He was roused by the sound of her voice and the single stroke of the clock back of her. It was one, and he could have sworn that they had been sitting here less than fifteen minutes.
"I must go to Ben now," she said. "It is time to give him more medicine."
"I will go with you."
"No," she decided, "I think I had better go alone. A stranger might frighten him."
He hesitated with an uneasy sense of foreboding, but she moved past him determinedly and went up the stairs, leaving him alone with the haunting picture upon the wall. He moved nearer to study it more in detail. He caught a trace of resemblance to the boy but none to the girl. The features were more rugged than those of young Arsdale, and the forehead was broader and higher, but the mouth was the same—thin, tense, and yet with no strength of jaw behind it. The cheek bones were rather high and the eyes set deep but over-close together. It was a face, thought Donaldson, of which great things might be expected, but upon which nothing could be depended. The man would move eratically but brilliantly, like those aquatic fireworks which dart in burning angles along the face of the water—scarlet serpents shooting to the right, the left, in their gorgeous irresponsible course towards the dark.
As he stood there Donaldson thought he heard the soft tread of feet in the hall and the click of the outside door as it was opened. He listened intently, but he heard nothing further. He crossed the library and looked out. The door was ajar. He flung it open and peered down the driveway; there was nothing to be seen but the dark mass of hedge bounding the yard. He went to the foot of the stairs and listened; there was no sound above.
The wind may have blown open the door if it had been unlatched, and the imagined footsteps in the hall may have been nothing but the rustling of the hangings, but still he was not satisfied. He ventured up the first flight and paused to listen. He thought he heard a movement above, but was not quite sure. He neither wished to intrude nor to frighten her unnecessarily, but he called her name. At first he received no response, and then, with a sense of relief that made him realize how deep his fear had been, he saw her come to the head of the stairs. The light came only from the sick room, so that he could not see her very clearly. She took a step towards them, and then he noticed that she swayed and clutched the banister. He was at her side in three bounds.
"What is the trouble?" he demanded.
"If you will steady me a bit," she answered.
"Are you hurt?"
"Just dazed a little. Did you stop him?"
"Stop him? Then some one did go out?"
"As I opened the door Ben rushed by me and—I fell down. I hoped you might see him and hold him!"
"I was at the other end of the library. He must have stolen out on tiptoe. But you are faint."
"I am stronger now."
She started down the stairs with the help of the banister, holding herself together with remarkable self control. As they came into the light he saw that she was very pale, but she insisted that she needed nothing but a breath of cool air. He helped her to the door and here she sat down for a moment upon the step.
"I might take a look around the grounds," Donaldson suggested.
"It is quite useless. He is not here."
"Then you have an idea where he has gone!"
She hesitated a moment.
"Yes," she answered.
He waited, but she ventured nothing further.
"I want you to feel," he said quietly, "that you may call upon me for anything you wish done. My time is my own—quite my own. I place it at your service."
She turned to study his face a moment. It was clean and earnest. It bade her trust. Yet to ask him to do what lay before her was to bring him, a stranger, into the heart of her family affairs. It was to involve her in an intimacy from which instinctively she shrank. But pressing her close was the realization of the imminent danger threatening the boy. This was no time for quibbling—no time for nice shadings of propriety. Even if this meant a sacrifice of something of herself, she must cling to the one spar that promised a chance for her brother's safety. As Donaldson's eyes met hers, she felt ashamed that she had hesitated even long enough for these thoughts to flash through her brain.
"The boy uses opium," she said without equivocation.
The bare naming of the drug rolled up the curtain before the whole tragedy which had been suggested by the portrait in the library; it explained every detail of this wild night except her presence here practically alone with the crazed young man. It accounted for her objection to waiting in the drugstore; it solved the mystery of her fear of the city shadows. Had he suspected this, he would no more have allowed her to go up those stairs alone than he would have permitted her to go unescorted into the cell of a madman.
"I 'm sorry for him," he murmured. "Then he has gone straight to Mott Street?"
"I 'm afraid so. He has been there once before."
"The habit has been long upon him?"
"It is inherited. This is the third generation," she admitted, turning her head aside in shame.
"But he himself—"
"Only after his father's death. The father feared this and watched him every minute. He died thinking the danger was passed, but he left me a prescription which had been of help to him. It was given him by our old family physician who has since died. Mr. Barstow knew Dr. Emory and so has always prepared it for me."
"How long this last time did he go without the drug?"
"It is three months since the first attack. This medicine tided him over five days. He was nervous to-night and begged me to go out to dinner with him. I 'm afraid it was unwise—the lights and the music excited him."
"But you have n't been here alone with him?"
"There is Marie."
"Two women alone with a man in that condition—it is n't safe."
"You don't understand how good he has been. He has struggled hard. He has allowed me to lock him up—to do everything to help him. He has never been like this before."
"It is n't safe for you," he repeated. "Are there no relatives I may summon?"
"None," she answered. "I am his cousin—his sister by adoption. There are no other relatives."
"No friends?"
"I would rather fight it out alone," she answered firmly. "I don't wish my friends to know about this," she added hastily, as though to avoid further discussion along this line.
"It was careless of me to leave the door open as I went in."
"It was lucky for you. He might have—"
"Don't!" she shuddered.
He waited a moment.
"You are brave," he declared, "but this is too big a problem for you to manage. He should have been placed in the hands of a physician."
"No," she interrupted. "No one must know of this. I trust you to tell no one of this."
He thought a moment.
"Very well. But in order to locate him now, it will be necessary to call in the help of the police."
"The police!" she exclaimed in horror. "No! You must promise me you will not do that."
She rose to her feet all excitement.
"They would not arrest him," he assured her. "They would simply hold him until we came for him."
"I would rather not. I would rather wait until he comes back himself than do that."
He could not understand her fear, but he was bound to respect it.
"Very well," he answered quietly. "But I have a friend whom I can trust. You do not mind if I enlist his help?"
"He is of the police?" she asked suspiciously.
"He is a friend," he replied. "It is as a friend he will do this for me."
"Oh," she answered confused, "I don't know what to do! But I feel that I can trust you—Iwilltrust you."
"Thank you. Then I must begin work at once. There is a telephone in the house?"
Her face brightened instantly. He seemed so decisive and sure. The fact that he was so immediately active, that he did not wait until daylight, when conditions would be best, but began the search in the face of apparent impossibility, brought her immediate confidence. She liked a man who would, without quoting the old saw, hunt for a needle in a haystack.
She directed him to the telephone, and he summoned a cab. He returned with the question,
"Do you know how much money he had?"
"Money? He had none."
"Then," said Donaldson, "won't he come back of himself? Opium is one thing for which there is no credit."
"I 'm afraid not. He has been away before without money, and—"
She stopped as abruptly as though a hand had been placed over her mouth. Her face clouded as though from some new and half forgotten fear. She glanced swiftly at Donaldson, as though to see if he had read the ellipsis.
When she spoke again it was slowly, each word with an effort.
"My pocket-book was upstairs. It is possible that he borrowed."
Donaldson knew the meaning of that. Kleptomania was a characteristic symptom. Victims of this habit had gone even further in their hot necessity for money.
"Perhaps," she suggested hesitatingly, "perhaps this search to-night may inconvenience you financially. I wish you to feel free to spend without limit whatever you may find helpful. We have more than ample funds. Unfortunately I have on hand only a little money, but as soon as I can get to my bank—"
"I have enough." He smiled as a new meaning to the phrase came to him. "More than enough."
He glanced at the clock. Over half of his first day already gone. He heard the crunching wheels of the taxicab on the graveled road outside. Hurrying into the hall he took one of Arsdale's hats—he had lost his own in the machine—and slipped into his overcoat. Still he paused, curiously reluctant to leave her. He did not feel that there was very much waiting for him outside, and here—he would have been content to live his week in this old library. He had glimpsed a dozen volumes that he would have enjoyed handling. He would like to spread them out upon his knee before the fire and read to her at random from them. Yes, she must be there to complete the library. He was getting loose again in his thoughts.
She was looking at him anxiously.
"I think we shall find him," he said confidently. "At any rate I shall come back in the morning and report."
"This seems such an imposition—" she faltered.
"Please don't look at it in that light," he pleaded earnestly. "I feel as though I were doing this for an old friend."
"You are kind to consider it so."
"You see we have been in the inner woods together."
She smiled courageously.
"Good night. I wish you were better guarded here," he added.
He held out his hand quite frankly. She put her own within it for a moment. He grew dizzy at the mere touch of it. It was as though his Lady of the Mountains had suddenly become a living, tangible reality. The light touch of her fingers was as wine to him. They made the task before him seem an easy one. They made it a privilege. She thought that he was making a sacrifice in doing this for her when she was granting him the boon of returning upon the morrow.
"Good night," he said again.
He turned abruptly and opening the door stepped out into the cab without daring to look back.
Miss Arsdale hurried upstairs to where in a rear room Marie, with a candle burning beside her, lay in bed done up like a mummy.
"Par Di', Mam'selle Elaine," exclaimed the old housekeeper, her eyes growing brighter at sight of her. "I had a dream about a black horse. Is anything wrong with you?"
"Nothing. And your poor lame knees, Marie—they are better?"
"N'importe," she grunted, "but I do not like the feel of the night. Was M'sieur Ben down there with you?"
"Yes."
"You should be in bed by now. You must go at once."
"I think I shall sleep in the little room off yours to-night."
"Bien. Then if you need anything in the night, you can call me."
Marie was scarcely able to turn herself in her bed, but, she still felt the responsibility of the house.
"Very well, Marie. Good night."
She kissed the old housekeeper upon the forehead and was going out when she heard the latter murmur as though to herself,
"The black horse may mean Jacques."
"Have you heard nothing from him in his new position?" she asked, turning at the door.
"Non," she answered sharply. "Go to bed."
So the girl went on into a darkness that she, too, found ridden by black horses.
For three generations the Arsdales had been a family of whom those who claim New York as their inheritance had known both much and little. It was impossible to ignore the silent part Horace Arsdale, the grandfather, had played in the New York business world or the quiet influence he had exerted in such musical and literary centres as existed in his day. Any one who knew anybody would answer an inquiry as to who they might be with a surprised lift of the eyebrows.
"The Arsdales? Why they are—the Arsdales."
"But what—"
"Oh, they are a queer lot. But they have brains and—money."
Horace Arsdale died in an asylum, and there were the usual ugly rumors as to what brought him there. He left a son Benjamin, and Benjamin built the present Arsdale house at a time when it was like building in the wilderness. Here he shut himself up with his bride, a French girl he had met on his travels. Ask any one who Benjamin Arsdale was and they would be apt to answer,
"Benjamin Arsdale? Oh, he is Benjamin Arsdale. They say he has a great deal of talent and—money."
The first statement seemed to be proven by some very delicate lyrical verse which appeared from time to time in the magazines. Though a member of the best half dozen New York clubs, not a dozen men out of the hundreds who knew his name had ever seen him.
His wife died within three years, some say from a broken heart, some say from homesickness, leaving a boy child six months old. At this point Benjamin Arsdale's name disappeared even from the magazines, and save to a very few people he was as though dead and buried beneath his odd house. An old Frenchman, his wife, and his son Jacques Moisson seemed content to live there and look after the household duties. Some ten years later a little girl of nine appeared, a niece of Arsdale's, it was said, and this completed the household, though old Père Moisson died in the course of time, leaving his wife and Jacques as a sort of legacy to his old master, for a body-guard. The only reports of the inmates to the outside world came through the other servants who were employed here from time to time, and the most they had to say was that Arsdale was "queer," and they did n't think it was the place to bring up young children, though the master did adore the very ground they walked on. When the children were older, Arsdale was seen at concerts and the theatre with them, but seemed to resent any attempt on the part of well meaning acquaintances to renew social ties. People remarked upon how old for his age he had grown, and some spoke in a whisper of the spirituality of his features.
So much every one knew and that was nothing. What Elaine Arsdale, whom he had legally adopted, knew, was what caused the white light about the bowed head of the man. When she first learned she could not tell, but as a very young girl she remembered days when he came to her with his face very white and tense, and in his eyes the terror of one in great pain, and said to her,
"Little girl, will you sit with me a bit?"
So she would take a seat by the window in the library and he would face her very quietly with his long fingers twined around the chair arms. He would not speak and she knew that he did not wish her to speak. He wished for her only to sit there where he could see her. She was never afraid, but at times there came into his eyes a look that tempted her to cry. Sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours passed, and then he would rise to his feet and walk unsteadily towards her and say,
"Now I may kiss your forehead, Elaine."
He would kiss her, and shortly after fall into a deep sleep of exhaustion.
Between these periods, which she did not understand save that in some way he suffered a great deal, he was to her the gentlest and kindest guardian that ever a girl had. He personally superintended her studies and those of Ben, her only other playmate. The day was divided into regular hours for work and play. In the morning at nine he met them in the library and heard their lessons and gave them their tasks for the next day. He seemed to know everything and had a way of making one understand very difficult matters such as fractions and irregular French verbs. In the afternoon came the music lessons. He was anxious for them both to play well upon the violin, for he said that it had been to him one of the greatest joys of his life. Each night before bedtime he used to play for them himself and make her see finer pictures than even those she found in her fairy tales. But there were other times when he could make his violin terrible. He used to punish Ben in this way. When the latter had been over wilful, he made the boy stand before him. Then taking a position in front of him, he played things so wild, so fearful, that the boy would beg for mercy.
"Do you wish your soul to be like that?" he would demand sternly.
"No, father, no," Ben would whimper.
"Then you must control yourself. If ever you lose a grip upon yourself in temper or anything else, it will be like that."
But the music even at such times never frightened her, though it sounded very savage, like the wind through the trees in a thunder storm.
The only time that he had ever seemed the slightest bit angry at her was once during that wonderful summer when he had taken them abroad. She was seventeen, and on the boat she met a man with whom she fell in love. He was very much older than she, and possessed a glorious mustache which turned up at the corners. He helped her up and down the deck one day when the wind was blowing, and that night she lay awake thinking about him. When she appeared in the morning with her eyes heavy and her thoughts far away, the father put his arm about her and escorted her to the stern of the boat. Then sitting down beside her, he said,
"Tell me what is on your mind, little girl."
She told him quite simply, and had been surprised to see his face grow white and terrible.
"He put those thoughts into your heart?"
He rose to his feet and started towards the saloon. She knew what he was about to do. She flung her arms around his knees and, sobbing, pleaded with him until he stayed. Then after she had calmed a little, he talked to her and she listened as though to a stranger.
"Little girl," he cried fiercely, "there is much that you do not understand, and much that I pray God you never will understand. One of these things is the nature of man. If it were not for all the other fair things there are in life I would place you in a convent, for the best man who ever lived, little girl, is not good enough to take into his keeping the worst woman. They break their hearts with their weaknesses—they break their hearts."
"But you, dear Dada—"
"I did it! God forgive me, I did it, too!"
At this point he gained control of himself and his wild speech, but the words remained forever an echo in her heart.
They passed the next summer in the Adirondacks, and here in the deep woods she spent the pleasantest period of her life. She was strangely atune with the big pines and the fragrant shadows which lay beneath them. Arsdale used to sit beside her in these solitudes and read aloud by the hour from the poets in his sweet musical voice. At such times she wondered more than ever what he had meant in that outburst on the steamer. Here, too, he told her more of her mother who had died at almost the same time that Ben's mother had died. But of the father all he ever told her was,
"My brother was an Arsdale—like the rest of us."
So she lived her peaceful life and was conscious of missing nothing, save at odd moments the man with the beautiful mustache. Marie, the old housekeeper, was as careful of her as Jacques was of her father. Ben was kind to her, though during the latter years he had grown a bit out of her life. This had worried the father—this and other things. One day he had called her into the library, and though he was greatly agitated she saw that it was not in the usual way.
"Little girl," he said, "if it should so happen that you are ever left alone here with Ben and he—he does not seem to act quite himself, I want you to promise me that you will go to this address which I shall leave for you."
She had promised, knowing well to what he referred.
Then his face had hardened.
"There is still another thing you must promise; if at the end of six months he is no better I wish you to promise that you will not live in this house with him or anywhere near him—that you will cut off your life utterly from his life."
"But, Dada—"
"Promise."
She promised again, little thinking that the crisis of which he seemed to have a foreboding was so near at hand. A dark day came within two months when her soul was rent with the knowledge that he lay stark and cold in that very library where so much of his life had been lived. Marie gathered her into her arms and held her tight. She stared aghast at a world which frightened her by its emptiness. At her side stood Ben, his lips twitching, and in his eyes that haunting fear which always foreran the father's struggles. A month later the boy did not come home one night, but came after three days, a feeble wreck of a man. She tore open the letter the father had left, and this took her to Barstow, with whom he had evidently left instructions. That was five months ago, and in the meanwhile she had grown from a very young girl into a woman.
This was the sombre background to her frightened thoughts as she lay in her bed next to Marie. In the midst of all the figures which haunted her, there stood now one alone who offered her anything but fearful things—and he was a stranger. Out of the infinite multitude of the indifferent who surrounded her, he had leaped and within these few hours made her debtor to him for her life, and now for partial relief from a strain which was worse than sudden death might have been. In spite of other torments it was like a cool hand upon her brow to know that out in that chaos into which the boy had plunged, this other had followed. She had perfect confidence in him. After all, it is as easy in a crisis to pick a friend from among strangers as from among friends.
There are several members of the New York police force who think they know their Chinatown; there are several slum workers who think they do; there are many ugly guides, real guides, who think they do, but Beefy Saul, ex-newspaper man, ex-United States Chinese immigration inspector, and finally of the Secret Service, really does. This is because Beefy Saul knows not only the bad, but the good Chinamen; because he knows not only the ins and outs of Chinatown, but the ins and outs of New York; because he knows not only the wiles and weaknesses of Chinamen, the wiles and weaknesses of ugly souled guides (and of slum workers), but best of all, because he knows the several members of the New York police department who think they know their Chinatown. But like men who know less, Beefy Saul enjoys his sleep and naturally objects to being roused at three o'clock in the morning, even though in the east the silver is showing through the black, as Donaldson pointed out, like the eyes of a certain lady when she smiles (as Donaldson did not point out). Beefy came down in answer to the insistent bell which connected with his modest flat—it ought to be called a suite, for the lower hall boasted only six speaking tubes—and he swore like a pirate as he came. Finally the broad shoulders, which gave him his name, filled the door frame.
"I don't give a tinker's dam who you are," he growled before he had made out the features before him, "it's a blasted outrage! Hello, Don, what in thunder brings you out at this time of night? You look white, man, what's the trouble?"
Saul hitched up his trousers, his round sleepy face that of a good-natured farmer.
"I want you to do me a favor if you will, Beefy. I know it 's a darned shame to get you out at this hour."
"Tut, tut, man. If a friend can't get up for another friend, he ain't much of a friend. Tell your troubles."
"I 'm looking for a man, Beefy, who 's down there somewhere among your Chinks."
"Hitting the pipe?"
"I 'm afraid so."
"Have n't any address I suppose—don't know his favorite joint?"
"I don't know a thing about him except that he has been down there before—that he lit out again a little over an hour ago, half mad—and that I must find him."
"An hour ago, eh? That helps, some. There 's only a few of 'em open to the public at that time. But say, is there any special hurry? He's had time to get his dope by now. I 've got some work there in the morning."
"There's a girl waiting for him, Beefy, a girl who is paying big for every hour he's gone."
"So? Well, m' boy, guess we 'll have to get him then. I 'll be down in ten minutes. Make yourself at home on the doorstep."
Donaldson waited in the taxicab. For the first time in his life he computed the value of one-sixth of an hour. So long as he had been with the girl—or so long as he had been active in her behalf—the minutes were filled with sufficient interest to make them pass unreckoned. But to sit here and wait, to sit here and watch the seconds wasted, to sit here and be conscious of each one of them as it bit, like a thieving wharf rat, into his dwindling Present and carried the morsel of time back to the greedy Past, was a different matter. When finally Saul appeared with a fat cigar in one corner of his chubby mouth, Donaldson was halfway across the sidewalk to meet him.
"Good Lord!" he laughed excitedly, almost pushing the big man toward the cab, "I thought you were lost up there."
Saul paused with one foot already on the step. Then turning back, he struck a match for his cigar. The flare revealed Donaldson's eager eyes, his tense mouth. He carelessly snapped the burnt match to the lapel of Donaldson's coat and stooping to pick it off took occasion to whiff the latter's breath.
"The sooner we start—" suggested Donaldson, impatiently.
Saul stepped in, his two hundred pounds making the springs squeak, and sinking into a corner waited to see what he might learn from Donaldson's talk. The suspicion had crossed his mind that possibly the latter had got into some such way himself—it was over a year since he had seen him—and was taking this method to hunt up an all-night opium joint. His experience made him constantly suspicious, but unlike the regular police, a suspicion with him remained a suspicion until proven. It never gained strength merely by being in his thought. At the end of five minutes he had discarded this theory. Stopping the machine, he gave the cabby a real address in the place of the fictitious one he had first given in Donaldson's hearing. The latter's mind, supernormally alert, detected the ruse instantly. He placed a hand upon Saul's knee.
"Beefy, you didn't suspect me, did you?"
"What the devil is the matter with you then?" demanded Saul.
"Nothing. What makes you think there is?"
"The mouth, man, the mouth! You don't get those wrinkles in the corner and a tight chin by being left alone five minutes, if all that is troubling you is a lost friend."
"You 're too confounded suspicious. It's only that I 've so many things to do, Beefy."
"Business picked up?"
Donaldson smiled. Saul had known his Grub Street life. As the cab sped on he regained his self-control. Action, movement was all he needed. For the next ten minutes he surprised Saul with his enthusiasm and loquacity. The latter having known him as a quiet and rather reserved fellow, finally decided that it was a clear case of woman. The questions he asked about young Arsdale, in securing a minute description of the man, confirmed this impression.
The cab turned into the narrow cobbled streets of Chinatown, past the dark windows, Chinese stores and restaurants, a region that, deserted now, appeared in the early morning quiet ominous rather than peaceful. Dark alleys opened out frequently—alleys which coiled like snakes past cellar entrances, noisome rears of tottering tenements, to grease-fingered doors as impassive as the stolid faces of guards who drowsed behind them asleep to all save those who knew the deadly pass-word. Paradoxical doors which shut in, instead of out, danger! But Saul knew them and they knew Saul. He knew further the haunts of beginners, where opium is high and the surroundings are fairly clean, he knew the haunts of the confirmed, where opium is cheaper and where surroundings do not matter at all. Also he knew Wun Chung, who does not smoke, but who, being rich, controls the trade and so keeps in touch with all who buy.
On the way to Chung's Saul made one stop. With Donaldson at his heels, he darted down a side street, pushed open, without knocking, a dingy door, went up a flight of stairs, along a dark hallway and down another flight, where he was stopped by a shadow. The big man spoke his name, and the shadow turned instantly from a guard to an obsequious servant. He opened the door and Saul strode across a narrow yard, stooping to brush beneath the stout clothes-line hung with blankets, an innocent appearing wash, which however served as an effective barrier to any one who might approach at a run. They entered the rear of a second tenement which faced a parallel street, but which, oddly enough, had no entrance to its rear rooms from the front. Another shadow rose before them only to vanish as the round red face of Saul appeared. He pushed on into a long, low-ceilinged room lined with bunks, the air heavy with the acrid dead smoke of opium.
"Light," demanded Saul.
The sleepy proprietor brought a kerosene lamp, the chimney befouled with soot and grease. It was an old trick. These fellows protect their customers and through a sooted chimney the feeble light makes scarcely more than shadows in which it is very difficult to identify a man. Seizing the slant-eyed ghoul by the arm Saul held the lamp within an inch of the yellow face, so close that it burned.
"Don't try such fool things on me, Tong," he warned. "Bring me a light."
The Chinaman squirmed in terror, and when loosed was back again in a hurry with a lamp that lighted the whole room. Saul took it and examined the nearest bunk. Donaldson glanced at the first face. That was enough. He retreated to the door for fresh air. Down the line went Saul, looking like some devil in Hell making tally of lost souls. He reached in and turned them, one after the other, face to the light, while Donaldson stood outside, dreading the call that should force him to look again. He was no man of the world and the reek of the place appalled him. Nothing he had ever read conveyed anything of the plain sordidness of it,—the unrelieved pall of it which burdened like the weary dead stretch of an alkali desert. The scene did not even become romantic to him, until glancing up, he saw above the irregular roof-tops, the stars still bright in the virgin purple, saw the unfouled spaces of the planet fields between them. What had such clean things as the stars to do with this mired world below? This jeweled roof was not intended for so squalid a floor. But the stars above brought him back to the girl again, and she to her brother, and her brother to this. Strange cycle! Then the stars and the blue gathered them all into one. Strange one!
"Not here," announced Saul, wiping the oil from his fingers. Donaldson breathed more freely. Without delay they hurried back to the cab.
"I had sort of a hunch that we 'd find him there," said Saul, "but we did n't. Now we 'll have a cup of tea with Chung and set him to work. It's a darned sight easier and a lot swifter way when you have n't any clue at all to work on."
"And pleasanter," returned Donaldson. "I 've seen enough of this."
"Not so bad when you get used to 'em," answered Saul, lighting a fresh cigar. "But I know how you feel; I 'm just that queer about morgues. Can't get used to 'em nohow. Get the creeps every time I step inside a morgue. But then I don't hanker after murder work of any sort like some of the boys. It would be just my chance to get a taste of it before I 'm done with the Riverside robberies."
"What are the Riverside robberies?" inquired Donaldson, with a faint remembrance of the name.
"You been out of town?"
"No, but I don't read the papers much."
"I should say not. Four hold-ups in three weeks, all within half a mile of one another on Riverside Drive."
"Riverside Drive?"
He remembered now. The Arsdale home was near Riverside Drive. Barstow had spoken of these crimes.
"You on the case?" he asked indifferently,
"Yes," answered Saul. "I 'm on the case and if another one breaks, the case and the Chief will be on me."
The cab had stopped before an unlighted store. The street light revealed a window filled with a medley of china, teas, silks, and joss-sticks. Above, in big gilt letters, was the sign "Wun Chung and Co."
It was surprising how quickly in response to Saul's knocking a door to the left of the main entrance, and leading upstairs, opened. After a few words with the moon-faced attendant, the light was switched on and the three ascended to a small room, brilliant with gaudy Oriental colors and heavy with ebony furnishings. A group of three or four Chinamen sat at a small table soberly drinking their tea with the exaggerated innocence of those who have a deck of cards up their sleeves. The proprietor himself, fat as a butter ball, toddled up to Saul with a grin upon his round, colorless face. He ordered tea for all and they sat down. In two minutes Saul had explained what he wished, and in five a couple of the silent group near had taken Chung's orders and stolen out like ghosts.
Saul swallowed his tea boiling hot and glanced at his watch. It was half-past four.
"Now," he said, "I 'm going back for a wink of sleep. You can sit on here or you can have Chung notify you at your hotel, eh, Chung?"
"Allee light," nodded the proprietor.
"How long do you think it will take?" asked Donaldson quickly.
"Might take till noon to search every place—and then we might not find him if he's an old hand at the game," answered Saul.
"Till noon!" exclaimed Donaldson irritably. "Good Lord, that's eight hours!"
Saul placed his hand affectionately upon Donaldson's shoulder.
"See here, Don," he replied earnestly. "Take my advice and get some sleep."
"Do you think I can waste time in sleep?"
"Better take a little now or you 'll be having a long one coming to you."
"That's just it," retorted Donaldson. "I 've got all eternity for sleep."
"So? Well, I 'll take mine here and now, thanks. I want to wake up!"
The older man's sober common-sense brought Donaldson to himself.
"Guess you 're right," he admitted.
He took out a card and scribbled two addresses, one of the Waldorf and the other of the Arsdale house.
"You will notify me at one of these places as soon as you learn anything?"
"Allee light."
"At once, you understand?"
Saul insisted upon landing Donaldson at his hotel before going on to his own home. The latter grasped the big hand of his friend.
"Beefy," he said, "if ever I can givehera chance to thank you, I 'll bet you 'll think your trouble worth while."
"Turn in and give her a chance to thankyouin the morning. I reckon she 'll appreciate that more than an opportunity to thank me."
The cab bearing the big detective glided off. Donaldson watched it melt down the dwindling vista until finally, dissolved altogether, it became one with the dark.
Donaldson took a cold dip and then carefully dressed himself in fresh clothes. Sleep was out of the question. He had never in his life felt more alert in mind and body. He felt as though he could walk farther, hear farther, see farther than ever before. He was more keenly responsive to the perfume of the roses which were now drooping a bit languidly near the window; he was more alive to the delicate traceries of the ferns which banked one corner of the room; more appreciative of the little marine which he had hung near his dresser and—more alive to her into whose life Fate had picked him up and hurled him. He felt the warm pressure of her fingers as though they still rested within his; saw the marvelous quiet beauty of her eyes which had led him so far back into his past. Again out of this past they led him on—on to—he was checked as in his picture of her the ticking clock behind her intruded itself. There stood the sentinel to whom he must give heed. There stood the warning finger pointing to the seventh noon.
Good Lord, he must have more room. He must get out into the dawn—out where he could share these emotions which now surged in upon him with some virginal passion as big and fresh as the new-born day. He crossed to the window and looked out upon the dormant city. The morning light was just beginning to wash out the dark and to sketch in the outlines of buildings and the gray path of the road between them. He watched the new creation of a world. Around him lay a million souls ready to people it—ready to seize it and make it a part of themselves. In a few hours that dim street would be a bridge over which tens of thousands of people would pass to sorrow, to joy; to poverty, to riches; to hate, to love; to death, to life. That was a drama worth looking at. He must get out and rub shoulders with those who were playing their parts. He, too, must play his part in it.
He descended to the office and left instructions with the night clerk to insist upon a message from whoever might call him up. He would be back, he said, in an hour. He had not walked long before he found the city gently astir with life. Passing cars were soon well filled, traffic fretted the streets lately so quiet, while yawning pedestrians reminded him that there were still those who slept. At the end of thirty minutes more of brisk walking, the sky had melted through the entire gamut of colors, and finally settled into a blinding golden blue. A newsboy clicking out of space like a locust, shouted "Extra!" Donaldson gave little heed to the cry until he heard the word "Riverside," and caught the blatant headlines, "Another robbery." With an interest growing out of Saul's connection with the case, he skimmed through the story.
Then he tossed his paper away and took his course back to the hotel, glad to forget that sordid bit of drama, in the movement of the crowd now forcing its way to work. But something was lacking in the spectacle this morning. The play of light and color he still saw, the vibrancy of it he still felt, the dramatic quality of it he still appreciated, but still with the consciousness that it lacked something—that it had gone a bit flat. He no longer felt that princely sense of superiority to it—as though it were a gorgeous pageant upon which he was a mere onlooker. He felt now a harrying sense of responsibility towards it. It was as though they called him to join them. He quickened his pace. He must get back to the hotel and see if any message awaited him.
He caught his breath—he must get back to her. That was it. That was what the hurrying passers-by had called to him. Get back to her—what did the morning count until she became a part of it? It was because she had placed the red-blooded actuality of life before his eyes in contrast to the superficial picturesqueness of its expression as he had viewed it yesterday that the show had lost its vividness. She was making him see it again with eyes as they were at twenty. He recoiled. That way lay danger. He must put himself on guard. But from that moment he had but one object in mind—to get back to her as soon as possible.
A telephone message waiting him from Chung reported that no trace could be found of the boy.
He jumped into a cab and went at once to the Arsdale house. Miss Arsdale herself came to the door, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep but her face lighting instantly at sight of him.
"You have news?" she exclaimed.
"No," he answered directly.
She was a woman with whom one might be direct.
"No news may be good news," he added. "They have n't been able to locate him in Chinatown. I don't think there is a nook there in which he could hide from those people."
"Then," she exclaimed, "he has gone to Cranton."
"Then," he answered deliberately, "I will follow him there."
"No, I could n't allow you. It is two hours from town. You have already given generously of your time."
"Miss Arsdale," he said gently, "we of the inner woods must stand by each other. This week is a sort of vacation for me. I am quite free."
Yes, she was she he had seen through the tops of the whispering pines when he had thought it nothing but the blue sky; she was she who had brushed close to him when he had thought it only the rustling of dry leaves. Now that she stood beside him, his heart cried out, "Why did you not come before? Why did you not come a week ago?" If she could have stood for one brief second in that dingy office which had slowly closed in upon him until it squeezed the soul out of him, then he would have forced back the walls again. If only once she had walked by his side through the crowds, then he would have caught their cry in time. The world had narrowed down to a pin prick, but if only she had come a scant two days ago, she would have bent his eye to this tiny aperture as to the small end of a telescope as she did now and made him see big enough to grasp the meaning of life.
Well, the past was dead—even with her eyes magnifying the days to eternities; the past was dead, even with the delicate poise of her lips ready to utter prophecies. He must not forget that, and in remembering this he must choose this opportunity for exiling himself from her for the day. This mission would consume some six hours. It would take him out of the city where he would be able to think more clearly. This was well.
"Have you any idea how the trains run?" he inquired.
"I looked them up. There is one at 9.32."
"I can make it easily," he answered, glancing at the big clock. He had left his own watch at the hotel. He refused to carry so grim a reminder. "I suppose I 'll have no trouble in finding the place."
"You would ask for the Arsdale bungalow," she answered. "Every one there knows it. But the chances are so slight—it is only that his father went out there once. After several days Jacques, Marie's boy and father's servant, found him hidden in the unused cottage. I thought that possibly Ben might remember this."
"I should say that it was more than probable that he would go there if his object is to keep in hiding."
"It is three miles from the station and quite secluded."
"That will make a good walk for me."
He rose to leave at once. But she, too, rose.
"If you think it best to go," she said firmly, "then I must go, too. I could not remain here passive another day. And, besides, if he is there, it is better that I should be with you. I know how to handle him. He is always gentle with me."
Donaldson caught his breath. This was an emergency that he had not foreseen. Manifestly, she could not go. She must not go. It would be to take her back to the blue sky beneath which she was born. It would be to give her a setting that would intensify every wild thought he was trying so hard to throttle.
"No," he exclaimed. "You had better permit me to go alone."
"I should not think of it," she answered decisively.
"But he may not be there. He might come back here while you were gone."
"He will be quite safe if he returns here."
"But—"
"I will see Marie and come down at once."
She hurried upstairs.
"Marie," she asked, "is it quite safe to leave you here alone until afternoon?"
"Safe? Why not?"
"I was going out to the bungalow."
The old servant looked up shrewdly.
"Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing that you can help," the girl answered.
She had not yet told her of Ben's last disappearance. There was no use in worrying those who could give no help.
"Bien. Go on. It will do you both good."
"The telephone is at your bed—you can summon Dr. Abbot if you need anything."
"Bien."
"And perhaps while I am gone Jacques may come for a visit."
"Perhaps. Run along. The air will do you good."
The girl kissed the wrinkled forehead and hurried to her own room. There, before the mirror, she was forced to ask herself the question which she had tried to escape: "Why are you going?"
"Because if Ben were there and sick, he might need me!"
"Why are you going?"
The woman in the mirror was relentless.
"Because the house here is so full of shadows."
"Why are you going?"
"Because the sun will give me strength."
"Why are you going?"
"Because," she flushed guiltily,—"because it will be very much pleasanter than remaining here alone."
Whereupon the woman in the mirror ceased her questioning.
And, in the meanwhile, the relentless old clock was goading Donaldson. Its methodical, interminable ticking sounded like the approaching footsteps of a jailer towards the death cell.
"Don't you know better than to risk yourself out there one whole spring-time day with her?" it demanded.
"But with a full realization of the danger I can guard myself," he answered uneasily.
"Can you guardher?"
"That is unpardonable presumption," replied Donaldson heatedly.
"The mellow sun and the birthing flowers are ever presumptuous," answered the wise old clock.
"But a man may fight them off."
"I have ticked here many years and seen many things that man has prided himself upon having the power to do and yet has failed of doing."
"I cannot help myself. I should offend her unwarrantedly if I made further objection."
"Then you are not all-powerful."
"I have power over myself. And you are insulting her."
"Tick-tock. Tick-tock," answered the clock, jeeringly.
And Donaldson was saved from his impulse to kick the inanimate thing into splinters by the sound of her footsteps.