CHAPTER IIAT THE MORGUE
THE tiny hands of the ormulu clock upon the mantel told Sana’s anxious heart that it was a quarter to six.
With a strange presentiment of coming evil that defied analysis and strongly against the wishes of her hostess, Sana left the house and hurried to the hotel.
Reaching de Rochelle’s suite she rapped at the door. No answer came. A second rapping proved as futile as the first.
“He is out,” murmured the girl as she sought her own room. She wanted to rest, but could not. For fully half an hour she paced the floor, a dreadful oppression as of some impending catastrophe weighing down upon her. She could not shake it off. The very silence of the room seemed to creep into her heart and dull her mind.
Once more she crossed the corridor to de Rochelle’s rooms. This time she gave the door a resounding knock. But still no response. Gently,almost fearfully, she tried the door. It was unlocked, so she entered the room.
A strange sight met her eyes. Disorder was everywhere. The little writing table, usually so neat and well ordered, was a confusion of jumbled papers and letters. Signs of a hasty departure were everywhere.
Sana, however, took it only to mean that some business interest had called de Rochelle away in a hurry. Somewhat relieved Sana picked up a book and going over to the deeply cushioned divan, sat down to beguile away the time pending his return. But her mind was in a turmoil and she could not concentrate on her reading.
Nervously she let the minutes creep past. At last she could stand the strain no longer. Taking the phone she called the desk clerk and had him page de Rochelle. It was of no avail. Again she tried it, but still the missing man was not to be found.
Beside herself with fear Sana called up Dr. White, but he assured her that everything was all right and that no doubt she would hear from de Rochelle later on. She tried to reason with herself that there was nothing to fear, but as the hours went by, each seemingly longer than the one before, she grew so restless that her anxiety could not be calmed.
She could wait no longer in that lonely room, soabout ten o’clock she hurried over to see Mrs. O’Brien. To her she related her fears, but she could do nothing to comfort her or offer any solution. Alarmed at Sana’s state of mind Mrs. O’Brien called up Dr. White.
His words, though laconic, conveyed a world of meaning:
“All is well, and will be for the benefit of Sana. Keep her at your home tonight.”
But Sana would not listen to any such suggestion. Her alarm had increased three-fold and although Mrs. O’Brien did everything to persuade her to remain, Sana hurried back to the hotel.
She felt sure that by this time her sweetheart would have returned. But the desk clerk had neither seen nor heard anything of him.
Once more she found herself within the precincts of his apartment. She could hardly keep from screaming aloud in her misery.
Her eyes roved around the empty room, faltered in their course, and the wandering gaze became a fixed stare. She had found a clew!
Upon the radiator she saw a bit of charred paper. She bent over it, studying it intently. But the message it had carried was illegible. A handful of black ashes. What was their secret? She did not touch them, but took a match, and kneeling on the floorslowly turned the charred paper around with the match in an effort to decipher something. Here and there a word could be seen, but nothing to convey any meaning to her fevered brain. She lit the match and holding it back of the legible letters managed to read “tell clerk” “Sana” “leave,” but that was all.
Deeply puzzled and not knowing what to make of it, she lighted another match, hoping to decipher other words. But before she had realized it, the flame caught the unburned part of the paper and destroyed it completely.
Unmindful of everything she sat on the floor, puzzled and heartbroken.
Brought to her senses by the chiming of midnight, the confused girl sought her room. Almost unconsciously she disrobed and threw herself upon the bed. Through the long hours of the night she lay with unclosed eyes and with every nerve strained to catch the sound of the returning footsteps of the one she loved so dearly. But she listened in vain. The dawn of the new day crept in upon her as she lay there given up to the grief that was hers.
She arose and called the desk clerk. He was sorry, but he could get no response from de Rochelle’s rooms, in spite of his efforts to do so.
Mechanically Sana dressed, walking about the room without intention or aim.
It was a little after six when she again entered de Rochelle’s room. It was still unoccupied—unoccupied, but yet tenanted with an almost tangible shadow—the presence of silence.
The thought that de Rochelle had deliberately deserted her did not enter Sana’s mind for quite a time. When it did, it tended to clear her brain, lend calmness to her being. She made a brave attempt to figure it out, saying to herself, “What for? And if so, what will become of me? What shall I do in this strange city?” And her thoughts went back to Paris and her childhood days, when she had someone to watch over her and guide her footsteps.
Sana realized her helplessness. She was alone. Dear as she was, her friend Mrs. O’Brien could not help her, nor could she help solve the mystery of de Rochelle’s absence. So she looked around the rooms once more and left.
In a trembling voice, she questioned the desk clerk, “Have you had any word from Mr. de Rochelle?”
The clerk was perusing the morning paper as she put the question to him. He started violently, gazed intently into her face, then back at the paper. Finally he said “de Rochelle? Is this the de Rochelle you mean?” And with a pencil he marked a column in the paper and handed it to her.
Her worst fears were more than realized as she read the tragic headlines:
BRIDGE JUMPER SUCCEEDSFRANÇOIS DE ROCHELLE
of
SAHARA DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONDROWNED LAST NIGHT IN EAST RIVERNEAR QUEENSBOROUGH BRIDGEADDRESS UNKNOWN
Boys playing on the water front last night discovered a man’s body floating toward the shore and with the help of a policeman it was soon recovered. The face was greatly disfigured, due to his striking the bridge pilaster. The body was removed to the morgue....
Boys playing on the water front last night discovered a man’s body floating toward the shore and with the help of a policeman it was soon recovered. The face was greatly disfigured, due to his striking the bridge pilaster. The body was removed to the morgue....
Sana grew pale. Great tears forced themselves from the deep seas of her eyes and the paper, falling from her limp grasp fluttered to the floor. The clerk, noticing this, hastily walked from behind his desk and reached Sana just in time to catch her as she fell in a dead faint.
A small crowd of early hotel guests soon gathered about Sana. Among them was the hotel doctor, who ordered that the girl be at once taken to her room. A nurse was summoned and with her aidthe physician soon revived Sana. Quiet and rest, he said, were all that would be required to restore the weakened girl to a normal condition.
That morning, Mrs. O’Brien, breakfasting with her husband, read of the drowned man in the paper. Believing that Dr. White had been implicated in some foul play, she at once sought him out. Yes, he had read of it, but was as much puzzled as she.
Together they called on the prostrate Sana. She was lying on her bed weeping and softly calling the name of her lover. The couple sought to explain, and hoped, in doing so, to mitigate the horror of the catastrophe. But the attempt was fruitless, the girl refused to be comforted or quieted. Realizing the futility of their desires, they took their leave, feeling the worse for so painful and depressing a call. They decided, however, to call later in the day.
About noon Mrs. O’Brien and Dr. White again called to see Sana. Their explanations were lost on the girl. She could not comprehend and she feared to believe. All she would say was, half to herself “François, François, come to me. I need you so.”
As time went by, however, Sana became calmer under the soothing words of her friends, and the three, together with Prof. Grant, who had been summoned, went to the District Attorney’s office.
When they had been seated in the private office of that official, Sana and the others were greatly surprised at the attitude he immediately assumed. Without hesitation, he proceeded to implicate Sana in the death of de Rochelle. His questioning was ruthless and his accusations most bitter. From his words one would gather that Sana was the guilty one—that in some way or other she had contrived to put her sweetheart out of the way.
The processes of our law are peculiar, and to a stranger, as Sana was, to such methods, it was indeed difficult to understand. She had undergone a severe nervous strain—a terrible shock—and, naturally, was far from being in a calm collected state of mind. It was this nervousness, then, that had led the man to believe her guilty of some crime. Peculiar? Yes, to be sure—but many a man has come to realize that justice is more than blindfolded!
Dr. White, although quite familiar with incidents of this sort, was outraged at the procedure. Knowing, as he did, the true circumstances of the case, he could bear it no longer. His agitation was demonstrated clearly, when, in a cold, cutting voice, he interrupted the questioner with, “This young lady knows absolutely nothing as to the why and wherefore of de Rochelle’s death. At the time of his disappearance, she was at the home of Mrs. O’Brien.It is clear, then, that you are injuring her with your accusations.”
At this, the tide of questions turned to overwhelm the O’Briens. Suffice to say, it was easy for them to establish an alibi both for Sana and themselves.
Dr. White was next to face the fire of the attack. His explanations with regard to the dead man’s hypnotic influence over Sana, served only to add fuel to the flames. A barrage of questions were hurled at him in an effort to trick him into saying something that might be used against him or one of the others. White, however, was too clever a man, and knowing just what he was up against, successfully parried the thrusts of his opponent.
The outcome was, that, failing to secure any satisfaction from his visitors, the District Attorney bowed them out, mumbling, “Well, it will be investigated further.”
Leaving the place, the party wended their way to the morgue, to make an effort to identify the body.
There are moments when long restrained grief and anxiety break loose from the mortal fetters that bind them—they escape the chains, though in their flight they rend the soul and tear the heart. Such a moment came to Sana as she stood in the house of the dead, awaiting her turn to look at the body of the drowned man.
She freed herself from the supporting arm of Mrs. O’Brien and with a cry of anguish pushed her way to the body lying upon the rude slab.
Silently she gazed upon the form. The facial features were wholly unrecognizable and his curly hair, through which she had so often delightedly run her fingers now was matted with dried and clotted blood. The eye that had fascinated her—the lips that had so often sought hers—all these were hideously mutilated.
Sana sank to her knees and fell across the body, sobbing, “François, François come back—come back to me—your Sana—your joujou. O François, why did you leave me? I loved you so. Oh! look at me.”
And as she raved she peered with pitying intent into the sunken eyes of the lifeless man.
“Come, my child, we must be going,” burst upon the ears of the anguished girl, as she moaned and wrung her hands hysterically over the form of her dead love.
“Yes,” came from lips unconscious of the utterance.
“François, I must leave you—François, goodbye—goodb——”
With her farewell uncompleted Sana fell in a swoon at the feet of Professor Grant.
They carried her into the office, and after regaining consciousness she was led to the waiting automobile in which she was taken to Mrs. O’Brien’s home.
The following day a representative of the insurance company called upon the O’Briens to hand Sana a check for the ten thousand dollars insurance on de Rochelle’s life, of which Sana was the beneficiary.
Sana looked at the check with a feeling of disgust, and finally passed it back to the man saying, “I don’t want his money.”
“But it is not his money,” came the answer, “It is the insurance company’s money.”
“Well, I don’t want it anyway.”
“But what shall I say at the office?”
“Tell them I shall let them know in a few days. Perhaps I shall donate it to some charity.”
At this display of pride, the agent muttered something about her being an exception, and at a signal from Mrs. O’Brien, who noticed that Sana was becoming nervous, he left the room.