"My Dear Wife:--So I have found my little runaway! Did she think that she could hide away from her hubby? Don't fool yourself, little one!"
Gertie had snatched the paper from my hand and read it with startled eyes. "I don't believe it," she said, violently. "That--is not his writing!" She flung the paper down, and left the room.
"What is it?" asked her mother, fretfully.
"An unfinished letter to his wife,--if it is his."
"We never knew much about him," she said, looking troubled. I could easily guess a part of the story that troubled her.
I had no excuse for further lingering, so I left Mrs. Barrows (she asked my name and gave me her own at parting) and went down to my office. Fellows was waiting for me, and it struck me at once that his manner was weighted with unusual significance.
"Well?" I asked. He always waited, like a dog, for a sign.
"Barker was married," he said. "He married a Mary Doherty up in Claremont four years ago, when he was forty. She was twenty."
"Is that all you have found out?"
"All so far."
"That's good, so far as it goes, but I can add to it. She ran away from him, is probably now in Saintsbury, and the chances are that it was she who empowered Collier the undertaker to arrange for his burial. Advertise in the papers for Mary Doherty, and say that she will learn of something to her advantage by communicating with me. I'll make it to her advantage! Keep the advertisement going until I tell you to stop. That's all."
Fellows went off and I knew the matter would be attended to faithfully and with intelligence. But several times during the day I noticed that he was unlike himself. He was absent-minded and he looked unmistakably worried. It frets me to have people about me who are obviously burdened with secret sorrows they will ne'er impart, and I finally spoke.
"What in thunder is the matter with you today, Fellows? What's on your mind?"
"Nothing," he said quickly. But after a minute or so he looked up with that same disturbed air. "Who would have thought that he had a wife?"
"That's not especially astonishing."
"I never thought that there could be a woman--a woman who could care for him, I mean."
"She probably didn't. She ran away."
"Still it must have been a terrible shock. And if she cared about burying him,--"
"You're too tender-hearted, Fellows," I said. But I confess that I liked his betrayal of sympathy. He was too unemotional as a rule.
Well, that brings me down to my interview with Garney, which took place that afternoon.
Mr. Garney was one of the regular faculty at Vandeventer College, and to meet his convenience I asked him to fix the time and place for the interview which I desired. He said he would come to my office at four, and he kept his appointment promptly. I had told Jean Benbow that if she could come to my office at half past four, I would take her down to see her brother. She came fifteen minutes ahead of time,--and that's how she came into the story. Into that part of the story, I mean. But I had all that Garney could probably tell me before she came in and disconcerted him. I think my first question surprised him.
"Mr. Garney, do you know anything to Eugene Benbow's discredit?"
He looked at me with an intentness that I found was habitual with him, as though he weighed my words before he answered them.
"You don't mean trivial faults?"
"No. I mean anything serious."
He shook his head. "No. He is an exceptionally fine fellow in every way. High-spirited and honorable. I suppose his sensitiveness to his family honor, as he conceives it, may be called a fault, since it has unbalanced him to the extent of leading him into a crime."
"You know of no absorbing entanglement, either with man or woman?"
"No," he said, evidently puzzled by my question.
"Have you ever heard him express vengefulness toward Barker?"
"Oh, yes," he said, decidedly. "I know that he has brooded over that. He does not talk of it in general, I believe, but he has been a special pupil of mine, and he has taken me somewhat into his confidence. That Barker should have escaped all punishment for the slaying of his father has worn upon him. He spoke of it only once, but then he expressed himself in such a way that I knew he had been carrying it in his mind a long time."
"Then you believe that he really shot Barker?"
He stared at me, amazed. "Of course."
"You think of nothing that would prompt him to assert his guilt, if, in point of fact, he should not be guilty?"
I never saw a man look more astonished. "If you really mean that, I can only say that I can think of nothing short of insanity which would make him say he shot Barker if he didn't. Why, he has confessed. Do you mean to say that you think the confession false? And if so, why?"
"I am not thinking yet. I am merely gathering facts of all sorts. When I get them all together, I expect to discover the truth, whatever it may be."
"I supposed his confession was conclusive. But I suppose you lawyers get to looking at everything with suspicion. Have you anything to support your extraordinary hypothesis beyond your natural desire to clear your client?"
I had no intention of taking him extensively into my confidence, but I was saved the necessity of answering at all by the opening of my office door. Jean Benbow put her head in, with a shy, childlike dignity.
"Am I too early?" she whispered. "I couldn't wait."
"Come in," I smiled.
She came in, glanced carelessly at my visitor, and walked over to my window. She was dressed in an autumnal brown, with a trim little hat that somehow made her look more mature and less childish than she had seemed before, though still more like a frank brown-faced boy than a young lady. I saw that Carney's eyes followed her to the window with a look of startled attention.
"I think that is all I wanted to ask you at this time," I said, meaning to imply that the interview was ended.
"Yes," he said, irrelevantly, without taking his eyes from Jean.
I rose. "I may come to you again, Mr. Garney,--"
At the name, Jean turned swiftly and came to us.
"Oh, are you Mr. Garney?" she asked eagerly, putting out her hand. "I'm so glad to meet you. Gene has told me about you. I'm Gene's twin sister, Jean."
He looked like a man in a dream, and I could see that his voice had caught in his throat. He took her hand and held it, looking down at her.
"I didn't know that Gene had a sister," he said at last.
"If that isn't like a boy!" she said with quick indignation. "At any rate, he has told me about you!"
"Nothing bad, I hope?" He smiled faintly, but I felt that he was almost breathlessly waiting for her reassurance.
"Mercy, no! He thinks you know an awful lot." Then she drew back a step, threw up her head to look him steadily in the eye, and said clearly, "Mr. Garney, I think Gene did exactly right. And I am proud of him."
I saw that she meant to permit no misunderstanding as to her position but I doubted whether Garney cared a rap what she might think. It wasn't her opinions that he cared about. It was herself. I admit that it annoyed me. I wanted to get her out of his sight.
"It is time for us to go, Miss Benbow," I said abruptly.
"You are going down to the jail?" asked Garney quickly. I saw that it was on the tip of his tongue to propose going with us.
"Yes, we are going," I said, looking at him steadily. "You, I believe, are going back to your classroom."
An angry look came over his face as he caught my meaning. I saw that he would not forget it, but I didn't care. Was I to stand by and say nothing while he tumbled his wits at her feet? It was absurd. She wasn't old enough to understand and defend herself. We parted definitely at the street door, and I walked Jean so fast down the block that I was ashamed when I suddenly realized what I was doing.
"I beg your pardon," I said, slowing up.
She had kept up manfully, though breathlessly. "Oh, I like to walk fast," she said staunchly.
"Did you see your brother yesterday?"
"Yes. But only for a minute. And there was a horrid man who kept hanging around in a most ill-bred manner, so that I really couldn't talk to Gene comfortably. I believe he did it on purpose!"
"It is quite possible," I admitted.
She looked at me sideways under her long lashes. "Your voice sounds as though you were laughing at me inside."
"Let me laugh with you, instead," I said hastily. "The man was there on purpose. Prisoners are not allowed to see visitors alone, speaking generally."
She was thoughtful for a few moments. "Then how are we going to arrange to get him out?"
"I thought you were going to leave that to me."
"Notleaveit to you," she said gently. "Of course I am glad to have you help, because there are lots of times when a man is very useful. But Gene ismybrother, you know."
"Yes, of course," I said, trying to catch her thought.
"So of course I am going to be in it. All the time."
"In what, child?"
"In the plans for his escape." She set her face into lines of determination which I saw was intended to overwhelm any vain opposition that I might raise to her plan.
"A lawyer doesn't usually take that method of getting a man out of prison," I said apologetically. "I hadn't thought of it."
"But isn't it the best way?" she said urgently. "Of course I don't know as much about the law as you do,--ofcoursenot,--but doesn't the law justhaveto do something to a man when he shoots another man,--even if he is perfectly right to do it?"
It was an appalling question. I could not answer. She did not need anything more than my face, apparently, for she went on quickly.
"So that's why I thought it would be quicker and better, and would settle things once for all and be done with it," she explained. "Now, there are lots of ways we can help him to escape. You know we are twins."
"Yes. What of that?"
She hesitated a moment. "Isn't there any way I could get into Gene's room for a minute without having that horrid man watching?"
"Perhaps. What then?"
"We could change clothes. I'd wear a rain coat that came down to the ground and a wide hat with a heavy veil, and extra high heels on my shoes. And you'd be there to distract the attention of the horrid man,--thatwould be your part, and it's a very difficult and important part, too. Then Gene would just walk down the corridor,--I'd have to remind him to take little steps and not to hurry too much,--and then after awhile they would come and look into the cell to see if he was all safe and they'd see me. And I'd just say 'Good day' politely, and walk off." She looked at me eagerly, waiting for my criticism.
I looked as sympathetic as possible. "It's a very pretty plan, Miss Jean, but your brother is quite a bit taller than you are, isn't he? I'm afraid that might be noticed."
She looked crestfallen, but only for a moment. "Then I don't see but what we shall have to get him out through the window," she said.
"I have read of such things," I granted her.
"Oh, yes, I have read quantities of stories where prisoners were helped to escape," she said eagerly. "It always can be done,--one way if not another. Last night I was trying to think it out, and I had six plans all thought out. What's the use of being twins, if it doesn't count for something?"
"I am sure it counts for a great deal, Miss Jean, even if--"
"But Ishallbe able to," she cried, cutting across my unspoken words. "I must. Of course when I am talking to Gene I am as cheerful as possible, and I don't let him see that I--I'm abitafraid, but truly, you know, I--I--I don't like it." Her lips were quivering.
"Dear child! Now, listen to me. We'll make an agreement. Let me have the first shot in this business. If we can get him out through the front door, with everybody cheering and shaking his hands, that will be better than an escape through the window, and living in hiding and in fear the rest of his life, won't it? But if that doesn't work,--if I see surely that the only way to save him from the vengeance of the law is to steal him away,--then I am with you, to the bitter end. I'll meet you with disguise, rope ladder, anything you can think of. But let me have my chance first, in my own way. Agreed?"
She stopped in the street to put out her hand and shake mine firmly. Her eyes were as bright and steady as pilot lights.
"I think you are perfectly splendid," she said with conviction. I have forgotten some important things in my life and I expect to forget a good many more, but I shall never forget the thrill that came to me with that absurd, girlish endorsement! I think it was the way she said it that made it seem so much like a gold medal pinned upon my breast.
"I shall arrange for you to have a quiet talk with your brother, and then I'll leave you for a while. You will probably be watched, but I think you can speak without being overheard. I want you to remember carefully what your brother says."
"And tell you?" she asked doubtfully, leaping ahead of my words, as I found she had a way of doing.
"If he asks you to send a message to anyone, or asks about anyone in particular, I want to know it. Your brother is keeping something from me, Miss Jean, and I must find out what it is, in order to do him justice. I think there is someone else involved in this affair, and that he is keeping silence to his own hurt. Just remember that this is what I must find out about, somehow, and if he says anything--anything--that would show who is in his mind, that you must tell me."
"I understand," she said, wide-eyed. "But whom could he care for so much as that?"
"You can't help me by a guess?"
"No. I'm afraid not. Gene writes beautiful letters when he wants to, but not like girls' letters, you know. Not about every little thing."
We found Gene, as I had found him before, the polite, nice-mannered boy, evidently trying somewhat anxiously to deport himself as a gentleman should under unrehearsed conditions.
"I have brought your sister for a little visit," I said. "I am coming for her after a little. I have arranged that you shall not be disturbed, so you may talk to her freely and without hesitation."
"Oh, thank you! I hope I am not putting you to any trouble. I'm so sorry, Jean, that you should have to come here to see me. It isn't at all the right place for a girl." He looked as apologetic and disturbed as though he had brought her there inadvertently.
I left them together for half an hour and then went back for Jean. Eugene detained me for a moment after Jean had said her last cooing goodbye.
"I wish you would tell her not to come here," he said anxiously. "It won't look well. I can stand it alone all right. Honest, I can."
I couldn't help liking the boy, though his anxiety to save his sister from unpleasant comment was somewhat inconsistent with his action in bringing this greater anxiety to her.
"I don't believe I could keep her away," I said. "You will have to stand that as a part--of it all."
He flushed in instant comprehension. I should have been ashamed of prodding him, if I hadn't felt that it was necessary to make him as uncomfortable as possible in order to get him out of his heroics and make him confess more ingenuously than he had done up to this time.
I joined Jean, and walked to the car with her. "Well?" I asked.
"He didn't say anything," she answered gravely. "Of course I told him that I thought he had done exactly right, and that I was proud of him, and that you were going to take care of all the law business and make it all right, and he wasn't to worry and I would come and see him. OfcourseI am not going back to school."
"You will live with your uncle, Mr. Ellison?"
"Yes."
"I'm afraid it will be a lonely and trying time for you. I wish I might do something to make things easier for you. Will you let me know if there ever is anything I can do?"
"You can come and tell me how things are going," she said wistfully. "I don't understand about law, you know, and--it's lonesome waiting. If I coulddosomething,--"
"You promised to leave that to me, you know," I said, anxious to keep her from forgetting what an important person I was in this affair!
She did not answer for a moment, and then she looked up with a brave assumption of cheer.
"I'd be ashamed to get blue when Gene is so plucky. He doesn't think about himself at all. He is only worried to death for fear Miss Thurston should be disturbed."
"Is he great friends with Miss Thurston?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. He asked about her first of all, and over and over again. He wanted me to be sure and go and see her at once, and tell her that he is all right."
"Shall I put you on the car here, then? I am going down to St. James' Hospital to see our man."
"Oh, mayn't I go with you?" she cried eagerly. "You know I have a share in him, too."
"Of course you have,--a very large share. Yes, come on. We'll see what he has to say for himself."
As it turned out, he had more to say for us than for himself.
The white-capped attendant at the hospital led us up a flight of broad, easy steps, to a large sunny room where convalescents were allowed to try their new strength. Here "our man" was sitting in a large arm-chair, wrapped in a blanket.
"He simply wouldn't stay in bed," the nurse explained in an undertone. "He says he must go home, but he really isn't strong enough to walk across the room without help."
"Is there anything the matter with him? Beyond exhaustion, I mean," I asked. Jean had run across the room and was bending over the old man with a coaxing concern in her face that was charming. She was like an elfin sprite trying to express sympathy for some poor, huddled-up toad.
"That's enough," said the nurse crisply. "No, there doesn't seem to be anything else wrong. But it will take a week at least before he is able to take care of himself. His mind will grow stronger as he does." "Isn't his mind right?"
"You can talk to him," she said, non-committally. "Don't tire him." And with that she left us.
Jean came running back to meet me and put me properly into touch with things.
"He isn't happy," she explained hastily. "You must be cheerful, and not bother him.--Here is Mr. Hilton who has come to see you, Mr. Jordan. Now you can have a nice little talk withhim." Her tone indicated that this was indeed a privilege which might make up for many slings from unkind fortune.
Mr. Jordan made an impatient gesture as though he would throw off the blanket which was binding his arms.
"What am I doing here?" he asked querulously. "I want to get away. How did I get here?"
"You fainted away on the street, Mr. Jordan," I answered. "We brought you here to have you taken care of. Of course you may go as soon as you are able to. Do you want to go home? Wouldn't it be best for some member of your family or some friend to come for you?"
p137He was Diavolo's partner," he said vehemently. Page 137.>
He let his chin sink upon his breast, and closed his eyes. Jean telegraphed me a look of comment, interpretation and exhortation. I half guessed what she meant, but I was too keen on my own trail to consider making things easy for the old man.
"I believe you came to Saintsbury to look up Alfred Barker," I said, quietly.
He did not answer or open his eyes, but I felt that his silence was now alert instead of dormant, and presently a slow shiver ran over his frame.
"It was a shock to you to find that he was dead, was it not?"
He roused himself to look at me. "I can't get at Diavolo except through him. He was Diavolo's partner," he said vehemently.
"I am quite ready to believe that," I said heartily. But Jean had the good sense not to be frivolous. She was smoothing the old man's hand softly.
"Who is Diavolo?" she asked simply.
"If I knew! He was careful enough not to give his name." He was trembling with excitement and his voice broke in his throat.
I began to see that this was a story which I must get, and also that I should have to get it piecemeal from his distracted mind.
"Where did you meet Diavolo?" I asked.
"Why, at Eden Valley."
The name struck an echo in my brain. Of what was Eden Valley reminiscent?
"What was he doing there?" I asked, questioning at hazard.
The old man clutched the arms of his chair with his hands and leaned forward to look into my face. "You never heard of him?"
"Not a word."
He nodded heavily and sank back in his chair. "He gave a show," he said dully. "In the Opery House. To show off how he could hypnotize people." A slow tear gathered in his eye.
I began to get a coherent idea. "Oh, Diavolo was the name assumed for show purposes by a man who went around giving exhibitions of hypnotism. Is that it?"
"Yes."
"What did Alfred Barker have to do with it?"
"He was with him. He was the man that engaged the Opery House and done the rest of the business. Diavolo kep' in the background. Nobody knows who Diavolo was, but Alfred Barker left a trail I could follow." Excitement had made his voice almost strong, and brought back a momentary energy.
"What did you want to follow him for?"
His face worked with passion. "To get back my thousand!" he cried, clenching his trembling hands.
"How did he get your thousand?"
"He got it from the bank, on a check he made me sign while I was hypnotized!"
Suddenly I remembered,--Eden Valley, 32.00 plus 1000. That was a part of the memoranda in Barker's note-book. A memorandum of the profits of their trip! But I must understand it better.
"Did you let Diavolo hypnotize you?" I asked.
"I didn't think he could," the old farmer admitted, hanging his head. "I thought my will was too strong for him to get control of me. He called for people to come up from the audience and I laughed with the rest to see him make fools of the boys,--making them eat tallow candles for bananas, and scream when he threw a cord at them and said it was a snake, and things like that. But I was mighty proud of my strong will, and the boys dared me to go up and let him have a try at me, so I went."
"And did he make you sign a check?" I asked, incredulously.
"Not then. That was too public. He knew his business too well for that. But he got control of me." There was something pitiable in the man's trembling admission. "He hypnotized me before I knew it, and when I came to, I was standing on a chair in the middle of the stage, trying to pull my pants up to my knees, because he had told me that I was an old maid, and there was a mouse on the floor, and the boys out in front were rolling over with laughter."
"That was very unkind," said Jean, indignantly.
"I was ashamed and I was mad," the old man continued, "and I knew the boys would make everlasting fun of me, so next day I went up to see him at the hotel. I thought if I could talk to him, man to man, and without the fancy fixings of the stage, I could maybe find out how it was did. He was pleasant and smiling and talked easy, and then I don't remember one thing after that. Just a smoke in my mind. I suppose he hypnotized me without my knowing it."
"That is possible, I suppose, since he had had control of your will before. What next?"
"The next thing I knew, I was walking up the road home, feeling queer and dizzy in my head. I couldn't remember how I got out of the hotel, nor nothing. And I didn't know what had really happened until I went to the bank to draw some money a month afterwards, and they told me I had checked it all away."
"Is that possible?" I asked doubtfully.
"Easy enough," he said bitterly. "I could see it clear enough afterwards. If he could make me believe I was an old maid afraid of a mouse, couldn't he just as easy make me think I owed him a thousand dollars and was making a check to pay it? I had my check book in my pocket when I went there, and it showed my balance, of course, so it was easy enough for them to find out how much they could ask for and not get turned down by the bank. The last check was torn out but the stub not filled in. And the bank showed me the canceled check all right."
"Payable to whom?"
"To Alfred Barker. But he was only the hired man, I could see that. Diavolo was the real one. Barker came and went whenhelifted his finger. But Alfred Barker's name was on the check, sohisname wouldn't show. I had time to think it all out afterwards."
It was an amazing story, but I could not pronounce it incredible, especially when I recalled that significant "plus" of $1000 at Eden Valley, in Barker's memorandum book.
"What did you do about it? Anything?"
"I tried to follow them. Diavolo showed in other places, and I thought I could find them. I see there wasn't no use going to law about it, because I couldn't deny that I had signed the check, and I understand it ain't against the law to hypnotize a man. But if I could find them, I bet I could get some satisfaction out of Barker's hide, if I could catch him alone. I wasn't going to take any more chances with Diavolo." He shuddered.
"You never caught up with them?"
"No. They had always just gone on. Then they stopped the show business and I lost track of them, till I heard that Barker was in Saintsbury. I came as fast as I could, but--I was too late." His head fell forward on his breast, and he looked ready to collapse. His loss, the long pursuit, the disheartening ending, had broken him.
Jean looked at me anxiously, and I understood, but it seemed to be too important to get all the information possible from the old man at once to give more than the barest consideration to his feelings. I poured a little whiskey into the cup of my pocket flask, and after he had choked it down he looked more equal to further cross-examination.
"Did you ever hear Barker address Diavolo by name?" I asked.
"No. I tell you he was the hired man."
"What did Diavolo look like?"
"He was about your height and build. Thin dark face. Long black hair and a soft black beard. Queer eyes that gave you the shivers."
It was not an identifying description. Probably nineteen men out of twenty are of my height and build, which is in all respects medium; the long hair and black beard were probably stage properties; and the queer eyes might be merely Mr. Jordan's afterthought of what the hypnotizer's eyes ought to be.
"Would you know him again if you saw him without his hair and beard?"
He looked surprised, and then doubtful. "I don't know."
But at this point the attendant nurse came up, and intimated plainly that I was a trespasser and transgressor, and that the interview was ended.
"I'll come to-morrow and take you out for a drive, if the doctor thinks you are strong enough to go," I said, by way of keeping the door open for further details.
"I must go home," he said, querulously.
"The faster you get strong, the sooner you can go. Till to-morrow, then."
Jean walked beside me quietly and sedately till we were outside. Then she turned to me with a flash of intense feeling.
"What are you going to do for him?"
"Find Diavolo," I answered promptly.
"And make him give back the thousand dollars?"
"If possible," I answered absently. My mind was more actively engaged with other features of the story than with the defrauding of the old farmer, and I was not sorry when I could put Jean on her car, so that I could wander off by myself to think the matter over. How far, if at all, this affair of Diavolo might have a bearing upon the murder mystery was uppermost in my mind. Suppose Diavolo and his "hired man" had quarreled. Suppose they had quarreled to the death? It was, of course, quite probable that a man of Barker's type would have many enemies, but here I was dealing not with probabilities but with a fact, however small it might be. There had been, in the recent past, an intimate relation between Barker and a man who was capable of touring the country as a hypnotist, a man who concealed his identity,--Ha, a motive! They had quarreled over the division of the thousand dollars, and Barker had threatened to expose him! His own death had followed! This chain had developed so rapidly and vividly in my imagination that it was a cold shock when my common sense recalled that I must establish some connection between Diavolo and Gene Benbow to make the thread complete. Whatever part Gene had played or had not played in the tragedy itself, he had confessed to the shot. The confession itself was a fact and must be accounted for, whether the thing confessed was a fact or not.
Up to this time the only theory in my mind that was compatible with Gene's innocence was the theory of romantic self-sacrifice on his part. I had felt that if he was not guilty he was trying to save someone who was. Whom would Gene Benbow wish to save at any cost? Who had killed Barker? Who was Diavolo? Would one name answer all three questions?
That was what I must find out.
My preliminary investigations along the Diavolo trail extended over considerable time, and were intertwined with various other matters of more or less interest, but I shall condense the account here, so as to get on to the more intricate affairs that followed.
To begin with, I wrote to the theatrical manager of each and every town that had been listed in Barker's note-book, asking if "Diavolo" had appeared there, under what management he had come, what his real name was, how he could be reached, and whether they had any letter, contract, or other writing of his. Then I wrote to the metropolitan agencies, and to various Bureaux of Information in the larger cities, and to all the public and private societies and persons whom I knew to have an interest in the occult, asking, in a word, if they knew who "Diavolo" was, and how and where one might come into communication with him. I threw out these baited lines in every direction that I could think of.
Very soon the first answers came in. After I had received three or four I began to make bets with myself on the contents of the next one, though it soon became obviously unsportsmanlike to wager on what was so near a certainty. They were all alike. The man who had been placarded as "Diavolo" had never been seen anywhere until he had come to the theatre in the evening for the performance. All business matters had been handled by his agent, Alfred Barker. Barker had made the arrangements beforehand, sometimes by letter, sometimes in person, and he had always accompanied Diavolo at the time of the performance and looked after everything.
"Barker looked out for Diavolo as carefully as though he were a prima donna with a $10,000 throat," wrote one imaginative manager. "Shouldn't wonder but what he was a woman, come to think of it. He had a squeaky kind of voice on the stage, and he kept himself to himself in a very noticeable way. He wore a beard, but it may have grown in a store. I know his hair came out of a shop all right."
Most of the answers were less imaginative, but equally unsatisfactory. Barker had stood in front of Diavolo and shielded him from observation so effectively that no one but Barker really knew what he looked like. And Barker could not now be consulted!
Before long I began to receive answers to the inquiries I had flung farther afield as to the reputation of Diavolo among those who might be supposed to know all professional hypnotists. These replies were also of a surprising and disappointing uniformity. No one working under that name was known. Most of my correspondents contented themselves with this bald assertion, but some of them made suggestions which led me on to further inquiry. One man suggested that "Diavolo" might possibly be one Jacob Hahnen, who had disappeared from the professional field some two years before, following his arrest on account of the death on the stage of one of his hypnotized victims, while in a state of trance. That looked like a plausible suggestion, and I at once engaged a detective to trace Jacob Hahnen. I may say here, (not to mislead you as far as I was misled,) that Hahnen established a perfect alibi, so that pursuit went for nothing. I did not waste time or money on another suggestion, which was to the effect that a famous hypnotist who was supposed to have died in California some years ago, might have gone into retirement for reasons of his own, and have come out of it temporarily under an alias. It might of course be possible, but there was nothing tangible to work upon.
One thing became clear to me in the course of this investigation. There were more professional hypnotists in the country than I had had any idea of, and their ways were dark and devious. They were accustomed to work under assumed names, and more or less to cover their tracks and hide in burrows. I came across some quite amazing literature on the subject,--circulars issued by Schools of Hypnotism, offering to teach, in a course of so many lessons, for so much money, the art of controlling people by occult power.
"A knowledge of this wonderful faculty," one announcement claimed, "will enable you to control the will of the person to whom you are talking, without his consent or even his knowledge. Think of the advantage this will give you in your business! All taught in twenty lessons, mailed in plain cover."
"Lies and nonsense," I said to myself. But something within me bristled uneasily, as at the approach of an evil spirit. It had not been nonsense to poor old William Jordan.
I took to reading scientific books on hypnotism, to discover what powers or disabilities were actually admitted or claimed for this abnormal state. It was not quite so bad as the commercial exploitation of the subject, but it was disquieting enough. In general it seemed to be assumed that a normal person could not be hypnotized without his consent the first time, but that if he once yielded to the will of the hypnotizer, his own will would be so weakened thereby that afterwards he might find it quite impossible to resist. It was a moot question whether a person could be compelled to commit a crime while in a hypnotized state. Some writers insisted that a person's moral principles would guide him, even though his mind and will were paralyzed. I confess it looked to me to be open to question. Morality is generally more of a surface matter than mind, and would therefore be more easily bent.
It was a tremendous relief to get away from this commerce with the powers of darkness to talk with Jean Benbow,--though my part in the conversation was not conspicuous. I was rather like the wooden trellis upon which she could train her flowers of fancy! William Jordan grew stronger under the care of the hospital, but he was not a young man, and he had had a heartbreaking experience. It was some time before he was equal to the return to Eden Valley, and in the meantime I saw as much of him as I could, encouraging him to talk about Diavolo whenever he was in the mood, in the hope that something might develop which would serve me as a clue. Several times I took him out driving, and whenever possible I got Jean to go with us. This was partly because the old man had taken a fancy to her, and she put him at his talkative ease, and partly because she was a delightful little companion on her own account.
One day, when we were out toward the suburbs, she said suddenly, "Oh, let's go down that street."
We went accordingly, and came presently to a quaint old church, covered with ivy.
"That is where I am to be married," said Jean with quiet seriousness. She leaned forward as we drew nearer to watch it intently.
"Really!" I exclaimed. "May I ask if the day is set?"
"Oh, no," she said simply. "I only mean that when I am married I shall be married in that church."
"Why, pray?"
"My mother was married there," she said gently, and a look of moonbeams came into her eyes.
"Oh! That makes it seem more reasonable. But aren't you taking a good deal for granted in assuming that you are going to be married? Maybe you will grow up to be a nice little old maid, with a tabby cat and a teapot. What then?"
She did not answer my foolish gibe for a minute, and I feared I had offended her. But after a moment she said, with that quaint seriousness of hers:
"Do you know, that is a very hard question to decide. I have thought about it so often. It would be very splendid, of course, to fall in love with some great hero, and go through all sorts of awful tragedies, and then have it come out happily in the end, and of course one would have to be married if it came out happily, though it is kind of hard to think of what could happen next that would be interesting enough to make a proper climax, don't you think so?Justto live happy ever after seems sort of tame. So I have wondered whether, on the whole, it would not be more romantic to cherish a secret passion and grow old like withered rose leaves and have faded letters tied with a worn ribbon to be found in your desk when you were dead."
I considered the situation with proper seriousness. "Who would write the letters?" I asked.
"Oh,--"
"Some young man who was desperately in love with you, of course?"
"Why, yes," she admitted.
"Well, what would you do with him? I don't believe any young man with proper feelings on the subject would be willing to efface himself in order to let you cherish his memory. He'd rather you would cherish him. I'm sure I should, if it were I."
"Oh!" she murmured with a startled dismay that was delicious.
"Did you happen to have any young man in particular in mind," I asked, "or is the position vacant?"
She looked up at me from under thick eyelashes in a rather bewildering way. "Quite vacant," she said.
"I'm supposed to be rather a good letter-writer," I suggested.
"I should have to be particular, if they are going to last a long time and be read over and over again," she said demurely. "Have you had any experience in writing that special kind of a letter?" (The sly puss!)
"No experience at all. But you would find me willing to learn and industrious."
"I'll consider your application," she said, with dignity. "But I haven't yet decided that on the whole I should not prefer a wedding to a package of yellow letters. I don't know. I can just see myself sitting by a window in the fading twilight, with those letters in my lap, and it looks awfully interesting. But it would be disconcerting--isn't that the right word?--if no one else saw how romantic and beautiful it was. Of course I should know myself, and that counts for a good deal, but it does seem morelonesomethan a wedding, when you come to think of it, doesn't it?"
"It certainly does. Whatever you may have to say against weddings, they are not lonesome."
"Oh, well, I don't have to decide just yet," she said, with an air of relief. "It is a long way off. Only, if I everdoget married, it will be in that little church, no matter if I am off at the North Pole when I am engaged and intend to go back there to set up housekeeping the next day. I made a vow about it, so as to be quite sure that I should have the strength of mind to insist on it. When you have made a vow, you justhaveto carry it out, you know, in spite of torrents or floods oranything."
I agreed heartily. And the time came when the memory of that foolish chatter just about saved my reason.