IN vain I tortured my wits; here and there a word was comprehensible. I made out the number 5 and fairly ground my teeth. Here was the key to the secret; here was my chart, and I could not decipher it. I folded up the paper with great care, ripped open a seam of my mattress, and folded the mystery in. By night I would keep it there; by day I would carry it about on my body. Somehow, I would think out a way to decipher it; I would go to New York and interview a priest of the Greek Church. If necessary I would bribe him to secrecy... my brain was full of plans, more or less foolish and impossible. At any rate, I reasoned that the Red-haired Woman, not finding any paper in the bookcase, would do one of two things—either she would suspect a previous theft and disposal of the treasure and give up her perilous mission, or she would suspect me whom she had found once at night before the book-shelves. In this case I was, of course, both in greater danger, and, also, providentially protected. At least, she would not kill me till she had got that paper out of my possession. My problem was, first, to find the meaning of my valuable chart, then to put it in her way, and, while she endeavored to get a translation—I could not believe her to possess a knowledge of ecclesiastical Russian—it was my part to rifle the hoard and to set the police on her track. When I had the meaning of the paper, I would send word to the police at Pine Cone. Till then, I would play the game alone. So did my vanity and wounded feelings lead me on, and so very nearly to my own destruction.
After I had finished sewing up my mattress-seam, I put out my light and went to stand near my window. Unconsciously affected by my fears, I kept close to the long, dark curtain, and stood still, looking down at the silvered garden paths, the green-gray lines of the box, the towering, fountain-like masses of the trees, waving their spray of shadow tracery across the turf. I stood there a long time brooding over my plans—it must have been an hour—before I saw a figure come out into the garden. It was Paul Dabney. He was walking quietly to and fro, smoking and whistling softly. I could hear the gravel crunch beneath his feet.
All at once he stopped short and threw up his head as though at a signal. He tossed away his cigarette. He stared at the arbor, the one where poor Mary used to watch her little charge at play, and then, as though he were drawn against his will, he went slowly towards it, hesitated, bent his head a little, and stepped in. I heard the low murmur of his voice. I thought that Mrs. Brane was in the arbor, and my heart grew sick with jealousy. I was about to drag myself away from the window when another figure came out of the arbor and stood for an instant in the bright moonlight looking straight up to my window. I grew cold. I stood there holding my breath. I heard a little, low, musical, wicked laugh. The creature—my own cloak drooping from her shoulders—turned and went back into the shelter of the vine. My God! What was she about to do to Paul, the blind fool to sit there with that horrible thing and to fancy that he sat with me? Having failed in her attempt to drown him, she was now beguiling him out of the house for a few hours, in order to give one of her accomplices a chance to search the bookcase. I had no scruples about playing eavesdropper. I took off my shoes and hurried noiselessly down the stairs. I stole to a shuttered window in the dining-room, and, inch by inch, with infinite caution, I raised the sash. I was so near to the arbor that a hand stretched out at the full length of its arm could touch the honeysuckle vines. I stood there and strained my ears.
The woman was speaking so low that it was but a gentle thread of voice. It was extraordinarily young and sweet, the tone—sweeter than my voice, though astonishingly like it.
“Why did I save you, Paul Dabney?” she was murmuring, “can't you guess?Now, can't you guess?”
There came the sound of a soft, long-drawn, dreadful kiss. I burned with shame from head to foot.
“You devil—you she-devil!” said Paul Dabney in low, hot speech; “you can kiss!”
I could bear no more. She must be in his arms. What was the reason for this deviltry, this profanation of my innocence and youth, this desecration of my name? I hated and loathed Paul Dabney for his hot voice, for his kiss. He thought that he heldmethere in his arms, that he insultedme, tamely submissive, with his words, “You devil, you she-devil...” I fled to my room. I threw myself upon my bed. I sobbed and raved in a crazed, smothered fashion to my pillow. I struck the bed with my hands. I do not know how long that dreadful meeting lasted; I realized, with entire disregard, thatwhileit lasted Sara was searching the bookcase. To this day I can think of it only with a sickness of loathing. Once I fancied that I heard Paul Dabney's step under my window. But I hid my head, covered my ears. I lay in a still fever of rage and horror all that night. The insult—so strange and unimaginable a one—to my own unhappy love was more than I could bear. I wanted to kill, and kill, and kill these two, and, last, myself.
IMEANT to ask Mrs. Brane the next morning to excuse me from my work of cataloguing the books of her husband's library. I had no courage to face Paul Dabney. Unluckily, Mrs. Brane did not come down to breakfast. She had a severe headache. I did not like to disturb her with my request, nor did I like to give up my duty without permission, for the catalogue was nearly completed and Mrs. Brane was very impatient about it, so I dragged myself into the bookroom at the usual time. Paul Dabney was not yet there. He breakfasted late, going out first for a long tramp and a swim. I hoped that he would not come at all this morning.
I went languidly to work. I did not feel the slightest interest to know whether or not Sara Lorrence had taken advantage of the decoying of Paul Dabney and had made an investigation of the Russian book-shelves. I felt utterly wretched and drained of life, and of the desire to live.
When at last Paul Dabney's footstep came along the hall, and, somewhat hesitatingly, in at the door, I did not turn my head. He stopped at sight of me, and stood still. I could feel that his eyes were on me, and I struggled against a nervous curiosity to see the expression of his look. But I would not yield. I kept on doggedly, taking down a volume, dusting it, clapping its leaves together, putting it back and making a note of its title and author in the book that Mrs. Brane had given me for the purpose. My face burned, my finger-tips turned to ice. Anger, disgust, shame, seemed to have taken the place of the blood along my veins. At last, “You are not as affable a companion by day as you are by night,” drawled the young man, and came strolling a step nearer to me across the floor.
“I know you made me promise,” he went on, “not to speak of any moonlight madness by the common light of day, but, strangely enough, your spell does n't hold. I feel quite able to break my word to you now.”
He paused. I wondered if he could feel the tumult of my helpless rage. “I have been very much afraid of you,” he said, “but that is changed. No man can be afraid of the serpent he has fondled, even when he knows that its fang is as poisonous as sin. I am not afraid of you at all.”
The book slid to the floor. My head seemed to bend of its own weight to meet my hands. A great strangling burst of laughter tore my throat, pealed from my lips, filled the room. I laughed like a maniac. I rocked with laughter. Then, staggering to my feet, I went over to the window bench, and sat there sobbing and crying as though my heart must break.
Paul Dabney shut the door, swore, paced the room, at last came over to me and bade me, roughly, to “stop my noise.”
“Don't make a fool of yourself,” he said coldly. “You won't make one of me, I assure you.”
At that I looked up at him through a veil of tears, showing him a face that must have been as simple as an angry child's.
“Look at me, Paul Dabney,” I gasped. “Look hard—as hard as you looked yesterday afternoon down there near the swamp after I had saved your life. And, when you have looked, tell me what you know about me—me—me—Janice Gale.”
He caught me by the hands and looked. My tears, falling, left my vision clear, and his face showed so haunted and haggard and spent, so wronged, that with a welcome rush, tenderness and pity and understanding came back for a moment to my heart. I realized, for just that moment, what he must be suffering from this dreadful tangle in which he had been caught. How could he know me for what I really was when that demon came to him with my face and voice and hands and eyes? And yet—the moment passed and left me hard again—I felt that he ought to have known. Some glimmer of the truth should have come to him. In fact, after a moment he dropped my hands and put his own over his eyes. He went over to the window and stood there, staring out, unseeing, I was sure. His shoulders sagged, his whole slight, energetic body drooped. I saw his fist shut and open at his side. After a long time, he turned and came slowly back to stand before me.
“Janice Gale,” he said, in a changed and much more gentle voice, “I wish you would tell me what the accursed—mystery means. Do you remember last night? Do you remember—do your lips remember our kisses? I can't look at the sweetness and the sorrow of them and believe it. Is this your real self, or is that? Are you possessed by a night-demon, or is this a mask of youth and innocence? I do believe you must be a victim of that strange psychic affliction of a divided personality. Janice—tell me, do you know what you do”—he dropped his voice as a man who speaks of ghostly and unhallowed things—“after you have gone to sleep?”
I wanted to tell him, but I wanted more strongly to triumph over him. The rush of tenderness had passed. I could not forget the insult of his tone to me, the jeering, biting contempt of his speeches. I longed passionately to bring him down to my feet, to humble him, and then—to raise him up. Love is a cruel sort of madness, a monster perfectionist. My love for him could not forgive his blindness. He ought to have known, he ought to have seen my soul too clearly to be so easy a dupe, and his love for me ought to have driven him shuddering from those other lips. It ought to have been his shield and weapon of defense, instead of his lure.
“I have nothing to confess,” I told him coldly. “Why should I confess to you? You have come to this house to persecute and to insult me. How do you dare”—I shook with a resurgent rage and disgust—“to speak to me of—kisses?When are you going away from this house? Or must I go, and begin to struggle again, to hunt for work? If I had a brother or a father or any protector strong enough to deal with the sort of man you are, I should have you horse-whipped for your conduct to me! Oh, I could strike you myself! I hate and loathe you!” I sobbed, having worked myself up almost to the frenzy of the past night. “I want to punish you! You have hurt and shamed me!” I fought for self-control. “Thank God! It will soon be over.”
I stood up, and tried to pass him. He held out his arms to bar me, and, looking down at me, his face flushed and quivering, he said between his teeth: “When it is over, as you must know, my dear Sphinx, one of us two will be dead. I am not the first man, I fancy, that you have driven to madness or worse. I hope I shall have the strength to make the world safe from you before I go. That's what I live for now, though you've made my life rather more of a hell than even I ever thought life could be made.”
Our eyes met, and the looks crossed like swords.
“Let me go out. Your faith is not much greater than your skill, Master Detective-Lover. I think the outcome will astonish you. Let me go out, I say.”
He moved away, grim and pale, his jaws set, and I went out.
On my way to my room Mary met me in the hall. “I want to speak to you,” she began; then broke off, “Oh, Miss Gale, dear, how bad you look!” she said.
I was so glad to see her dear, honest, trusting, truthful face that I put my head down on her shoulder, and cried like a baby in her arms. She made me go to my room and lie down, she bathed my face and laid a cold, wet cloth across my temples.
“Poor blessed girl!” she said in her nursey way, “she's all wore out. Poor soul! Poor pretty!” A dozen such absurd and comforting ejaculations she made use of, how comforting my poor motherless youth had never till then let me know. When I was quieter she brought her sewing and sat beside my bed, rocking and humming. She asked no questions; just told me when I tried to apologize to “hush now and try to get a little nap.” And actually I did go to sleep.
I woke up as though on the crest of a resurgent wave of life. I sat on my bed and smiled at Mary; then, gathering my knees in my hands, I said, “Now, I'm all right again, nursey; tell me what you wanted to ask me when you met me in the hall.”
It was extraordinary how calm and clear I felt, how sufficient to myself and able to meet what was coming and bring it to a triumphant end. With what good and healing spirits do we sometimes walk when we are asleep.
“Don't hesitate, dear Mary. I'm done with my nonsense now. I'm perfectly able to face any domestic crisis, from ghosts to broken china.”
“Well, ma'am,” said Mary, beginning to rock in an indignant, staccato fashion—there are as many ways of rocking as there are moods in the one who rocks—“it's that there Sara. Never, in all my days of service in the old country and here, have I met with the like of her!”
“In what way? I mean, whatisshe like?”
“Why, ma'am, she's like a whited sepulcher”—this time she pronounced it “sep-looker”—“that's what she's like. She's as smooth and soft-spoken as a pet dove, that she is”—Mary's similes were quite extraordinary—“she fair coos, and so full of her 'ma'ams' and 'if you pleases.' She's a good worker, too, steady and quiet, too quiet to be nacheral. And, indeed, ma'am, nacheral it ain't, not for her. A murderess at heart, miss, that's what she is.”
I was startled. I gripped my knees more tightly.
“Yes, miss. Up to this mornin', though I can't say I had a likin' for her, for that would n't be the truth, and I always hold to my mother's sayin' of 'tell the truth and shame the devil'; but this mornin', ma'am, I run into her quite by accident, a-standin' in the nursery—and what she should be doin' in my blessed lamb's room I can't say, and a-cursin' and a-swearin', and her face like a fury—O Lor', miss! I can't give you no notion of what she was like, nor the langwidge; filth it was, ma'am, though I should n't use the word. And, miss, I made sure it was you she was in a rage with, a-stampin' and a-mouthin' there like the foul fiend. She did n't know I was seein' her first-off, but when she did, the shameless hussy went on as bad as before. Never did I see nor hear the like of it. I tried to shame her, but it was like tryin' to shame a witch's caldron, a-boilin' with cats' tongues and vipers', and dead men's hands. Awful it was, to make your blood run cold! Miss Gale, you had n't ought to keep the creature in the house. It ain't safe.”
“Could you find out why she was so angry?”
“Indeed, ma'am, there was so much cursin' and sputterin' that I could n't make out much sense to her, but it was somethin' about bein' made a mock of and gettin' nothin' for your pains. She'd been glum all mornin', miss, I seen that, and I'd left her alone. Her and Henry had been havin' words at breakfast time, butthiswas fair awful. Seems like as if she had just kept the whole rumpus in her wickit breast till it boiled over and she run into the nursery and let it go off, like some poison bottle with the cork blown away, if you know what I mean. Miss, it ain't safe to keep her in the house!”
I laughed a little.
“No, Mary, I don't believe it is very safe.”
“Yes, miss. And that's not all. There is doin's I don't like in this house, and I'd have come to you before, but it seems like I've made you so much trouble in this place and you've been lookin' peaky—”
“You've been a perfect godsend to me, Mary!” I cried. “Please tell me anything, everything. Never hesitate to come to me. Never delay an instant.”
“Well, ma'am, there's two or three things that has been vexin' me, little things in themselves, but not reg'lar—now, that's what I say, ma'am, you can stand anything so long as it's reg'lar. In the old country now, as I told you, I worked in a haunted house, and the help was told to expect a ghost and it come reg'lar every night a-draggin' its chains up the stairs; but, bless me, did we mind it? Not a bit.'T was all reg'lar and seemly, if you know what I mean, nothin' that you could n't expect and prepare your mind for. What I don't like about the happenin's here is they're most irreg'lar. There's no tellin' whatever where they'll break out nor how.”
This typically English distinction as to the desirable regularity of apparitions amused me so much that I did not hurry Mary in her story. She got back to it presently.
“Miss Gale, you know that long, gray cloak of yours with the rose-silk linin'?”
“Yes, Mary.” My heart did beat a trifle faster.
“And the little hat you leave with the cloak down in the front hall on the rack behind the door?”
“Yes, Mary.”....
“Well, miss,”—the rocking grew impressive, portentous, climatic. “Somebody has been usin' 'em at night.”
“Oh, Mary!”
“Yes, miss. And it must'a' been that Sara. Like as not she sneaks off and meets some feller down the road, or even over to Pine Cone. And her a married woman! Pleased she'd be to fix the blame of her bad doin's on you. What would Mrs. Brane think, miss, if she seen you, one of these moonlight nights as bright as day, a-walkin' away from her house at some unseemly hour. Ir-reg'lar, she'd call it! Yes, miss. It makes my blood boil!”
“It is certainly not a pleasant idea,” I said dryly—“No, miss; to put it mild, not pleasant, not a bit. Well, miss, I found your cloak this morn-in' hangin' in its place and the hem drenched with dew. You can see for yourself if you go down in the hall. Now, it stands to reason, if you'd worn it yourself, the hem would n't'a' touched the grass hardly, but a short woman like Sara is—”
“Unless I had sat down on a low rustic bench,” I put in.
“Well,miss, was you out last night?”
“No, Mary—unless I've been walking in my sleep.”
She looked a little startled, and stared at me with round, anxious eyes to which tears came.
“Oh, miss, I don't think it. Really and truly I don't.”
She had not seen the strand of red-gold hair about Robbie's fingers and the kind soul had diligently weeded out any suspicions even of my unconscious complicity in Robbie's death.
“Nor do I, Mary dear. In fact, I was broad awake all last night. I never closed my eyes. Perhaps I drank too much coffee after dinner, or, perhaps, it was the moon.”
“There now!” The rocking became triumphant. “That proves it. Sara, it must'a' been.”
“What else, Mary? What are the other little things?”
“Why, ma'am, it seems foolish to mention 'em, but I just think I kinder ought.”
“Indeed you ought, Mary.”
“I had to go down to the kitchen late last Friday night. Mrs. Brane could n't sleep, and I thought I'd give her a glass of warm milk same as I ust to give my poor lamb. Well, miss, I found the kitchen door locked; the one at the foot of the back stairs, not the one that goes outdoors, which nacherly would be fastened at night. The key was n't on my side of the door, so it stands to reason't was locked on the kitchen side, and Sara and Henry must'a' been in that kitchen, though it was dark, not a glimmer under the door or through the keyhole, and not a sound—or else they'd gone out the back way. Why should Sara lock her kitchen door and go round the other way? Don't it seem a bit odd to you, ma'am? And when I axed her the next mornin', she kinder snarled like and told me to mind my own business, that the kitchen door was her affair, and that if I valued my soul I'd best keep to my bed nights in this house.”
We were silent for a moment while I digested this sinister injunction, and the rocker “registered” the indignation of a respectable Englishwoman.
“Anything else, Mary?” I asked at last.
Mary stopped rocking. She folded her hands on her work and her round eyes took on a doubting, puzzled look.
“Yes, ma'am. One other thing. And maybe it means naught, and, maybe, it means a lot. Deviltry it must be of some kind, I says, or else mere foolishness.” She paused, and I saw her face pucker tearfully. “You know how I did love that pitiful little Robbie, miss?”
“Yes, Mary dear.”
“Well, times when I feel like my heart would bust out with grievin', I go off and away by myself somewhere and kinder mourn.”
“Yes, you dear, faithful soul!”
“And I'm like to choose some spot that 'minds me of my lamb.”
“Yes.”
“Well, 't was only this mornin' that I woke up and missed him out of common, so sweet he was when he waked up, and cheery as a robin! So, 't was early, early mornin', the sun just up, and I crep' out quiet and went out to the garden and sat down in the arbor where I ust to sit and watch the little darlin' at his play—well, miss, I have to tell you that I sat there cryin' like a baby, and 't was a while before I seen that there lay a paper under the bench, like as if it might have fallen there from a body's pocket. I picked it up, and't was covered with heathenish writin'. Here. I kep' it in my apron to show you, miss.”
She took the paper from her pocket, and I sprang up and seized it eagerly. I had no doubt whatever that it had been lost by my double as she sat with Paul last night. It was a letter in the Russian script. I read it rapidly.
“Ever dear and honored madame, I await the summons of your necessity. A message received here”—there followed a name and address of some town in the county, unknown to me—“will bring me to Pine Cone in a few hours by motor-cycle. I hold myself at your commands, and will lend you the service of my knowledge in translating the Slavonic curiosity you have described to me so movingly. I need not remind you of your promises. One knows that they are never broken, even to death. Appoint a place and hour. Meet me or send some accredited messenger. It could all be arranged between sunrise and sunset or—should you prefer—between sunset and sunrise. Do not forget your faithful servant, and the servant of that Eternal Eye that watches the good and evil of this earthly life.”
IWAS so excited by the importance of Mary's accidental discovery that I folded up the paper, thrust it into my pocket, and was turning towards the desk, when Mary, in an aggrieved voice, recalled herself to my attention.
“Well, miss, maybe it ain't my business, and, maybe, it is, and I don't want to push myself forward, but—”
“Oh, Mary,” I said, “indeed it is your business, and a very important business, too, and just as soon as I think it safe to tell you, I will, every word of it; only I have to ask you to trust me just a little bit further, and to let me make use of this paper. You don't imagine how terribly important it is to me!”
I could see that Mary was shocked by my uncanny knowledge. “Indeed, Miss Gale, if you can make anything out of that heathen writin'—”
I smiled as reassuringly as I could. “It is not heathenish. It is Russian, and it was written by a sort of clergy man.”
“Oh, miss! And under the rustic bench in our arbor!”
“Yes, Mary. I know it all sounds as wild as a dream, and I can't explain it just yet, but you will trust me, Mary, a little longer, and keep the secret of this paper to yourself? Don't mention it; don't even whisper of it; don't show that you have ever heard of such a thing—everything depends upon this.”
Mary had stood up, and now smoothed down her apron and drew in a doubtful, whistling breath which she presently expelled in sharp, little tongue-clicks—“Teks! Teks! Teks!” I translated all this readily. She did not like my superior and secret knowledge; she did not like my air of cool captaincy; she did not like my reserve, nor my disposal of her “devil-paper.” But the good soul could not help but be loyalty itself. She made no more protest than that of the “Teks!”—then said, in a rather sad but perfectly dependable voice, “Very good, miss.”
I came over and patted her on the shoulder.
“Mary, you are the best woman in the world and the best friend I ever had.”
This brought her around completely. Her natural, honest, kindly smile broke out upon her face.
“Bless you, miss,” she said heartily, “I'd do most anything for you. You can trust me not to speak of the paper.”
“I know I can, Mary dear.”
When she had gone I did go over to my desk and took out a slip of paper. After some careful thinking I printed in ink a few lines in Russian script.
“At eleven o'clock of next Wednesday morning I will meet you in the ice-cream parlor of the only drug-store in Pine Cone. Be prepared to translate the Slavonic curiosity, and be assured of a reward.” I dared not risk any signature, but, for fear there might be something in these lines that would rouse the suspicion of their authenticity, I racked my brain for some signal that might be a convincing one. At last I pulled out a red-gold hair from my head, placed it on the paper as though it had fallen there, and folded it in. Then I put my paper into a blank envelope, which I sealed and secreted in my dress. This done, I tore the letter Mary had found into a hundred minute pieces and burned them, hiding the ashes in my window-box of flowers. I had memorized the address and name of Mr. Gast.
At lunch I asked Mrs. Brane, who had sufficiently recovered from her headache to appear, whether she would n't like me to go over to Pine Cone and buy her the shade hat for which she had been longing ever since Mary had reported the arrival of some Philippine millinery in the principal shop. I said that I felt the need of a good, long walk.
Henry, without a flicker of interest in my request, went on with perfect and discreet performance of table-duty, but I felt that he was mentally pricking up his ears. He must have wondered what the purpose of my expedition really was. I hoped that, if any rumor of it reached the ears of my double, she would take the precaution of keeping close in her mysterious hiding-place during my absence. It was absurd how I felt responsible for the life of every member of the household. Paul Dabney did not ask to accompany me on my walk, though Mrs. Brane evidently expected him to. He was absent and silent at lunch, crumbled his bread, and wore his air of demure detachment like a shield. He was as white as the table napery, but had a cool, self-reliant expression that for some reason annoyed me.
I started on my long and lonely walk about half an hour after lunch. I was nervous and fearful, and wished that I, too, had a pocket such as Paul Dabney's bulging one where, so often, I fancied he kept his right hand on the smooth handle of an automatic. I thought scornfully of his timidity. My own danger was so enormously greater than his, and his own was so enormously greater than he could possibly suspect.
I must confess, however, that it taxed my nerve severely to cross the bridge over the quicksand that afternoon. It had been mended, of course, the very evening of Paul's accident but I tested every plank before I gave it my weight, and I clung to the railing with both clammy hands. Not until I reached the other bank did I let the breath out of my lungs.
On the dusty, shady highroad courage returned to me, and I walked ahead at a good pace. I did want very strongly to reach that bridge again before dark. I would not trust my letter to the rural delivery box near “The Pines” lane. I was determined to mail it at the post-office, and to be sure that it went out by the evening mail. I was successful, addressed the blank envelope, and slipped it in, bought Mrs. Brane's hat, and, hurrying home, found myself in time for five o'clock tea. I had met with no misadventure of any kind; not even a shadow had fallen on my path; but I was as tired as though I had been through every terror that had tormented my imagination. I went to bed that night and slept well.
The four days that followed the mailing of my letter were as still as the proverbial lull before the storm. We all went quietly about our lives. Whatever mutiny was hidden in the souls of Henry and his female accomplice smouldered there without explosion. Sara, indeed, was sullen, and obeyed my orders with an air of resentment. Paul Dabney seemed to be immersed in study. It looked to me sometimes as though every one in the house was waiting, as breathlessly and secretly as I was, for the meeting with that unknown Servant of the Eternal Eye. Certainly it was curious that on the very Wednesday morning Mrs. Brane should have decided to send Gregory, the old horse, to Pine Cone, for a new pair of shoes, and that she should herself have suggested my going with George for a little outing. Her face was perfectly innocent, but I could not refrain from asking her, “What made you think of sending me, Mrs. Brane?”
She gave me a knowing, teasing little look. “Somebody takes a great interest in your health, proud Maisie,” she said.
Paul Dabney! I was not a little startled by the opportuneness of his interest. It was, to say the least, a trifle odd that he should want me to drive to Pine Cone on the very morning of my appointment. I was half minded to refuse to drive with George, then decided that this refusal would only serve to point any suspicion that Paul Dabney might be entertaining of me, so I agreed meekly to the arrangement and set off in due time seated in the brake-cart by George's substantial side. He was undoubtedly a comfort to me, and I kept him chattering all the way. He had lost the air of bravado he had shown on our first drive together, for “The Pines” had been, to all appearances, a place of supreme tranquillity since Robbie's death. His talk was all of the country-side, a string of complaints. The roads needed mending, the fences were down, “government don't do nothin' fer this yere po' place.” He pointed out a tall, ragged, dead pine near a turn in the road, I remember, and groaned, “Jes a tech to send that tree plum oveh yeah on the top of us-all, missy.” This complaint was one of a hundred and stuck in my mind because of later happenings.
We jogged into Pine Cone at eleven, and I occupied myself variously till the hour of the appointment, when, with a sickish feeling of nervous suspense, I forced my steps towards the drug-store. I went in through the fly-screen door, and passed the soda-water fountain and the counters where stale candy and coarse calicoes beckoned for a purchaser, and I went on between green rep, tasseled portières to the damp, dark, inner room where the marble-topped tables, vacant of food, seemed to attract, by some mysterious promise, a swarm of dull and sluggish flies whose mournful buzzing filled the stagnant air.
There was one person in the ice-cream parlor—a man. I moved doubtfully towards him, and he lifted his head. This head was a replica of the pre-Raphaelite figures of Christ, a long, oval, high-browed countenance, with smooth, long, yellow hair parted in the middle of the brow, with oblong eyes, a long nose, a mouth drooping exaggeratedly at the corners, and a very long, silky, yellow beard, also parted in the middle and hanging in two rippling points almost to his waist. He was dressed in a rusty black suit, the very long sleeves of which hung down quite over his hands.
At sight of me he turned pale, rose, the dolorous mouth drooping more extremely. “Madame,” he said in the lisping, clumsy speech of those whose supply of teeth falls short of lingual demands, “is as prompt as the justice of Heaven.” And he bowed and cringed painfully.
I sat down opposite to him, and gave the languid, pimply-faced youth who came an order for two plates of ice-cream. I was horribly embarrassed and confused, but by a mighty effort I maintained an air of self-possession. The priest—I should have known him for a renegade priest anywhere—sat meekly with his hidden hands resting on the table before him, and his great, smooth lids pulled down over his eyes. Once he looked up for an instant.
“Madame preserves her youth,” he lisped, “as though she had lived upon the blood of babes.” And he ran the tip of his tongue over his lips.
This horrible speech was, no doubt, exactly suited to the taste of my counterpart. I knew that I was expected to laugh, and I dragged my lips across my teeth in imitation of the ghastly smile. It passed muster.
He fell upon his ice-cream, when it was brought to him, like a starved creature, and then I noticed the horrible deformity of his hands. He hooked a twisted stump about the handle of his spoon. Nearly all the fingers were gone; what was left were mere torn fragments of bone and tendon. His hands must have been horribly crushed, the top part of the hands crushed off entirely. It made me sick to look at them.
I produced my chart, and passed it over to him. He paused in his repast, wiped off his lips and beard, took out a blank sheet of paper from one of his ragged pockets, and translated with great rapidity, scribbling down the lines with a stump of a pencil about which he wrapped his crooked index stump very cleverly. He grew quite hot with excitement as he wrote; his enormous forehead turned pink. He smacked his lips: “Nu, madame,Boje moe, what a reward for your great, your excellent courage!”
He handed back both pages to me, and began on his ice-cream again. I took the translation and read it eagerly.
“The crown alone is worth every risk, almost every crime. Each jewel is a fortune to dream about. The robe is encrusted with the wealth of magic. If each stone is taken out and offered cautiously for sale at different and widely separated places, the danger of detection would now be very slight. You will have at each sale the dowry of a queen. And all of this splendor is hidden in the wall. There are two ways of reaching it. The easier is through the hole in the kitchen closet, the closet under the stairs. These are directions, easy to remember and easier to follow: Go up the sixteen steps, go along the passage to the inclined plane. Ascend the inclined plane. Count five rafters from the first perpendicular rafter from the top of the plane on your left side. The fifth rafter, if strongly moved, pulls forward. Behind it, on end, stands the iron box. The key is hidden back of the eighteenth brick to the left of the fifth rafter on the row which is the thirtieth from the floor of the passage. Have courage, have self-control, have always a watchful eye for Her. She knows.”
This was not signed. Now, I did a careful thing. I read this translation over five or six times. And then I memorized the directions. Sixteen steps up, ascend the inclined plane, five rafters from the one on your left at the top of the plane, the eighteenth brick to the left of the fifth rafter in the thirtieth row. And then I repeated “sixteen, five, eighteen, thirty,” till they made an unforgettable jingle in my brain.
“You will not forget me, madame?” murmured the priest, this time in Russian. “Madame ruined me, and madame will lift me up.” I lifted my eyes from the paper and smiled that horrible smile.
“I will not forget you,” I said in the same tongue. “You will still be at the address?”
“Until you advise me to change it,” he said cringingly.
“Excellent.Do svedania.”
He stood up and blessed me. I bent my head, and he stalked out, his long, light hair flapping against his shoulders as he walked. The clerks at the drug-store counter gaped and tittered at him. I followed him to the door. There he made me another bow, smiled a big, toothless smile, mounted his motor-cycle, and went off at a tremendous speed, his deformed hands hooked over the bars, the wind of his own motion sending the long points of his beard flying behind him like pennons.
A few moments after his departure another man came out of the saloon opposite, walked quickly to another motor-cycle, mounted it, and went humming after the cloud of dust that hid my mysterious translator.
It was odd that sleepy Pine Cone should at the same time entertain two such travelers on this vehicle; it was even more odd that the second traveler bore so extraordinary a likeness to one of Mrs. Brane's outdoor men, those whom she had described to me as her pet charity.
I might have followed this train of thought to its logical conclusion, I might even have remembered that one of these same men had followed the Baron's departure from “The Pines,” had I not, at the moment, glanced in the opposite direction and seen, far along the wide, dusty highway, the departing brake-cart with George's fat person perched upon its seat. I was possessed by indignation. He was actually leaving Pine Cone without me. He was already too far away to hear my angry shout even if he had not been deaf. As I watched helplessly, Gregory reached the top of the hill, deliberately passed it, and pulled the brake-cart, dilapidated whip, fat George, and all, out of my sight. There was nothing for it but a walk home. I got a wretched lunch in the ice cream parlor, and set out in no very good humor. As soon as I was out of sight of the town, I took out my translation of the chart, refreshed my memory for the last time, tore it into a thousand tiny bits, and buried the shreds deep in the sandy soil of the roadside. I kept the original Slavonic writing in the bosom of my dress. I meant in my own good time to let this paper fall into the hands of the thieves, and so, having notified the police, to catch them in the very hiding-place.
I stepped along rapidly. It was now past noon, a mild November day of Indian summer warmth and softness; the pines swung their fragrant branches against the sky. It was very still and pleasant on the woody road. I was really glad that George had forgotten me. As I came round one of the pretty turns of the road I heard a great, groaning rush of sound, and, hurrying my steps, found that the great dead pine George had pointed out to me had, indeed, true to his prophecy, fallen across the road. It was a great, ragged giant of a tree, and as the bank on one side of the road was steep and high, I was forced to go well into the woods on the other, and to circle about the enormous root which stood up like a wall between me and the road. Back of the tree I stepped down into a hollow, and, as I stepped, looking carefully to my footing, for the ground was very rough, a heavy smother of cloth fell over my head and shoulders, and I was thrown violently backward to the ground. At the same instant the stuff was pulled tight across my mouth. I could hardly breathe, much less cry out. I was half suffocated and blind as a mole. My arms were seized, and drawn back of me and tied at the wrists. The hands that did this were fine and cold, and strong as steel. They were a woman's hands, and I could feel the brush of skirts. It froze my blood to know that I was being handled and trussed up by a pitiless image of myself.
Having made me entirely blind, dumb, and helpless as a log, the creature proceeded to search me with the most intolerable thoroughness. Of course, the paper I had taken from the bookcase was promptly found, and I heard a little gasp of satisfaction, followed by a low oath when she discovered the nature of the script. She was no doubt furious at not being able to find any translation. I was roughly handled, dragged about on the stony ground, tossed this way and that, while the cold, hurried, clever fingers thrust themselves through my clothing. At last they fairly stripped me, every article was shaken out or torn apart, a knife cut off the top of my head-covering, leaving my face in its tight smother, my hair was taken down, shaken out, combed with hasty and painful claws. When, after a horrible lifetime of fear and disgust, anger and pain, the thing that handled me discovered that there was really nothing further of any value to her upon me, she gave way to a fury of disappointment. There, in the still woods, she cursed with disgusting oaths, she beat me with her hands, with branches she found near me on the ground.
“Discipline,” she said, “discipline, and be thankful, my girl, that I don't do you a worse injury. I can't stand being angry unless I make somebody squirm for it. Besides, I mean you to lie quiet for a day or two, till I need you again.”
I did squirm, and she showed no mercy.
Nevertheless, she began to be afraid, I suppose, of being discovered at her cruelty. She threw my clothes over me, laughed at my plight, and I heard her light footsteps going away from me into the woods.
I lay there, raging, sobbing, struggling, till long after dusk, then, my hands becoming gradually loosened, I wriggled one hand free, tore the rope from the other, rid myself of the sacking on my head and sat up, panting, trembling, exhausted, bathed in sweat. Slowly I got into my clothes and smoothed my torn hair, crying with the pain of my hurts. It had been an orgy of rage and cruelty, and I had been, God knows, a helpless victim. Nevertheless, the discipline inflicted upon me did not break my spirit. I was lashed and stung to a cold rage of hatred and disgust. I would outwit the creature, hunt her down, and give her to justice so that she might suffer for her sins. I could not well understand the furious boldness of her action of this afternoon. Why did she leave me to make my escape, to go back to “The Pines,” to tell my story and so to set the police on her track? For some reason she must rely on my holding my tongue. As I stumbled on my painful way, the reason came to me with some certainty. She thought that I, too, meant to steal the fortune. It would not enter the head of a criminal that such a temptation could be resisted by a penniless girl of my history. And, indeed, what other explanation could she possibly entertain for my previous secretiveness? Naturally, she could not understand my desire to triumph over Paul Dabney. And this desire was as strong in me as ever it had been. Indeed, I felt that in a certain way the events of the afternoon left me with slight advantage over my double. It was now a race between us. She knew that I was on the track of the treasure; she knew that I knew of her intentions. I had the translation; she had not. She would have it soon enough, I was sure; therefore I must be quick. No later than that night, or, at farthest, the following night, while she still fancied me laid up by the beating I had received, I must contrive to get at Mrs. Brane's fortune. Dreadful as my experience had been, I was still bent upon the success of my venture; truly I believe I was more bent upon it.
If I failed now, there was no knowing what consequences might fall upon “The Pines” household and upon me. Very easily—I trembled to think how easily—some member of the family might be murdered and I be made to appear the murderess. I had, by my bold course, provided blind justice with a half-dozen witnesses against my innocence. The Baron, the priest, Sara, Henry, Paul Dabney—not one of them but could stand up and swear to my criminality, perhaps to a score of past crimes.
As I limped and stumbled home, wiping the tears from my eyes and the blood from my chafed face, I decided to keep the truth of my adventure to myself. An accident of some kind I must invent to explain my plight. I decided that the fallen pine would have to bear the blame for my cuts and bruises. I would say that I had been caught by the slashing outer branches as it fell.
Before I reached the gateway of “The Pines,” in fact, just as I was dragging myself up the steep slope from the swamp, a will-o'-the-wisp of light came dancing to meet me. The circle of its glow presently made visible the unmistakable flat feet of George, who, at sight of me, broke into a chant of relief and of reproach.
He set down his lamp before me and held up his hands.
“My lordamassy, Miss Gale, what fo' yo' put dis yere po' ole nigger in sech a wo'ld o' mis'ry? Here am Massa Dabney a-tarin' up de groun' all aroun' about hie an' a-callin' me names coz I done obey yo' instid o' him. An' he done gib me one dolleh, yessa, an' yo'-all done gib me two. I tole him de trufe. Yessa, I says, one dolleh done tuk me to Pine Cone an' two dollehs done bring me back.”
I pushed my hair from my tired forehead. “You mean I told you to drive home without me, George?”
George danced a nigger dance of despair—a sort of cake-walk, grotesque and laughable in the circle of lantern-light.
“Oh, lawsamassy, don' nobody 'member nothin' they done say to a po' ole niggerman like George? Yo' come out, miss, while I was a-harnessin' Gregory, an' yo' gib de dollehs an' yo' say, 'Be sho to drive away back to de house af teh Gregory got his new shoes without waitin' fer me.' Yo' say yo' like de walk. There, now! Yo'-all do commence to begin to recollec', don' yo'?”
“Yes, yes. I do, of course, George,” I agreed faintly—what use to disclaim this minor action of my double? “Give me your arm, there's a good fellow. I've been hurt.”
He was as tender as a “mammy,” all but carried me up to the house and handed me over to Paul Dabney, who was pacing the hall like a caged tiger, and who received me with a feverish eagerness, rather like the pounce of a watchful beast of prey. I told my story—or, rather, my fabrication—to him and Mrs. Brane and Mary. Paul did not join in the ejaculation of sympathy and affection; he tried to be stoically cynical even in the face of my quite apparent weakness and pain, but I thought his eyes and mouth corners rather betrayed his self-control, and he helped me carefully, with a sort of restrained passion, up to my room, where I refused poor Mary's offers of help and ministered to myself as best I could.
I was really in a pitiful condition; the beating had been delivered with the intention of laying me up, and I began to think that it would be successful. I don't mind admitting that I cried myself to sleep that night.