CHAPTER XI.
Wizard Hermann turned about, half-stunned from his interview with Jessie Stirling, and went back to his laboratory, where he had been reading a new treatise on one of his favorite hobbies—the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. The man had no more heart or conscience than a clam, and his interest in chemistry was greater than his love for humanity.
The greatest aim he had in life was to prosecute to a successful issue the twohobbies that had been the ruling passion of his life, to invent a magic elixir of life, and to create fabulous riches to sustain a life so lengthened in luxury.
He was mad for gold wherewith to purchase the smallest specimen of a newly discovered mineral called radium, to which was ascribed the most remarkable properties ever heard of, but the price of this treasure was fabulous to a man in his situation, impoverished by a lifetime spent in this costly and vain pursuit of the unattainable.
His great plan and hope had been to pay off the mortgage on the place, and to immediately place another upon it, so as to invest a portion in the new mineral, from which so much was hoped and predicted in the scientific world.
His rage at the failure of his plan was deep and bitter. With Leola dead, all his plans would come to naught. Old Bennett would foreclose the mortgage and ruin him. In his old age he must go forth a beggar into the world, friendless, and without a place to lay his head.
Through this terrible trick of fate all his plans and aspirations must be wrecked, and science lose, perhaps, the magnificent discoveries to which he had devoted his life.
No wonder he was filled with a blind fury against Chester Olyphant, through whose treachery Leola’s death had come to pass, thus thwarting all his plans for future gain.
He shut the treatise, whose reading had been so fatefully interrupted, and went out to watch for Chester Olyphant with murder in his heart.
But while he had been talking with Jessie, and putting away his precious treatise, time had slipped faster than he knew. Olyphant, who had met the doctor close by in the road, had quickly returned with him, and he had gone up to Leola’s room.
The young man, himself a prey to the bitterest anxiety, with hope and fear commingled, was waiting in the wide, sunny hall for news, when he came face to face with the grim master of the house, like a ravening lion seeking for prey.
He forced a smile upon his pallid lips, and exclaimed, eagerly:
“Ah. Mr. Hermann, I have been wishing to see you, sir. I”—
He got no further, for Wizard Hermann, temporarily mad with baffled hope and bitter resentment, suddenly raised his hand, in whose clenched fingers gleamed a heavy iron instrument, and in an access of fury struck unerringly at the brown, curly head bent courteously before him.
It was a blow that might have felled an ox.
Chester Olyphant, taken off guard, ignorant of the fact that he was in the presence of one temporarily or morally insane, received the blow full, and went down before it without a struggle, yielding up life in one short, choking gasp, that was like a thunder-clap in the ears of his foe.
For, all in a moment, there came over the frenzied murderer a wild realization of his deadly crime, and bending down to peer at the still, white face of the fallen man, he groaned in horror of his sin and its consequences:
“Dead! dead! Why, I did not mean to strike so hard! I—I—never thought one blow could kill! What shall I do? No one must find me here. I must fly”—
At this incoherent moment, while he was rising from the body of his victim, there came slouching through the wide, sunny hall the figure of his man of all work, Joslyn, a strange, hideous, taciturn man, yet devoted to his master’s service through many thankless years.
Joslyn stopped and stared in bewilderment, glaring at the uncanny scene.
Wizard Hermann, peering up at him in consternation, whimpered like a beaten hound:
“I didn’t mean to hit so hard. He—he—was too easy to kill! If they find me here they’ll hang me for murder! Save me! save me! Joslyn!”
The hideous servitor, conscious of but one thing—his master’s peril—was quick to hear and heed.
At any moment some one might come in at the open door, and one glance meant detection of the hideous crime his master had wrought.
Joslyn looked stupid, but his master knew it was only in looks. His brain was keen and alert, as he had proved many a time before.
Just one moment he paused, hesitated; then his dull eyes gleamed beneath the bushy brows, and he was prepared for action.
They were just in front of the library door, and, swooping down like an eagle on his prey, he caught up Chester Olyphant’s limp body in his long, wiry arms, and dragged him inside the room. Hermann staggered after him with quaking limbs and a ghastly face; then Joslyn softly shut and locked the door.
The two old men, who had grown gray in each other’s confidence and service—grim old men, who had outgrown pity or interest in youth and love and all that was sweetest in the world, now stood face to face, and between them, on the floor, that limp body that, now cold and senseless, had been but a little while ago a picture of manly strength and splendor, with a heart throbbing fast with the passion of youth.
“Who saw you do it?” Joslyn demanded, gruffly.
“Not a soul!” whimpered the craven wretch. “You see, I did it in a passion before I thought, because he”—
But Joslyn’s coarse, hairy hand, upraised, commanded silence.
“Don’t waste time now to tell why ’twas done. The thing is that you did it, and that you must hide it or swing for it,” he said, with rough emphasis that made his master cower again like a beaten hound.
The servant knelt down and examined the silent victim.
“Dead as a door-nail, an’ gittin’ cold a’ready! You hit him a turrible whack, sir, on his head! Must have fractured his skull, the way it feels.”
“I didn’t know I had such strength. I hit harder than I meant. I—I”—began Hermann, weakly, but the man shut him off.
“No use cryin’ over spilt milk. What’s done is done, an’ now we got to hide the corp, an’ let it go as one of the myster’ous disappearances we read about every week in the newspapers!”
“Joslyn, how clever you are! Oh, if we can only manage it! But I cannot think clearly. My brain’s on fire ever since Jessie came with her terrible story, andtempted me to kill him because of the hearts he had broken—hers and Leola’s, too, so that she wanted vengeance on him for their wrongs. So I seized that iron wedge and went to watch for him, and the minute he spoke to me I struck, and he fell. He’s dead, and he deserved it. I am not sorry, only I don’t want to be found out,” Hermann mumbled on, unheeded by the other, who stood with his brows wrinkled in profound thought.
He chuckled, suddenly, and Hermann muttered:
“You have a thought, clever Joslyn; you will save me!”
“Perhaps so, sir, if I can work out my plan.”
“Yes, yes?”
“You know what’s under this floor, sir?”
“The underground passage where my ancestors used to hide from the Indians—yes, yes. Can we drop him through?”
“Sure, if I can get the tools in here to rip up some flooring and put it back. Will you stay here, locked in, while I push them into the window, for I daren’t bring them into the hall.”
“Yes, go, quickly,” and he let him out and closed and locked the door again, waiting, with a chill of horror at his heart, of that white and silent thing lying at his feet.
Presently there was a noise outside the window, and he went and took in the tools that Joslyn reached up to him. Then he admitted him, and they went at their grewsome work of hiding the mute witness of that terrible crime.
In the midst of their task came a light rap on the door.
“Uncle Hermann, I want you!” Jessie said, excitedly.
“I am engaged—excuse me,” he bawled, hoarsely, through the keyhole.
“All right,” she answered, after a moment’s hesitation; “I only wanted to tell you about Leola. Doctor Barnes says she is not dead, after all, and he is bringing her around; do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, Jessie. Now go away, like a good girl; I cannot be disturbed,” he assured her, turning back to Joslyn in time to see him lift Chester Olyphant’s body and let it fall through the opening in the floor.