CHAPTER XIIIWHOSE FEET WERE SHOD WITH SILENCE
“Get out your revolver,” ordered the colonel; “look sharp! there may be some one here.”
But there was not a sign of life revealed by the search. Meanwhile, Winter was examining the body. His first thought was that Keatcham had tried to escape and had been struck down in his flight. Kito would not scruple at such a deed; nor for that matter, Mercer. But why leave the man thus? Why not dispose of the body—unless, indeed, the assassins had been interrupted. Anyhow, what a horrid mess this murder would make of the affair! and how was he to keep the women out of it! All at once, in the examination which he had been making (while a dozen gruesome possibilities tumbled over one another in his mind) he stopped; he put his ear to the man’s heart.
“Isn’t he dead?” asked Tracy under his breath.
“No, he is not dead, but I’m afraid he’ll neverfind it out,” returned the colonel, shrugging his shoulders. “However, any brandy handy? And get me some water.”
“I know where there is some brandy—I’ll get it; there is some water in the fountain right—Cary!”
“What’s the matter?” demanded Cary Mercer in one of the arcade doorways of thepatio. “What’s happened? The devil! Who did this?” He strode up to the kneeling soldier.
“You are in a position to know much better than I,” said the colonel dryly. “We came this moment; we found this.”
“Cary, didyoudo it?”—the young man laid his hand on Cary’s shoulder; his face was ashy but his voice rang full and clear. “If you did, I am sure you had a reason; but I want to know; we’re partners in this thing to the finish.”
“Thank you, boy,” said Cary gently, “that’s good to hear. But I didn’t hurt him, Endy. Why should I? We’d got what we wanted.”
“Who did?” asked the colonel.
“I didn’t and Kito didn’t. He went away to see his only brother who is sick. He hasn’t got back. I don’t know who did it; but whoever stabbed him must have done it without warninghim; for I didn’t hear a sound. I was in the library.”
“He’s breathing a little, I think,” murmured the young man, who was sopping the gray mask of a face while Winter trickled brandy drop by drop into the sagging mouth, “and—look! somebody has tried to rob him; that’s a money belt!”
The waistcoat was open and Winter could see, beneath, a money belt with buttoned pockets, which had been torn apart with such haste that one of the buttons had been wrenched off.
“They seem to have been after money,” said he; “see! the belt is full of bills; there’s only one pocket empty.”
“Perhaps he was interrupted,” explained Mercer. “Push the brandy, Colonel, he’s moving his eyelids, suh!”
“We’ve got to do something to that hole in him, first,” said the colonel. “Is there any doctor—”
“I daren’t send for one.”
“Tony Arnold might know one we could trust,” suggested Tracy. “I can get him over the long distance.”
“We want somebodynow, this minute,” declared the colonel.
“There’s Janet Smith,” said Mercer, “my sister-in-law; she’s Mrs. Winter’s companion; she used to be a trained nurse and a mighty good one;shecould be trusted.”
Could she? And how the terms of his distrust had changed! He had fought against an answer in the affirmative this morning; now his heart was begging for it; he was cold with fear lest she wasn’t this conspirator’s confederate.
“Send for them both,” said he with no sign of emotion.
“I’ll call up Aunt Rebecca,” said Mercer. “Isn’t he reviving? No? Best not move him till we get the wound dressed, don’t you reckon, Colonel?”
But the colonel was already making a rough tourniquet out of his handkerchief and a pencil to stanch the bleeding. The others obeyed his curt directions; and it was not until the still unconscious man was disposed in a more comfortable posture on the cushions which Tracy brought, that Winter sent the latter to the telephone; and then he addressed Mercer. He took a sealed package from an inner pocket and tendered it, saying: “You know who sent it. Whatever happens, you’re a Southern gentleman, and I look to youto see that she—they are kept out of this nasty mess—absolutely.”
“Of course,” returned Mercer, with a trace of irritation; “what do you take me for? Now, hadn’t I better call Janet?”
“But if this were to be discovered—”
“Shewouldn’t have done anything; she is only nursing a wounded man whom she doesn’t know, at my request.”
“Very well,” acquiesced the colonel, with a long sigh as he turned away.
He sat down, cross-legged, like a Turk, on the flags beside the wounded man. Mercer was standing a little way off. It was to be observed that he had not touched Keatcham, nor even approached him close enough to reach him by an outstretched hand. Winter studied his face, his attitude—and suppressed the slightest of starts; Mercer had turned his arm to light another electric bulb and the action revealed some crimson spots on his cuff and a smear on his light trousers above the knee. The lamp was rather high and he was obliged to raise his arm, thus lifting the skirts of his coat which had previously hidden the stain. He did not seem aware that his action had made any disclosure. He was busy with thelight. “That’ll be better,” said he; “I’ll go call up Sister Janet.”
How had those stains come? Mercer professed just to have entered. Vainly Winter’s brain tried to labor through the crazy bewilderment of it all; Mercer spoke like an honest man—but look at his cuffs! How could any outside assassin enter that locked and guarded house?—yet, if Mercer had not lied, some one must have stolen in and struck Keatcham. Kito? But the Jap was out of the house—perhaps! And Janet Smith, what was she doing talking to Atkins? Had she given that reptile any clue? Could he—but it was his opportunity to rescue Keatcham, not to murder him—what a confounded maze!
And what business had he, Rupert Winter, who had supposed himself to be an honorable man, who had sworn to support the Constitution and the laws of the United States, what business hadheto help law-breakers and murderers escape the just punishment of their deeds? He almost ground his teeth. Oh, well, there was one way out, and that was to resign his commission. He would do it this very night, he resolved; and he swore miserably at himself, at his venerable aunt who must be protected at such a sacrifice, at Atkins,at the feebly moaning wretch whom he had not ceased all this while to ply carefully with drops of brandy. “You everlasting man-eater, if you dare to die, I’llkillyou!” he snorted.
Thereupon he went at the puzzle again. Before any answer could come to the telephone calls, a low, mournful, inhuman cry penetrated the thick walls. It was repeated thrice; on the third call, Tracy ran quickly through thepatioto a side door, barred and locked like all the entrances, released and swung it open and let in Kito. A few murmured words passed between them. The Jap uttered a startled exclamation. “But how can it to be? How? no one can get in! And who shall stab him? Forwhy?”
He examined the wounded man, after a gravely courteous salute to Winter; and frowned and sighed. “What did it?” said he; “did who stabbed, take it ’way, he must givestlongpull!”
“Whoever did it,” said the colonel, “must have put a knee on the man’s back and pulled a strong pull, as you say.” In speaking the words he felt a shiver, for he seemed to see that red smear above Mercer’s knee.
He felt the shiver again when Mercer returned and he glanced at him; there was not a stain onhis shining white cuffs; he had changed them; he had also changed his suit of clothes and his shoes. His eyes met the colonel’s; and Winter fancied there was a glint of defiance in them; he made no comment, for no doubt a plausible excuse for the fresh clothes was ready. Well, he (Winter) wouldn’t ask it. Poor devil! he had had provocation.
For the next half-hour they were all busy with Keatcham.
“He is better,” pronounced the Jap; “he will not live, maybe, but he will talk, he can say who hult him.”
“If he can only do that!” cried Mercer. “It isinfernalto think any one can get in here and do such a thing!”
“Rotten,” Tracy moaned.
The colonel said nothing.
They were all still working over Keatcham when a bell pealed. Tracy started; but Mercer looked a shade relieved. “They’ve come,” said he.
“They?” repeated the colonel. He scrambled to his feet and gasped.
Miss Smith was coming down the colonnade, but not Miss Smith alone. Aunt Rebecca walked beside her, serene, erect and bearing a small hand-bag.Miss Smith carried a larger bag; and Tracy had possessed himself of a dress-suit case.
“Certainly, Bertie,” remarked his aunt in her softest tone, “I came with Janet. My generation believed inles convenances.”
All the colonel could articulate was a feeble, “And Archie? and Millicent?”
“Haley is staying in your room with Archie. Millicent had retired; if she asks for us in the morning we shall not be up. She has an appointment with Janet, but it isn’t until half-past eleven. Randall has her instructions.”
“But—but—how did you get here?”
Aunt Rebecca drew herself up. “I trust now, Bertie, you will admit that I am as fit as any of you to rough it. If there is one mode of transit I abominate, it is those loathsome, unsanitary, uncivil, joggly street-cars; we came as far as the corner in thestreet-cars, then we walked. Did we want to give the number to a cab-man, do you suppose? Bertie, have you such a thing as a match about you? I think Janet wants to heat a teaspoonful of water for a strychnine hypodermic.”