mantel, one hand in his pocket, the other resting on the shelf, his head a little bent, looking somberly at me from under his handsome brows. He looked very slim and young. The thought of his loneliness, of his danger, so much greater than he suspected, smote my heart. I wanted to go back and tell him everything, even my love. I was hesitating, ready to turn, when he spoke. The voice, sharp and stinging as a lash, fell with a bite across my heart.
“Good-night,sleep-walker,” he said.
My hand flew to my breast because of the pain he caused me. He watched me narrowly. His pale face was rigid with the guard he kept upon some violent feeling. My hurt turned to anger.
“You suspect me of sinister things, Paul Dabney,” I said hotly; “you think that I prowl about Mrs. Brane's house while she sleeps, in search of something valuable, perhaps.” I laughed softly. “Perhaps you are right. I give you leave to pursue your investigations, though I can't say I consider you a very ingenious detective.”
He started, and the color came in a wave across his face. For some reason the slight upon his amateur detecting seemed to sting. I was glad. I would have liked to strike him, to cause him physical pain. I came in a sort of rush straight over to him, and he drew warily back till he stood against the wall, his eyes narrowed upon me, his head bent, as I have seen the eyes and heads of men about to strike.
“Listen to me,” I said; “I give you fair warning. This afternoon I saved your life at the risk of my own. I may not be able to do that again. I advise,”—here I threw all the contempt possible into my voice,—“I advise you to keep out of this, to stay in your room and lock your door at night. Don't smile. It is a very serious warning. Good-night,dreamer, and—lover without faith.”
At this he put his hand to his eyes, and I left him standing with this gesture of ashamed defeat.
It was a night of full and splendid moon; my room was as white as the calyx of a lily, so white that its very radiance made sleep impossible. Besides, I was excited by my battle with Paul Dabney, and by the thought of that paper in my dress. God willing, now, the struggle would soon be over. If I lived through the next twenty-four hours, I would find the treasure, capture the thieves, confront Paul Dabney with my innocence and my achievement, and leave “The Pines” forever. My ordeal was not so nearly over as I hoped. There were further tangles in the female spider's web. It makes me laugh now and blush to think how, all the while, the creature made her use of me, how the cat let the little mouse run hither and thither in its futile activity; no, not altogether futile, I did play an extraordinary rôle. I did that very afternoon save Paul Dabney's life; I did bewilder the queen spider and disturb and tear her web, but, when all is said and done, it was she who was mistress of “The Pines” that night.
I did not light my gas, so splendid was the moon, but crouching near my open window on the floor, I took out the paper and spread it open on my knee. It was covered with close lines in the Russian script. The writing was so fine and delicate that, to read it, I should need a stronger light. I rose, drew my shade and lit the gas. Again I spread out the paper, then gave a little exclamation of dismay. It was the Russian script, perfectly legible to me, but, alas! the language was not that of modern Russian speech. It was the old Slavonic language of the Church. The paper was as much a mystery to me as though it were still hidden in the bookcase.