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diff --git a/40416-0.txt b/40416-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd7dc1a --- /dev/null +++ b/40416-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6499 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40416 *** + + THE REST HOLLOW MYSTERY + + BY REBECCA N. PORTER + + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1922 + + Copyright, 1922, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + Printed in U. S. A. + + + + + TO MY BROTHER + WILLIAM STRATTON PORTER + + That ideal reader of mystery stories--with + the ardor to pursue, the faith to believe + and the magnanimity to guess wrong + + + + +THE REST HOLLOW MYSTERY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Kenwick himself had no recollection of the accident. But he knew that +there must have been one, for when he recovered consciousness, his +clothes were full of burrs, his hat was badly crushed, and there was a +violent throbbing in one of his legs. + +With both hands gripping the aching thigh in a futile effort to soothe +its pain, he dragged himself into the clearing and looked about. It was +one of those narrow, wooded mountain ravines that in the West are +classed as cañons. Back of him rose a succession of sage-covered slopes, +bleak, wintry, hostile. In front was a precipitous cliff studded with +dwarf madrone trees and the twisted manzanita. Overhead the bare +distorted sycamore boughs lashed themselves together and moaned a dreary +monotone to the accompaniment of a keen November wind. No sign of autumn +lingered on the landscape, and the shed leaves formed a moldy carpet +underfoot. The cañon was redolent with the odor of damp timber and +decaying vegetation. + +Kenwick buttoned his heavy overcoat about him and limped painfully +toward the cliff, keeping as nearly as possible a straight line from his +starting-point. Although his surroundings were totally unfamiliar his +mind was clear. But he had that curious sensation of a man who has slept +all night in a strange bed, and in the first moment of wakening is +unable to adjust himself to his environment. While he groped his way +through the tangled underbrush his memory struggled to clear a passage +back to the present. + +At the foot of the cliff he stopped short, staring in horror at a spot a +few paces ahead of him. A scrub madrone had been torn from the side of +the ravine and had fallen to the bottom of the cañon, its mutilated +roots stretching skyward like the grotesque claws of some prehistoric +animal. The force which had torn it from its moorings had scarred the +slope with other evidences of disaster; a limb lopped off here, a mass +of brush ripped away there. A glistening object caught his eye. He +stooped laboriously and picked it up, then dropped it, shuddering. It +was a triangle of broken glass spattered with blood. + +For half an hour he poked around in the brush searching for, yet +dreading to find, a more gruesome object. Perhaps the driver had not +been killed after all, he reassured himself. As he dimly remembered him, +he was a friendly sort of fellow whom he had engaged to drive him out to +the Raeburn place. As he climbed the steep hill now Kenwick tried to +remember what they had been talking about just before this thing +happened, but the effort made his head ache and landed him nowhere. A +more vital conjecture was concerned with how long he had been lying at +the foot of the ravine and why no one had come to his rescue. + +When he gained the road there was nobody in sight. It was a splendidly +paved bit of country boulevard curving out of sight into what Kenwick +told himself must be the land of dreams and romance. He turned to the +left and started to walk, aimlessly, hopping part of the time to save +his aching leg. Surely some one would overtake him in a car soon and +offer assistance. He had dragged himself over half a mile, stimulated by +this hope, when he sighted a house set far back from the highway behind +a vista of date-palms. He struggled up to the entrance and gazed through +the bars of a tall iron gate. It was locked. And, as an extra +precaution against intrusion, a heavy iron chain was swung across the +outside. Through the trees the house was plainly visible, a colossal +concrete structure with stone trimmings flanked on one side by a sturdy +combination tank-house and garage. About the whole place there was an +aristocratic, exclusive dignity that reminded Kenwick of one of the +great English estates that he had once visited during a convalescent +furlough spent near London. It was more like a castle than a private +residence, with its high stone wall covered by dank clinging vines. The +very trees that bordered the driveway had an air of aloofness as though +they had severed all relationship with the rest of nature's family. It +was inconceivable, Kenwick told himself, that guests had ever been +entertained, unbidden, in that mansion. And yet it was here that he must +apply for help. + +Strength had deserted him. Courage had deserted him. Even self-respect +was fast slipping away. Desperation alone remained; desperation lashed +almost to fury by the agony in his throbbing leg. He or his companion +must have been drunk, hideously drunk, to have met with such a +mischance. And yet where could they have purchased a drink? He himself +hated liquor, and he had no recollection of having been persuaded into +illicit conviviality. As he searched for an opening in the stone wall, +he took hasty stock of himself. The fur-collared overcoat would give him +a certain social status in the eyes of this householder. His hat, though +bearing the mark of riotous adventure, was obviously the hat of a +gentleman. His shoes subscribed liberally to this classification and his +dark broadcloth suit was conclusive. He felt in his pocket. There was +neither watch nor money. But he could mention Raeburn's name. The +wealthy New Yorker who was to have been his host undoubtedly stood high +in this community. + +His search along the wall brought him at last to a broken ledge of rock +which might serve as a stepping-stone. He drew in his breath sharply, +dreading the pain of the stupendous effort that he was about to make. +Then he placed his sound foot on the ledge and dragged himself over the +enclosure. + +If the place had looked inhospitable from the outside it was even more +formidable viewed from within. Only that portion of the acreage which +immediately surrounded the house was under cultivation. On either side +of this a wide expanse of eucalyptus forest sloped away from the road. +They were half-grown saplings and the blue-gray of their foliage blended +with subtle harmony into the somber winter landscape. + +"Lord! What a lonely spot!" Kenwick muttered as he followed the driveway +around to the side of the house. "Good God! Anything could happen in a +place like this!" + +The shallow stone steps echoed beneath his feet, and the door-bell, +tinkling in some remote region, gave back a ghostly, deserted sound. Two +more trials with the electric button convinced Kenwick that the place +was untenanted. He made a shade of his two hands and peered into the +plate-glass window that gave on the front porch. + +What he saw was an elegantly appointed dining-room furnished in old +mahogany and dull blue hangings. There were carved candlesticks on the +sideboard, and in the center of the bare dining-table a cut-glass bowl +full of English walnuts. The somber high-backed chairs ranged along the +wall seemed to the man outside to be guarding the room like a body of +solemn gendarmes. Slowly he turned, descended the shallow steps, and +started around to the rear of the house. There must be some servant, he +reasoned, some caretaker or gardener who could administer temporary +relief and direct him to his destination. The ache in his leg was +becoming unbearable. It was impossible for him to go on unaided. However +reluctant this exclusive home might be to admit a stranger within its +gates, it must conform to the laws of decency and bind up his wounds. + +On the side path, bordered with monster oleanders and dusty miller, he +stopped. The door of the garage was open. It seemed safe to assume that +the chauffeur or caretaker lived in the commodious quarters overhead. +Hope glimmered at last through the night of black despair. Almost blind +with pain now Kenwick staggered toward that open door. In the dim light +of late afternoon he made out a small room filled with garden tools. +Beyond, through an inside window, was revealed a handsome black +limousine standing motionless in the gathering darkness. + +But the building was deserted. It was when he realized this that the +dusk suddenly enveloped the man peering desperately in at the threshold. +Through a bleak mist he saw the lawn-mower, garden hose, and +beetle-black car dance together in hideous nightmare. And then the room +full of garden tools rushed toward him. He felt the wheels of that +sinister black car grinding into his neck, and he knew no more. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +When Kenwick came to himself he was lying on a cavernous divan with a +gorgeous Indian blanket over him and a tabouret drawn close to his side. +In a far corner of the room a rose-shaded lamp was burning. It gave to +the handsome drawing-room a rosy glow that seemed to envelop its every +object in subtle mystery. For long minutes the sick man stared about the +apartment without trying to move. Slowly the events of the last few +hours came back to him. Very cautiously, like a man who has just +recovered his sight after prolonged blindness, he felt his way back +along the path that he had just traveled. It brought him at last to the +door of the garage and the beetle-black limousine grinding over his +neck. + +He reached out and touched the spindle-legged table at his side. On it +were his collar, tie, and a long-stemmed glass partly full of whisky. +Very slowly he drained the remaining contents. Then he sat upright and +gently touched his injured leg. It felt hard and tight. Whoever had done +the bandaging had made up in force what he had lacked in skill, but the +numbness of a too tight wrapping was an intense relief after his hour of +agony. He limped across the long room to the entrance-hall and stood at +length in the doorway of the mahogany-furnished dining-room guarded by +the row of gendarme chairs. + +This last evidence was conclusive. In some way he had gained admittance +to the house with the barred gate. Evidently there had been some one +close at hand when he fainted; some one who had authority to carry him +through those impregnable doors. The thought gave him an uncanny +feeling. But where was this gum-shod combination of mystery and mercy? +In the curious way that the senses convey such intelligence he felt that +the house was empty. + +"Well, if I've got to stay here alone all night," he said to himself, +"I'm going to see what this place looks like." + +And so, using two light willow chairs as crutches, he started upon a +slow tour of exploration. Through the swinging doors he passed into a +butler's pantry and then into the kitchen. It was a large cheerful room +with laundry in the rear. But although there were no soiled dishes +about, it had an undefinable air of untidiness and neglect. A crumpled +dish-towel was under the table. The sink was grimy and the stove +spotted with grease. Even to Kenwick's inexpert eyes the room appeared +somehow dirty and repellant. + +He set the wine-glass that he had brought from the front room on the +table and tried the back door. It was locked on the outside. Every door +and window that he had tested so far was similarly barred. With a vague +feeling of misgiving he returned to the drawing-room. It was very late. +The alabaster clock on the mantel was ticking its way toward midnight. +He felt ravenously hungry but shrank from touching any of the food upon +the pantry shelves. He decided that until his host arrived he would sit +in the den, a companionable little room, whose deep leather chairs +invited him. The porte-cochère was on this side of the house and the +home-comers, whoever they were, would doubtless enter there. No fire +burned on the hearth but the house was comfortably and evenly warm. It +was apparent that the caretaker was an expert furnace-man. + +Kenwick was about to sink into one of the big chairs opposite the huge +antlers of a deer when suddenly an object caught his eye. He struggled +over to the telephone and took down the receiver. For five minutes he +stood there holding it to his ear listening for the familiar hum that +assures telephonic health. But the thing was dead. As he hung it up, it +struck Kenwick all at once that it might be disconnected. The idea +brought him a sense of unaccountable resentment. "My Lord!" he muttered. +"I might as well be in a jail!" + +He sank into one of the Morris-chairs and gazed out into the blackness +of night. He could, he reflected, smash a window and make his escape +that way. But why escape from comfort into bleakness? Jail or no jail he +was lucky to have found such a haven. By morning somebody would have +arrived and he could be taken to old man Raeburn's. He was probably +worrying about him at this very moment. "I didn't break into this place +though," Kenwick reassured himself. "Somebody in authority brought me +in, so there's nothing criminal about staying on. And since there had to +be an invader, better myself than some unscrupulous beggar who might +make off with the family plate." + +The reading-lamp upon the table was equipped with a dimmer. He drew the +chain half its length, pulled the Indian blanket over him, and, in spite +of the dull ache in his leg, was soon wrapped in the dreamless slumber +of utter exhaustion. + +When he awoke it was broad daylight and the dimly burning bulb of the +reading-lamp shone with a futile bleary light. He extinguished it and +drew up the window-shades. Sleep had refreshed him and he felt healthily +hungry. The pain in his leg returned with almost overwhelming force when +he attempted to walk, but a sharp-edged appetite impelled him to seek +the pantry. He found the dining-room wrapped in the same somber +stillness that it had worn the night before, the bowl of walnuts showing +dully in the center of the table. From the kitchen table where he had +set it the night before the empty wine-glass stared back at him. But +there was something reassuring in its presence. It seemed to give mute +evidence of the reality of this adventure. + +From the butler's pantry Kenwick brought a can of coffee and half a loaf +of bread. "Whatever my bill in this caravansary amounts to," he told +himself as he measured out the coffee, "it's going to include breakfast. +I've decided to sign up on the American plan." + +On his trip back to the pantry he discovered upon the ledge inside the +window half a dozen fresh eggs. They gave him a little shock of +surprise. For he was certain that they had not been there before. The +window was small and narrow, much too tiny to admit a human body. But +whoever was detailed to take care of this place was apparently on the +job. Kenwick resolved to be on the alert for the egg-hunter. In twenty +minutes he had cooked himself an ample breakfast and carried it into the +dining-room on an impressive silver tray. Memories of long-ago camping +trips with his elder brother in the Adirondacks recurred to him as he +ate. Everett was a master camper but had always hated to cook. In order +to even things he had been willing to do much more than his share of the +rougher work. Now as Kenwick drank his coffee and ate the perfectly +browned toast and fluffy eggs, he blessed those camping trips and the +education which they had given him. + +And then his memory wandered from the wholesome sanity of those days to +the first dreadful months of the war. From the chaos of that era, one +night leaped out at him. It was the night that he had parted with +Everett at the old Kenwick house, the house that had been the Kenwicks' +for sixty years. Perhaps the stark simplicity of that scene, shorn of +objective emotion by the presence of Everett's wife, was the very thing +that enabled him now to extricate it from the tangle of days that +preceded and followed it. Everett had laid his hand for just an instant +upon the shoulder of the new uniform. "I'm all you've got to see you +off, boy," he had said. "But if mother and dad could see you now they'd +be proud and happy." And then had followed a sentence or two of promise, +of affection, of admonition, murmured in a hasty undertone intended to +escape the ears of the statuesque creature who was his brother's wife. +Kenwick had wondered afterward whether they had escaped her, whether, +anything vital ever escaped Isabel Kenwick. And yet his farewell to her +had been a flawless scene. She was always the central figure in some +flawless scene. His brother's whole life seemed to him to be enacted +upon a perfectly appointed stage. There had been just the proper +proportion of regret and pride in Isabel's voice as she bade him +good-by; just the right waving to him from the steps and calling after +him that whenever he returned his old room would be waiting with +everything just as he left it. + +And then he had come back and not found his room the same at all. +Everything about the house seemed changed. His room was a guestroom now, +and he had been relegated to a place on the third floor with +dormer-windows. He hated dormer-windows. When his mother had been head +of the home the third floor had been used only for the servants, but +under Isabel's régime it had been converted into extra guestrooms, and +there seemed to be a never-ending succession of guests. + +So it had been no hardship to acquiesce in Everett's suggestion that he +come out to California and recuperate from the war strain in Old Man +Raeburn's hospitable Mont-Mer home. It was a splendid idea for Everett +well knew that the West was more like home to him now than New York. +Mont-Mer itself was unfamiliar, but only a few hours up coast there was +San Francisco. And in San Francisco was----He felt in his pocket. But +the slender flat object around which his fingers had closed during +moments of desolation and peril in the trenches was not there. The +realization that it had been pitched into the underbrush along with his +money and watch stabbed him with a new pain. Her picture out there in +that cañon where any casual explorer might chance upon it! Why, it was +desecration! + +He pushed aside the tray and went over to the long mirror in the door of +the hall closet. In all his twenty-five years he had never given his +physical appearance such intensive consideration. Vanity had never been +one of his failings. And his fastidious taste in dress was more +instinctive than consciously cultivated. Now the keen dark eyes traveled +slowly from the brown hair brushed back from his forehead to the thin +lips and firm square chin. His eyes were the wide-apart eyes of the +student but it was the nose that gave his face distinction. Thin, +sensitive, perfectly molded, it betrayed an eager, intense nature never +quite at peace with itself. The hands with which he tried now to comb +his disordered hair into decorum were the long-fingered, hollow-palmed +hands of those who are blessed and cursed with the creative, +introspective temperament. They were hands impatient of detail, eager to +grasp at the garment of great achievement, resentful of the slower +process of accomplishment. He had drawn himself to his full six feet. +Army training had given him an extra inch, and of this one physical +asset he was proud. + +"Decent appearing," he mused, checking off the credit side of his ledger +in businesslike tones. "Fairly prosperous, sane, and law-abiding. I +wonder if I'll be able to convince my host of any of those things." + +He decided suddenly to explore the upper part of the house. It would +cost terrific physical effort, but a fury of restlessness possessed +him. On the broad landing the stairway divided and took opposite ways. +He turned to the left and a few minutes later found himself standing in +the open doorway of what appeared to be an upstairs sitting-room. It was +obviously a man's apartment. The smell of stale cigar smoke was in the +air and on the table a pipe and ash-tray. It was the sight of the latter +that brought Kenwick's fine eyes together in a deep-furrowed frown. From +the cold ashes he drew out a half-smoked cigar. For a long moment he +stood turning it in his hand. It couldn't have been in that tray for +more than a few hours. + +In the room beyond, separated from the sitting-room by portières, was a +massive walnut bed, chiffonier, and shaving-stand. A blue-tiled bathroom +completed the suite. The windows of all three were closed and locked. He +went back to the hall, past another bedroom with door ajar, and +descended the stairs to the landing. Here he paused to rest, gazing +speculatively at the closed portals in the opposite wing. + +"The modern American home," he decided. "He has one part of the house +and she has the other." + +His face twitched with the pain of his pilgrimage. It was going to be a +crucial experience getting downstairs. While he stood there almost +despairing of the feat of covering the distance back to the den, there +came to his ears a sound that turned him cold. He forgot his pain and +clung to the supporting post motionless as a statue. + +The sound came again. He knew this time that it was not the +hallucination of overstrung nerves. Dragging himself up by the banister, +he knocked on the first door of the right wing. There was no response. +He knocked again, then boldly turned the knob. The door was locked. But +through the deathly stillness there came, after a moment's pause, the +sound that he had heard before. It was the sound of a woman's stifled +sobbing. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Kenwick stood outside the closed door, a curious numbness stealing over +him. Was it possible, he asked himself, that there had been some one in +this house during the last twelve hours? Was it possible that this +person was a woman? A solitary woman? It was unmistakably a woman's +voice, and there was no sound of comforting or upbraiding or other +evidence of companionship. As he knocked again at the door he wondered +which one of them was the more startled by the presence of the other. + +The sobbing had abruptly ceased. There was dead silence. Had he been of +a superstitious temperament he might have suspected that his knock had +somehow released from bondage an unhappy ghost who, wailing over a dead +tragedy, had vanished leaving this spectral house as desolate as he had +found it. + +But Kenwick had no patience whatever with the occult. For him life was +too all-absorbing and vivid an enterprise to tolerate the pastel +existence of ghosts. Through the stillness his voice cut its way like a +torchlight cleaving a path through a blind alley. + +"What's the matter?" + +As he hurled this question through the panel, he reflected that, being a +woman, she would probably reply, "Nothing." But there was no response. +Kenwick persisted. "Can I do anything for you?" And then a voice that +was little more than a whisper came to him. + +"Who are you?" + +Conscious that the name would mean nothing to her, he gave it with a +touch of irritation. She must know that he couldn't explain his invasion +of her house through that inscrutably closed door. He had never thought +of the place as belonging to a woman. Nothing that he had seen in it so +far bespoke a woman's presence. The embarrassment that he had felt +during the first hours of his imprisonment ebbed back and for the moment +robbed him of further speech. + +"Please go away." The voice from the other side of the door was +entreating. It was a cultured, beautifully modulated voice struggling +against heavy odds for composure. Kenwick had the feeling that it was a +voice that lent itself easily to disguise. + +"I can't go away until I have told you about myself," he said firmly. +"I must tell you how I happen to be here, an uninvited guest in your +house." He gave her the story briefly and was horribly conscious that it +lacked conviction. In his own ears it sounded like the still-born +narrative of a debauchee. Having stumbled to the end he waited for her +comment. It came after a long pause. + +"I'm sorry you're hurt. I hope you'll feel better to-morrow." To-morrow! +Did she expect him to prolong his visit indefinitely? The casual +courtesy of her tone was more disconcerting than indignation or +resentment or any other form of reply could have been. But he resolved +savagely not to leave that door until he had obtained some sort of +information. + +"When I met with the accident I was driving out to the Raeburn house; +Charles Raeburn. Do you know where he lives?" + +"No." + +"Well, tell me about this place, then, please. Whose is it?" + +"I don't know." + +"You don't know? And yet you live here?" Kenwick felt as though his +brain were turning over in his head. + +"If you call this living." He wouldn't have caught this reply at all if +his ear hadn't been pressed close against the panel. + +"Are you all alone here?" + +There was no reply. + +"Is any one with you?" + +"Oh, please go away. Do have pity on me and go away." + +She was alone, Kenwick decided, and was afraid to tell him so. The +realization brought a wave of hot color to his face. He dragged himself +painfully back to the landing. And from that distance he sent his voice +up to her, freighted with reassurance. + +"Don't be frightened. I'm pretty badly bunged up just now, but I found a +revolver over in the other wing, and if anybody comes prowling +about--well, I'm not a bad shot." Suddenly a new thought occurred to +him. "Have you had anything to eat this morning? Are you hungry?" + +"I think--I am starving." + +It was like a spray of ice-water in his face. He stood for a moment +considering, "I'll get you something," he promised. "If you don't want +to come out I'll fix it and bring it up on a tray." + +"There would be no use." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I can't open the door." + +"Are you in bed?" His voice had sharpened. + +Silence again, from which he concluded that she was. He stood there +staring at the heavy mahogany door as though by the mere intensity of +his gaze he could dissolve it. For a long moment he was lost in thought, +but he was not trying now to solve the riddle of the woman on the other +side of the barrier. The needs of the immediate present were all that +concerned him. Finally he spoke again. + +"Is your bed anywhere near a window?" + +"Yes." + +"Is the window open?" + +"Yes." + +"Then listen. I'll go downstairs and get something for you to eat. I'll +put it into a bucket, attach some kind of rope with a weighted end to +it, and throw the end in at your window. I can't get outside so I'll +have to do it from the pantry window and it may take some time, but I'll +keep at it. When the end comes in, pull up the bucket. Do you see?" + +"I'll try to." + +He turned away and began the long trip down to the kitchen. Now that he +was animated by a desire to help somebody else, the depression which had +enveloped him was momentarily dissipated. In spite of the ever-present +pain he felt almost elated when at last he arrived again in the kitchen. + +Half an hour later the "rope," manufactured from several towels tied +together, with a potato-masher on the end, flew in at the window just +above the pantry and the carefully covered bucket disappeared from +sight. "Pretty neat," Kenwick remarked to himself. "I had no idea that I +could do it when I told her I would." + +But the strain had been too great. He was suddenly aware that every +nerve in his body was aching. Back in the den he sank down on the couch +where he had spent the night. Conjecture about the woman upstairs was +submerged now beneath his own physical misery. The shelves in the +library were empty. There was nothing to read save a paper-backed copy +of one of Dumas's earlier novels, which he discovered in a corner. He +took it up and tried to lose himself in the story, but it couldn't hold +him. He found himself wondering resentfully why old man Raeburn hadn't +shown more interest in his non-appearance. He was furiously impatient +and utterly helpless. And he told himself that these two cannot live +long together without wrecking the reason. Never before in his life had +he been in a position where he couldn't do something to alter obdurate +circumstance. To do anything would be better than to do nothing. The +thought came to him all at once that this was what women, overwhelming +numbers of women, must have endured during the terrible years of the war +just past. There must have been whole armies of them, furiously eager to +shoulder guns and march away to the trenches with the men they loved. +And instead they had to submit to being caged up in houses and, +blindfolded to all vision of the outer world, perform day after day the +dreary treadmill duties of routine existence. For the first time he +found himself wondering why more of them hadn't gone insane under the +pressure. He was certain that he himself would lose his mental balance +if the blindfold wasn't soon removed from his mental vision. + +Suddenly he sat up and tossed aside his book. There was the sound of a +footstep on the gravel walk at the other side of the house. Pushing a +chair before him he followed the sound out to the dining-room. Through +the window he saw a tall, ungainly looking boy walking toward the +tank-house garage. He was carrying a long pole and a pair of pruning +shears. So this was the accursed gardener, the mysterious gatherer of +eggs, who, having brought him into the house, was content to let him die +there or make off with the family plate. + +"Here, you!" Kenwick knocked on the window-pane. It was a loud +resounding knock, but the boy walked on unheeding, carefully examining +one end of his pole. + +Kenwick tried the lock. He had noticed in a previous investigation that +all the windows on the lower floor had double locks. Undoing them on the +inside was futile until a spring released them on the outside. And +Kenwick was in no mood for making mechanical experiments. For an instant +he stood there, like some caged animal, staring after the gawky figure +of the boy as though he were the embodiment of hope fading away in the +distance. And then a blind fury seized him. Possessed only of the +overpowering desire to gain the attention of the outside world, he +suddenly doubled his fist and sent it crashing through the heavy +plate-glass pane. It shattered into a hundred pieces and cut a deep gash +in his wrist. + +When he had bound this up in a handkerchief with deft first-aid skill, +he leaned out through the ragged aperture that had been the window. The +boy had vanished as completely as though he were a wraith. Kenwick, +controlling his dismay with a stupendous effort, told himself that he +had only gone to put away his tools and would soon come running back to +investigate the damage. He stood there waiting, exulting in his revolt. +In spite of the lacerated wrist this violent assertion of his rights +brought an immense relief. Why, a person might be murdered in this place +and it would be days before anybody would know a thing about it. + +The boy did not return, and Kenwick made his way back to the den. It was +mid-afternoon now and a heavy rain had begun to fall. He made no further +attempt to read, but lay on the upholstered window-seat trying to find +some position that would be bearable. He cursed himself for having used +the leg so much. Had he remained quiet all day he might by now have been +able to get away from this uncanny place. But the woman upstairs! He +couldn't throw off an absurd sense of responsibility concerning her. +From all that he could gather she was as helpless a puppet in the hands +of fate as he. But of course she might have been lying to him. As he lay +there on his back gazing out at the needles of rain driven aslant into +the dank ground, he felt distrustful of the whole universe. Could there +be any way, he wondered, of getting a message out of this house? There +must be a rural delivery, and if so, at the gate would be a letterbox. +But that gate----It seemed tortuous miles away. + +A search through the empty drawers of the desk revealed several loose +sheets of tablet-paper and the stub of a pencil. With this equipment he +wrote out a telegram to Everett. The mere wording of it seemed to +reinstate him somehow in the world of affairs. The problem of getting it +into the office could be solved later. + +At six o'clock he forced himself to go out to the kitchen again and +prepare supper. The thought of eating revolted him, but the woman +upstairs, liar, decoy, or invalid, must be fed. Dangling close to the +pantry window was the white-knotted towel rope with the bucket on the +end. He put into it the last of the loaf of bread and some boiled eggs. +Then he called to her to pull it up. When the bucket had begun its +erratic climb, he leaned out of the narrow opening and spoke with +defiant triumph. "Did you hear me smash that window this afternoon? I +was trying to get the attention of the gardener. And I'm going to get it +too if I have to smash up everything on this place." + +If she made any reply he did not catch it. The rain was falling fast now +and there was the growling sound of approaching thunder. Back in the den +again he turned on the reading-light, more for companionship than +illumination. Could it be possible that he would have to spend another +night in this ghostly house? The idea was intolerable, and yet there was +no relief in sight. + +Another hour passed, and darkness enveloped the world in a shroud-like +mantle. The bandage with which Kenwick's leg was wrapped was a torture +now. He unwound it and began to massage the badly swollen limb using the +long firm strokes that he had learned from the athletic trainer during +his university days. They seemed to ease the pain somewhat and he +continued to rub until his arms ached with the effort. + +Then all at once there came to his ears a sound that made him halt, +every muscle tense with listening. It was a sharp incisive knocking and +it seemed to come from the dining-room. He sat motionless, afraid to +move lest it should stop. But it came again, a clear unmistakable +knocking that had the dull resonance of metal clashing against metal. To +Kenwick it was perfectly obvious now that someone was trying to gain +entrance at that broken dining-room window. He tested his unbandaged +foot upon the floor and drew himself stealthily to a standing position. +And then he turned himself slowly in the direction of the darkened +dining-room. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The Morgan home on Pine Street was a rambling old house; the only +shingle structure in a block of modern concrete apartments. To the elder +Morgans it had been the fulfilment of a dream; a home of their own in +San Francisco. Clinton Morgan had lived only a year after its +completion, and his widow, in spite of the pressure of hard times and +the inadequacy of the income which he left, had resisted all tempting +offers to sell the old place and had brought up her son and daughter +with a reverence for family tradition as incongruous to their +environment and generation as was the old shingle house among its +businesslike neighbors. + +And then, eight years after Clinton Morgan's death, oil had been +discovered in his holdings over at Coalinga, and the last year of Sarah +Morgan's life had been spent in affluence. But she had never parted with +the old home. At the end of that year she had called Clinton, Jr., then +a young instructor in chemistry at the university, to her bedside and +laid a last charge upon him. + +"Clint,"--Her voice held that note of unconscious tyranny that +approaching death gives to last utterances. For in the moment of +dissolution there is not one among us but is granted the crown and +scepter of autocracy. "Clint, don't let the old place go. Fix it over +any way you and Marcreta like, but keep it in the family as long as you +live." + +"Yes, Mother." + +"And Clint, there is something else." + +"I know, Mother. It's Marcreta. But you needn't worry about her." + +"I don't believe in death-bed promises. It's not right to try to tie up +anybody's future. But----You see, if she were strong and well, I +wouldn't be anxious; I wouldn't say anything but----" + +"You don't need to say anything, Mother. I'll always look out for her." + +A white, blue-veined hand stretched across the counterpane groping for +his. A moment later Marcreta was holding the other and brother and +sister faced each other alone. + + * * * * * + +It was about a year after this that Clinton Morgan brought home with him +to dinner one night a young college fellow, just on the eve of +graduating from the University of California. The friendship between the +instructor and this undergraduate, five years his junior, had begun in +the fraternity-house where Clinton dined occasionally as one of the "old +men." And temperamental congeniality and diversity of interests had done +the rest. + +"He's slated to be one of those writer freaks." Thus he introduced the +guest to his sister. "But he's harmless at present and he's far from +home, so I brought him along." + +Roger Kenwick looked into Miss Morgan's grave blue eyes and became +suddenly a man. His host, surveying him genially from across the +meat-platter, found himself entertaining a stranger. The gay persiflage +which he had known over at "the house" was completely submerged under a +maturity which he had suspected only as potential. In vain he tried that +form of social surgery known to hosts and hostesses as "drawing him +out." He mentioned a clever poem in the college magazine of which +Kenwick was editor. He began a discussion of the approaching track-meet +in which Kenwick was to support his championship for the hundred-yard +dash. He tried university politics in which his guest was a conspicuous +figure. To all these leads his fraternity brother made brief, almost +impatient response. And Clinton Morgan was resentfully bewildered. He +experienced that cheated feeling known to any one who has brought home +exultantly a clever friend, and then failed in the effort to make him +show off. + +But he couldn't complain that Kenwick was tongue-tied. He was talking +earnestly, but it was about future, not past achievement. Inspired by +Marcreta's sympathetic interest, he unfolded plans of accomplishment of +which until that moment he himself had been in densest ignorance. +Clinton had seen other men change, chameleon-like, in the presence of +his sister, and he found himself wondering now as he watched Kenwick +take his headlong leap into the future, whether it was Marcreta's regal +beauty which inspired their admiration or her physical disability which +appealed to their chivalry. + +Kenwick himself was scarcely conscious of the disability. He was only +vaguely aware that there were cushions at Miss Morgan's back and that on +the way in from the living-room she had leaned slightly upon her +brother's arm. When the evening was over he left the Morgan home +enveloped in a white fury. + +"I've been a fool!" he told himself violently. "I've been frittering +away my whole life. This college stuff is kids' play. If I wasn't just +two months from the end I'd ditch it and break into the man's game of +finding a place in the world." + +"Great chap, Kenwick," Clinton was telling his sister. "But he wasn't +quite himself to-night. I think he has some family troubles that worry +him. Doesn't get on very well with his sister-in-law back East, I +believe. That's why he came out here to college." + +Marcreta made a random reply. She was wondering what kind of person +Roger Kenwick's real self was. And she was soon to discover. For that +evening marked the beginning of a new era for them both. Scarcely a week +passed that he did not spend Saturday and Sunday evenings at the house +on Pine Street. Sometimes he read aloud to her "stuff" that he had +written for the local newspapers. Sometimes she read to him from her +favorite books. Once she helped him plan the plot of an absorbing serial +story. But often they didn't read anything at all; just sat in front of +the open fire and talked. + +In May Kenwick was graduated from the university, but was still living +at the fraternity-house in Berkeley when there came a sudden summons +from New York. He ought to come, Isabel informed him, for his brother +was seriously ill. On the night before he left he made a longer call +than usual at the Morgan home. + +"Everett's the finest chap in the world," he told Marcreta. "He's been +like a father to me. But----Lord! How I hate to tear myself away from +here! And the worst of it is, I don't know how long I may have to stay. +You won't forget me if it's a long time?" + +And then all at once they were not talking about his trip any more, nor +of Everett. "If you could only give me some hope to go on," Kenwick was +saying. "Something to live on while I'm away." + +But to this entreaty Marcreta was almost coldly unresponsive. She tried +evasions first; asked solicitous questions concerning his plans; showed +a heart-warming interest in his anxiety concerning his brother. But, +forced at length to answer his persistent question, she said simply: +"No. I don't care for you--in that way. Let's not talk any more about +it. Let's not spoil our last evening together." + +It brought him to his feet white and shaken. "Spoil my last evening with +you!" he cried. "Spoil my whole life! That's what it will do if I can't +have you in it." His fingers sought an inside pocket of his coat. "I've +got your picture," he told her fiercely. "I got it down at Stafford's +studio the other day. And I'm going to carry it with me always--until +you give me something better." + +A month after his arrival in New York he wrote her that his brother had +recovered and that he would soon be coming back to find a position in a +newspaper office in San Francisco. But he didn't come back. For it was +just at this time that men began to hear strange new voices calling to +them from out of the world-chaos. Day by day they grew in volume and in +authority luring youth out of the isolation of personal ambition into +the din and horrible carnage of war. Just before he left for a Southern +training-camp Kenwick wrote her a long letter. In it there was neither +past nor future tense. It concerned itself solely, almost stubbornly, +with the present. + +On the evening that she received it Marcreta held conference with her +brother in the dignified old drawing-room. "Clinton, I want to make the +old house take a part in the war. I've been talking it over with Dr. +Reynolds. He says it would make an ideal sanitarium. I want to use it +for the families of enlisted men; the women and children, you know, who +are too proud for charity and who, for just a nominal sum, could come +here and get the best treatment. If you were at the front, wouldn't it +relieve your mind to know that somebody you loved, I for instance, was +getting the proper care when I was ill, even though you couldn't provide +it for me? I'll do all this out of my own money, of course, and keep +your room and mine, so that this will still be home to you when--you +come back from training-camp." + +He stared at her incredulously. "Why, how did you----What makes you +think that--I'm going away?" + +"I saw Captain Evans's name on that envelope the other day, so I wrote +to him and asked if you had quizzed him about war work," she told him +shamelessly. "I couldn't help it, Clint. I had to know. I really knew +anyway. Knowing you, how could I help seeing that you were mad to get +away and help. Every _man_ must be. But you've been afraid to broach it +to me." + +In his first moment of wild relief, he didn't dare trust himself to +speak. When he at last ventured a response he plunged, manlike, into the +least vital of the two topics. "But you don't quite realize what it +would mean, Crete, tearing the whole house up that way. And the +incessant confusion of having all those people around would be a +frightful strain. With that spine of yours apt to go back on you at any +time----It isn't as if you were a well woman." + +The instant the words were out he regretted them. He saw his sister +wince, but her voice was steady and eager with entreaty. "That's just +it, dear. It isn't as if I were well and could do any work myself. But I +can do this. I know what sick people need to make them comfortable. Oh, +let me do it, Clinton." + +He reached over and patted her shoulder. "I don't want to stand in the +way of anything that would give you any happiness. But if it should be +too much for you--and I so far away from you----" + +"Even if it should be, you would come to see some day that I was right +to do it. I have a right to take that chance. I have just as much right +as a soldier has to stake my life against a great cause." + +In the end he yielded, and together they planned the readjustment of +their lives and the old home. Of the rooms on the lower floor, only the +big library remained unchanged. But there were invalid-chairs ranged +about the great room now and little tables holding bottles and trays. + +On the Sunday evening before he left Clinton found his sister up in her +room sorting over a pile of letters. "Well, your dreams are coming true, +Crete," he told her. "Dr. Reynolds is delighted with this place +and--you're sending a man to the service." + +She looked up at him with a smile, and it flashed across him suddenly +that she had done more than this. A silence fell between them, the tense +throbbing silence that precedes a last farewell. He felt that he ought +to say something; something comforting and cheerful. But the Morgans +were reserved people, and they found confidences incredibly difficult. +So he stood there looking down at her, thinking that she always ought to +wear that soft blue-gray color that seemed to melt into her eyes and +bring out all the richness of the dark curves of hair. It was so that he +would think of her in the days that were to come--a fragile but gallant +figure sitting at the old mahogany desk sorting out letters. + +Suddenly she pushed them aside and rose to her full splendid queenly +height. She knew that the moment of farewell had come and was not +grudging it its crucial moment of life. He came toward her and put his +two hands lightly on her shoulders. But words failed him utterly. For +his glance had fallen upon the pile of letters which she had tied with a +narrow bit of white ribbon. And he noticed for the first time that they +were all addressed in the same handwriting. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Before going to investigate the knocking in the dining-room, Kenwick +picked up the loaded revolver which he had brought down with him from +the upstairs sitting-room. He felt himself so completely at a +disadvantage against any chance invader that only such a weapon could +even the score. Besides, there was the sick woman upstairs. He had her +to protect. He hobbled across the hall, making as little noise as he +could. But the process of getting into the dining-room took considerable +time. There was plenty of time, he reflected, for the intruder to become +discouraged or emboldened as the case might be. + +As he crossed the room an icy blast struck him from the open window, and +he told himself savagely that he wished he had left it alone. You +couldn't expect a furnace to heat a house with a gale like that blowing +into it. He had dragged himself to within a few feet of the pane when +all at once he stopped. Two wide boards had been nailed across the +aperture. It was a clumsy job, hurriedly done. Kenwick stood there +gazing at it. So it was only for this that he had made the painful +journey from the den! And the carpenter was gone. The customary deathly +stillness prevailed. + +He stood there listening for the sound of retreating footsteps but it +was another sound that caught his ear. What he heard was the far off +chugging of an automobile engine. He remembered now that the place was +on a corner; that he had walked what had seemed miles after turning that +corner before he had come to the iron gate. He was thinking rapidly. +This was his one hope. If he could manage to get out to that gate by the +time the motor-car reached it, he could get help. How ill the woman +upstairs might be he could not guess, but they were both terribly in +need of aid. At any cost he must get out to the road. + +He laid the revolver upon a grim, high-backed chair and threw his whole +six feet of strength against one of the wide boards. It gave under the +pressure with a long tearing noise and hung outward dangling from its +secure end. Kenwick took up the revolver again, worked himself out +through the ample opening, and landed cautiously upon the gravel walk +beneath the window. Clutching at the branch of a giant oleander bush he +called up to the patient upstairs; "I'm going out to the gate. I don't +know what will happen to me before I get back, and I don't care. But I'm +going to get help or die trying." + +There was no response. He wondered, as he started along through the +blackness, whether the woman could be asleep. How could any one sleep in +this ghastly place. Some people didn't seem to have any nerves. But she +might be dead. The thought brought him to an abrupt halt. But in that +case it was more imperative than ever that he toil on. + +The rain had stopped now and the lawn under his feet was soggy and +water-beaten like a carpet that has been left out in a storm. He thanked +fortune that it was not slippery but gave beneath his staggering tread +with a resilience that aided progress. It was impossible for him to +proceed at anything faster than what seemed a snail's pace. The machine +must have passed the gate by this time, but there would be others. If he +ever reached that distant goal he would stand there and wait. + +Across the circle of lawn, around the arc of drive, he made his +laborious way with clenched teeth. And so at last he came to where the +tall gate loomed black and forbidding through the darkness. The heavy +chain still swung its sinister scallop before it, seeming more like a +prison precaution now than a warning against invasion. As he looked at +the stone fence, stretching away from it on both sides, and recalled the +agony with which he had scaled it, courage fled. He'd rather die, he +decided, than attempt to struggle over that parapet again. So he stood, +supporting himself by one of the iron rods of the gate, listening for +the sound of an engine. It came at last, growing louder as the car +turned the corner a quarter of a mile away. It was evidently traveling +slowly in low gear. The reason was soon apparent. Its engine was missing +fire. + +On through the darkness it came, its lights blazing a path for its +faltering progress. There was a noise of violently shifted gears and +then the heavy, greasy odor of a flooded carburetor. Behind the lights +there slid into view almost opposite the tall gate a high-powered +roadster. A man wearing huge glasses that gleamed through the dark like +the eyes of some superhuman being sprang out and wrenched open the +engine hood. + +For a moment Kenwick watched him, dreading to speak lest the stranger +vanish and leave him solitary as the gardener had done. And then +abruptly he sent his voice hurtling through the night. At sound of it he +recoiled. Only those who have suffered in solitude the agony of a +nameless terror know the ghastly havoc that it can work upon the human +voice. Kenwick's held now a harsh, ugly tone that had in it something +like a threat. The man at the engine wheeled about and leveled his huge +eyes at the spot from whence the summons came. "What the devil----?" he +began. + +And then explanations tumbled through the barred gate in an incoherent +torrent. They left the motorist with a confused impression of an +automobile tragedy, a bed-ridden woman, a feeble-minded gardener, and a +haunted house. + +In sheer perplexity he began drawing off his heavy gantlet gloves as +though to prepare for action. "Take it slower," he advised. "I don't get +you." And then he noticed that the man on the other side of the gate was +hatless and without an overcoat. "My Lord!" he cried anxiously. "You'll +freeze out here, man!" + +"Then for God's sake come in here and help me!" Kenwick entreated. "I +don't know whose place this is but it ought to be investigated. There's +a woman in here who's ill, and somebody has locked her into her room. +I'm not able to do a thing for her or for myself. Do you know what house +this is?" + +The stranger shook his head. "No, I'm just out here on a visit." Kenwick +groaned. There flashed into his mind the stories of some of his friends +who had toured California and who were unanimous in their conclusion +that everybody in the southern part of the state was merely a visitor. +"But whom do they visit?" Everett Kenwick had once inquired and nobody +could supply him with an answer. + +"Then you don't know where the Raeburn house is?" the man inside the +gate asked hopelessly. + +The motorist shook his head again. "I'll tell you what though," he +suggested. "You get back into the house out of this cold and I'll send +somebody back here. I'm having engine trouble and I've got to get into +town." + +Kenwick was fumbling with numb fingers in the pocket of his coat. He +stretched an oblong of white paper through the bars of the gate. "If +you're going in town, take this," he pleaded. "It's a message I want to +send to my brother in New York. Kenwick is the name and the address is +on the outside." + +The stranger stopped on his way to the gate and a curious expression +crossed his face. And just at that moment Kenwick caught the sound of +another voice speaking from inside the car. He couldn't catch the words, +for the coughing of the engine beat against his ears. The man in the +goggles climbed to the seat and the next minute the machine was moving +jerkily away. + +Cold desolation seized Kenwick. But he felt certain that the stranger +would return. There was nothing mysterious nor uncanny about him. But +how long would he have to wait there on the drenched gravel before help +could get back to him? It wouldn't do to catch cold in that leg and add +a fever to his other troubles. He must get back into the house. Out +there on the bleak road he thought longingly of its warm comfort. +Everything that he had done since he came into it seemed now to have +been the wrong thing. A horrible sense of incompetency, the first that +he had ever known in all his vivid, effective life, surged over him. And +added to this was a curious sense of having lost something. Was it +Marcreta Morgan's picture that he missed? He told himself that it was, +but he was only half satisfied with this assurance. + +Arguing the matter with himself, he had covered half the distance around +the driveway when suddenly a sharp reverberation rang through the air. +It was the report of a gun. Almost immediately this was followed by a +woman's scream. + +Kenwick stood still, balancing himself unsteadily upon his well foot. +The sound had come from the direction of the house. Did it herald a +tragedy or was it merely a signal? Scarcely knowing why he did it, +except to relieve the physical tension and to make his presence known, +he gripped his own revolver and fired two answering shots upward into +the night. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The one idea which possessed Kenwick after dragging himself back through +the broken window was to find out if the woman upstairs was safe. The +journey out to the big gate and back had consumed almost an hour, and as +he pulled himself in between the wide board and shattered glass he felt +that it must have been years since he had gone on that painful quest. He +rested for a few moments and then went into the front hall. + +To his amazement he found it ablaze with light. Brilliant too was the +living-room beyond. In the latter he had never used anything but the +shaded lamp upon the table. Now the chandeliers in the ceiling had been +lighted from the switchboard button. It was evident that some one had +been all over the lower part of the house while he was gone. It must +have been the woman upstairs. There was no one else on the premises +except that half-witted garden boy. + +Grimly resolved to discover whether his mysterious companion was still +concealing herself behind locked doors or whether her apartment had +been stormed by some prowler he made his way up to the room in the front +of the right wing. As he approached it he called to her asking if she +was all right. There was no response. He knocked. The sound echoed dully +down the handsome stairway. Then in a futile sort of way he tried the +knob. + +This time it yielded to his touch and swung slowly open. For a moment he +hesitated, dreading to snap on the light. Then the stillness grew +oppressive. His quick, impatient fingers groped along the wall, found +the switch-button, and pressed it. The mysterious apartment flashed into +sudden reality. + +Kenwick looked about him, bewildered. The light revealed a large +handsome room furnished in golden oak. There was a massive double bed, +bureau, dressing-table, and several luxurious chairs. A heavy moquette +carpet deadened every footfall, and the rose-colored draperies at the +windows admitted only a restricted view of the outer world. But it was +the condition of the room, not its furnishings, that puzzled the man +upon the threshold. Dust covered every polished surface. The hearth was +swept clean. There had been no fire on it for months, perhaps years. On +the bed was a mattress but no coverings. The mirrors on bureau and +dressing-table showed a thin veil of dust. There were no toilet +articles, no personal belongings of any kind. The room was evidently a +woman's but there was no hint of a woman's presence, except that in the +air hung a faint perfume of heliotrope. He remembered suddenly that it +was the perfume that Marcreta Morgan had always used. + +Kenwick went over to one of the chairs and sat down. He felt intensely +relieved. If the woman had gone away she would certainly send some one +back to the house, for she knew that he was alone and injured. But how +had she gone? Was there another entrance to these somber grounds? For +half an hour he sat there trying to think it out. The room grew very +cold. It had apparently been shut off from the furnace connection. He +arose at last, stiffly, and went back downstairs, switching off the +lights. In the living-room and hall he turned them off too, for they +gave to the solemn rooms a garish, incongruous splendor. + +He went into the den and took his old place on the upholstered +window-seat. It may have been twenty minutes later that he heard the +sound of wheels crunching the gravel of the driveway. He listened +intently. No, this time he was not mistaken. Some vehicle was +approaching the house. The stranger in goggles had been true to his +promise and had sent back help, or perhaps returned himself. At last +this hideous bondage was to end. He limped into the living-room and +without turning on the light, peered out. There was no one in sight and +no sound of voices, but at the foot of the front steps stood a long +black car. It recalled to him in a flash the beetle-black limousine that +he had seen in the tank-house garage. + +Impelled by his entry into the room upstairs to try the front door, he +turned the knob. It was unlocked. Whoever had come in or gone out had +been in too much of a hurry to fasten it this time. + +And then, standing there at that half-open door, Kenwick suddenly lost +his headlong impatience. For the realization came to him at last that +his experiences of the last twenty-four hours were no casual adventure. +This was a game, perhaps even a trap. He had inadvertently stepped into +a carefully laid plot. That it had been obviously prepared for somebody +else did not alter the seriousness of his present position. Whoever was +engineering the thing had assumed that he would do and say certain +things. And now, he reminded himself angrily, he had probably done and +said them all. Certainly his every move had been direct, impetuous, +glaringly obvious. He would have to change his course unless he wanted +to die in this accursed house. This game, whatever it was, couldn't be +won by throwing all the cards face up on the table and demanding a +reckoning. The other players wore masks. If he was to have any chance +against them he must adopt their tactics. + +He assured himself of all this while he limped down the shallow porch +steps. He hadn't the faintest notion of what he was going to do next, +but decided to trust to impulse. He had reached the lowest step when all +at once he recoiled. Almost with his hand upon the beetle-black +limousine he discovered that it was not a limousine at all. It was a +hearse. + +At that same moment, he heard, coming from the near distance, the voice +of some one speaking with unaccustomed restraint. It was a raucous voice +talking in a harsh whisper. And then there was a sound of footsteps +approaching. + +Without an instant's hesitation Kenwick opened the door of the hearse, +pulled himself inside, and drew it shut, unlatched behind him. There +was no definite plan in his mind except to escape. And the woman had +apparently fled so he felt no further responsibility for her. + +The steps came nearer. In another minute some one might jerk open the +door and discover him. And he remembered uneasily that now he was not +armed. He had left the revolver on the table in the den. The footsteps +stopped close to his head and a man's voice called to somebody at a +distance. + +"My orders was to come out here. That's all I know about it. But I'm not +goin' to get myself tied up in any mess like this. It's up to the +coroner first. It just means that I'll have to make another trip out +here to-morrow." + +Kenwick heard him clamber to the high seat, and heard him jam his foot +against the starter, heard its throbbing response. And then he started +away on his long weird drive through the black night. + +He had expected his conveyance to be almost as close and stifling as a +tomb, but was relieved to find that sufficient air came in through the +crack of the door to make the trip endurable. The only provident thing +that he had done during the whole adventure, he decided, was to put on +his overcoat and hat before leaving the den. One journey bareheaded +into the November night had been sufficient to warn him against a +repetition of such rashness. He was dressed now as he had been when he +first took stock of himself outside the tall iron gate. + +The road was smooth asphalt all of the way, and the passenger, stretched +at full length on the hard floor of the hearse, felt more comfortable +than he had all that ghastly day. During the ride he tried to formulate +some definite course of action. For now that the solitary desolation of +the last twenty-four hours was ended, he was able to detach himself from +its events and to view the whole experience as a spectator. + +His vivid imagination pictured the somber house in a dozen different +lights. But he discarded them one by one, and his interest centered +about the identity of the woman upstairs and the single shot which had +pierced the stillness of a few hours before. Of only one thing he was +certain--that he was going to get out of Mont-Mer as speedily as +possible. It was all very well to conjecture that the house might be the +disreputable retreat of some Eastern capitalist, or a rendezvous for +radicals, but he preferred to solve the riddle from a distance. He had +no intention of being called as a witness in an ugly exposé. It would +be easy enough to write to Old Man Raeburn and explain that it hadn't +been possible for him to stop off on his way to San Francisco. He +fervently hoped that he would never see Mont-Mer again. Without ever +having really seen it he had come to loathe it. + +He had ridden for twenty minutes or more when he felt the vehicle slow +down. It made a sharp turn and came to a stop. Kenwick wondered if the +driver would open the doors, and he lay there waiting, staring into the +dark, impassive in the hands of fate. He heard the man climb down from +his seat and then the sound of his footsteps growing fainter in the +distance. + +Ten minutes later Kenwick cautiously pushed open the flimsy doors and +worked himself out of his hiding-place. He was in an alley enclosed on +three sides by the backs of buildings. Half hopping, half crawling he +reached the dimly lighted street. It was almost midnight now and the +little town was deserted. At the corner he found a drug-store. It looked +warm, companionable, inviting. Drawing his fur-collared overcoat about +his ears he hobbled to the door and pushed it open. + +Inside two men were leaning against a glass show-case talking with the +clerk. At Kenwick's entrance the conversation stopped abruptly like the +dialogue of movie actors when the camera clicks the scene's end. The +intruder, clutching at one of the show-cases for support, forced a +comradely smile. "If I can't put one over here," he told himself, "I +don't deserve to be called a fiction-writer." + +But before he had time to speak one of the men came forward with a +startled questioning. "You look all in, man; white as a sheet. Sit down +here. What's the idea?" + +"Pretty close call," Kenwick told him. "A fellow in a car bowled me over +as I was crossing the street. He went right on, but I doubt if I'll be +able to for a while." + +"Well, what do you know about that?" the drug clerk challenged, as he +helped his visitor into a chair behind the prescription-desk. "Say, this +is gettin' to be one of the worst towns on the coast for auto accidents. +Didn't get his number, I suppose?" + +"No. And I'm just a stranger passing through here. I don't know many +people." + +"Hard luck." It was evident that the trio were disappointed in the +meagerness of his story. One of them stooped and was probing the +swollen leg with skilful fingers. Kenwick winced. + +"You've got a bad sprain there all right," the doctor told him. "It's +swollen a good deal, too, for being so recent. Have you walked far?" + +"Yes, rather." Kenwick watched in silence while the physician bound up +the injured member in a stout bandage. In spite of his best efforts one +sharp moan escaped him. + +"Your nerves are badly shaken, I can see that," the doctor decided. "Fix +him up a little bromide, Gregson." + +Kenwick took the glass, furious to note that it trembled in his hand. +The druggist attempted to joke him back to normal poise. "A little more +of a jolt and you'd have had to pass him up to Gifford, Doc. Gifford, +here," he went on by way of introduction, "is shipping a body north +to-night on the twelve-thirty. Bein' two of you, he might have got the +railroad to give your folks a special rate if you're goin' his way." + +The patient evinced mild interest. "San Francisco?" he inquired. The +undertaker nodded. + +"That's the train I hoped to make," Kenwick sighed. "But my money seems +to have been jolted out of me and----" He went carefully through his +pockets as he spoke. And then Gifford came over and stood beside him. +"If you don't mind," he began, "I'd like to know your name." + +Kenwick's reply was glibly reassuring. "Kenneth Rogers." + +"Oh! You that young Rogers that's been visiting for a few days at the +Paddington place, 'Utopia'?" It was the doctor who asked this question. + +Kenwick nodded warily. + +The physician extended his hand. "I'm Markham. Had an engagement to play +golf with you out at the country club this afternoon. Awfully sorry you +couldn't make it but I got the message all right from your sister that +you were having trouble with your car out near Hillside Inn and you +couldn't get away." + +As Kenwick wrung his hand with easy cordiality there flashed before his +mental vision the picture of the wayfarer in goggles. Could a malign +fate have trapped him into taking the name of that visitor to Mont-Mer, +or any visitor, who might some day arise and challenge him? He had got +to get out of this place before the net that the gods were weaving about +him should bind him hand and foot. + +"Say, listen." Gifford forced himself to the front again, speaking with +a mixture of eagerness and hesitation. "If you're goin' up to the city +to-night, I wonder if----You see, it's like this. I've got a big +masonic funeral on here for Thursday morning. It'll be a hell of a rush +for me to get back in time if I have to make this trip. But I promised a +little woman that I'd see personally to this shipment; send a +responsible party or go myself. I haven't got a soul to send, but if +you----." + +Kenwick shook his head. "I won't be able to leave now until to-morrow. +I'll have to wait and get some money." + +Gifford waved aside the objection. "Your expenses will be paid, of +course, as mine would have been. I'll advance you the funds. And you +don't have to _do_ a thing, you know. Wellman's man will meet the train +at the other end. Wait and see the casket in his hands and then you're +through." + +He watched the other man eagerly. For a moment Kenwick didn't trust +himself to meet his gaze. He hoped that he was not betraying in his face +the jubilant conviction that his guardian angel had suddenly returned +from a vacation and had renewed an interest in him. In order not to +appear too eagerly acquiescent he asked casually: "Who is the fellow? +Or who was he?" + +"Man by the name of Marstan. He wasn't known around here. His wife had +to come down from the city to identify him." He glanced at his watch. +"There's just about time to make the train now. I've got my car outside. +It's luck, your stumbling in here like this. Sheer luck." + +"Luck is too mild a word for it," Kenwick assured himself as he crawled +into his Pullman a few moments later. "It's providence, old boy. That's +what it is." + +The bromide had begun to do its work. And his leg, properly bandaged, +gave him no pain. Almost hilarious over the knowledge that daylight +would find him among familiar surroundings again, he fell into the +delicious slumber that follows sudden surcease of mental strain. + +When he awoke the train was speeding through the oak-dotted region of +San Mateo. He had refused to accept any expense-money from Gifford +except enough for his breakfast, and after a cup of coffee in the diner, +he sat gazing out of the window, not caring to open conversation with +any of his fellow-travelers, completely absorbed in the business of +readjusting himself to this environment that he had loved and from +which the war had so abruptly uprooted him. + +It was glorious to be back again, to catch up the loose threads of the +old life. And in spite of the stark bareness of winter, the landscape +had never seemed so appealing. The wide level stretches of pasture, cut +by ribbons of asphalt, the prosperous little towns which the Coast +Company's fast train ignored on its thunderous dash northward, the +children walking to school, the pruners waving their shears to him as he +sped by--all these breathed a healthy normal living that made the +neurotic adventures of the past day seem remote and unreal. + +Under the long shed of the Third and Townsend Depot he lingered only +until he had carried out Gifford's instructions. Then he went on down +the open corridor to the waiting-rooms. Outside the voices of +taxi-drivers and hotel busmen made the radiant winter morning hideous +with their cries. The waiting-room was warm and bright. There was no +better place, Kenwick reflected, to map out his program. The air was a +tonic, crisp and tipped with frost. It was too cold to be without an +overcoat and yet, if Everett did not make punctual reply to the message +that he was about to send, he might have to part with it for a time. + +He found a seat in a corner where he would be out of the draft of +incessantly opening doors. For in spite of his good night's sleep he +felt weak and a little giddy. Resolving to dismiss the past from his +mind and concern himself solely with the present was good logic, but +difficult of accomplishment. First, and dominating all his thought, was +Marcreta Morgan. The thought of her brought him a dull pain. So many +letters he had written her since his return to New York, and not one of +them had she ever answered. Once, in vague alarm, he had even written to +Clinton, but there had been no reply. And then pride had held him +silent. So he couldn't go to the house on Pine Street now. He wouldn't +go, he decided fiercely, until he had a decent position and had +reëstablished himself in civilian life. + +Over at the news-stand a girl was fitting picture post-cards into a +rack. Kenwick walked over to her and with a part of the change left from +his meager breakfast bought a morning paper. While she picked it off the +pile he stood twirling the circular rack absently with one hand. The +Cliff House, Golden Gate Park, and prominent business blocks whirled +past his eyes, but he was not conscious of them. He took his newspaper +and turned away. + +Halfway to the door he opened it and glanced at the sensational menu +spread out for his delectation upon the front page. All at once +something inside his brain seemed to crumple up. The Cliff House, Golden +Gate Park, and tall office-buildings sped around him in a circle, like a +merry-go-round gone mad. Somehow he found his way back to the corner +seat and sank into it. And there he sat like a stone man, staring at, +but no longer seeing, the front page of his newspaper. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Two hours after Roger Kenwick had taken his gruesome departure from the +house of the iron gate, a mud-spattered car turned in at the side +entrance to the grounds which he had quitted. The man behind the wheel +drove recklessly, careening between the double row of eucalyptus-trees +like some low-flying bird of prey seeking its carrion. At the shallow +front steps he brought the car to an abrupt halt as though he had found +the thing for which he sought. Tugging at his heavy gloves he sprang up +the steps, two at a time. "Lord! What a handsome place this is!" he +muttered. "What a place for dinners and dancing--and love!" + +He pressed the electric button and heard its buzz pierce the stillness +of the house. "It's a crime!" He was walking up and down before the +closed door, flapping his gloves against his chest. "It's a crime for a +man to live in a place like this alone." He pressed the button again, +keeping his finger upon it this time until he felt certain that its +persistent summons must tear at the nerves of whoever was within. But +still there was no response. Then he tried the knob, turned it, and went +inside. + +The house was in complete darkness. He felt his way along the front hall +until his fingers found the switch-button. At the hat-rack he divested +himself of his heavy coat, hat, and gloves. The face which the +diamond-shaped mirror reflected was dark with disapproval and gathering +anger. "Door unlocked at one o'clock at night! Might as well leave a +child in charge of things!" + +Walking with noisy, impatient tread, he ascended the stairs, taking the +left flight on the landing, and snapping on the light in the upper hall. +The doors were all closed. He turned the knob of the first one and went +in. The sitting-room was in perfect order. He crossed it and entered the +alcove beyond. It, too, was in order with fresh linen upon the bed. +Having made a tour of the suite he came back and stood beside the +center-table in the sitting-room. A half-burned cigar caught his eye, +and he drew it out of the ash-tray and turned it speculatively between +his fingers. Then, still holding it, he visited the other rooms in the +left wing. They were all orderly, silent, deserted. Somewhere in his +progress from one to another he dropped the cigar stump and did not +notice it. Moving like a man in a dream he found himself at last over in +the right wing, standing outside a heavy mahogany door. His movements +were no longer speculative. They were nervous and jerky as though +propelled by a disabled engine. + +He did not at first try to open this door but called in a low uncertain +voice that seemed to dread a reply, "Marstan, are you here?" When there +was no response he tried the door in a futile sort of way as though he +were expecting resistance. When it yielded to his touch and he stood +upon the threshold the desolation of the room seemed to leap out at him. +He felt no desire to switch on the light here, but stood motionless in +the open doorway, transfixed, not by a sight but by an odor. + +"Heliotrope!" he muttered at last, and brought the panel shut with a +jerk. "Some woman has been in that room!" + +For long moments he stood there in the lighted upper hall. In his face +bewilderment struggled with alarm. At last he made his way downstairs to +the living-room and on to the den. Here he stared long at the half-drawn +shades and the crumpled cushions of the window-seat. Something was gone +out of that room; something that was a vivid, vital part of it. He +couldn't quite determine what it was. + +Over in the dining-room he examined the bowl of English walnuts with +several empty shells mixed in among them and the nutcrackers lying askew +upon the centerpiece. All at once he dropped these with a crash that +made an ugly scar upon the polished table-top. His eyes had fallen upon +the wide board nailed across the shattered window. He went over and +investigated it carefully, his quick eyes taking in every detail of the +crude carpentry. Under his touch the sagging lower board suddenly gave +way and fell with a heavy thud to the gravel walk below. + +The new-comer went back to the front hall, searched for an instant in +the pocket of his overcoat, and then, clutching a black cylindrical +object, he went out of the house and around on the dining-room side. His +hands were trembling now, and the path of light blazing from the little +electric torch made a zigzag trail across the dank flower-beds. He found +the dislodged board lying with its twisted nails sprawling upward and +dragged it off the path. As he dropped it his eyes fell upon an object +lying beneath a giant oleander bush. At last he knew what it was that he +had missed from the den. It was the Indian blanket. Mystified, he bent +down and picked it up, finding it heavy with the added weight of +dampness. The next moment he gave a startled cry, dropped the blanket +and torch, and staggered back against the wall. And the blackness of +night rushed over him like a tidal wave. + +But his was the temperament which recuperates quickly from a shock. +Resourcefulness, the key-note of his character, impelled him always to +seek relief in action. Cursing the sudden weakness in his knees which +retarded haste, he strode, with the aid of the recovered torch, toward a +small frame cottage in the rear of the garage. Here he rapped sharply +upon the closed door, then pushed it open. This room, too, was empty. +Pointing the torch, like the unblinking eye of a cyclops, into every +corner of the apartment, he made certain of this. Then he drew a +solitary chair close to the door and sat down, the torch across his +knees. + +More slowly now his glance traveled around the room. The blankets upon +the bed were in a disheveled heap. There were some soiled dishes upon +the table, a cup half full of cold tea, and under the small stove a pot +of sticky-looking rice. The fire had gone out. He crossed the room and +lifted the lid of the stove. Under the white ashes a few coals glowed +dully. There were no clothes in the closet. It was easily apparent to +him that the former inmate of the room had left unexpectedly but did not +intend to return. + +For half an hour he sat there motionless. Then he rose, pushed back the +chair, and went out, closing the door behind him. Very deliberately he +followed the side path back to the dining-room window. This time he +retained the light, pressing one end of it firmly with his thumb. The +soggy Indian blanket he folded back, and, stooping close to the ground, +examined intently the dead cold face which it had sheltered. + +It was the face of a man, young but haggard. The cheeks were sunken, and +through the skin of his clenched hands the knuckles showed white and +knotted. His hair was in wild disorder, but it seemed more the disorder +of long neglect than of violent death. The helpless shrunken figure +presented a pitiful contrast to that of the man who knelt beside it. + +His was a large, well-proportioned frame that suggested, not corpulence +but physical power. His hands were powerful but not thick. His whole +bearing was self-assured, almost haughty. But it was the eyes, not the +carriage, that gave the impression of arrogance. They were the clearest +amber color with a mere dot of black pupil. Here and there tiny specks +were visible showing like dark grains of sand in a sea of brown. A woman +had once called them "tiger eyes," and he had been pleased. A child had +once described them as "freckled" eyes, and he had been annoyed. As he +knelt there now, searching the face of the dead man, his eyes, under +their drooping lids, narrowed to the merest slits. When at last he rose +and drew the blanket back over the still form, he moved with the brisk +effectiveness of one animated by definite purpose. + +First, he drove the mud-spattered roadster into the garage and left it +there beside the beetle-black limousine. Then he let himself into the +deserted house again, went up to the second bedroom in the left wing, +and began sorting over some miscellaneous objects from one of the +chiffonier drawers. "Ghastly!" he muttered once. "Ghastly! I'll have to +take something to brace me up." + +Back in the dining-room he took one of the long-stemmed glasses from the +sideboard and poured himself a drink from a bottle in the cupboard +underneath. But first he scrutinized its contents under the light. "Why +didn't you take it all?" he inquired sardonically of some invisible +being. + +For a few hours he slept with a sort of determined tranquillity. But by +eight o'clock he was up and dressed, and a few minutes later he answered +a summons at the front door. Swinging it open he admitted a short sandy +man with the ruddy complexion of the Norsemen. "I'm Annisen, the +coroner," this visitor announced. + +"Yes. I was expecting you. Come in." The other man swung the portal +wider. "Doctor Annisen, is it?" + +The visitor nodded and stepped into the hall that was still dim in the +cold light of the winter morning. He unwound a black silk muffler from +about his throat. "Devilish cold," he commented. "Devilish cold for a +place that advertises summer all the year round." + +His host smiled with sympathetic appreciation. "California publicity," +he commented, "is far and away ahead of anything that we have in the +unimaginative East. My furnace-man left me yesterday and I haven't got +around to making the fires myself yet. But let me give you something to +warm you up, doctor." + +While he filled one of the small glasses on the buffet, his guest eyed +him stolidly. "Still got some on hand, have you?" he said with a heavy +attempt at the amenities. "Well, this wouldn't be a bad place for +moonshining out here. Guess you could put almost anything over without +fearing a visit from the authorities." + +There was a moment of silence. "You've got a beautiful place though," he +went on at last. "But Rest Hollow! What a name for it! Rest! Lord! +Anything might happen out here, and I guess most everything has. I +wasn't much surprised at the message I found waiting me when I got back +to town this morning. I've always said that this place fairly yells for +a suicide." + +The other man's eyes were fixed upon his face with a curious intentness. +It was as though he were deaf and were reading the words from his +companion's lips. The coroner had raised his glass and was waiting. "No, +I don't drink," his host explained. "Very seldom touch anything. I can't +and do my kind of work." + +Annisen set down his empty glass. "I shouldn't think you could do your +kind of work and not drink," he remarked. "Well, let's get this over. I +suppose you left everything just as you found it?" + +There was the ghost of a smile in his host's eyes. "Glad he didn't put +that question the other way around," he was thinking. "It would have +been an embarrassment if he had asked if I found everything just as I +left it." And then aloud, "Certainly. I haven't touched anything. The +body is out here." + +"Good. Gifford sent his wagon out last night, but fortunately his man +knew enough not to disturb anything until I'd been out. Were you here +when he came last night?" + +"No. I didn't get here till later." + +The two men crawled out through the broken window and in the gray light +of the November morning knelt together beside the still form under the +Indian blanket. Mechanically the coroner examined it and the empty +revolver which they discovered a few feet away. But he offered no +comment until he had finished. Then his verdict was curt. "Gunshot wound +in the head, self-inflicted. When did this happen?" He took out a small +book and noted down the answers to this and a variety of other +questions. Then he stood for a moment staring down at the white, drawn +face of the dead man. + +"Young, too," he murmured. "But I suppose it's a merciful thing. There +was no life ahead for him, poor devil." + +They followed the path around to the front of the house where Annisen's +car was waiting. "Be in to the inquest about two o'clock this +afternoon," he instructed. "That hour suit you all right, Mr.----? Don't +believe I know your name." + +"Glover. Richard Glover. I'll be there at two, doctor." + +Late that morning the hearse made its second trip out of the side +entrance of Rest Hollow. A mud-splashed roadster followed it. The +cortège had just passed the last gaunt eucalyptus-tree and turned out +upon the public highway when it was halted. A man in heavy-rimmed +goggles got out of his car and made his way across the road. His glance +wavered uncertainly between the driver of the hearse and the man in the +muddy roadster. He decided to address the latter. + +"I heard the news last night. It got around the neighborhood. But I +thought----I didn't know----Those rumors get started sometimes with no +foundation of fact. But it's true then--that he is dead." + +"That who is dead?" + +The question seemed to be shot back at him. And he had the uncanny +conviction that it emanated, not from the lips, but from the amber eyes +of the man in the roadster. He stammered out his reply. + +"Why--I think his name----He told me his name was Kenwick; Roger +Kenwick, I think." + +The roadster started again. "Yes, that's the name. Did you know him?" + +"No. But wait a minute, please." The goggle-eyed man hurried back to his +own car and returned with a handsome spray of white chrysanthemums. They +were tied with a broad white ribbon bordered with heliotrope. "I'd like +to have you take these if you will." He handed them up to the +hearse-driver. + +The man in the roadster fired another question. "Your name, please?" + +"They are not from me. One of the ladies in the neighborhood sent them. +She felt it was too sad--having him go away this way, all alone." He +went back to his machine and was soon lost in the distance. And the +funeral procession proceeded on its way to Mont-Mer. + +The coroner's inquest was brief and perfunctory. Annisen was on the eve +of retiring from office and seeking a more lucrative position in a +Middle Western city where the inhabitants, as he contemptuously +remarked, "were not afflicted like this place is with a chronic +sleeping-sickness." + +The jury returned the verdict that "the deceased came to his death by +shooting himself in the head." After they had departed, Gifford held +brief parley with the chief witness. "I suppose you'll attend to +notifying the family?" + +Richard Glover nodded. And at his direction the haggard body was removed +from the cheap black coffin in which it had made the trip from Rest +Hollow. Following Richard Glover's instructions, it was embalmed for the +trip across the continent. But just as it was ready for the long +journey, he announced to Gifford that he had received orders from the +family to inter the body in the little cemetery of Mont-Mer. And so, on +the following day, it was taken to the quiet resting-place overlooking +the sea. In the presence of no one except the undertaker's assistants +and Richard Glover there was lowered into the lonely grave a handsome +gray casket with silver handles and a frosted silver plate on which was +inscribed the name "Roger Kenwick." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The editor of the "San Francisco Clarion" tilted his chair far back and +look quizzically at the young man sitting beside his desk. "Sure I +remember you," he remarked. "Did some Sunday work for us some time ago, +didn't you?" + +"Yes, a little feature stuff when I was in college." + +"And now you want to go it strong, eh? Well, we've been rather +disorganized in here since the war. There's been a constant stream of +reporters coming and going. But things are settling down a little now +and we're not taking on anybody who doesn't want to stick. Planning to +be in the city right along, are you?" + +"Well, I'll be perfectly frank with you about that. I'm not. I've got to +go East as soon as I get a little money. But I'm not planning to stay +there. I'm coming back for good as soon as I've closed up my business." + +"Why not close up the Eastern business first?" + +"Can't. It's not ripe yet." There was a note of grimness in the young +man's voice. "I don't know just when it will be, either. But when I do +go back, I don't think it will take me long to finish it. Don't give me +a reporter's job if I don't look good to you. Put me on to some feature +stuff for a while." + +"All right. Sit in, and I'll give you a line on a few things I'd like to +have hunted down." + +When he left the office half an hour later, Kenwick sought the public +library. There he spent the entire afternoon and a part of the evening. +It was about nine o'clock when he entered the St. Germaine, a modest +hotel in the uptown district. The night clerk cast an inquiring glance +in search of his suit-case. + +"My baggage hasn't come yet," the prospective guest explained +tranquilly. "It may be in to-morrow. If you want to know anything about +me, call Allen Boyer at the 'Clarion' office." + +When he had been shown to his room on the fifth floor he lighted the +lamp on the stand near his bed and became absorbed in the contents of +one of the weekly magazines. He read until very late and then snapped +out the light, cursing himself for having abused his eyes on the eve of +taking a new position. + +The next morning he was out early, eager to hunt down one of the stories +that Boyer had suggested. As he swung out into the exhilaration of the +crisp November morning on the scent of an assignment some of the old +self-assurance and buoyancy came back to him. + +Half an hour after he had left the hotel, the revolving doors swung +round the circle to admit a man with prosperous leather suit-case and +"freckled" eyes. The day clerk handed him a pen and registration-slip. +He was beginning to sign, after a curt question about the rates, when +the blond cashier, perched on a stool in the wire cage adjoining the +desk, pushed a similar slip of paper toward the clerk. "Can't quite make +out that name," she confessed. "Looks like Renwich. Do you get it?" + +The desk official glanced at it with the casually professional air of +one to whom all the mysteries of chirography are as an open book. "It's +Kenwick. Plain as day--Roger Kenwick." + +The pen slid from the fingers of the man on the other side of the desk. +For a moment, self-possession deserted Richard Glover. He stood there +staring hard at the ugly blot which he had made across his own +signature. Then he crumpled the bit of paper, threw it into the +waste-basket, and, suit-case in hand, went out into the street. + +The day clerk darted a contemptuous glance after his disappearing +figure. "Some nut," he remarked. "Told me the terms were all right and +then got cold feet. I'll bet he's a crook." + +"Sure he's a crook." The blond cashier spoke with cheerful authority. "I +could have told you that when he first came in. I can size 'em up as far +off as the front door. And I had him posted on the 'Losses by Default' +page before he'd set down his bag." + +The day clerk regarded her musingly. "He _had_ a bag, though, and that's +more than this Kenwick fellow showed. But Brown thought he was all right +and let him have 526. Did you notice him this morning? Tall, dark +fellow, young but with hair a little gray around the temples." + +"Ye-a. High-brow. Looks like he was here for his health. Probably broke +down in some government job." + +"No, he's a newspaper man." + +"Let's see where he's from?" She reached for the slip. + +"New York. Well, I slipped a cog. I would have said he was a Westerner." + +"That's right. That last chap looked more like New York to me. But you +never can tell. And something seemed to hit him all wrong about this +place." + +With this conclusion Richard Glover was in complete accord. As he walked +down Geary Street clutching his heavy bag, he was conscious with every +nerve of his being that something had struck him decidedly wrong about +the St. Germaine. "It might be just a coincidence," he reassured +himself. "It's undoubtedly just a coincidence but--but that isn't such a +very common name. My God! I begin to feel like a spy caught in his own +trap." + +With scarcely more than a glance at the name above the entrance he +turned into the lobby of another hotel and signed for a room. It was +almost noon when he appeared again and wrote a letter at one of the +lobby desks. It was not a long letter, hardly more than a note, but its +composition consumed almost an hour and a half a dozen sheets of +stationery, which were successively torn to bits and thrown into the +waste-basket. And then at last the final sheet met the same fate and +Richard Glover sat tapping the desk softly with the edge of the blotter. + +"No, I won't write; I'll just go," he decided. "For asking if I may come +almost invites a refusal. And then it takes longer. I'll go up there +this afternoon. The secret of getting what you want out of people is to +take them off guard." + +Following this policy he set out in the late afternoon to pay a call. At +the door of the uptown address he was met by a colored maid. She offered +him neither hope nor despair but agreed to present his card. + +And in front of the living-room fire Marcreta Morgan read the card and +flicked it across to her brother. "I don't think I care to see anybody +to-day," she said. "It's your first night at home, and there's so much +to talk about." + +"Don't know him," Clinton decided. "Somebody you met while I was away?" + +"Oh, yes, you know him, Clint. You introduced me to him yourself. Don't +you remember he came here one night before you went to Washington and +asked you to analyze some specimens of mineral water." + +"Oh, _that_ fellow! Has he been hanging around here ever since?" + +"Well, no. I can't say that he has hung around exactly. But of late he +has called rather often. He's really quite entertaining in some ways. +You were very much interested in his specimens." + +"In his _specimens_, yes." + +It may have been that she resented his implied dislike. It may have been +for some other reason. But Marcreta suddenly reversed her decision. +"Show him in, please," she ordered. And the next moment the visitor +stood in the doorway. + +It was apparent as he crossed the long room that he had not expected to +meet any one save his hostess. But he responded warmly to Clinton's +handshake and drew up a chair for himself opposite Marcreta. "It's a +pleasant surprise to find you here, Mr. Morgan," he said. "I thought you +were still in the service at Washington. But it's time for every one to +be getting home now, isn't it?" + +Clinton Morgan surveyed him silently. It struck him that his guest was +very much at home himself. For a time the conversation followed that +level, triangular form of talk which so effectually conceals purpose and +personality. Then Clinton excused himself on the plea that he had some +unpacking to do, and Marcreta and Richard Glover were left alone. + +"It's been a long time since I've seen you, Mr. Glover," she said. "You +haven't been in the Bay region lately?" + +"No, I've not been able to get away." His tone indicated that he had +chafed under this pressure of adverse circumstance. "But it's good to +get back now," he went on. "I'm always glad to get back--here." + +She ignored the new ardent note in his voice. "But the southern part of +the State is beautiful," she said. "Mont-Mer, particularly, is so +beautiful that it makes the soul ache." + +The words seemed to startle him. His eyes left the camouflaged log of +wood in the fireplace and fixed themselves steadily upon her. "How do +you know? How do you, San Francisco-bound, know?" + +"I have just returned from there. My brother and I arrived home the same +day. I spent a week near Mont-Mer visiting my friends, the Paddingtons. +Do you know them?" + +"No. But I think I know their home. They call it 'Utopia,' I believe?" + +"Yes. And until I saw it I had always thought that Utopia was a myth." + +"Mont-Mer," he mused, "does look rather like a fairy-story come true, +doesn't it? There's something perilously seductive about it. It's a +place where people go to forget." + +"I have heard that said about it, but somehow it didn't make that kind +of an appeal to me. I had the feeling that in such a place as that every +sorrow of life is a bleeding wound. There's a terrible cruelty about +that tropical sort of beauty. It drives memories in, not out." + +For some unaccountable reason the tensity of her tone annoyed him. "You +didn't like it then?" + +"It's beautiful, as I have said, but--I shall never go there again." + +"The place you ought to see," he told her, "is Cedargrove, about two +hours' trip to the south." + +"That's where the mineral springs are?" + +"Yes. And what I really came to tell you to-day is that I've bought the +controlling interest in the springs. It was after your brother had given +me his final analysis of the water last year that I decided to do it. He +said, you know, that in his opinion the medicinal ingredients equaled +that of the waters of Carlsbad. I've made great plans. You see, there +are twenty acres, and so far we've found eighteen springs. We've been +bottling the stuff for several months now and it's selling like hot +cakes. The next step is a hotel. It's not to be too colossal, but unique +in every respect. That's what takes in California. Show people that +you've got 'something different' and they'll jump to the conclusion that +because it's different it must be desirable. That's America. I've had +other chemists besides your brother tell me that the water is wonderful. +The best doctors in the South declare that those springs are a bigger +find than a gold mine." + +He had warmed to his theme now and his amber eyes glowed. And she +followed his words with that quick responsiveness that was all +unconsciously one of her chief charms. "And what are your advertising +plans?" she asked. + +It was like a fresh supply of gasolene to an engine. He plunged into +stupendous plans for a publicity campaign. "I'm doing most of the copy +work myself so far. I love the advertising game. I love telling people +what they want and making them want it. I'm calling it 'The Carlsbad of +America.' That will get the health-seekers, and health-seekers will pay +any price." + +For half an hour he talked, going into every detail of his plan. And +then all at once he stopped abruptly as though he had grown suddenly +weary of Carlsbad. She sat gazing into the fire, waiting in sympathetic +silence, for him to resume the subject. But he didn't resume it. When he +spoke again, his tone had changed as well as his theme. For the first +time the conversation became keenly personal. He talked about himself +with a humility that was quite new and, to his listener, somewhat +startling. + +"I don't think it can be a complete surprise to you," he said, "to know +how much I need you; how much I depend upon your sympathy and +understanding. You must have guessed something of my feeling. You are +too intuitive not to have guessed." + +Her frank, blue-gray eyes were fixed upon him with an expression that +baffled him, yet gave him hope. "No, it is not quite unexpected," she +admitted. "But I didn't realize that it had gone quite so far. It seems +to have all happened rather suddenly. We haven't known each other very +long; not nearly long enough for anything like this." + +"No. But I've been looking for you all my life. That ought to count for +something." + +"For something--yes. But not for so much as--that." + +"Love isn't a matter of time," he told her. + +"No. But it's a matter of exploration. It's a matter of finding each +other. And in the half a dozen times that you have called here, Mr. +Glover, we haven't talked about the finding kind of things. No, we don't +know each other. We don't know each other half well enough to consider +anything like this." + +"But we can get to know each other better. Is there any reason why we +should not do that?" + +She pondered this for a moment. "Well, for one thing, there is +distance." + +"There is no longer distance," he pleaded eagerly. "For I have severed +my connections with Mont-Mer." + +"Oh!" He couldn't tell whether the exclamation emanated from pleasure or +merely surprise. "You severed your connections there because of this new +Carlsbad plan?" + +"Partly because of that. But chiefly because a secretaryship to a rich +man doesn't get one anywhere." + +"I suppose not." + +Still he couldn't decide whether her interest now was genuine or only +courteous. But she would give him no further encouragement than to allow +him to call occasionally. And with this permission he went away well +content. + +Ten minutes after he heard the front door close, Clinton, in a +dressing-gown and slippers, appeared on the threshold of his sister's +room. "Gone, at last?" he queried. "What's Glover doing up here anyway? +I thought he was securely anchored with a millionaire hermit down +South." + +She spoke without turning from the dressing-table where she was shaking +her long dark hair down over an amethyst-colored negligée. "You don't +like him, do you?" + +"No, I can't say that I do." + +"Why not?" + +Before the directness of the question he felt suddenly shamefaced, as a +man always does who condemns one of his own sex before a woman on +insufficient evidence. "Oh, he's all right, of course. I have no reason +really for disliking the fellow, except----Well, he seems to like you +too much. And he's not your style. What did he want to-night?" + +"He wanted to tell me about a new scheme he has, a really wonderful +enterprise, Clint, for turning that mineral water place into a +health-resort. He's taken over most of the stock and he talked glowingly +about it." + +"He does talk well; I'll admit that. But who is going to capitalize this +venture?" + +His sister smiled. "Well, Clinton, I could hardly ask him that, you +know." + +"No, I suppose not. And if you had, I imagine that he would hardly have +liked to answer it. Anyhow, he's cheered you up, and I ought to be +grateful to him for that. It was a mistake for you to take that trip to +Mont-Mer, Crete. It was too much for you." + +She made no response to this, and her brother, noting the delicately +flushed face and languid movements, told himself reproachfully that the +mistake was in going away and leaving her to struggle alone with the +hospital venture. He sat down on a cedar chest beside the window. + +"Let's retint the whole lower floor, Crete," he suggested, seizing upon +the first change of topic that offered itself. "Now that this place is +to be a home again and not a sanitarium, let's retint and get the public +institution smell out of it." + +She laid down the ivory brush and turned to him. But her gaze was +abstracted, and when she spoke in a musing voice, her words showed that +she had not been listening. "Clinton, have you ever figured out just how +much of the Coalinga oil stock belongs to me?" + +He had been sitting with one knee hugged between his arms. Now he +released it and brought himself upright upon the cedar chest. + +"Why, no, I haven't. I don't think it makes much difference, while we're +living together, sharing everything this way." + +She got up from the dressing-table and walked over to the far window, +drawing the deep lace collar of the amethyst negligée up about her ears +as though to screen herself from his view. Out on the bay the lighted +ferry-boats plied their silent passage, and on the Key Route pier an +orange-colored train crawled cautiously, like a brilliant caterpillar, +across a thread of track. Marcreta, gazing out into the clear soft dusk, +sent a question backward over her shoulder. + +"Would it be very much trouble to go over our properties some time +and--make a division?" + +"No, it wouldn't be much trouble, and I suppose it would be much more +businesslike." He spoke briskly but she knew that her demand had +astonished him. "You know," he admitted ruefully, "I don't pretend to be +much of a business man. I think you may be right to insist upon an +accounting." + +"O Clint! I don't mean that. You know I don't mean that." Her voice held +the stricken tone of the sensitive nature stabbed by the swift +realization that it has hurt some one else. "You've been the best +brother a girl ever had. You've been too good to me. I didn't mean +_that_ at all." + +"What do you mean then, Crete?" + +Her answer seemed to grope its way through an underbrush of tangled +emotions. "I just thought it would be well for us each to know what we +have because--you see, we may not always be living together like this." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +A month had passed since Kenwick became a member of the staff of the +"San Francisco Clarion." The work had been going well, and the perpetual +small excitement of a newspaper office brought back some of the old +thrill that he had known in his college days. But every emotion came in +subdued form now. There was a shadow across his sky, a soft pedal +applied to every emotion. And until this was lifted he resolved to deny +himself a sight of the house on Pine Street. + +But during the beginning of his fifth week in the city desire overcame +pride and caution, and late one night he walked up the familiar hill and +looked into one of the lighted windows. There was no one in the room and +the furniture and floors were covered with heavy canvas sheeting +spattered with calcimine. An ugly step-ladder stood directly in front of +the window, partly obstructing his view. He was about to turn away in +bleak despair when the glitter of some small object in a far corner of +the room caught his eye. Peering more intently under the half-drawn +shade he saw that the gleaming thing was a small tinsel ball suspended +from the lowest branch of a tiny Christmas-tree. It was almost New +Year's day now, and the little fir with its brave showing of gilt and +silver had been relegated to a distant corner to make way for the +aggressive progress of the painters. The man at the window, staring in +from the darkness at the drooping glory of the little tree, felt for it +a sudden sense of kinship. And the Christmas-tree stared back at him +with an inarticulate sort of questioning. There was to Kenwick a +terrible sort of patience in its attitude. Torn away from its normal +environment, transplanted suddenly and without warning into surroundings +giddily artificial, and bereft of the roots with which to explore them, +the little fir-tree stood there, holding in its out-stretched arms the +baubles of an unfamiliar and irrelevant existence. He turned away, +maddened by a fury that he did not comprehend. "Anything but that!" he +cried savagely. "Anything but the patience of hopelessness!" + +His thoughts were in a whirl, and he was unconscious of the fact that he +was almost running down the slanting pavement. When he became aware of +it he slackened his pace abruptly. He was a fool, he told himself. +"Anybody watching me would size me up for an escaped convict--prowling +around doorsteps at night; sneaking up to windows, like a professional +burglar looking over his territory." + +He let himself into his room at the St. Germaine and snapped on the +light. The first thing his eyes fell upon in the bare, prim chamber was +a letter propped against his mirror. It was a yellow envelope and it +bore the dull black insignia of the dead-letter office. There was +something ominous-looking about it. There is always something ominous +about that pale yellow, unstamped envelope that issues, unheralded and +unwanted, from the cemetery of letters. Inside of it was a communication +written upon the St. Germaine stationery and addressed in his own +handwriting to his brother, Everett Kenwick. It had been opened and +sealed again, and across one end something was written. The single word +seemed to leap out at Kenwick with the brutal unexpectedness of a bomb. +He dropped the envelope as though it had stung him and stood gazing down +at it. It stared malignantly back at him, burning a fiery path to his +brain. Up and down the room he strode muttering over and over to himself +that one horrible word: "Deceased! Deceased!" + +The walls of the room seemed to be coming closer and closer. He felt as +if he were being smothered. Taking his hat he went out into the hall, +and walked down the five flights of stairs rather than encounter the +elevator-boy. On the way down he decided to send a telegram of inquiry +to the family lawyer in New York. The indelible pencil handed to him by +the girl in the little hotel booth seemed to write the message quite of +its own accord. And there was a calming sort of comfort in the +impersonal manner of the telegraph-operator herself as she counted off +mechanically the frantic words of his query. + +As he turned away he was conscious of only one impulse; to be with +somebody. He must have companionship of some sort, any sort, or he would +lose his reason. From the dining-room there drifted out to him the +pleasant din of human voices. He made his way inside and followed the +head-waiter to his accustomed seat beside one of the mirror walls. + +The hotel dining-room was full that evening. There was an Elks' +convention in the city and the lobby swarmed with delegates. At his +table Kenwick found three other men, and was pathetically grateful for +their comradeship. Two of them were from Sacramento. The third +introduced himself as Granville Jarvis, late of New Orleans. Kenwick +remembered having seen him several times about the hotel. He had that +quiet, magnetic sort of personality that never comes quite halfway to +meet the casual acquaintance, but that possesses a subtle, indefinable +power that lures others across the intervening territory. "I have +something for you," Granville Jarvis seemed to say. "I have something +that I'll be glad to give you--if you care to come and get it." + +The other men talked volubly, including the quartet in their random +conversation. Jarvis was an appreciative listener, an unmistakable +cosmopolite, whose occasional contributions to the table-talk were +keen-edged and subtly humorous. In his speech lingered only a faint +trace of the Southern drawl. Of the three men, his was the personality +which attracted Kenwick. The two Elks finished their dessert hurriedly +and left before the coffee was served. Then Granville Jarvis, glancing +at the haggard face of the young man across the table, ventured the +first personal remark of the hour. "You've scarcely eaten a thing, and +you look all in. I don't want to intrude into your affairs, but is there +anything I can do?" + +It was that unexpected kindliness that always proves too much for +overstrung nerves. "I've just had bad news," Kenwick admitted. "It's +rather shaken me up. But you can't do anything, thanks." + +"Better take a walk out in the fresh air," Jarvis suggested. "I know how +you feel. It's beastly--when a man is all alone." + +"I am alone; that's the damnable part of it. And I've got to somehow get +through the night." + +The other man nodded with silent comprehension. "I'll take a stroll with +you if you like, and you don't have to talk." + +Kenwick accepted the offer eagerly, and for an hour he and his companion +walked almost in silence. Then Kenwick, still haunted by the specter of +solitude, invited the New Orleans man up to his room. There stretched +out comfortably in two deep chairs, with an ash-tray between them, they +discussed politics, books, and New York. "It's my home town," Kenwick +explained, "but I'm a Westerner by adoption. They say, 'Once a New +Yorker, always a New Yorker,' but it hasn't worked that way with me." + +Jarvis smiled. "They say that about Emporia, Kansas, too, and about all +the other towns ranging in between. It's a world-wide colloquialism. +Don't you go back to visit, though?" + +"I've been thinking of it," his host replied. And then, despite the +fact that his guest was a complete stranger, perhaps because of that +fact, he felt an overwhelming desire to tell him of his trouble. For +there is a certain security in confiding a sorrow to a casual stranger. +Every care-ridden person in the world has felt the impulse, has been +impelled to it by the realization that there is safety in remoteness. +You will never see the stranger again, or if you do, he will have +forgotten you and your trouble. A transitory interest has its +advantages. It demands nothing in the way of a sequel. It keeps no watch +upon your struggle; it demands no final reckoning. You and your agony +are to the chance acquaintance a short-story, not a serial. + +Jarvis was leaning back in his deep chair, one leg dangling carelessly +over the broad arm. His eye-glasses, rimmed with the thinnest thread of +tortoise-shell, gave him a certain intellectuality. Although he was +still in the early thirties there were deep lines about his mouth. He +had lived, Kenwick decided. And having lived, he must know something +about life. Jarvis glanced up suddenly and met his gaze. + +"Funny thing, my being here, isn't it?" he said. "Up here in your room, +smoking your cigars, sprawling over your furniture as though I'd known +you always instead of being the merest chance acquaintance." + +Mashing the gray end of his cigar into the ash-tray Kenwick made +slow-toned response. "I don't think it's curious. I don't think it's +curious at all because as I look back on my life all the vital things in +it have had casual beginnings. I have a steadily increasing respect for +the small emergencies of life. Whenever I carefully set my stage for +some dramatic event it's sure to turn out a thin affair. The best scenes +are those which are impromptu and carry their own properties." + +"That's flattering to a chance acquaintance, but a hard knock at your +friends." + +"I'm all for chance acquaintances," Kenwick responded. "Friends have an +uncomfortable habit of failing to show up at the moment of crisis. Just +when you're terribly in need of them, they fall sick or get absorbed in +building a new house, or go to Argentina. And then, before you have time +to grow cynical, along comes somebody that you just bow to on the +street, and he sees you are in trouble and offers a lift. The people who +really owe you something, never pay. They pass the buck to the chance +acquaintance, and nine times out of ten he makes good. Makes things +more interesting that way. After all, life isn't merely a system of +bookkeeping." + +Kenwick prided himself upon the fact that he had kept the bitterness out +of his voice, but when Jarvis spoke, this illusion was shattered. "Tough +luck, Mr. Kenwick. As I said before, I don't want to horn in, but I'd be +glad to score another point for the C. A. if it would be of any help to +you, and there's nobody else about." + +Kenwick put down his cigar. "To tell the truth, there's nobody about at +all. It happens that during the past year every friend I had has gone, +figuratively speaking, to Argentina. Some of them used to be +particularly good at helping me out with my yarns. I'm a fiction-writer, +you know, and I'm under contract to finish a mystery-story for one of +the magazines. I'm stuck, and it's bothering me a lot. Can't move the +thing a peg. I know that the man who talks about his own stories is as +much of a pest as the man who tells his dreams but if----" + +Jarvis had settled down into his chair with a sigh of luxurious content. +"Shoot," he commanded. "It's great stuff being talked to when I'm not +expected to make any replies. What's the name of it?" + +"It hasn't any name just yet, but I'll let you be godfather at the +christening. This is just a scenario of the situation, with all the +color and atmosphere left out." He reached over and snapped off the +chandelier light, leaving only the soft glow from the little brass lamp +upon the table. + +"The story," he began when he had resumed his seat, "hinges upon the +fortunes of two brothers--or rather the fortunes of one and the +misfortunes of the other. The parents die when the elder of the two is +thirty and the younger almost nineteen. The older brother has married, +and at the death of his mother comes back with his wife, to live at the +old home. But the sister-in-law and younger brother are not congenial, +and the boy, who has ambitions for a professional training decides to go +away from home to a distant university. There is very little opposition +to the plan. For the sister-in-law is in favor of it, and the elder +brother (who is guardian, of course, and a splendid fellow) consents on +the condition that the boy spend his summer vacations at home. He hopes +in this way to keep in touch with him and does. + +"In the spring of his senior year, America enters the war, and the boy, +now a man of twenty-three, enlists and in the autumn gets across. He +sees more than six months of action at the front without getting a +scratch. But at the end of that time his nerves go to pieces and he is +sent first to a convalescent hospital in England and then home. There he +finds the old place completely changed under his sister-in-law's régime +and he is so obviously unhappy about it that his brother suggests that +he accept the invitation of an old family friend and spend the winter +with him in his California home. He complies with this plan, the more +eagerly because it gives him an excuse to get back to the environment +which he has grown to love and the associates that he knew in his +college days. + +"Without adventure he arrives at the little southern California town, +and is met at the depot by his friend's chauffeur. But on the way out to +the house they meet with an automobile accident that shakes him up +pretty badly and, so far as he can determine from circumstantial +evidence, kills the driver. Stranded alone and injured in an unfamiliar +village, he applies at the first house he comes to for aid. It chances +to be one of those palatial country homes, so plentiful in that region, +which seems to have been built for the exclusive use of caretakers. For +although it is completely and elegantly furnished and bears every +evidence of being tenanted he stays there ill for more than twenty-four +hours, absolutely alone except for the presence of a mysterious woman +who is apparently locked into one of the bedrooms upstairs, and whom he +never sees. + +"On the second night he makes a surreptitious escape from this uncanny +prison, without ever having encountered its owner, and by a happy stroke +of chance, makes his way up the coast to San Francisco. Here he plans to +establish himself permanently, look up some of his old associates, and +get in touch with life again. But this scheme is thwarted in a most +unexpected manner. For on the morning of his arrival something happens +that makes chaos of his plans and starts him upon a quest, not into the +future, but into the past. In the station depot he stops long enough to +purchase a newspaper, and----" + +Kenwick paused for an instant and glanced at his auditor. + +"Go on," Jarvis commanded with that impatient curtness that is the best +assurance of interest. + +"He buys a newspaper," the narrator went on. "And from the date on it he +learns that instead of having lost connection with the world for two +days, he has been out of it for almost a year. There are ten months of +his life that he can't account for at all. + +"At the library he reads up and discovers that the war is over. From the +newspapers and magazines he picks up the thread of world events and +orients himself with regard to national and local affairs. But to +connect his own past and present proves, as you may suspect, an almost +hopeless task. He sends several telegrams to his own home, all of which +are ignored. A letter to his brother brings, after long delay, the +startling information that he is dead. The message bowls him over +completely. And the more the thing preys upon his mind the more certain +he is that there has been foul play. He begins to be haunted by the +conviction that he is being watched. The only safe course open to him +seems to be to lead as normal and inconspicuous an existence as possible +until he can hear from the family lawyer." + +Kenwick broke off suddenly and reached for the ash-tray. "Well," he +said, "what do you think of it?" + +Jarvis stirred in his chair. When he spoke he appeared to be returning +rather breathlessly from a long distance. "Great stuff," he commented. +"It seems to have all the ingredients for a best-seller, except one." + +"What's that?" + +"Well, I don't pose as a critic of literature. But judging from the +novels I've read I should say that the thing it lacks is romance. The +poor devil ought to be in love with somebody, or somebody ought to be in +love with him." + +Kenwick's face stiffened. It was apparent that he had not expected this +criticism. And he found himself envying those people who can discuss +their love affairs. But not to his best friend could he have mentioned +Marcreta Morgan's name. "I told you I was just giving you a scenario of +this thing," he reminded his critic. "I'll work up that part of it +later. As a matter of fact there is a woman in it. He proposed to her +before he went into the service and she rejected him." + +"And he didn't look her up afterward?" + +"Well, he could hardly do that, not until he had accounted for himself. +And especially as she had shown no interest in him whatever while he was +away." + +"You never can tell about a woman, though. The fact that he had come +back a pariah and was in trouble might arouse her love." + +"No, not her love; her pity perhaps." + +"Well, I won't argue with an author. They are supposed to be authorities +on such questions. Go on with the thing. Where _had_ the chap been +during those ten months?" + +"I haven't the least idea." + +Jarvis brought himself upright. "Why, you outrageous devil!" he cried. +"Getting me all worked up over a story that you can't see the end of +yourself! And how about the family estate? What became of that?" + +"I haven't finished plotting the thing yet. That's why I told it to you. +If I had solved all its problems it wouldn't have been necessary to +inflict it upon you." + +His guest rose and stretched himself. "Well, I'm afraid I wasn't much +help," he said ruefully. "Fact is, I haven't any creative imagination at +all. I'm the kind of reader that writers of detective yarns love. I'll +swallow anything that's got a little salt on it, and I never guess right +about the ending." + +He fumbled in an inside pocket of his coat and drew out a card. "I'd +like to have you return this call some time, Mr. Kenwick. I'm not far +away from you, just two blocks around the corner in the Hartshire +Building. If you care anything for photography, drop around some time +and I'll show you some interesting pictures. They are a harmless hobby +of mine. I fuss around in a laboratory over there most of the time, and +when I'm not there I'm in the dark room." + +Kenwick promised to come, and a moment later Granville Jarvis was gone. +Bereft of his sympathetic presence the room seemed overpowering in its +gaunt emptiness. The last two hours of genial companionship were swept +aside as ruthlessly as though they had never been, and Kenwick found +himself back again at that ghastly moment when he had torn open the +yellow envelope. For he was to learn, in the crucial school of +experience, that the sorrow of bereavement is not a permanently +engulfing flood, but that it comes in waves, ebbing away under the +pressure of objective living only to gather volume for a renewed attack. +And in the moment that its victim recovers a staggering strength, it is +upon him again, sweeping aside in one crashing moment the pitiful +defenses of philosophy and faith which the soul has constructed to save +itself from shipwreck. + +Until after midnight Kenwick sat at the window waiting for a summons +from the telephone. Then he went to bed and fell into a listening sort +of sleep. But not during that night nor in the days that followed was +there any response to his telegram. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was on the morning after his conversation with Jarvis that Boyer, of +the "Clarion," summoned Kenwick into his office. "Got a story here that +I'd like to have you hunt down," he said, and pushed a clipping across +the table. Kenwick read it with an interest that was painfully forced. +It was cut from one of the local evening papers and was a rather +colorless account of the spectacular achievements of one of the city's +trance mediums. He noted down the address and rose with a hint of +weariness. + +"The thing that makes her different from the others and worth a trip out +there," his employer explained, "is that Professor Drew of the +psychology department over at the university has set himself the task of +showing her up. She has done some rather dramatic things that have got +on his nerves and the other day he gave a lecture on her methods before +his abnormal psychology class and had the place packed. She has just +written a book too; bizarre sort of thing called the 'Rent Veil' or the +'Torn Scarf' or something like that. It ran in the 'Record' about two +months ago and they made a big hit with it." + +He leaned back in his chair and surveyed Kenwick speculatively. "What do +you make of it?" he asked. "This stupendous revival of interest in the +supernatural? Some of our greatest writers devoting themselves to +spirit-writing; some of our best citizens declaring that they get +comfort and inspiration out of the ouija-board and planchette?" + +"I think," Kenwick answered slowly, "that it is one of the inevitable +results of the war. It has caused a big upheaval in the spiritual as +well as the economic world. And one of the things that it has brought to +the surface is death. Of course death has always been with us but unless +it came right into our own lives we have persistently ignored it, as we +have ignored the industrial problems and immigration and a lot of other +things. But during the last few years death has been rampant. Everybody +has had to look at it from a greater or less distance. For awhile we'll +have to go on looking at it. And human nature is so constituted that it +has only two alternatives. It must either ignore things or try to +account for them. I don't think this renaissance of the supernatural is +anything unusual. Every great war must have been followed by a frenzied +season of accounting for death." + +The other man glanced at him with eyes in which there was no longer +impersonal speculation. "You've been touched by it too, Kenwick?" he +ventured. + +"Yes. My brother." + +"I'm sorry." He stretched out a hand. "Well, to get back to this Madame +Rosalie; get an interview with her and also with Drew. We'll give 'em +each a column on Sunday. We might be able to start a controversy that +would be worth while." + +And so, half an hour later, Kenwick was ringing the door-bell at a +shabby old house on Fillmore Street. As he stood there waiting he was +convinced that his only motive for the errand was a journalistic +interest. But if there is any season of life when the sane well-balanced +man or woman may be tempted into the region of the occult it is during +that interval between the shock of bereavement and readjustment to an +altered order of existence when the soul quivers upon the brink of two +worlds. The lapse of time between shock and readjustment varies with +every temperament, but in that period of helpless groping we all stand +close to the psychic, the unexplainable, the supernatural. + +If Kenwick had expected to find Madame Rosalie's domain extraordinary in +any particular, he was distinctly disappointed. It was one of those ugly +old frame houses with protruding bay-windows which still weather +competition with the concrete and stucco residences in every part of the +city. In the front basement window was the hideous sign of a +dry-cleaning establishment, and in the neighboring flat the windows were +placarded with the promise to supply "Costumes for All Occasions." + +In response to his summons a petite dark woman in a loose-flowing garnet +robe opened the door and voiced the professional query, "You have an +appointment?" + +When the visitor had admitted that his call was impromptu, she +considered for a moment. "I have a client just now," she explained, "and +you may not want to wait until his sitting is over." + +"I'll wait," Kenwick assured her. "How long does it take?" It was +instantly apparent from Madame Rosalie's expression that this query was +a violation of professional etiquette. As well inquire of a doctor how +long it will take to perform a major operation. + +Ignoring his query the medium opened the door wider and ushered her +caller into the front room. It was a dim commonplace apartment furnished +with flowered cretonne-covered chairs, a defiant-looking piano, and +gilt-framed pictures. "You will find some magazines here," she promised. +"Just make yourself at home, please." + +It would be a difficult achievement, the reporter decided, as he settled +himself in one of the rigid-looking chairs. And Madame Rosalie's tone, +though courteous, had not been eager or placating. It was apparent that +she had plenty of business. Her manner of greeting had been more like +that of an experienced and self-possessed hostess taken unawares by a +guest, than of an exponent of the supernatural. She was obviously an +educated woman. Her voice alone betrayed that fact, and she moved with a +grace that seemed somehow incongruous in those sordid surroundings. As +he sat beside the bow-windows, gazing out into the fog, Kenwick smiled +grimly. "I don't know Drew yet," he murmured, "but whoever he is, I'll +bet she can give him a run for his money." + +Within twenty minutes he heard low voices at the far end of the hall, +and then the sound of approaching footsteps. He rose and went to the +door. Madame Rosalie and her client were emerging from a shadowy chamber +whose door was draped with maroon-colored portières. The caller had +reached the hat-rack and was jerking himself into his overcoat when all +at once he stopped with words of astonished greeting. "Why, hello, +Kenwick!" He strode forward with extended hand. And Kenwick gripped it +with an equal astonishment. It was one of the men whom he had known well +at college. "Going it strong now that you are back in civilization +again?" On his face was genuine pleasure and the shamefaced expression +that it would have worn if the newspaper reporter had suddenly +encountered him tobogganing down one of San Francisco's hills on a +child's coaster. + +When he was gone the reporter followed his hostess into the room with +the maroon-colored curtains. It was as shabby as the waiting-room but +more comfortable and somehow expressive of a strong personality. Over a +felt-covered table, strewn with cards and stubs of pencils and other +aids to occult communication, was an electric bulb held in place by a +loop of white cotton string. Madame Rosalie motioned him to a seat +beside this table and sank into a deep chair on the opposite side. + +For a moment neither of them spoke. Madame Rosalie's eyes rested upon +her client with a scrutiny that was not inquisitive but almost +uncomfortably searching. They were dark eyes and brilliant with the +unnatural shining that is often caused by chronic insomnia. At first +glance he had thought that her hair was confined under a net; now at +close range he saw that it was cut short and waved alluringly over the +lobes of her ears. She had been a beautiful woman once, he reflected, +but life had given her brutal treatment. + +He picked up a crystal sphere that was lying upon the table. "Tell me +what you see for me in that?" he commanded. + +She turned it slowly under the light. Kenwick watching her, felt a +little cheated by the unspectacular quality of her technic. For all the +thrill which she seemed likely to give him, he might as well be opening +an interview with the census-taker. + +"You came," the medium said at last, still gazing into the depths of the +crystal, "to consult me, not about the future but the past." + +He made no response. + +"You are in trouble," she went on in the same unhurried voice. "You are +in great trouble--but you are not taking the right way out." + +"What is the right way out?" + +"You must have help." + +An expression of annoyance crossed his face. She would follow up that +statement, of course, with the suggestion that he enlist for a prolonged +course of "readings." He was preparing a curt dismissal of this plan +when suddenly she set the crystal down upon the table and looked at him +with compassionate eyes. "You must have help," she repeated. "But it +must be the help of some one who is dear to you--or _was_ dear to you." + +"Can you evoke such a spirit?" + +"I don't know. I never can promise, but I'll try." + +She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. The man, looking at +her from across the table, was startled at the change in her face. For +hers was that type of face which is dominated by the eyes. Without their +too brilliant light it suffered a complete loss of personality. Words +came at last through her slightly parted lips. "There is some one who +wishes to speak to you. I think it is a woman." + +"A woman!" Kenwick was not conscious that his tone held a note of +disappointment. "Who is she?" + +"I can't quite get the name. It's a difficult control. But she wants +very much to talk to you. She says----It will be hard to forgive at +first, but you must come back." + +"Back where?" + +The voice went on, unheeding. "She says----that she was influenced by +some one else--some one stronger. You must look for that man. You must +never stop looking for him----in crowds and everywhere you go you must +look. And when you see his face you will know at once that he is the +one, the only one who can help you. He is your missing link." + +There was a long pause. "Anything else?" Kenwick inquired at last. His +voice was guarded but he was strangely moved. + +"There is some one calling to you. He seems to be in a prison and he is +looking out through iron bars. They might be the bars of a gate. I can't +see the face, but some one is calling your name." + +"Shall I answer the call?" + +"No. There would be no use. It is too late now." + +Her eyes opened suddenly and met Kenwick's fixed upon them intent but +inscrutable. He stretched his hand across the table. + +"Read my palm." + +She held it only a moment but her eyes seemed to take in its every line +at a glance. "There is a perpetual conflict raging in your soul," she +said. + +He smiled. "That's true of most people, isn't it?" + +Madame Rosalie had a superb disregard for irrelevancies. "Part of you is +eager to plunge gallantly into the tasks of the present, but the other +part is holding you back. You have the drooping head-line with the +introspective fingers. It's a bad sign on the hand of the creative +temperament. And you are some kind of a creative artist; painter, +musician, or writer. But your head-line didn't always droop. It's a +recent tendency, so you have a good chance to overcome it." + +"How can I overcome it?" + +"In the first place, give up all idea of trying to reconcile yourself +with the past. You can't possibly do it and the effort may--wreck you." + +He got to his feet and stood looking down at her. "There doesn't seem to +be much ahead for me, does there?" he said. + +"There is everything ahead; all the tragedy is behind you." She was +still looking at him compassionately. "You are too young," she said at +last. + +"Too young for what?" + +"To have lost so much out of your life." Her voice was like red coals +leaping into sudden flame. It startled Kenwick. "And you are choosing +just the wrong way to wrestle with such a loss. You had originally a +splendid initiative, an impatient desire for action. But the artistic +side of your nature has assumed control of you. And the artistic +temperament is long on endurance and short on combativeness. If you +spent one-third of the time fighting this specter in your past that you +spend trying to reconcile yourself to it, you would win gloriously." + +For a few moments they stood beside the table talking of commonplaces. +Once Kenwick mentioned Professor Drew, and Madame Rosalie smiled. + +"I'm not afraid of him," she said. "And neither do I care to enter into +a public debate with him." + +She followed her client to the door. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help +you more. But you are not ready for my help yet." + +Kenwick walked back to the "Clarion" office with these words ringing in +his ears. The messages from the other world may have been guess-work, +but at least she was a shrewd reader of character. And contrary to all +his expectations she had not made any effort to win him for a permanent +client. + +His Sunday story, featuring her and Professor Drew, was all that Boyer +had hoped for it. The astrologist was sketched with a few vivid strokes, +the room with the maroon-colored curtains more in detail, and an +interview reported which thrilled the souls of the credulous and held +even the attention of the skeptical. There was neither ridicule nor +championship in the story, and the caustic comments of Professor Drew +were bare of journalistic comment. Altogether, the thing worked up well +and made a hit. After reading it during his late breakfast at the St. +Germaine, Kenwick suddenly decided to go around to the Hartshire +Building and keep his promise to Jarvis. He found the photographer +enveloped in a long black apron and rubber gloves. "Good boy!" he cried +slapping his visitor on the back. "I've been thinking about you and that +cursed story you told me: can't get the blame thing out of my head. That +was good stuff about the clairvoyant in the 'Clarion' this morning. +Where on earth do you dig up those oddities? I recognized your +pen-name." + +He hung Kenwick's coat in a shallow closet as he talked. "You are in the +nick of time to help me with an experiment if you will," he went on. "I +want to do some research work on the human eye and I've got to have a +subject. I've got a lot of cards here--featuring optical illusions and +that sort of thing. Do you mind helping me for, say, half an hour? You +see, the human eye and brain are the ideal apparatus for perfecting the +camera and I'm working on an invention." + +Kenwick complied with alacrity, glad of the opportunity to get his mind +off of himself. For almost an hour Jarvis worked under the black hood of +the tripod while Kenwick reported on the images printed upon the cards. +When the tests were finished and he rose to go, the photographer pushed +aside his paraphernalia and wiped his forehead. "Hot as Hades under that +thing!" he cried. "Say, I was wondering the other day if you play golf." + +"I used to go out and play with my brother at his club," Kenwick +replied. "But it's been some time ago; I'd be a duffer at it now." + +"Well, I've got a card that will let us into the club over in +Claremont," Jarvis explained. "If you haven't got anything better to do, +what do you say that we meet at the ferry building about two o'clock +this afternoon and play a few holes over on the course? It's a great day +to be outside. Can you make it?" + +"Yes, I think so." For a moment Kenwick stood looking at his host with +an expression that puzzled Jarvis. Then abruptly he turned and went +away. Up the steep California street hills he strode, scarcely conscious +of the effort it cost. For a horrible dread was tearing at his heart. It +was not a new sensation to him, and its very familiarity made it the +more hideous; that persistent dread known only to those who are +struggling back over the hard road of mental prostration. The seed of it +had sprouted on the morning when he had bought that fatal newspaper at +the Third and Townsend Depot. And during the weeks that followed its +tendrils had wrapped a strangle-hold about his life. Sometimes it almost +stopped his breathing. And as yet he had never seen the thing that he +dreaded. It was not yet upon any one's face. But he assured himself +desperately that some day he would see it. Some day, when perhaps he +wasn't thinking about it at all, it would suddenly leap out at him. In +the eyes of some man or woman, or perhaps even some little child, he +would see suspicion or fear or morbid curiosity. Without being told, +they would know suddenly that here was a man who had once lost his +mental grip. They would be afraid that he might suddenly lose it again, +and that shuddering fear would send him reeling backward into the land +of shadows and specters. + +He stumbled on blindly, and through the blackness of his anguish there +came to him again the curious sensation that he had experienced on his +second night at Mont-Mer; the sensation of having lost some material +prop that could restore his courage. + +The genial suggestion of Jarvis that they play golf together over in +Claremont was like a cool hand laid upon his forehead. To Jarvis he must +seem sane and normal, capable at least of acquitting himself creditably +in the sport of sane and normal men. He ate a hasty and solitary lunch +and at two o'clock met the photographer in front of the flower-booth in +the ferry building for an afternoon at the country club. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +It was Sunday afternoon, and Marcreta was expecting a caller. "How long +do you think he'll stay?" Clinton demanded as they rose from their two +o'clock dinner. + +"As long as I'll let him, I suppose." + +"Well, call a time-limit, Crete." And then recalled suddenly to the +realization that he must begin making the best of a situation that gave +every evidence of forcing itself upon him for life, he added hastily, +"What's the use of trying that new cure if you're going to pull against +it all the time?" + +"Do you call this 'pulling against it'?" + +"I do, decidedly. Every time that man comes here you're strung about an +octave higher than normal." + +She looked at him, astonished. "Why, Clinton, I don't feel it myself. +I'm not conscious that he affects me that way." + +"He does, though. We all know people who affect us that way. And it is +not a question of attraction or aversion. Liking or disliking them +doesn't alter the fact that they have the power to screw us up. +Sometimes, of course, it's a beneficial stimulant, but you shouldn't be +taking anything like that just now. Give Dr. Reynolds a chance." + +"I will give him a chance. But to-day----Well, I promised Mr. Glover +that I'd listen to something that he has written." + +"Help! Then he'll probably be here to supper. I didn't know he'd broken +into the writing game." + +"I didn't either until the other day. But I think it is some advertising +for the new springs. He is very versatile. He does a number of things +and does them well." + +Her brother glanced at her sharply without replying. That note of +championship in her voice put an edge on his nerves. + +But she was mistaken in her guess concerning advertising matter for the +American Carlsbad. For when she and Richard Glover were alone in the +living-room he produced a copy of one of the popular magazines. "You +remember you said I might read you something to-day?" he began, drawing +his chair into a better light. + +"Yes. I have been looking forward to it with pleasure. But I thought it +would be in manuscript. It is something you have had published?" + +"My first attempt at anything in this line. It's a serial story and this +is the initial instalment. You see, I had a good deal of leisure time on +my hands when I was down at Mont-Mer and I've always wanted to try my +luck with a pen. I call this 'A Brother of Bluebeard.'" + +"That's a gruesome title, but excellently chosen if it's a +mystery-story. I'm shivering already." + +He settled himself with his back to the light and his profile toward +her. "I may as well tell you at first that I am not bringing this out +under my own name." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I wouldn't have felt quite free about writing it if I were +standing out in the open." + +"Oh, it's a true story?" + +"No, I can hardly claim that for it. It's rather a fantastic plot as you +will see. But every writer knows this, that when you first break into +print whatever you write is supposed to be transcribed almost verbatim +from actual experience, preferably your own experience. No matter how at +variance with your own life-plot the story may be, the people who know +you will leap to the conclusion that it is rooted in autobiography. +Imagination is the very last thing that our friends are willing to allow +us." + +"What nom-de-plume do you use?" + +"Ralph Regan. It's short and snappy and sounds as if it might be +genuine, don't you think?" + +He found the place and began to read in a resonant, well-modulated +voice. The opening paragraph was a little stilted, a bit amateurish, but +after that the story swung into bold and breathless action. It gripped +its hearer with a compelling force that held her tense and motionless in +her chair. Only the sound of the reader's voice and the crisp crackle of +paper when he turned a page broke the quiet of the room. Outside, a gray +January mist engulfed the city, and electric bulbs from the houses +across the street cut bleary patches in the mantle of fog. For almost an +hour Richard Glover read in his clear, unhurried voice, and Marcreta +listened, her wide eyes fastened upon his face. + +When he had finished, with the irritating promise, "To Be Continued," he +laid the periodical face-down upon the library-table and turned toward +her. In his amber eyes was a new light. A railroad switchman who faces +the company's president after saving a train from destruction might wear +just that expression. + +Marcreta seemed bereft of speech. She was staring at one of the lights +in the house across the street as though it had hypnotized her. One of +the delicate white hands was clasped tight upon the arm of her chair. +Richard Glover told himself that he had never seen her look so +beautiful. And for the first time since he had known her, there was not +a suggestion of invalidism in her tall, regal figure. She was wearing a +filmy gray dress with a touch of pink that seemed to give a heightened +flush to her cheeks. He allowed several seconds to pass. Was it +possible, he was wondering, that this "first story" had won that tribute +most coveted by all authors--the tribute of breathless silence? + +"Well?" he ventured at last. "What do you think of it?" + +She brought her eyes back to the room, to the magazine lying face-down +upon the table, but not to him. "I think," she said with a long sigh, +"that you are a wonderfully clever man." + +The light flickered out of his eyes. He leaned toward her with a +pleading gesture. "Is that all you are going to say to me?" + +"Isn't that enough? Wouldn't you rather have me say that than anything +else?" + +"You know I wouldn't. You know that there are many other things that I +would far rather have you say." He came over and stood beside her chair. +"Marcreta," he begged, "say just one of them. Say this--that you are +glad to have me come here. I wrote that story for you; because I know +that you value creative power more than anything else in the world. Are +you glad that I did it? Are you glad that I brought it to you?" + +She was looking at him now, all her ardent soul in her eyes. "I _am_ +glad," she breathed. "I can't tell you how glad." + +"Then I think you ought to give me some reward. I ought to have at +least----" + +She put out her hand with the imperious little gesture that he had come +to know well. "Not just now. Please, not just now. You see, you have +rather--swept me off my feet. Isn't that enough for one day?" + +"It is enough," he assured her exultantly. And when, a few moments +later, he climbed into the roadster that was waiting at the curb, he was +repeating the three words over and over to himself like a hilarious +refrain. + +Just at dusk Clinton came home and found his sister still sitting in +front of the gas logs where Richard Glover had left her. His step +startled her out of a reverie. "Oh, it's you, Clint! I'm so glad you've +come. The house has been full of ghosts." + +"I suppose so. Glover come?" + +"Yes. He has come and gone." + +He reached down swiftly and felt one of her hands. It was icy. +"Something has happened, Crete." The words were not a question, but they +demanded a reply. And she gave it without hesitation. + +"Yes, something has happened. I've got to take some action about it too, +but I haven't decided yet what it shall be." + +He stood on the hearth-rug looking down at her with a curious mixture of +annoyance and admiration in his eyes. It had always been so, he +reflected. About the trivial things of life she was willing to abide by +his judgment, but in every vital issue she took the initiative and +pushed her own convictions through. In the moment of large emergency she +had always stood superbly alone. As he looked at her a half-audible sigh +escaped him. After all, this semblance of vitality was but the ephemeral +stimulation of excitement. And he dreaded the bleak reaction from it; +that sudden ebbing away of hope, known to all of those who have kept +long vigils beside sick beds. + +"Let me manage it, whatever it is," he commanded. "I've told you before +that you're not strong enough for these emotional scenes. It isn't as if +you were a well woman." + +She lapsed into silence, and he felt a sharp twinge of self-reproach. It +was that double-edged remorse that chivalrous strength always feels when +it reminds frailty of its weakness. + +"Whatever it is, Crete," he hurried on, "can't you defer the action +until a more propitious time? Can't it wait until you are stronger?" + +A little choking sound came from her. He stopped short in swift alarm. +Never before in all the long years of her semi-invalidism had she let +him see her give way to tears. He went to her, moving uncertainly as +though through unfamiliar territory. She had covered her face with her +hands as though she could shut out with them the sounds of passionate +sobbing. + +"I'll never be any stronger, Clint. _You_ know it; _I_ know it. Why do +we drag on with this miserable pretense? Oh, it is killing me, but it +takes so long. Why can't I die?" + +He recoiled before that cry, before the havoc that it revealed to him. +Inwardly he cursed himself and then he remembered Glover, as he might +have remembered a gun which he had accidentally discharged, believing it +to be unloaded. He couldn't endure the thought that _he_ had hurt her +and, manlike, seized upon the first scapegoat that offered itself. But +he carefully refrained from a mention of the late caller. And when he +spoke his voice was harsh with feeling. "Crete, how selfish of you. If +you should die, what would become of me?" + +The promptness of her reply struck him like a blow. "You'd marry. You're +over thirty, Clint, and if it hadn't been for me you would have been +married years ago and would be living a normal life in a home of your +own. You think----" She was sitting upright now, facing him with a +terrible courage. "You think I don't realize what you have sacrificed. +Oh, if you only knew how I've lain awake at night, staring into the +dark, praying to die so that I could set you free. You promised mother. +I've always known that you did. But even if you hadn't, you would have +promised yourself. And _that's_ what has 'keyed me up,' as you express +it. That's what is making me live an octave higher than I can stand. It +isn't--any other man who is doing it. It's you." + +He sat down on the broad arm of her chair as though overcome by sudden +weakness. "Well, thank God you have told me this, Crete, before it eats +any deeper into your soul. Sacrifice you call it. But sacrifice involves +renunciation, and I have never renounced any woman for your sake. I have +never been engaged--nor wanted to be." + +"But you ought to," she told him violently. "You ought to, and you would +if you hadn't unconsciously put the idea away from you so many times. +You ought to have a home and wife and children. Oh, I know that you +should, and the knowledge has made me desperate." + +A dawning suspicion showed in his eyes and then they grew hard. "It must +have," he said coldly. "It must have made you very desperate indeed--if +you have been considering Glover as a way out." + +She met the charge without resentment. "What other way is there for me? +You see, there wouldn't be any danger of my--caring more for somebody +else afterward. That is quite beyond the range of possibility now, so it +would be safer for me than for some women. And physical disability, the +thing that made me--that would have made me refuse a man of a different +type, wouldn't count at all with him. His ambitions are purely material, +and I could capitalize them. That's all he wants. It would really be +quite a fair bargain." + +Clinton Morgan rose slowly and stood looking down at his sister as +though she were a stranger to whom he had just been introduced. "Well, +by Gad!" he breathed, and for a moment was bereft of further speech. And +then his words came slowly, and more as the detached fragments of a +soliloquy than a response to her own. + +"Crete, of all women in the world! You, with your temperament! With an +idealism that I and most other men couldn't touch with a ten-foot +pole--and yet you'd work out a proposition like that! I didn't know that +you saw through Glover. I made that excuse for you, that you were too +unsophisticated to see through him. But sizing him up for an adventurer, +you frame up a contract that----Why, I'll be hanged if I can believe +it, Crete. I simply can't believe it." + +She made no defense, and he went on in the same dazed tone. + +"Go out on the street and pick up the first girl you meet and bring her +in here. If I should make love to her and try to get her to marry me, +and succeed, I'd have a much better chance of happiness than this +adventure would ever give you. For, at least, I'd be swimming with both +hands free. Now listen." He seemed to become suddenly aware of her +presence again. "When I fall in love, I'll begin to think about getting +married. But I'm not going to be hurried into it by you or anybody else. +And when I decide to marry, not you nor anybody else shall stand in my +way." + +She reached for him with a convulsive gesture. "Clinton, do you mean +that? Do you mean that nobody should?" + +"I pledge you my word. But this has got to be a bargain. You have +demonstrated that you know how to make one. Now don't you ever let that +man cross this threshold again." + +"I've got to, Clint. After what happened this afternoon, I've got to let +him come--for a while." + +"Why?" + +"Sit down and let me tell you about it. I'll have to tell you, or it +will eat up my heart. But the thing will seem incredible." + +"Not to me. I think after what I've just heard that I can believe +anything." + +"Well, you remember that I told you he had promised to read me +something that he had written?" + +"Yes, advertising matter for the new Carlsbad." + +"I thought it was going to be that but I was mistaken. It _was_ +advertising matter, but not for Carlsbad." + +"For what, then?" + +"For Richard Glover." + +Clinton grunted. "I see. He is trying to win you by doing the _Othello_ +stunt on paper." + +Marcreta appeared to weigh the suggestion. "I don't think it is entirely +that. He wants money very badly. He has to have money, a lot of it, for +this hotel venture, and he is trying every means of getting it." + +"I've always been led to believe," Clinton interposed, "my friends who +write have always led me to believe that story-writing (and I assume +that this was some sort of story) is rather an uncertain means of +capitalization for a novice." + +"But this story was not written by a novice, Clint." Marcreta's voice +had sunk suddenly almost to a whisper. "It was written by----" + +"By whom?" + +"Roger Kenwick." + +Clinton Morgan stiffened in his chair. "_What?_" he cried. "You mean to +say that he had the nerve to steal the thing and bring it out under his +own name?" + +"He is too clever to bring it out under his own name. He chose a +fictitious name, and he changed the opening paragraph. But except for +that and the alteration of the title, I pledge you my word, Clint, that +that story is exactly as Roger Kenwick read it to me, before he went +into the service." + +There was a moment of silence. Clinton was recalling what she had said +when he came in about ghosts. He scanned her face uneasily. And he saw +in it the new expression which had startled Richard Glover. For the +first time in his life he began to think of her as she might be if she +were unhampered by physical infirmity. And then he fell to wondering +what had passed between her and Kenwick; just how far the tragedy of his +life had affected her. The Morgan reserve had kept her completely silent +upon this subject and he had never had any wish to intrude himself into +her confidence. He picked up the thread of the story where she had +dropped it. "How could it have happened? And how did he dare?" + +"I can't even make a guess at how it happened, but so far as daring +goes----Well, as I said, he is desperate for money. And the thing, as +looked at from his point of view, was not so very risky. Why should it +be? He must have discovered in some way that the--the author was not a +possible source of trouble. And who else could care about it? Never in +his wildest dreams would any one conjure up the possibility that I might +know. He doesn't have the least idea, of course, that I ever knew the +real author. What a nemesis! That he should have chosen me, of all the +people in the world, for his audience! It's so impossible that he will +never suspect it." + +"But what happened after he had finished? What did you do?" + +"Nothing, except to compliment him on his cleverness and try to hide +every emotion that I've ever had. It was hard; I think it's the hardest +test I've ever had to meet. But it has given me something that I never +have had before." Her voice grew husky with sudden embarrassment. "O +Clint, you were right about him. I've known for quite a long time that +you were right about him, but I couldn't admit it to myself; not with +the course that I had decided to take. But, Clint, although I knew he +was calculating and sordid and insincere, I didn't know this about him. +I didn't think he hadn't a sense of honor. If I had suspected that, it +would have made everything different. But you can see," she went on +eagerly, "you can see now why I must let him go on coming here for a +while? Why I can't let him get beyond my sight?" + +Her brother nodded. "Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself, that's +the idea, isn't it?" + +"I've got to be very careful, you see. He has told me a good many things +about himself of late, and I'm trying to fit them all together. Some of +them don't match at all. And now that he has revealed himself, I'm +beginning to doubt everything. That Mont-Mer secretaryship, for +instance, looks very improbable to me now. I've questioned him about +several prominent people down there, and he doesn't seem to have heard +of any of them." + +"Well, don't worry any more about it just now, Crete. Let's hustle +something to eat and call it a day." + +When his sister had gone to bed that night Clinton sat for a long time +in the library, staring into the fireplace. The little scene which had +been enacted there a few hours earlier had stirred him to the depths of +his being. It brought him perplexity and a poignant self-reproach. The +fact that she was not the crying type of woman made her emotional +abandon a particularly haunting thing. + +"I've been an awful ass," he muttered. "I can't see just now where it is +exactly that I failed. But it's evident that somewhere along the line +I've acted like one of the early Christian martyrs." + +He picked up a little volume that was lying at his elbow. It was a +dainty thing bound in gold and ivory. He remembered that Roger Kenwick +had given it to his sister on that last night when he had come to bid +her good-by. He had never looked into it before. Now he turned the pages +idly. It was modern verse, and he read intermittently here and there. +Among the leaves he came at last upon a folded bit of paper. It was in +Marcreta's handwriting; evidently something that she had copied. He +tilted it under the light and read the trio of stanzas. + + I cannot drive thee from my memory; + I cannot live and tear thee from my heart. + Is there no corner of oblivion's realm + Whence thy uneasy spirit may depart? + + If love were dead, if love could only die, + And leave me desolation and despair; + The emptiness of day, the aching night, + All these at last my soul could learn to bear. + + But ever when I think thy fire is spent + And seek the peace of death's all-sacred pain, + Behold, comes Memory with her torch a-light-- + And all my altar flames to life again. + +Clinton Morgan folded the bit of paper with reverent fingers. For he +knew, all at once, that this was not a copy of anything, but that he had +unwittingly torn aside the veil of his sister's secret soul. He felt all +of the honorable man's repugnance against outraged decency. The scrap of +paper seemed to scorch his fingers. With a punctilious regard for +detail, which he knew to be absurd, he tried to find the exact page +where it had been concealed. Then he put the volume back upon the table +and went over to the window. His conjectures concerning this romance had +come to an end. Now he knew, and knowing felt suddenly weighted with +guilt. + +He could imagine now how she must have felt as she had sat, a few hours +before, listening to the paragraphs of Kenwick's masterpiece as they +fell from the glib tongue of Richard Glover. There was an expression +almost of awe upon his face. She could write all that, feel all that +for one man, and then deliberately plan to marry another, to set _him_ +free! The thing seemed preposterous, and yet he knew it to be true. + +And then his thoughts reverted to Kenwick, and the days that now seemed +almost like the unreal days of a dream, when he had first known him over +at the fraternity-house in Berkeley. He recalled the night when he had +brought him home to dinner and introduced him to Marcreta and tried to +make him show off for her like a trained puppy. Perhaps it would have +been better if he had never brought him. But these things were in the +hands of fate and fate has an infinite number of tools. Standing there +at the window, gazing at the reflection of the gas logs mirrored against +the black pane, he found himself growing suddenly resentful of the +casual emergencies of life. Mere cobweb threads they were but upon them +hung the destinies of human souls. You turned the first corner instead +of the second in an hour of aimless wandering, and the circulation of +your life current was completely changed. It was folly to believe that +all the corners were posted with signs to be read and heeded by that +secret autocrat, the subconscious mind. The intricacies of such a +universe made the brain reel. It was better to believe that we played +the game blind, and that the stakes were to the courageous. + +He went back to the table and turned out the reading-lamp, blotting out +the sight of the white and gold book. + +"Lord! What a pity!" he murmured. "She would have been such an +inspiration to him. It was the devil's own luck. Poor Kenwick! Poor +little Crete!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Madame Rosalie was setting her stage for a caller. It was evidently to +be an important client, for cards, crystal, horoscope, ouija-board, and +other handmaidens to divination were set forth upon the table in the dim +back parlor. The priestess herself, in her garnet-colored robe, moved +about the room with the noiselessness of a shadow. Although it was +barely dusk she drew the shades and swung the electric bulb over the end +of the table. Then she stood surveying her work with the critical +scrutiny of an artist experimenting for the best light upon his picture. +Her too-brilliant eyes roved restlessly from one carefully arranged +detail to another. + +Suddenly a footstep sounded outside, and there was a buzz of the +electric bell. Madame Rosalie waited exactly the correct length of time +before responding to its summons. The interval was expressive neither of +eagerness nor indifference. When she returned to her sanctum it was to +usher into it a man who moved hurriedly, drew off a pair of heavy +driving-gloves, and tossed them into the Morris-chair. The astrologist +removed them quietly to a settee in a far corner of the apartment and +seated herself in the chair. + +"They say you're the eighth wonder of the world." Her visitor spoke with +a thinly veiled sarcasm as he took his place under the light. "I might +as well tell you at the outset that I don't go in much for this sort of +thing. I'm here upon the suggestion of somebody else. I've known a good +many of you trance mediums and my experience has been that you're strong +on the future and weak on the past. You play safer that way. But it +happens that I want help with the past more than with the future. What's +the idea now? Are you going to hypnotize me?" + +His voice was not antagonistic, only briskly businesslike. He might have +been suggesting that he try on the suit of clothes which a salesman was +proffering for his favor. + +Madame Rosalie answered in the low, slightly indifferent voice that had +surprised Roger Kenwick. "Hypnotism is a coöperative measure. I couldn't +hypnotize you unless you were willing and would help me." + +He laughed. "That's a good deal for you to admit. Most of you people +claim to be able to do anything." + +"Do you wish me to try to hypnotize you?" + +"No, I don't care about it especially. It takes a lot of time, doesn't +it? Get busy on something that comes right down to brass tacks." + +She turned the crystal sphere slowly in her hand. "You are obsessed by a +fear, and you have reason to be. There is a very serious problem +confronting you, and you need help in solving it. I can't help you, but +perhaps I can find some one else who can." + +She gathered up a bundle of cards. At first glance he had thought they +were playing-cards, but he saw now that the reverse sides were all +blanks. "On each of these I am going to write a word," she explained. +"I'll hold it for an instant before your eyes. Read it, close your eyes, +and then look at those maroon-colored curtains over there." + +Without comment he followed these instructions. Ten minutes passed while +the client glanced at the cards and then at the curtains. Sometimes his +gaze strayed back to the bit of pasteboard before the medium had another +one ready. By the end of the hour she had cast his horoscope, read his +palm, and performed other mystic rites. Then she settled back in the +deep chair and announced herself ready to "project the astral body." A +few moments passed in absolute silence. The medium appeared to fall into +a light slumber, and the man on the other side of the table was prepared +to see her face contorted by the writhing pains of the trance victim. +But it remained calm, almost deathlike. His shrewd eyes were sizing her +up as she slept. He seemed almost to forget that he had come for +spiritual counsel, and his gaze was calculating, speculative, as though +he were considering her possibilities as an ally. Suddenly a voice came +from the depths of the chair. It made him jump. It was not the voice of +Madame Rosalie, but one that seemed vaguely familiar. + +"Marstan is dead." The words died away in a kind of moan. After an +interval of silence came the message, "He says to tell you that you have +found the criminal, and now is the time to act." She seemed to sink +deeper into oblivion. The client waited a full minute. Then he leaned +over and whispered through the stillness two words--"Rest Hollow." + +The medium's head rolled from side to side on the cushions of the +chair, like that of a surgical patient who is trying to escape the ether +sponge. "Gone!" she muttered. "All gone!" + +He swept aside the cards and ouija-board and leaned closer, his hands +almost touching hers. The amused skepticism had died out of his amber +eyes, and the question that he asked came in a tense whisper. "Where is +Ralph Regan?" + +A frown drew the woman's heavy black brows together. "Gone!" she +murmured again. "Gone!" + +It was not possible for him to determine from her tone whether she was +answering his last question or merely repeating her response to "Rest +Hollow." He tried again. + +And after a moment the reply came slowly through stiff lips. "The way +leads over a curving road. Follow that road to a place with a high stone +fence where the gates stand always open. There you will find him." + +He settled back in his chair, his eyes resting, fascinated, upon the +graven face. + +"Marstan is here." She spoke in her own voice now and there was in it a +note of infinite weariness. "He has something to say to you." + +The man smiled grimly. "I should think he would. Tell him to go ahead; +I'm listening." + +"He says you must give up the first plan----" She frowned in the effort +of transmission. "And the second plan--and try the third. He says there +is a woman working in the plan too: she has just begun to work in it. +You must get her aid or she might----" + +He leaned forward eagerly. "Yes? She might what?" + +"I don't quite get it. It's a difficult control. But he seems to be +afraid of that woman. He wants very much to warn you against----" + +She shivered slightly and opened her eyes. The man had left his seat and +was standing close to her side. "I hope you got what you want," she said +wearily. "I don't know when I've had a sitting that has cost so much." + +He crossed to the settee and picked up his gloves. "It must get on your +nerves. Suppose we go out somewhere and have a little bite of supper. I +know a place down on Dupont; no style about it, but they give you a +great little meal. What do you say?" + +She glanced at the nickel clock upon the mantel. "It's almost seven," +she demurred, "and I expect another client at seven-thirty." + +"No more sittings to-night," he decreed. There was an almost insolent +authority in his tone. "Time to call a halt. It's dinner-time in +heaven, and spirits must live. You're coming out with me. Get on your +street togs, little witch." + +Without further protest she obeyed while her escort waited in the shabby +entrance-hall. At the curb he helped her into the roadster, and five +minutes later they were seated at a small bare table in one of the +popular bohemian restaurants of the downtown district. + +"No Martinis any more," he sighed, as he helped her out of her cheap +coat with its imitation-fur collar. "Life isn't what it used to be, is +it?" His own hat and expensive-looking overcoat he hung upon the peg in +a diamond-shaped mirror bearing the soap-written injunction, "Try Our +Tamales." "But they serve a placid little near-beer in this place that +helps some. Bring two, waiter." + +When the attendant returned with the glasses, he tossed off the contents +of his at a gulp, but the woman sipped hers with the leisurely enjoyment +of the epicure. Then she set it down and stabbed with her fork at the +dish of green olives in the center of the table. + +The soup came, a rich bean chowder, which she ate almost in silence, +while her companion commented casually upon the service and furnishings +of the café. They had a rear table near the swinging doors that led into +the kitchen. It was not more or less conspicuous than any of the others. +The atmosphere of unconventionality which pervaded the place seemed to +envelop all its habitués in a sort of mystic veil that was in itself a +guarantee of privacy. At the table nearest them a girl was talking +earnestly to a man who sat with his arm about her. Madame Rosalie, +raising her eyes from her soup-plate, encountered the bold, appraising +stare of her escort. She returned it impersonally and with the flicker +of a smile, taking in the "freckled" eyes and the large thin hands. And +when she smiled her face re-gained something of a former beauty. The man +leaned toward her with a consciously confiding manner. "You call +yourself Madame Rosalie," he said. "But isn't it really Mademoiselle?" + +Her smile deepened but she gave him no answer. In the delicate, lacy +waist and white skirt which she had donned, she looked years younger. +There was a ruby pendant at her throat but she wore no other jewel. The +garish light of the café, shining upon her straight black hair, gave it +a luster that was like the dull gleam of jet. + +"Not Mademoiselle?" he queried again, and his smile was like the +password between two brother lodge-members. + +And then Madame Rosalie lost some of her inscrutable reserve. "Not +_Rosalie_," she corrected. "But it's a good name; as good as any other +for my trade, don't you think?" + +He turned one of the clumsy glass salt-shakers between his fingers. "The +name is all right," he admitted. "But--why do you do--that sort of +thing? You admit yourself that it's hard on your nerves. Why do you do +it--when you could do other things?" + +The waiter reappeared and littered the table with an army of small oval +platters. Odors of highly seasoned macaroni and ragout steamed from +them. Madame Rosalie dipped daintily into the nearest dish. But in spite +of her restraint, it would have been apparent to a close observer that +her enjoyment of the meal was the keen avidity of one who has been long +denied. When the waiter was out of hearing, she caught up the last words +sharply. + +"What do you mean by 'other things'?" For the first time her voice was +eager, as though seeking counsel. + +He shrugged. "_I_ don't pretend to be a clairvoyant. Yet I know that +there are other things that you could do--have done." + +"How do you know it?" + +"Well, in the first place, if you had been a medium for very long, the +clever medium that you undoubtedly are, you would have made more money +at it." + +"I have made money at it." + +"Not as much as you should have made. You wouldn't live as you do if you +had money." + +If she resented this assertion, she gave no sign of it, and he went on +with the cool assurance of a physician who is certain of his diagnosis. +"You may persuade yourself that you are in that business because you are +interested in it or because you know that you have an unaccountable +power. But you are doing it chiefly for the same reason that most of us +ply our trades; because you want to make money." + +"Well?" She commented, "It does supply me with a living, and you know +there's a theory that we must live." + +He laughed. "You don't have to live the way you do. There are much +easier ways for you to accomplish that end. Have you got anybody +dependent on you?" + +"No, but I am horribly in debt." The admission seemed to slip from her +without her permission, and when the words were out a little frown +puckered her forehead. The eyes of her escort were fixed upon the ruby +pendant, so obviously a genuine and costly stone. She toyed absently +with it, putting a cruel strain upon its slender thread-like chain of +gold. "Do you know," she said slowly, "I believe you would make a +wonderful hypnotist. I believe that you could even hypnotize me." + +The bold amber eyes gazed straight into hers. "But you told me, didn't +you, that hypnotism had to be a coöperative measure? You said, I +remember, that nobody could hypnotize anybody else unless--unless the +victim were willing." + +One of his hands closed over hers as it reached for the sugar-bowl. She +made no effort to draw it away. + +"Perhaps," she answered softly, "perhaps the victim _is_ willing." + +He stacked up a little pile of the oval platters and pushed them +impatiently to one side. "I guess we understand each other all right," +he said. "You need me and I need you. We've each come to the place where +we need help. Now let's not waste any more time about it. Let's get down +to brass tacks." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +It was seven o'clock on a rainy evening, and Kenwick turned up the +collar of his coat as he left the St. Germaine. Inside the Hartshire +Building there was a cheerful warmth that promised well for the evening. +He ignored the elevator and walked up the three flights of stairs to the +floor where the photographer had his rooms. On the way, he tried to +persuade himself that he was not doing this in order to gain time. But +there was a good hour intervening between now and time to start for the +theater, and at the end of that hour, he reflected Jarvis might not care +to keep the engagement. + +As he toiled upward Kenwick considered every possible detail of the +scene that was before him, and then wearily discarded them all. "Why do +I do it?" he challenged himself, as he reached the last landing. "How do +I dare to do it? My God! I can't afford to do it; I've got to have one +friend left!" + +But as he had once told Jarvis, those scenes of life whose settings are +scrupulously ordered usually lack dramatic climax. At the end of what he +was pleased to characterize as his "confession," the photographer +surveyed him with sympathetic but unastonished eyes. + +"I'd begun to think that there might be something personal in it," he +commented. "I could see that there was something lying heavy on your +chest. It's a devilish mess, isn't it?" + +The other man was looking at him with a disconcerting sharpness. But the +thing for which he probed was not in Granville Jarvis's eyes. + +"I seem to be such a helpless sort of brute," his host went on, and +pushed a box of cigars across the table as though in an unconscious +effort to make up with tobacco what he lacked in counsel. "I never can +think of the right thing to do just on the spur of the minute. +Inspiration has an uncomfortable habit of failing to keep her +engagements with me." + +"I didn't expect any advice," Kenwick told him. "But it's a relief to +tell you and get it off my mind; to tell you and yet not have you think +that I ought to be locked up." + +"Somebody ought to be locked up," Jarvis remarked grimly. "And it's your +job to find that person. Why don't you go East?" + +"I am going East. I've decided to go next week. It would be hard to make +you understand why I haven't done it before, but----Well, this sort of +an--illness does a terrible thing to a man's soul, Jarvis. It paralyzes +his initiative. It gives him the most deadly thing in this world; the +patience of despair. I'm constantly _waiting_ for things to clear up +instead of going at them hammer and tongs." + +His companion nodded. "I think I understand. It would be the hell of a +situation for you back there among people you've always known, and who +presumably know all about you, and not being able to bridge the gap. I +can see why you wanted to get a line on yourself first, and you're +right, too. After all, a man owes something to his nervous system. But +since you've decided to go and brave it out back there I think I'd let +things rest the way they are till you go. Sometimes life works itself +out better if we don't interfere too much. Somebody is bound to make a +foolish play if you let them all manage their own hands." + +"And yet somebody told me the other day, Jarvis, that I was too passive +in the crutches of fate; that I ought to be more combative, more +aggressive." + +Jarvis laughed. "I'd be willing to bet that it was a woman who told you +that." + +"Yes, a woman did tell me. It was that trance medium." + +"I might have guessed it. By the way, I went to see her myself the other +day. Your story got me interested. She ought to have paid you a liberal +commission for that yarn. But I suppose she doesn't even know you wrote +it. She struck me as being a mighty clever little woman. Well, it's +after eight o'clock. Let's go." + +They found their seats in the first row of the balcony. The house was +brilliantly lighted and filling up rapidly. But although Jarvis had +urged his companion to forget for a time the tangle in which he was +enmeshed, it was he who returned to the theme while they sat waiting for +the curtain to rise. + +"The trouble is, there's a missing link in the chain somewhere. I don't +mean an event, but a person. Somebody dealt those cards, of course, and +whoever did it knows where the marked one is. The New York trip may be a +wild goose chase after all. Did you ever think of hiring a detective to +help you out?" + +"Yes, I've thought of it a lot. But somehow I don't want to do it. I +don't want to have anybody mixed up in my affairs as intimately as +that. I can't explain my feeling about it. But there is so much noise +about this sort of thing if it once rises to the surface, and if there's +any graft connected with my name, I'd like to keep the scandal private. +Besides," he laughed with a tolerant self-indulgence, "I don't suppose +the person lives, Jarvis, who doesn't believe that way down inside of +him somewhere, sleeping but never dead, is the genius of the detective. +I've made a sort of a covenant with myself that I and no other shall run +this thing to cover, and do it without kicking up a noise." + +Jarvis was staring speculatively at the foot-lights. "It's one of the +most curious cases I ever knew. I'll tell you what, Kenwick. You're the +original 'Wise Man from Our Town.' Remember him? + + "And when he found his eyes were out, + With all his might and main, + He jumped into the bramble-bush + And scratched them back again." + +"A dangerous experiment, I always thought," Kenwick remarked. + +"So is dynamite, but sometimes we have to use it, and nothing else will +take its place." + +"Are you advising me to put a bomb under somebody on the chance that it +might be the man who shuffled the deck?" + +"No. I'm advising you to do the bramble-bush stunt. Don't jump forward; +jump back." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, the more I think of it the more I believe that the solution of +this mystery is to be found in the place where it began." + +"But where did it begin?" + +"So far as your knowledge of it extends, it began in the cañon or ravine +or whatever place it was that you had the accident. If I'm not mistaken, +Kenwick, that place is your bramble-bush." + +The curtain rose upon the first act and there was no opportunity for +further conversation. It was during the intermission between the second +and third acts that Jarvis, leaning over the balcony, said suddenly, +"There's a friend of yours; fourth row on the right." + +Kenwick made a cursory examination of the seats and shook his head. +"Don't see him. Don't see anybody I know here to-night except Aiken, our +dramatic critic." + +"This is a woman. Count seven seats over in the fourth row. Isn't that +lady in the garnet-colored coat your Madame Rosalie?" + +"You're right; it is." + +"I thought I couldn't be mistaken. There's a certain air of distinction +about that woman in spite of----" Jarvis stopped, for he saw that his +companion was not listening. For a moment Kenwick sat there staring down +at the fourth row like a man in a dream. Then he gripped Jarvis's arm. +"Look!" he cried. "Down there with Madame Rosalie." + +"What's the matter? You're such an excitable cuss, Kenwick." + +"That fellow who's with her. Look! Jarvis, _that's_ the man!" + +"What man?" + +"The man we've been talking about--my Missing Link." + +Together they leaned over the balcony and scrutinized, with the intent +gaze of a pair of detectives, the couple in the fourth row right. It may +have been coincidence, or it may have been that species of visual +hypnotism known to us all, which suddenly impelled Madame Rosalie's +escort to turn in his seat. His eyes swept the house with a casual +glance, then lifted to the balcony. Slowly they surveyed the arc of +faces above the lights. The two men leaning toward him did not move. In +another instant he had found them, and for a full minute he and Roger +Kenwick held each other. And then the theater went black as the curtain +rose on the last act. + +Just before it was over Kenwick bade his companion a hurried farewell. +"I'm going down and introduce myself to that fellow. I know I've seen +him before somewhere, and he may be able to give me my clue. You don't +mind if I break away? I want to catch him before he is lost in the +crowd." + +But this hope was thwarted. For hurrying down the aisle in that moment +before the rush of exit, while the audience was finding its wraps, he +found two seats in the fourth row empty. Slowly he walked back to the +St. Germaine, his thoughts in a tumult. Why should they have wanted to +leave before the end of as good a performance as that? Something must +have happened. Could it be that they had wanted to escape him? At such +long range it hadn't been possible for him to determine whether or not +there was a flash of recognition in the other man's eyes, but his +mysterious disappearance was haunting. On the following morning, before +going to the "Clarion" office he took a car out to Fillmore Street. + +At Madame Rosalie's shabby home a man in shirt sleeves opened the door. +"Oh, she don't live here any more," he explained to the caller. "She +moved a week ago. I'm gettin' the place ready for a new tenant." + +"Do you know where she went?" + +The man grinned. "Them mediums don't generally leave no forwardin' +address. Their motto is 'Keep Movin'.' I will say, though, that the +Rosalie woman was a perfect lady and paid her rent regular in advance." + +Kenwick walked away, turning this latest development slowly in his mind, +looking at it from every angle. At his office he worked mechanically, +scarcely conscious of what he wrote. He was in two minds now about the +Eastern trip. Perhaps it would be better to take Jarvis's advice and let +things have their head a bit longer. And he was certain of some of his +facts now. The face of the man in the fourth row had been like the flash +of a torch at midnight. For most of the night he had been awake, going +back over the painful trail of the past, fitting some of its previously +incomprehensible details into their places. What a curious mosaic his +life had been! What contrasts of light and shade! But as for going back +to Mont-Mer----The idea made him shudder. No, that was one thing he +would not do. It would be like courting the return of a nightmare. + +At four o'clock he left the office and went to keep an appointment with +Dr. Gregson Bennet in the Physicians' Building. Dr. Bennet belonged to +that class of specialists who designate their business quarters in +plural terms. His offices comprised a suite of four rooms. The sign on +the door of the first one invited the caller to enter, unheralded. +Complying with this injunction, Kenwick found himself in a well-lighted +chamber containing a massive collection of light-green upholstery and an +assortment of foreign-looking pictures artfully selected to convey the +impression that their owner was on chummy terms with the capitals of +Europe. + +As the door closed automatically behind him, a white-uniformed figure +appeared, like a perfectly trained cuckoo, from the adjoining room and +announced in level tones, "The-doctor-will-see-you-in-just-a-minute." +Kenwick accepted this assurance with the grave credulity that one +fiction-maker accords another. He glanced at the five other patients +already awaiting their turns and picked up a magazine. + +By four-thirty he had read the jokes in the back of "Anybody's Magazine" +for the preceding six months. No physician in reputable standing ever +removes old numbers of periodicals from his files. For what better +testimony can he offer in support of his claim upon a long-established +practice? As Kenwick read, he was aware that his companions were being +summoned one by one to embark upon that mysterious journey from whose +bourne no traveler returns, departure having been arranged for around +some obscure corner, to prevent exchange between arriving and retreating +patient of a "Look! Stop! Listen!" signal. + +By five o'clock only one other patient besides himself remained; a +little woman in shiny serge suit and passée summer hat. Kenwick put down +his magazine with a long-drawn sigh, and she smiled in patient sympathy. +"Gets pretty tiresome waitin', doesn't it?" she ventured. + +His quick eyes took in her shabby suit and the knotted ungloved hands. +She was probably the mother of a growing family, he reflected, and would +not get home in time now to prepare dinner. His easy sympathy flared +into words. + +"It's an outrage to keep people waiting like this when they have an +appointment for a definite hour. They tell me Bennet's a nerve +specialist, and I believe it." + +She smiled wanly, but there was an eager championship in her response. +"Oh, but he's wonderful! When he once begins to talk to you, you forget +all about bein' mad at him. Seems like he sees right through your head +to tell what's the matter with you." + +The white uniform appeared and pronounced a name: "Mr. Kenwick." He rose +and followed her through the door. The second room was like the first, +minus reading-matter and plus wall-charts. Here he sat, gazing at the +fire-escapes on the opposite building, while the white uniform made a +not completely satisfying attempt to collect family statistics. And +then, at last, the door of the third room opened and Dr. Bennet himself +emerged. He was enveloped in a heavy white apron that recalled to +Kenwick's mind the pictures he had seen in the agricultural magazines +featuring model dairying. + +But if the specialist had been slow to admit him, he was equally +reluctant to let him go. When he had finished his examination, Kenwick +stood beside the couch in the fourth and last room pulling on his coat. +"Then you think I'm in pretty good condition, doctor?" Through the +half-open door he could see the white uniform hovering, like an emblem +of peace, above a steaming basin of warlike instruments. + +"I should say," the physician told him slowly, "that you are absolutely +sound. Your nerves are a bit too highly charged, but I imagine that is +more a matter of temperament than overstrain." + +"Is that all?" + +"No, that isn't all. The history of your case, as you have given it to +me, is a most interesting one. And you were right to let me make the +examination and form my own conclusions before telling me anything about +your history. I wish it were possible for you to recall the name of the +physician who handled your case in France. I'd like to get the +scientific beginning of the story. Without it I can only make a guess, +and guessing is not satisfactory. But I think that in his place I should +have taken the chance and operated. However, you can't judge; he may not +have had the proper equipment. I wish you would come around next +Saturday when the office is closed, and let me make some X-ray plates. +I'd like to display them at the medical convention in April." + +"And what do you advise me to do for my--my mental health?" + +"Forget your mental health. Take some regular out-of-door exercise and +mix with your friends. I can't give you any better prescription than +that. If it were something done up in pink paper you'd be more apt to +take it, I know." + +Kenwick walked back through the darkening streets with a feeling of +exultation. The pendulum of his despair was swinging backward to a +height only attained by those who can plumb the depths of wretchedness. +For the first time in six weeks he felt his old defiance of life. And +recalling the pale ghost of a former prayer, he was ashamed of its +cowardice. "_That_ never happens to the desperate and the lonely," he +reminded himself grimly. "The best security on earth for a prolonged +life is to express a sincere desire to die. After that, you lead a +charmed existence. Houses burn to the ground and not one inmate escapes; +ships go down with everybody aboard; pedestrians are run over by cars +and shot by thugs, but none of these things come near the man who courts +them. They overtake those whom others find it hard to spare, those whose +lives are vivid with purpose." + +As he walked back to the hotel he found himself thinking of Marcreta +again. Had he ever really made a place for himself in her life? Whether +he had or not, he knew that he had never, even in his blackest moments, +given her up. All the plans for his future centered still about her. +Well, he had a fight before him now, and not until he won it would he +make himself known at the house on Pine Street. + +On the corner a newsboy thrust a paper under his face. He waved it +aside. "I can read all that bunk for nothing, sonny," he told him +cheerfully. The huge head-lines filled him with a spiritual nausea. The +chronicle of the day's tragedies for the public to batten upon! Was +there never to be an end to America's greed for the sensational? + +At the St. Germaine the clerk handed him a telephone call. It was from +Jarvis and urged him to call him up immediately. In his own room Kenwick +complied with this request. The voice of the Southerner came to him, +sharply commanding, over the wire. "Can you come around right away? I +want to talk it over with you." + +"Talk what over?" Kenwick's voice was almost defiant. + +"Why, haven't you seen it? Well, come around anyway. I'll be here for +the next hour." + +When Kenwick arrived at the Hartshire he found the photographer sorting +over a pile of films. But as his guest entered, he swept these into a +pasteboard box, and cleared off a chair for him. "Where have you been?" +he demanded. "I called you at the hotel and the 'Clarion' office twice." + +Kenwick gave him a brief account of the last two hours. Jarvis grunted. +"Well, I don't blame you for wanting to get the seal of scientific +approval but--I can't believe that you haven't read the 'Record' yet. +And you a newspaper man!" + +He fished the paper out from under a stack of developing-trays and +searched the columns of the second page. "Remember what I suggested to +you last night, that you let things take their own course for a while? +Well, it seems that they've been taking them in rather a headlong +fashion." He creased back the page and handed the paper to Kenwick. +"Read that and see if it doesn't give you something of a jolt." + +He took the paper. The head-lines at the top of the third page riveted +themselves upon his brain. + + RELATIVE SEEKS MISSING MAN + + Body of Roger Kenwick to Be Exhumed at Mont-Mer + + The body of Roger Kenwick, son of the late Charles Kenwick, of New + York, who died at Rest Hollow last November, is to be exhumed for + examination on the demand of Mrs. Hilda Fanwell, of Reno, Nevada. + Mrs. Fanwell, a widow, arrived from her home last week in search of + her brother, Ralph Regan, who has been a resident of Mont-Mer for + the last two years. A letter received from him in the early part of + November indicated, according to the sister's statement, that he + was in failing health. Being unable to come to him then, owing to + the illness of her husband, Mrs. Fanwell wrote several letters, + none of which were answered. The description of her brother, which + she furnished the police, has resulted in a demand to the + authorities to have the body of Roger Kenwick exhumed. + +Kenwick let the paper slide to the table. "My Lord!" he murmured. +"Jarvis, what would you do about it?" + +"Why should _you_ do anything about it? This Fanwell woman is apparently +the oldest Gold Dust twin. Let her do your work." + +But Kenwick's eyes were still fixed upon the paper. Over it a drop of +acid from the developing-tray was eating a slow passage. "But to see my +name tied up to a gruesome thing like that----Why, you can't imagine +how it----It gives me the feeling that--that I've just begun on this +thing. And I thought when I came in here that I had all the cards in my +hands." + +He got up from the table slowly, like a hospital patient testing his +strength on the first day out of bed. And Jarvis, after one glance at +his pale face, rose too. "You've got nothing to worry about----," he +began. But Kenwick waved the soothing aside with a fierce impatience. + +"Nothing to worry about?" he cried hotly. "Don't offer me that stuff, +Jarvis. How do I know--how _can_ I ever know what I may have done during +those ghastly ten months?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +When Kenwick entered the St. Germaine on the evening after his interview +with Jarvis, a man rose from the farther corner of the lobby and came +toward him. "Kenwick!" he cried, and held out his hand. "I thought you +never would come. I've been waiting here an eternity." It was Clinton +Morgan. + +When the first, somewhat incoherent greetings were over and the two men +sat facing each other across Kenwick's untidy writing-table, a moment of +embarrassed silence fell between them. Then, in a desperate attempt to +start the conversation, "I'm afraid I've kept you waiting rather a long +time," the host apologized. + +"You have," his caller agreed. "It's been more than a year, hasn't it?" +He spoke in a cheerful, matter-of-fact tone as though a mere +pleasure-trip had intervened between this and their last encounter. But +Kenwick was looking at him intently. + +"You know--about it then?" + +"Yes, we know all about it." Clinton Morgan leaned over and put his +hand affectionately upon the other man's shoulder. "And, by George, +Kenwick, I congratulate you. I congratulate you from the bottom of my +heart. It was one chance against a thousand that you could win out. It's +a miracle!" + +Kenwick was scarcely conscious of the last sentences. His attention had +stopped short at that word "we." He reached down and picked a burnt +match from the carpet as he asked with a pathetic attempt at formal +courtesy, "How is your sister?" + +"Getting well, I believe. She has been----Well, this case of yours is a +most enthralling one, Kenwick. Anybody would be interested, but +particularly any one who has known you. We have been following it with +great interest." + +Kenwick looked at him incredulously. "How could you?" + +The caller shifted his position uneasily. "Well, that's rather a long +story. And Marcreta might prefer to tell you part of it herself. And +that brings me to my errand. I came here to ask you up to the house. +We've just got the old place fixed over, and,"--he glanced at his +watch,--"it's not nine o'clock yet. If you haven't something else on +hand that----" + +Kenwick cut in almost harshly. "Are you sure that your sister would care +to see me? That she wouldn't perhaps be--well, afraid of me?" + +Morgan laughed. "Well, I'll be there, you know, if you should get +violent and begin throwing things around." + +But the other man's face did not relax. His voice came low and strained +as though it were being let out cautiously under high gear. "You don't +understand. Nobody can, I suppose, who hasn't been through this +experience." His nervous hands stiffened upon the arms of the chair. "I +tell you, Morgan, it's easier for a denizen of the underworld to live +down her reputation and achieve a reputable place in society than for a +man or woman to regain the confidence of the world after a period +of----Well, I may as well out with the damned word--insanity." + +"Don't call it that, Kenwick. It wasn't that. In the trenches you got a +blow that put you out of commission. But you were simply in a dazed +condition; mental aberration beginning with melancholia. You were never +violently insane; never dangerous to anybody else." + +"How do you know? How do I know? I've suffered the anguish of hell, +wondering about it. Somebody may have been killed in that accident that +restored me to life. It may have been all my fault. I don't know. I've +spent the last month trying to find out in a quiet way. I suppose you +think I'm a coward for not going at it more directly." He looked at his +companion with a defiant appeal in his eyes. "But there were reasons why +I didn't want to kick up a lot of notoriety about myself. For any harm +that ever came to man or woman through me, I'm eager to pay. No court +decision would have to make me do it; no court decision could keep me +from doing it. But I wanted to save my name if I could. I wanted to save +my name so that some time it might be fit----" + +"I know." Clinton Morgan interrupted hastily. The memory of that +traitorous bit of paper which he had discovered in the gold and ivory +book came back to him and brought a guilty flush to his cheeks. Whether +he would or no, he seemed to hold in his own hands all the threads of +this tragic romance. A line of Marcreta's lyric drifted through his +brain: + + Whence thy _uneasy_ spirit may depart? + +How well that word had been chosen to describe and conceal the living +death which this man had suffered! + +"You see," Kenwick went on, "I'm the spiritual counterpart of the Man +Without a Country. I don't belong anywhere. And, more than that, I'm a +charge on the public conscience. Everybody who knows about my period +of--of incompetency belongs to an unofficial vigilance committee, whose +duty it is to warn society against me." + +Clinton groped for a reply, but words would not come. And the fact that +there was no bitterness in the other man's voice, but only the level +monotony which is achieved by long suppression, made it infinitely +pathetic. + +"If it suited your whim to do so," Kenwick continued, "you might reverse +the usual order of dining; begin with pie and end with soup. And the +public would regard it either as a new cure for dyspepsia or an +eccentricity of genius. But if I should try it, somebody would +immediately suggest that I shouldn't be allowed at large. It's the irony +of fate that I, who have always had a contempt for the trivial +conventions of life (such a contempt that my sister-in-law never quite +trusted me in polite society), should now be in a cowering bondage to +them. I live all my days in a horror of doing something that might +appear erratic. And I spend the nights going back over every inch +of the road to see if I have. Why don't the adherents of the +fire-and-brimstone theory picture hell as a place where we can never act +on impulse? As a place which dooms us forever to a hideous +self-consciousness?" + +Clinton Morgan spoke with a sort of angry championship. "You've had +tough luck, my boy, the toughest kind of luck. But you've come out of it +all right. By George, you can show the world now that you've come out on +top." + +"I haven't come out; that's just the trouble. I'll never be out of the +woods until I've accounted for them. Did you read last night's paper, +Morgan?" + +"Yes. That's one thing that brought me here. Let me tell you something, +Kenwick. Until about a week ago we thought you were dead. And we were +relieved, for we felt that it was a happy release for you; your only way +out. And then one day, not long ago, we got a clue." He still clung to +the plural pronoun. "We fell over a clue, you might say, which aroused +our suspicions--and we followed it down." + +"You followed it down!" Kenwick cried. "You cared enough about it for +that?" + +His friend's reply came through guarded lips. "You have suffered +horribly during these past months," he said. "But you are not the only +one who has suffered." + +Kenwick glanced at him sharply. Then he seemed to sense the delicacy of +the other man's position. "It's just this," Kenwick explained after a +moment of silence. "Since this--this thing fell on me, I instinctively +divide all people into two classes; those who knew me before it +happened, and those who have only known me since. With the second group +I'm always wondering if they are still unsuspecting: with the first, I'm +wondering if they will ever be convinced. But go on with your story. +What did you do about the clue?" + +"I'll tell you about that later. It's enough to say right now that +Richard Glover----" + +"Glover!" The word seemed to explode from Kenwick's lips. He leaped to +his feet. "That's the name!" he cried. "That's the name that I've been +groping after for two days. Sometimes I almost had it and then it would +escape me. I had an idea fixed in my mind somehow that it began with a +'B.' Why, I saw that fellow at the theater the other night, Morgan. It +was a most curious thing, for as soon as my eyes lighted on him the +vacuum in my mind was suddenly filled. I remember traveling across the +continent with him. I remember my brother Everett introducing me to him +one day at home before I came West this last time. That's all I do +remember about him, but it sort of connects things in my brain. I wanted +to talk to him the other night and see if he couldn't help me clear +things up, but when I got down to his seat, he was gone. I don't know +whether he had recognized me too or not. But even so, I can't account +for his wanting to avoid me. I haven't got anything against him. I might +have thought the whole thing was a hallucination (for I never quite +trust my own senses now), but I had a reliable witness. Now what I want +to know is, why should Glover be afraid to meet me?" + +"If you'll come up to the house," Morgan suggested again, "we may be +able to straighten out some of these things." + +When they arrived, a few minutes later, at the Pine Street home, Clinton +lingered outside fussing with the engine of his car, and Roger Kenwick +went alone to meet Marcreta. He found her in the fire-lighted +living-room where he had parted from her, and she came to greet him with +that slow grace that he knew so well, and that seemed now to stop the +beating of his heart. But if either of them had expected the first +moments of reunion to melt away the shadows that lay between them, they +were disappointed. For the fires of memory burn deep. And the ghastly +suffering with which the two years of separation had been freighted had +left marks that were not to be obliterated by those words of carefully +casual welcome. In spite of their efforts at commonplace dialogue, they +spoke to each other in the subdued voices of those who converse in the +presence of death. By tacit consent they avoided, during the first +half-hour, all mention of the tragedy which had separated them. + +"We've just had the house done over," Marcreta was saying as her brother +entered. "During the war it was a sanitarium, and although it has all +been retinted and there are new hangings everywhere, Clinton says it +still smells of anesthetics. I tell him it's only his imagination. Do +you get any odor of ether?" + +"No," Kenwick answered. + +He found talking horribly difficult. This woman, for whom his soul had +yearned, seemed now to be looking at him from across a deep chasm. +Between them stretched the bramble-bush; a tangle of underbrush; stark +sycamore-trees that rattled hideously in the winter wind; uprooted +madrone bushes stretching distorted claws heavenward in a mute appeal +for vengeance. And insistently now the question beat against his +brain--had he ever succeeded in crossing that ravine? Would he ever +really succeed in crossing it? With the clutch of desperation he clung +to the verdict of Dr. Gregson Bennet, as he had once clung for support +to those grim, high-backed chairs at Rest Hollow. He recalled having +once read the story of an ex-convict coming home after his release from +the penitentiary to meet that most crucial of all punishments; the eyes +of the woman that he loved. To his supersensitive soul, the stigma +attached to him was something that was worse than crime; a thing that +branded deeper and more indelibly. That it had come to him in the +discharge of duty weighed not a jot on his account-sheet. He told +himself that it had been a judgment. He had always been a worshiper of +intellect. It had seemed to him the one enduring possession. And now it +had proved itself even more ephemeral than physical health. As his eyes +rested upon her, unconscious of their own sadness, he knew all at once +that Marcreta understood and was trying to make it easy for him. + +"The only way to make this easy for me," he heard himself saying +suddenly, "is to drag it out into the light. As long as the past lies +shrouded between us, we will never be able to forget it." + + * * * * * + +It was eleven o'clock when Kenwick went down the steps of the Morgan +home. He refused Clinton's invitation to ride back in the car. For he +wanted to walk, to walk on and on forever in the glorious starlight. +There were no stars. A gray fog had rolled in from the bay and spread +itself like a huge blotter across the heavens. But he was unaware of it. +Even the street lights, shining dimly as through frosted glass, seemed +to shed across his path a supernatural radiance. For although no word of +love had passed between him and Marcreta Morgan, he had come away from +that visit with a wild happiness surging in his heart. There had been no +effort to reëstablish life upon its old basis. Marcreta, with what +seemed to him an almost superhuman tact, had divined the ghastly +futility of such an endeavor. And instead she had conveyed to him, by +some indescribable method of her own, the assurance that she would +welcome, with unquestioning faith, the opening of a new and happier era. +As he had sat there in the comfort of that living-room, where on a +night, not long ago, he had caught a glint of a departed glory, desire +and something finer had struggled for supremacy in his soul. But +courageous self-analysis had driven home to him the realization that he +had Marcreta Morgan at a cruel disadvantage. Whether he would or no, he +had come back to her clothed in the appealing garments of tragedy. He +was a pensioner on her sympathy, and in her eagerness to restore to him +his lost heritage, she had unconsciously disarmed herself. The +temptation to cherish and set a jealous guard upon such an advantage has +overpowered men and women innumerable. Kenwick sensed the treacherous +sweetness of it flooding his heart like the seductive fragrance of some +rare perfume, and then in a sudden fury he tore himself free of it. + +"By God! I haven't got as deep in as that!" he muttered, and was +unconscious that he said the words aloud. "I haven't sunk so deep that +I'd pull myself up that way!" He buttoned his overcoat about him +conscious for the first time of the chill breeze. Not yet, he reminded +himself sharply, not yet did he have the right to conquer. + +As he took the intersecting street to cut the steep down-hill slope to +the hotel, he heard the echo of footsteps behind him. He quickened his +gait, impatient of any distracting element, and was instantly aware +that the other footsteps had quickened theirs. For half a block he +walked at a round pace. Then he stopped short and waited for the other +pedestrian to overtake him. A thick-set man in a black overcoat passed +him, slowed down to a creeping walk, and under the feeble light of the +corner street-lamp came to a halt. Kenwick glanced at him sharply, but +the man was a stranger to him. He passed on unaccosted, but as he was +stepping from the curb the stranger loomed up suddenly behind him. +"Stop!" he commanded. + +Kenwick turned. A heavy hand was laid upon his arm. He stood waiting, +under the gleam of the bleary light, detained more by curiosity than by +the grip upon his arm. From the burly figure came a burly voice. "You +are Roger Kenwick." + +It was not a question, but the other man gave it sharp-voiced response. +"Yes. What is it to you?" + +"A good deal to me. I've been waiting for you. Some people wouldn't have +waited, but I'm a gentleman and I let you have your visit out with the +lady. We'll take, the rest of the walk together. Beastly night, isn't +it?" + +Kenwick did not move, and his voice was more astonished than resentful. +"I think you've made a mistake in your man. You say you have been +waiting for me?" + +The burly man began to walk slowly away and Kenwick fell into step +beside him. "Ye-a, I've been waiting for you. And even if I hadn't been, +I might have got suspicious a minute or so ago. Let me give you a tip +for your own good; don't talk to yourself in public. It's a bad habit +for anybody in your line of trade." + +Kenwick stopped short. "What do you mean?" + +"I mean, Mr. Kenwick, that you are under arrest." + +The slanting pavement seemed suddenly to be moving of its own accord and +Kenwick felt it carrying him along as though he were on an escalator. +Then he heard himself ask dully, "What for?" + +The officer looked bored. But he stood there waiting in grim patience +for his companion to regain the power of locomotion. "I asked you what +for?" Kenwick repeated sharply. "You've made a mistake, but you've got +to answer that question. If I'm going to be hauled into jail, the law +gives me the right to know why." + +"Oh, cut it out!" the other admonished. "You're surprised all right; +they always are. But I'll say this for you, Mr. Kenwick, there's nothing +amateurish about your work. Plans all laid to make a quiet getaway East, +but no dodging around cheap lodging-houses for yours. Business as usual, +and friends kept happy and unsuspecting; everything strictly on the +level. You know as well as I do why I'm on your track. You're wanted for +murder--for the murder of Ralph Regan." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +In the twelve hours that intervened between Roger Kenwick's arrest and +his transference to the authorities at Mont-Mer, he was not allowed to +see any one. As rigid a watch was kept beside his cell as though he were +a hardened criminal who had on previous occasions escaped the clutches +of justice. Even reporters were denied admittance, but he was permitted, +in courtesy to his former position as journalist, to read the papers. In +these he found, spread large upon the front pages, highly colored +stories concerning his manoeuvers and final capture. Only the +"Clarion's" story was conservative and hinted at a colossal mistake +which would lead later to more sensational developments. + +When he left San Francisco, heavily hand-cuffed, a crowd followed to the +depot. The trip down the coast was uneventful, and he sat staring out of +the window, recalling his former ride through that same country when the +pruners had waved their shears to him in a sort of voiceless Godspeed. +There were no pruners visible from the car-window now, and the stark +stretches of orchard looked bleak and desolate. The bare, tangled +branches of the roadside poplars showed against the dull January sky +like intricate designs of lacework. They seemed to Kenwick to have lost +the comforting warmth of their leaves just when they needed them most. + +It was almost dusk when the train drew into Mont-Mer, and here another +crowd was waiting. The engine appeared to plow its way through them. +Never had the quiet little city been so stirred. Never in all its +decorous history had the white spot-light of sensationalism played upon +it. It knew that its name was featured in every newspaper of the +country. + +And Kenwick found the Mont-Mer papers even more lavish in descriptive +detail than those of the city had been. There was a picture of the +murdered man and one of himself spread upon the front page of the +evening sheet, and below, a cut of Rest Hollow, with the inevitable +black cross marking the spot under the dining-room window where the body +of Ralph Regan had been found. The morning daily matched this with a +picture of the handsome Kenwick home in New York, and an account of the +death, the previous spring, of Everett Kenwick and his wife, victims of +influenza. As he read, Kenwick reflected that Richard Glover must have +been very busy, very busy indeed since the night that they had +encountered each other at the theater. + +And outside the county jail the city buzzed with comment and +speculation. Mont-Mer real estate men were elated over this unexpected +scandal in high society which had resulted in putting their town "on the +map." Better a gruesome publicity, they told each other, than no +publicity at all. Tourists from Los Angeles and the near-by towns +motored up during the week-end and made futile attempts to gain access +to Rest Hollow. The old conservative residents of the aristocratic +little city were horrified, and the colony of Eastern capitalists, who +made up a large part of the suburban population, were hotly resentful of +the hideous notoriety which had invaded their retreat by the sea. The +two country estates that bordered Rest Hollow were put on the market at +what the local realty dealers advertised as "spectacular bargains." + +After the body of Ralph Regan had been exhumed and identified by the +grief-stricken little woman who was his sister, the links of the chain +which incriminated Kenwick seemed to fall of their own volition into +place. He reviewed them himself, sitting alone in Mont-Mer's bleak +little jail. + +There would be first the testimony of the coroner who would describe the +gunshot wound. And then the evidence that he, Kenwick, had been armed on +that fatal night. The woman, or whoever it was that occupied the right +wing of the house, would narrate in detail all that he had said about +being a good shot and would doubtless follow this with the testimony +that he was obviously looking for trouble. The revolver, which he had +left on the table in the den, would add its mute confirmation of these +assertions. And his own mode of departure from that house, under such +circumstances, was sufficient in itself to send him to the electric +chair without any further testimony. Glover would be, of course, the +star witness for the State, and against his glib and convincing story +would be pitted the word of a man known to have been of an unsound state +of mind and never proved to have recovered from it. It was this last +evidence, he knew, that would acquit him. With the brand of Cain upon +his forehead he would be set free. The ghastly notoriety which he had +striven, with the difficult patience of the impatient temperament, to +avoid, had struck him with the force of a bomb and blown him skyward to +be the cynosure of every eye. Never while the world stood could he ask +Marcreta Morgan to take the name of Kenwick. Acquittal on any terms was +all that most men would have asked of fate. But Kenwick was made of +finer stuff. And so far as his future was concerned, he was already +tried, convicted, and sentenced. + +A week intervened between his arrival at Mont-Mer and the day set for +the trial. During that time he knew himself to be under the most +relentless surveillance. By day and by night his every act was watched. +With his food they brought him neither knife nor fork. On the second day +of this startling omission he smiled grimly at the attendant. "You can +tell the jailer," he said, "that he needn't be worried about me to that +extent. You see, I've worn my country's uniform, and that spoils a man +for taking the Dutch route." + +The stolid-faced attendant looked at him without replying. Kenwick felt +a sudden pity for him. "I suppose he thinks I'm likely to get violent +and begin smashing up things at any moment," he reflected. For in the +jailer's eyes was that thing for which he had been on the watch for +almost two months. He pushed away his food almost untasted. When he was +left alone again he walked over to the heavily barred window and stood +looking down at the court-house garden. Very gently he shook one of the +iron rods. "For almost a year," he muttered. "Barred in for almost a +year; and the world has no intention of ever letting me forget it." + +The date-palms in the grounds below swept the wintry air with long +graceful plumes. How helpless they were in the driving force of the +wind! And yet they were moored to something, securely rooted. The storm +might buffet but would not utterly destroy them. Down the curving path +which they bordered he saw a man approaching with a flat leather case +under his arm. It was Dayton, the young attorney whom the court had +appointed for his defense. Kenwick, who had taken his intellectual +measure at their first meeting the day before, had little faith in his +legal ability. But he liked him; liked his buoyant, unspoiled +personality. And Dayton was undisguisedly elated over this sudden +opportunity to try his mettle in so conspicuous a case. It was the +chance he had been hoping for during three years of commonplace +practice. + +As the prisoner heard his step in the upper corridor he turned from the +window. Dayton closed the portal behind him and sat down on the edge of +the narrow cot. Downstairs he had just held brief parley with the +jailer. "Hasn't Kenwick got any family?" he had inquired. + +The official shook his head. "As I understand it, he didn't have anybody +but a brother, and he died last spring, the papers said." + +"No friends either?" + +"Friends? Well, he wouldn't be likely to have any, would he--a feller +that's been crazy?" + +"It's cursed luck!" Dayton had told him. He was still young enough to +feel resentful of life's contemptuous injustices. "And he's only +twenty-five; got his whole life before him. He's got to have his chance. +He's got to have a fighting chance." + +As he looked at his client now, he was careful to keep anything like +compassion out of his eyes. He removed a cracked pitcher full of purple +asters from its perilous position at the head of the bed and swept his +glance over the crude table littered with envelopes in cream and pastel +shades. "Correspondence still growing?" he inquired genially. + +Kenwick stacked the vari-colored missives into a pile. Most of them had +been accompanied by flowers, and all were signed by society women of +Mont-Mer. A few bore the more guarded signature of "A Friend," or "A +Sympathizer," with initials underneath. They condoled, they admonished, +they even made cautious love. + +"Can you fathom it, Dayton?" the prisoner asked, weighing the +correspondence in one hand as though the answer to the riddle lay in +avoir-dupois. "These women think I'm guilty of murder. They all seem to +think I'm guilty as hell; and yet they send me flowers, and +love-letters." He turned his back contemptuously upon the purple asters. +"It comes over me every once in a while, Dayton, that I'm not the only +person in this world who has had moments of mental aberration." + +The other man reached over, took up the stack of envelopes, and examined +them with curious interest. Here and there he recognized a coat of arms +or a monogram. "Going to answer any of them?" he queried. + +"Answer them!" + +"Well, most of them seem to expect a reply. You see, you really can't +blame them very much, either. These women are fed up on life. They come +out here every winter seeking a new sensation." + +"And I am a new sensation, am I?" + +"You bet you are! Why, man, you're nothing short of a godsend. And most +of these people," he swept a hand over the coterie represented on the +table, "are from New York themselves. They're not writing to a stranger +exactly. They know who your family is--or was. They know all about you." + +Kenwick's lips stiffened. "Well, they certainly have that advantage over +me." + +"I don't mean to imply, of course, that they've been investigating your +personal history," Dayton hastened to explain. "But Kenwick is not an +inconspicuous name in the East. And then you've been in the service +and----" + +"I'm glad you mentioned that," the prisoner cut in. "It reminds me of +something I want to say to you. When you get up to talk in court, don't +you make any plea for me on the grounds that I've been in the service. +That's one thing I won't stand for. The man who was in the army is a +different man from the alleged murderer of Ralph Regan. I'm not going to +have _his_ record smeared with this horrible thing." + +Dayton dropped the letters to the table as though they had bitten him. +"Why, Mr. Kenwick! You've got a right to the consideration that would +naturally----" + +"If I've got a right to it, I've got a right to waive it. This country +is flooded with men who expect to beat their way all through life on the +plea that they've been in the service. And there's nothing so despicable +on God's earth as that. I use my uniform to fight in, not to hide in. +Get me?" + +Dayton was obviously crestfallen. He got up from the hard cot and stood +looking at his client gravely. Kenwick gathered up the pile of +envelopes. "Take this junk out of here when you go, please. And don't +let them send in any more flowers. They can save those for the funeral. +But I'm not dead yet." + +"You may be very soon, though, if you don't listen to sense," his +adviser remarked bluntly. "I haven't wanted to get you worked up over +the case, because that's poor policy and it doesn't buy us anything. But +it strikes me, Mr. Kenwick, that you don't realize what a very serious +position you are in." + +The ghost of a smile appeared upon the prisoner's face. It was a +terrible little smile, and he was not even conscious of its existence. +He was only conscious that every nerve in his body ached with weariness +and that he felt faint from want of food. Two pictures were stamping +themselves alternately upon his brain; the dim, sinister interior of +Rest Hollow, and the fire-lighted room on Pine Street. One of these +incessantly erased and superseded the other. And he knew that there +could be no division of their supremacy. Only one of them might survive. +Day and night the memory of them racked his jaded brain. For the +humiliation of his present position, not the ultimate outcome of the +trial, burned him with a consuming flame. + +As he stood now at the barred window, he was doing that thing to which, +ever since his arrest, all his energies had been directed. Hour by hour, +minute by minute, he was welding together the joints of an armor. With a +slow but ceaseless persistence he was girding himself with a +graven-faced indifference that must be his shield against the barrage of +the gaping, curious world. And this man, standing so close beside him, +and in reality so far away that their spirits were scarcely discernible +to each other in the distance was telling him that he seemed unaware of +the peril of his position. That wave of deafening depression which +engulfs the human soul in the moments when it realizes its utter +loneliness surged over him like a tidal wave. He stood looking at Dayton +and wondering what manner of man he was. + +"I don't want to play up anything now that will sound like dramatics," +the lawyer went on in a soothing voice. "But we've got to face this +thing as it is. You know Glover, don't you?" + +"No. But Glover knows me. He has that immense advantage. And he is using +it to the full. He has been fighting a man who's got both hands tied +behind him." + +Dayton appeared to take new courage from this summary. "Well, I see +you've got a line on his methods anyway, and that's something. That +gives us our starting-point. And besides having both hands free, he's +also got his eyes open. You've been blindfolded a part of the time. He +never has." + +There was a sound of a key grating in the lock. The dialogue ended +abruptly and Kenwick turned from the window. On the threshold was a +shabby, faded-looking little woman guarded by the relentless sentry. +Kenwick advanced to meet her, apologizing for the discomfort of the +backless chair which he offered. + +"No, I don't want to sit down, thanks," she told him hurriedly. "I'm not +goin' to stay but a minute." She twisted her ungloved hands nervously +together under a scrawny wool scarf. "It's just this, Mr. Kenwick; I +asked them to let me come just to tell you this----" + +The prisoner stood waiting. The realization came to him that she was +afraid of him, and he tried to help her to begin. "You are Mrs. Fanwell, +aren't you?" + +"Yes. But--you don't know me, do you?" + +"No, I just guessed at who you were." His eyes rested compassionately +upon her thin, eager face, her poverty-stricken mourning. She was +obviously relieved at his quiet composure. "I just wanted to tell you +this; that it's not revenge that I'm after. I've had a hard life, any +way you look at it. But I'm in Science now and I'm tryin' to tear hate +out of my heart. I haven't got any hard feelin's against you, for I +don't believe, I never will believe that you really meant to do it." + +"Won't you sit down?" Kenwick suggested, and forced her gently into the +chair. Then he stood beside her, one hand resting upon the +paper-littered table. "You believe, do you, that I--am responsible for +your brother's death?" + +She was looking past him, through the narrow window where Dayton stood +watching her curiously. "I don't know just what to think. But I wanted +you to know that I'm not wishin' you--any violent end. I never dreamed +there was anything so horrible connected with his death when I came out +here. But I felt that I had to know about him; I had to find out." + +"Of course you had to find out," Kenwick agreed earnestly. "This thing +must be cleared up in your mind--in everybody's mind. May I ask you a +personal question, Mrs. Fanwell, to help me clear up a part of it +myself? Were you dependent upon your brother to any degree for your +support?" + +"Dependent on _Ralph_?" The astonishment in her tone was sufficient +reply in itself. "Oh, no. I was tryin' to help Ralph out, as much as I +could without lettin' my husband know. It was hard, havin' always to +stand between them. But I couldn't blame my husband either. He was +always hard-workin' himself and he hadn't any patience with poor Ralph. +He thought he ought to get a steady job at carpentry; that was his +trade, and he made good at it till he got sick and began takin' that +terrible stuff. It was the ruin of him." + +"You mean that he took--drugs?" + +She nodded. And Kenwick hastened to cover the pitiful little secret +which he had laid bare. + +"It was only for this reason that I asked, Mrs. Fanwell. If I am proved +guilty of this crime, you shall receive whatever money recompense it is +in my power to give. This is not an attempt to pay for it, but only to +ease my own conscience." + +The woman's eyes filled with tears. She leaned beseechingly across the +table, clutching, with strange incongruity, one of the perfumed +envelopes. "Then you _are_ guilty!" she cried. "Oh, Mr. Kenwick, why +don't you confess? All the lawyers have told me that if you confess, +they can't give you the death sentence. And you hadn't ought to be +in--in a place like this. Now that I've seen you I know that what the +others say isn't so. You did it when you was crazy. You never would have +done it if you had been in your right mind." + +She rose and moved slowly toward the door, her gaze still fixed upon him +with a mixture of pleading and horror. He followed, and opened the door +himself. "I'm glad you came, Mrs. Fanwell. It was very kind indeed of +you to come." + +She stopped with her hand upon the knob. "I don't care what he says," +she told him tremulously. "I don't care what anybody says; they can't +none of them make me believe that you would have done it if you'd known +what you was about." + +When she had gone Kenwick drew a long sigh. The thing had come near to +shattering his laboriously constructed mask. He spoke sharply to the man +at the window. "What in the world did she mean by that, Dayton? They're +certainly not trying to make her believe that I killed her brother when +I was in my right mind?" + +Dayton took a few slow steps toward him. "I was trying to lead up to +that when she came in. But it's just as well to have had you get it from +her. Now maybe you'll take more stock in it. That is exactly what +they're trying to make her think; what they'll try to make the court +think. Glover is going to try to prove (and he'll come within an ace of +doing it, too) that when you were in your right mind you deliberately +plotted to kill that man. He has the witnesses and the motive, and the +thing that he's going to attempt to saddle upon you, Mr. Kenwick +is--murder in the first degree." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +On the day set for the trial of the Regan murder case the court-room at +Mont-Mer was crowded. Long before ten o'clock men and women were +flocking into the building, eager for the most desirable seats. +Residents from some of the country districts brought their lunches and +prepared to spend the day. + +The court-house was an antique structure heated only by wood stoves, but +the fur-coated and the threadbare rubbed elbows and were oblivious of +drafts. For it is in the audience chamber of a criminal court that those +who seek will find the true democracy. One touch of sensation makes the +whole world kin. + +A few hours before the trial Clinton Morgan arrived in town and was +permitted to see the prisoner. The vigilance of the Mont-Mer officials +did not preclude visitors, rather welcomed them as a possible means of +gaining valuable information from the suspected murderer when he was off +his guard. Dayton, who was in conference with his client when Clinton +entered, was immensely relieved by the appearance of this new actor in +the drama. "This thing seems to me to be a little too one-sided, +professor," he remarked when introductions were over. "The court-room +over there is jammed with people who expect to see us done to death. +It's good to have an ally loom up in the offing." + +He left them alone for a few moments while they waited for the sheriff, +and Clinton measured his friend with an anxious eye. "I don't know what +you could have thought of me for not coming sooner," he said, "but I +couldn't possibly get away. You look all in, man. Haven't they been +giving you anything to eat?" + +"As much as I wanted." As he returned the grip of his hand, Kenwick was +wondering if Clinton Morgan suspected that this encounter, in a prison +cell, between himself and the brother of Marcreta filled his cup of +humiliation to the brim. Her name was not mentioned by either of them. +Clinton's whole attention was centered upon the developments in the +case. + +"You're not going to take the stand yourself, are you, Kenwick?" he +questioned, standing with one foot upon the backless chair. + +"I was, but Dayton has advised against it." + +"Absolutely. You'd be at an immense disadvantage." + +"I suppose so. I can furnish proof from Dr. Gregson Bennet, in the city, +that I'm perfectly normal now. But after all, that doesn't really count +for much with anybody but myself. It was such an immense comfort to me +when he made the examination. I came away from his office feeling that +it was going to clear up everything. But no matter what science says, +I'll always be at a disadvantage." + +Clinton laid a hand upon his shoulder. Ever since his first sight of him +he had been trying to conceal the fact that Kenwick's altered appearance +was a shock to him. And like the attempts of most straightforward men, +the effort had been a failure. "Why, buck up, man," he admonished now. +"They can't convict you, you know; not under--the circumstances. You +haven't been thinking that?" + +"I've been thinking a good many things since I came back to Mont-Mer," +Kenwick answered slowly. "You see, Morgan, I know more now than I did +when I was trying to ferret this thing out up in the city. For one +thing, I know a little more about my adversary. As I've figured out this +story now, it goes something like this. + +"After that adventure out at Rest Hollow, Glover found himself in a +hole. But there were three ways out of it for him. If he wanted to +retain the grip that I think he has upon my estate, he had to choose +between these. The first one was to make it appear that I was dead. This +seems, at first thought, to be a hazardous venture, but it was not so +difficult in my case as it would have been under normal circumstances. +And when he first decided to take it I think he supposed that I was +dead. He had every reason to think so. The man to whom he had entrusted +me had mysteriously disappeared, and he had some strange woman come down +and identify as himself a stranger who had been killed in an automobile +tragedy; a very easy thing, in reality, you see. When Glover discovered, +upon inquiry around town, that there had been such an accident, he +concluded that I had been killed and that the man who was responsible +for it was afraid to let him know and had made his escape after having +himself declared dead. I haven't a doubt that Glover thought I was the +man who was shipped up to San Francisco in a casket. And believing this, +the whole thing seemed to play right into his hands. He knew, of course, +that he couldn't keep his hold on my fortune forever, but he wanted to +play the game until he got as much as he could out of it. + +"But suddenly he discovered, by some means, that his whole hypothesis +was wrong. He discovered that I was alive, and what was infinitely more +appalling, that I was apparently restored to competency. He had been +willing to risk my possible reappearance, you see, for if I were ever +discovered wandering about deranged somewhere, I would have no means of +identifying myself and, after a medical examination, would simply be +committed to some institution. He would not have to connect himself with +that at all. But since I had come to life mentally as well as +physically, he had to take the second course--prove me irresponsible and +have me sent to an asylum. How he went about this I don't know, but I'm +sure that he must have attempted it. And I don't know either why he +failed, for as I look back now upon some of my moves I can see that they +might have appeared--erratic." + +"I think," Clinton told him dryly, "that any of us could furnish +convincing proof that we have been, at certain periods of our lives, +dangerous to the public safety." + +But Kenwick went on, unheeding this attempted solace. + +"At any rate, Glover apparently failed in this attempt. So in order to +get himself out of this mess, there is only one thing now for him to +do." He broke off, eying his visitor with somber eyes. "You know what +that is, Morgan. In order to save himself, he must prove me to be a +cold-blooded murderer. Can he do it? Why shouldn't he? I'm certainly not +in a position to offer any convincing opposition. A contemptuous pity is +what I have read in the eyes of every person whom I've seen since this +thing came to light. I don't suppose there is a person in this town who +thinks I am innocent. I don't know whether Dayton himself does." + +"But what motive could you have had for murder, Kenwick? You say that +you never saw this Regan in your life." + +"_I_ say so, but what does my testimony amount to? And especially what +does it amount to when I am trying to save my own skin? I told you once, +Morgan, and I tell you again that it's impossible for a man to live down +my sort of a past. He may get his eyes back out of the bramble-bush, but +he'll never be able to make the world believe that he can really see +with them. I feel sorry for Dayton. He's working day and night on this +case, and he's a nice fellow. But he hasn't got any chance to make good +on it. I feel sorry for him." + +"I have been thinking," Clinton mused, "that there might be something +out at Rest Hollow that would furnish a clue to help solve the question +to the satisfaction of the jury, as to just when you arrived at that +house, how long you stayed, and so on." + +"The place is full of clues, of course," Kenwick admitted. "But by this +time they have all been carefully arranged. Dayton went out there, and +he told me that the public are not being admitted to the grounds at all. +The place is under guard night and day. There may be danger there for +Glover; I don't know anything about that, of course, but he knows. And +whatever else you may say about him, you can't say that he has been +asleep on this job." + +The door opened to admit the sheriff. He shook hands with Clinton Morgan +and nodded to Kenwick. In absolute silence the trio walked through the +semitropical grounds to the court-house. As they entered the packed +audience chamber the buzz of conversation stopped, and in deathly +silence Roger Kenwick took his place. + +The barrage of eyes leveled upon him was only partly visible through the +haze that for the first few moments blurred his vision. He told himself +that it was like that last charge, through blinding smoke, that he had +made across No-Man's-Land. Then the scene cleared and individual faces +emerged from the mist. There were the weather-beaten faces of ranch +workers, the smug, complacent faces of those whom life has petted, the +resolute faces of those who have come to see grim justice administered. +Among them, here and there, was a scattering of veiled faces; women +eager to see, but ashamed of being seen. Kenwick wondered contemptuously +if some of the writers of the perfumed notes were among these. + +During his dispassionate survey of the spectators he was acutely +conscious of the presence of a man sitting at the far end of the table +around which the lawyers were assembled. He had felt this personality +when he first entered, but had reserved his attention until the blur of +his surroundings should clear. Now he turned slowly in his chair and +looked straight into the "tiger eyes" of Richard Glover. There was +neither anger nor appeal in his own face; only a curious, questioning +expression. An anthropologist who has stumbled upon some strange human +relic unknown to his research might wear such an expression. Any +physiognomist could have read in Kenwick's gaze the question, "What is +this all about?" + +And here again his adversary had him at a disadvantage. For his was not +the mobile temperament which gives visible response to its emotional +experiences. Life played upon Kenwick as upon a highly strung +instrument, and drew from him whatever notes she needed in the universal +symphony. But Richard Glover permitted no hand but his own to manipulate +the keys of his life-board. + +It was ten o'clock now but the trial seemed long in beginning. The judge +had barely noticed Kenwick's entrance and continued an inaudible +conversation with some one at his high desk. The district attorney, a +florid little man who seemed to find difficulty in keeping on his +eye-glasses, fussed with a mass of papers at the end of the long table +and spoke occasionally to the bald-headed man on his right, who was +evidently his colleague. Dayton leaned back in his chair and tapped the +table impatiently with his pencil. Kenwick was surprised to see that the +nervousness which his attorney had shown when he had visited him in jail +seemed now to have completely disappeared. + +There was an eminent surgeon among Kenwick's New York acquaintances who +suffered from a nervous malady that was akin to palsy, and yet who, in +the vital crisis of an operation, had a hand as steady as an embedded +rock. He found himself wondering curiously now whether Dayton would +develop under pressure an abnormal sagacity. Some miracle would have to +intervene if he was to be saved from the ravenous clutches of fate. + +Other persons were entering the court-room now and taking places that +had evidently been reserved for them. Dayton leaned over and presented +them at long distance to his client. "That fellow that just came in is +Gifford, the undertaker. He got the jolt of his life when this thing +blew up. Don't think he'll be much of a witness. He gets rattled. That +chap with him is Dr. Markham. Ever see him before?" + +Kenwick nodded. "He bandaged my leg that night in the drug-store. He'll +remember it, too, for he was a little suspicious at the time that the +sprain was older than I admitted. And I think he knew the man whose name +I chanced to give as mine." + +"Yes, that was a bad break, your chancing upon the name of Rogers. A +fellow by that name was visiting out at the Paddington place, and +although the doctor had never seen him, he had an engagement to play +golf with him that afternoon out at the country club. Fortunately the +man himself left town the next day so it wasn't as bad as it might have +been. But it was an unfortunate thing, such a beast of a thing, that you +should have given an assumed name at all." + +"I suppose so. But that one seemed safe enough; it was my own name +backwards. And I'd been through enough during the last twenty-four hours +to make me cautious and secretive. And as it turned out, the taking of +another name _was_ the thing to do, Dayton. If I had hurled 'Roger +Kenwick' into that group, I imagine that some one would have made +connections and turned me over to the lunacy commission. My guardian +angel was on the job when I decided to keep my identity a secret that +night." + +Dayton surveyed him with obvious satisfaction. It was a good sign that +Kenwick had thrown off some of his former apathy. And yet there still +remained a cold indifference about him, a sort of contemptuous disregard +of the crowded room, that for a man of Kenwick's caliber and social +position seemed to him inexplicable. He had an uncomfortable conviction +that this inscrutable self-possession would not take well with the +jury; that it somehow gave credence to the theory of the prosecution +that the prisoner was a hardened criminal. The local reporters were +already busy with their pencils. And Dayton could visualize a paragraph +in the evening sheet beginning, "Roger Kenwick himself showed a complete +indifference to the proceedings which----" + +The conference with the judge had ended and he was rapping for order. +The charge against the prisoner was read and the tedious task of +impaneling the jury began. Dayton paid little attention to the formal +process of getting the legal machinery into action, except to object in +a decisive voice to three or four of the prospective jurymen. Aside from +these interruptions, he continued to identify the various witnesses to +his client, in an impersonal, entertaining manner, like the official +guide on a personally conducted excursion. + +A short, ruddy man in long overcoat entered and cast impatient eyes +about the room for a seat. One was immediately brought in for him from +an adjoining room. "Annisen, ex-coroner," Dayton explained. "He's got a +fine position now as health officer somewhere in Missouri. He hated like +hell to come back and get mixed up in this fracas. You see, he never was +a howling success out here; made the mistake of knocking the climate +when he first came out, and no southern California town can stand for +that. And then, he had too many irons in the fire all the time, and +neglected his official position sometimes. I have a haunting suspicion +myself that he didn't spend any too much of his valuable time over the +examination of your supposed remains. We don't need to fear him; he'll +be a reluctant witness." + +He swung about in his chair to announce himself satisfied with the +twelve men who had been selected to try the case, and then engaged for a +moment in conversation with the district attorney. + +Kenwick turned his gaze to the window where he could see the date-palms +from a new angle, their curving leaves motionless now in the still +wintry air. The swinging doors of the court-room fanned incessantly back +and forth, but he no longer felt any interest in the hostile faces of +the witnesses. His mind was wandering back along the sun-lighted path of +his boyhood to the days when he had mother, father, and brother, and had +never suspected that he would ever lose any of them. It was a good +thing, though, he told himself bitterly, a good thing that they were +gone; that the last of the Kenwicks should go down in disgrace without +spreading the cankerous taint to anyone else of that proud name. The +imminent exposé appeared to him all at once in the guise of a mighty +tree, which was holding its place in the earth only by a single +supporting root. Now that root was to be chopped away. The house of +Kenwick was to fall. But in its fall it would harm no one else. For the +tree had long stood alone, solitary and leafless amid the white wastes +of life. + +He became aware at last that the buzzing noise of the court-room had +increased. There seemed to be some new excitement in the air. He brought +his eyes back from the courtyard and glanced inquiringly at Dayton. But +he had leaned forward in response to a curt signal from the district +attorney. Every one except the jurymen was talking in low tones with +some one else. In their double row of seats the twelve newly-sworn +judges sat solemnly silent, freighted with a sense of their +responsibility. + +Whence the news came Kenwick never knew, for during the moments just +preceding he had been deep in reverie and had lost connection with his +surroundings. But whatever it was, it seemed all at once to be upon +every one's tongue. Those who did not know were eagerly seeking +information from their neighbors. Kenwick's eyes swept the room, +puzzled. Dayton would doubtless tell him when he finished his +conference. But before he had time to gain the knowledge from this +source, it was hurled at the court-room from behind the lawyer's table. +The district attorney evidently deemed this the only way to quiet the +increasing tumult. He got to his feet, and flapping the fugitive +eye-glasses between his fingers, faced the judge and made one brief +statement, unembellished by explanation or judicial comment. + +"Your Honor, news has just been received from a reliable source that the +house at Rest Hollow has burned to the ground!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The case of the people of the State of California against Roger Kenwick +opened with the testimony of Richard Glover, chief witness for the +prosecution. Glover took the stand quietly and told his story in lucid, +clear-cut sentences, pausing occasionally to recall some obscure detail +or make certain of a date. The court reporter found it easy to take down +his unhurried statements. From time to time the "freckled" eyes of the +narrator rested upon the man in the prisoner's box with an impersonal, +dispassionate glance. And always he met those of Kenwick fixed upon his +face with a sort of awed fascination. Just so might the victim of a +snake-charmer watch him while he disclosed the secret of his power. + +Richard Glover told how on the afternoon of February 10, 1918, he had +been summoned to the home of Everett Kenwick in New York and entrusted +with a commission. He was not known to the elder Kenwick, personally, he +said, but had been a boyhood friend of Isabel Kenwick, his wife. +Prompted by her recommendation, Mr. Kenwick had chosen him for the +delicate family confidence which they imparted. + +It appeared that the younger brother and only living relative of Everett +had enlisted in the service, and after several months of severe fighting +at the front had been wounded. He had been sent to a convalescent home +in England where his physical health had been almost completely +restored. But the surgeons had discovered that the blow on his head had +caused a pressure upon the brain, which they deemed incurable by means +of surgery, and which they said would ultimately result in some form of +mental aberration. So they had sent him back to New York, diagnosed as a +permanent invalid, and had recommended that a close watch be kept upon +him until such time as it might be necessary to commit him to an +institution. + +During the first few weeks after his return it became apparent to the +brother and sister-in-law that this diagnosis of the unfortunate young +man's condition was correct. He was given isolated quarters upon the +third floor of the house and unostentatiously watched. Letters which he +wrote were intercepted and his friends notified that he had become +irresponsible. Valuables and possessions which had been intimately +associated with his past life were removed from his reach, since they +appeared to confuse him and hasten his mental collapse. At the time when +he, Glover, was summoned to the Kenwick home, prominent brain +specialists had been consulted and had agreed that an operation would be +extremely dangerous to the patient and might not succeed in restoring +him to normality. And Mr. Kenwick, after what must have been weeks of +painful pondering, had decided not to risk it but to follow the advice +of the physicians and provide for his brother unremitting guardianship. +Mrs. Kenwick had strongly favored a private sanitarium, but to this her +husband would not consent. He was stricken with grief and was determined +that Roger Kenwick's share of the family estate should be spent upon his +comfort. And he refused to relinquish all hope of his brother's ultimate +recovery. In spite of the consensus of professional opinion to the +contrary, he still clung to the hope that the patient, aided by rest and +youth, would recuperate. And he was a shrewd enough business man to +realize that private sanitariums for the mentally disabled thrive in +proportion to the number of incurables which they maintain. Complete +recovery for his brother was the last thing that he might expect if he +surrendered him to the mercies of such an asylum. + +And so he had commissioned the witness to rent for him the California +home of Charles Raeburn, an old family friend, who had built it for his +bride about twelve years before, but had closed it and returned East +following her tragic suicide there a few months after their marriage. +Raeburn had offered it to the Kenwicks with the stipulation that the +apartments which had been his wife's boudoir and sitting-room should not +be used. And Everett Kenwick accepted the suggestion, feeling that if he +were in his brother's position he would wish to be as far away as +possible from the surroundings in which he had grown up, and +particularly from the curious eyes of former acquaintances. Glover had +undertaken the errand and departed immediately for Mont-Mer to open the +house and employ a suitable caretaker. + +"Just a moment, Mr. Glover." It was Dayton who interrupted him. "On the +occasion of your call at the Kenwick home, did you see--the patient?" + +"I did not. They had particularly chosen a time for the interview when +he was undergoing treatment at a physician's office." + +"Why did they object to your seeing him?" + +"I don't think they did object, but they felt that it would be unwise +just at that time. The young man was obsessed with the idea that the +house was full of strange people; that there was a constant stream of +guests coming and going. There was no reason why I should see him, so +they planned to avoid a meeting." + +"As a matter of fact did you ever see him while he was under your +surveillance?" + +"No." + +"On what occasion did you first see him?" + +"On a street in San Francisco about two months ago." + +"On that occasion did he see you?" + +"I think not." + +"Proceed." + +The witness went on to relate how he had departed that same evening from +New York, had opened up the house at Mont-Mer, and secured the services +of a man whom he chanced to meet on the train and who was able to +produce evidence that he had once been head physician at a Los Angeles +sanitarium. + +Here Dayton cut in again. "What was the name of this man?" + +"Edward Marstan." + +"Proceed." + +Arrangements having been made with him, the witness communicated with +Everett Kenwick, according to agreement, and the patient was sent West +in care of an attendant, one Thomas Bailey, now deceased. Glover himself +had been in Los Angeles at the time of their arrival, but had received +word from Marstan that the patient was properly installed at the Raeburn +residence, and the attendant returned to New York. + +Dayton's voice interposed once more. "Is the Charles Raeburn home known +by any other name, Mr. Glover?" + +"Yes--by the name of Rest Hollow." + +"Proceed." + +"My own concern in the affair was simply that of business manager," the +witness continued, "so I remained in Los Angeles for I could manage the +financial end of it just as well from that short distance." + +The district attorney suddenly broke the thread of the story here. "Then +you deliberately avoided an encounter with the patient?" + +"I did." + +"Why?" + +"The maladies which are classed as mental are particularly repugnant to +me. I was under no obligation to see him, and I had a business of my +own to which this was merely a side issue." + +"But it is true, is it not," Dayton cut in, "that you received a +generous salary from Mr. Everett Kenwick for this--long distance +supervision?" + +"I received from him an allowance to be spent upon the upkeep of the +grounds, the comfort of the patient, the wages of an attendant, and so +on. I sent him a monthly statement of the bills when I had received and +checked them." + +"You say you had another business; what was it?" + +"Publicity writer for the Golden State Land Co. of Los Angeles." + +"They own large mineral spring holdings in our neighboring county on the +south, do they not?" + +"Yes." + +"And how long had you been interested with them at the time of this +interview at the Kenwick home?" + +"About six months, I think." + +"Did Mr. Kenwick know of this other business interest?" + +"Certainly. That is one thing that led to his choosing me as his agent. +He knew that I was permanently located in southern California and that +I had established myself with a reputable company. It was a guarantee of +permanence--and character." + +"One moment longer, Mr. Glover, before you go on. Was the elder Mr. +Kenwick aware of the fact that while you were in his employ you never +visited Rest Hollow but once?" + +"I did visit Rest Hollow. I went there every month to see that the place +was properly kept up and the attendant on duty. But I always went at +night. I held my interviews with Dr. Marstan alone." + +"Go on." + +The narrative skipped now to the following November when the witness +told of having received a communication from Dr. Marstan informing him +that, owing to a mechanical accident, Roger Kenwick had recovered his +sanity; that he, the physician, had carefully tested him and was fully +convinced of this. It had been impossible just at that time for Glover +himself to go to Mont-Mer as he was ill. And before he had had time to +send more than a brief note in reply, the attendant wrote again saying +that his former patient was bitterly opposed to having his brother know +of his recovery, and had threatened him, the doctor, if he betrayed the +news. Kenwick, he said, wished to use his present position to get more +money out of his brother for some investment that he was then planning, +for he knew that in case his recovery were known, it would be a long +time before the court would grant him the control of his property, and +his father's will had provided that he was not to inherit his half of +the estate until he should have reached the age of twenty-five. + +The witness had not thought it expedient to notify Dr. Marstan of the +elder Kenwick's death, so that he could not report this to the patient. +They had evidently had hot words upon the subject of the disclosure of +the patient's condition, Marstan being highly scrupulous and not being +willing to retain his position as keeper when it was merely nominal, an +arrangement upon which the young man himself insisted. + +In order to prevent the patient from carrying out some sinister threat, +Marstan had locked his charge into the house and gone into town probably +to consult a lawyer upon the proper course for him to pursue. This much +he could surmise from a half-written letter which the witness himself +had found on the evening that he returned to Mont-Mer. + +"And that was the state of things when you arrived at Rest Hollow on +the evening of November 21?" Dayton asked. + +"That was the state of things." + +"Describe the condition of the house and grounds on the evening of the +tragedy." + +The witness did so, with the same unhurried attention to detail. + +"And when you came upon the body of the dead man under the dining-room +window, why did you conclude that it was your former charge, Roger +Kenwick?" + +"Every circumstance seemed to point to it. And I found upon the body +possessions that seemed unmistakable evidence." + +"Describe those possessions." + +"A wrist-watch with the initials R.K. upon the inside; a silver +match-case with the one initial K.; a linen handkerchief with that +initial." + +"But you said, did you not, in the early part of your testimony, that +the patient's personal possessions had been taken from him when he +became incompetent?" + +"They had. But all of his things were in Doctor Marstan's possession. +They were in his apartments, and any normal person could easily have +found them, and naturally Kenwick would have demanded them." + +"Had you ever seen a picture of Roger Kenwick to aid you in your +identification of his body?" + +"No. But I knew his age, and it seemed to correspond exactly with that +of the dead man. Furthermore he looked like a person who was wasted by +ill health. I hadn't a doubt that it was he." + +"How did you think that he had met his death?" + +"By suicide. I believed then that the doctor had been mistaken and that +he had not made a complete recovery." + +"When did you begin to suspect, Mr. Glover, that instead of being dead, +the prisoner was a deliberate murderer?" + +"Not until I discovered that he had made his escape from Rest Hollow. I +saw his name on a hotel register in San Francisco and I became alarmed +and put a detective on his track, for I felt responsible for him and was +not convinced that he should be at large. But the detective reported to +me that Kenwick showed absolutely no signs of abnormality. Then I came +down here and followed the back trail. And I discovered that Marstan had +been killed in an automobile accident on the day when he had come into +town for legal aid. By inquiring of the gardener at Rest Hollow I +learned that he had seen a young man out under the dining-room window +talking to Kenwick early in the afternoon. The prisoner was entreating +this stranger to let him out and----" + +"Let that witness give his own testimony. That will do, Mr. Glover." +Then, as he was about to leave the stand, "No, just a minute. You say it +was about midnight when you discovered the body. Did you notify the +coroner?" + +"That was my first impulse; but I found that the telephone was out of +order, so I decided to wait until it was light before going in for him. +But in the morning, just as I finished dressing, he came. He told me +that he had been notified by some one else." + +"By whom?" + +"I don't know. He said that he was out of town when the message came in, +and found it awaiting him when he returned. I got the impression that he +didn't know himself who had reported the tragedy." + +This last testimony corresponded in every detail with that given by +Annisen, who described minutely his findings upon the body, the +discovery, a short distance away, of the loaded revolver with a shot +fired out of it, and the haggard condition of the face, indicating long +invalidism. The body, he said, had lain in the morgue until the +following afternoon and been viewed by scores of the morbidly curious. +Not one person had recognized it, nor apparently entertained the +slightest suspicion that it was not the unfortunate inmate of Rest +Hollow. And so he had felt justified in accepting Richard Glover's +declaration of the dead man's identity. He knew that the patient's +keeper had been killed in an automobile accident the day before, and +every circumstance seemed to point to a suicidal frenzy. + +His story was followed by that of a gawky, frightened-looking boy who +kept his eyes riveted upon the prosecution's chief witness while he +talked. He disclaimed all knowledge of the arrangements concerning the +patient's guardianship, his business being merely to care for the garden +and furnace. He had never come into close contact with the patient +himself; had only seen him at a distance sometimes, wandering about the +grounds alone. He had always seemed perfectly quiet and harmless, but +he, the gardener, had been afraid that he might some time have a "spell" +such as he had heard of in similar cases, and so had kept carefully out +of his way. + +In the late afternoon of November 21, he reported, when he returned from +a far corner of the place where he had been pruning, he had found the +patient lying in a faint on the floor of the garage. With some effort he +had dragged him into the house and left him in the drawing-room, after +bandaging his swollen leg as well as he could and forcing part of a +glass of whisky down his throat. Then he had departed, after first +making sure that the doors and windows on the ground floor were securely +fastened. Late the following afternoon he had seen the prisoner standing +at the dining-room window and had heard him call out in a threatening +way to him. A moment afterward, without the slightest warning, the +patient had doubled his fist and smashed the pane of glass to fragments. +Convinced that this was one of the "spells" which he had dreaded, he had +waited until he thought the patient was in bed and had then returned and +boarded up the window. + +Here Dayton interrupted. "And you believed the man in the house to be +ill and alone, and yet you felt no concern about his care?" + +"I didn't think he was alone. I had seen a woman around the place that +afternoon, and I thought she was his nurse." + +A murmur swept around the breathless court-room. Everybody in the +audience made some comment to his neighbor upon this new development. +The judge rapped sharply for order. "Go on," commanded the district +attorney. + +The witness proceeded to relate that he had gone to bed that night +feeling nervous over the patient's conduct and had resolved to give up +his employment at Rest Hollow. About eleven o'clock he had been roused +from a fitful sleep by a knock at his door. Upon opening it he had found +Gifford, the undertaker, standing on the threshold. Here he endeavored +to recollect the exact words of the night caller, and after a moment's +pause, produced the greeting: "Get up, boy. Do you know that there's +been murder committed on this place to-night?" With Gifford he had +hurried around to the dining-room side of the house and had discovered +the dead body lying there under an oleander bush, near the very window +which the patient had so unaccountably broken that same afternoon. +Terrified, he had not paused to give the body even a fleeting glance, +but had stumbled back to his room and made a hasty bundle of his +clothes, determined not to pass another hour on that place. He +remembered Gifford calling after him that he was not going to touch the +body until the coroner had seen it. Ten minutes later he had fled, +leaving his door unlocked behind him. + +He was dismissed from the stand, and after a moment of whispered parley, +came the demand, "Call Arnold Rogers." + +A young man wearing heavy-rimmed glasses took the stand and told of his +encounter with the prisoner on the evening of November 21. He described +the scene at the gate in careful detail, halting frequently to correct +himself. The district attorney interrupted him in mid-sentence. + +"Did it strike you at any time during the dialogue, Mr. Rogers, that the +man inside the grounds might be--irrational?" + +"Yes, but that idea did not occur to me until the end of the interview. +Being a complete stranger in the community, I knew nothing about him, of +course, but his voice and method of appeal struck me as being a little +abnormal, and when I was starting away and he stretched a letter through +the gate and asked me to mail it for him I was convinced that he was not +rational. I was formerly a director at one our State hospitals for the +insane and I know that the mania of patients to write letters and ask +visitors to mail them is one of the commonest symptoms of their +affliction." + +"And so you paid no attention to that appeal?" + +"I was escorting a lady. I planned to take her home first and then +return or send somebody. My car was disabled and I felt responsible for +my companion." + +"Who was the lady?" + +"My sister, Mrs. Paddington. I was visiting at her home. And when we had +gone on our way she told me, what I had already begun to suspect, that +the inmate of Rest Hollow was a mental invalid; that he was well cared +for, and although the case was pathetic, we need feel under no +obligation to return. His attendant, we reasoned, had already discovered +him by that time and taken him back to the house. We had both dismissed +him from our minds when about half an hour later a woman rushed up to +our door, breathless from a long trip by foot, and told us that the +inmate of Rest Hollow had killed himself; that she had found him lying +dead under the dining-room window. I don't remember just who 'phoned the +news in to the proper authorities, but I think it was she. My sister +offered to send her into town in one of her cars, and did so. We never +knew her name nor saw her again." + +"And you credited the woman's story as it stood?" + +"We saw no reason to doubt it. It fitted exactly with our encounter at +the gate. The time was a coincidence, too. We assumed that the young +man's attendant had not arrived in time to save him from suicide. And +there was another reason, too, why we did not care to give the matter +more intensive investigation." He stopped and glanced appealingly at his +questioner, but there was no relenting in the lawyer's eyes. "My sister +had a guest visiting her to whom the name of Roger Kenwick +brought--unhappy associations. She was unfortunately present at the +arrival of the woman from Rest Hollow, and after the shock of the +announcement was over we carefully avoided all further discussion of the +tragedy. The following morning, in courtesy to our guest, I went over to +the Raeburn house with some flowers from the Utopia gardens, and +verified the report that the patient was dead. The next day my sister's +friend left for her home in San Francisco and we considered the affair a +closed incident." + +The testimony of the other witnesses for the prosecution was given in +due order, and the case summed up against Roger Kenwick charged him +with having laid a deliberate plot to murder Marstan, his former keeper, +he being the only man, he thought, who could interfere with his +financial plans, and prevent him from playing upon his brother's +chivalric affection. + +It was pointed out that only a month before his recovery the Kenwick +estate had trebled its value, owing to the fact that leather goods, +which were the source of the Kenwick income, had trebled in value since +the beginning of the war. From newspaper accounts and discussions with +Marstan himself, the recovered patient had shrewdly sized up the +situation and laid his plans. It was previously stated that the elder +Kenwick had, before his brother's misfortune, kept a jealous grip upon +the family purse, and that during his college days at the State +University, Roger Kenwick had been obliged to eke out his allowance by +doing newspaper work on one of the San Francisco dailies. Only in his +softened mood was Everett Kenwick to be counted upon for continued +generosity. + +On the day of the tragedy, the ward had watched Marstan closely and had +seen him depart for town. Earlier in the afternoon he had himself shown +signs of violence in order to sustain the impression that he was still +irresponsible. Kenwick's plan to kill his warden was perfectly safe, +for he knew that if the crime ever came to light he could be cleared on +an insanity charge. His worse punishment would be commitment to an +institution, from which he could later be released by proving himself +cured. + +On the way out from town the doctor's car had pitched over a cliff, +killing him instantly. Kenwick, ignorant of the tragedy and lying in +wait for his victim, saw a man steal in late at night through the side +entrance. No callers ever came to the place, so having no doubt that it +was the returning warden, he had crept up behind him in the darkness and +shot him in the head with the revolver which his attendant always kept +loaded for an emergency, and which the patient by spying upon his warden +one night, had discovered. + +A few minutes previous to the murder he had played a skilful part at the +front gate, holding up the first person who passed and telling an +incoherent story which he knew, coming from him, would not be believed, +and which would be of valuable assistance in case it were ever necessary +to prove an insanity charge. + +When he discovered that he had killed the wrong man, he adopted a plan +which proved him not only rational but unusually astute. From a +previous conversation with the dead man, whom he now recognized as a +fellow who had once come in to assist with some work on the car, he knew +him to be a stranger in the community. He knew himself to be equally +unknown, except by name, and it was an easy matter to exchange +identities. So Kenwick had transferred to the dead man certain of his +own personal possessions which he discovered after his mental recovery. +He had selected these carefully and with diabolical cunning, placed them +in the other man's pockets, and then made his escape from the place +either by foot or in the wagon of the undertaker, which must by this +time have arrived. + +When he reached Mont-Mer, the testimony continued, he had given a +fictitious name, gained the sympathy and credence of the doctor and +undertaker, and finally, by a clever ruse, escaped from town as +custodian of the body of the very man whom he had planned to kill. +Knowing that Marstan was dead, he felt himself completely secure and +foot-free to carry out his designs. The only person upon whom he did not +reckon, because he didn't know of his existence, was Richard Glover. + +The one missing link in the story was supplied by evidence which, +although circumstantial, seemed undeniably convincing to the jury. The +woman who had notified the coroner must also have been an inmate of Rest +Hollow, the mistress of Marstan, who had lived in ease and luxury, +unknown to the physician's employer or any one else. She knew that her +reputation lay in Kenwick's hands. She was tired of Marstan and was +eager but afraid to escape. The criminal had supplied her with the means +at small cost. The time of the disclosure of the crime had been +skilfully worked out between them. And it had been executed with a +masterly skill. Depot authorities had reported later that a woman +traveling alone had bought a ticket on the late train for San Francisco +that evening. The station-agent remembered the incident perfectly. By +good luck Kenwick had caught the same train. They had traveled to the +city together. + +Glover, who had been recalled to the stand and was giving this +testimony, stated that upon dismissing the detective from his employ he +had followed the case himself and was certain that Kenwick and his +accomplice had lived together intermittently in San Francisco, and that +he had been supplying her with funds. + +It was at this point that Roger Kenwick, who had been sitting like a man +frozen to his chair, suddenly electrified the court-room by springing +to his feet. He had forgotten his surroundings, was contemptuous of the +formalities, oblivious to everything save the insolent assurance in +Richard Glover's eyes, and the steady gaze with which Marcreta Morgan's +brother was regarding him. His sensitive nostrils quivered like those of +a highly strung race-horse. His hands, those hands so impatient of +delay, were clenched till the knuckles showed through the drawn skin +like knobs of ivory. He struggled to speak but no words came. Then he +became aware of the fact that the sheriff was forcing him back into his +seat. Dayton leaned over and whispered sharply to him. "Sit down, man. +You'll kill your case. What do you want them to think of you?" + +The words recalled him to his surroundings. From sheer physical weakness +he sank back into his chair. Another moment intervened while the +auditors relaxed from the moment of tension. Then out of the deathly +silence came Dayton's voice again, calm and with no trace of excitement. + +"You say that when you first discovered the prisoner in San Francisco +you employed a detective to help you on his case, Mr. Glover. Look +around the court-room. Is that man present?" + +"He is." There was a shade of reluctance in the reply. + +"What is his name?" + +"Granville Jarvis." + +The next moment Glover had stepped down from the stand and resumed his +place at the far end of the long table. Dayton leaned across to his +client. "Jarvis?" he inquired, his pencil poised above his pad. +"Granville Jarvis; is that the name?" + +The light had gone out of Kenwick's eyes and the fire out of his voice. +He had crumpled down in his chair like a man suddenly overcome with a +spinal disease. He looked at Dayton with dead eyes. + +"The name," he said bitterly, "is Judas Iscariot!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +It was two o'clock before court, which had been dismissed for lunch +after Richard Glover's testimony, convened again. During the noon hour a +tray containing the only tempting food which the prisoner had seen since +his incarceration was brought up to his cell. It had become apparent to +the jailer that he had friends, and perhaps he was moved thereby to a +tardy compassion. But Kenwick, despite Dayton's admonition to "Brace up +and eat a good meal," waved it indifferently aside. + +"I'm done for," he said simply. "I don't see how any twelve men could +hear the evidence that was presented this morning and find me innocent. +And by the time Jarvis gets through telling anything he likes, and +proving it----Well, it appears that every person who has been connected +in any way with me since this trouble fell upon me has taken advantage +of my misfortune to enrich himself. I don't care much now what they do +with me. When you lose your faith in humanity it's time to die. I'm no +religious fanatic, Dayton, but for these last two months I've thanked +God on my knees every night of my life for having brought me back into +the light. Now I wish that I had died instead." + +Dayton made no further effort to rouse him from his despair. For +although not of a sensitive or particularly intuitive temperament +himself, he had come to realize the utter impossibility of finding this +other man in his trouble. "You don't seem to have much faith in me," was +all he said as he made some notes on the back of an envelope. But he +finally induced his client to eat some of the food upon his tray and +after the first few mouthfuls Kenwick was surprised to find that he was +ravenously hungry. + +"That's something like," the lawyer approved, as they made their way +back through the court-house grounds. "Now you're good for another three +hours." + +It hadn't seemed possible to Kenwick that he was, that his nerves could +stand the strain of hours and hours more of this, and there was no +assurance that the ordeal would end to-day or to-morrow. But Dayton's +easy assurance gave him a new grip upon himself. + +They found the audience waiting and eager. None of them seemed to have +moved since they had been dismissed for recess two hours before. Only +the jury were absent, but five minutes after Kenwick's arrival they +filed in and took their places. The district attorney appeared to have +lost interest in the case. He sat staring out of the window with a sort +of wistful impatience as though he were visualizing a potential game of +golf. Dayton glanced at some notes on the table at his elbow and issued +his first command. "Call Madeleine Marstan." + +In response to this summons one of the veiled women in the rear of the +room rose and came forward. She was quietly dressed in a gown of +clinging black silk and a black turban with a touch of amethyst. Every +eye in the court-room was fixed upon her, but she took the oath with the +unembarrassed self-possession of one long accustomed to the public gaze. +Kenwick, turned toward her, detected a faint odor of heliotrope. + +"Where do you live, Mrs. Marstan?" Dayton inquired. + +She gave a street and number in San Francisco. + +"What is your occupation?" + +"I am an actress." + +"Do you know the prisoner?" + +Without glancing at him she replied, with her unruffled composure, "I +do." + +"How long have you known him?" + +"About two months." + +"Describe the occasion on which he was first brought to your notice." + +She settled back slightly in her chair, like a traveler making herself +comfortable for what promised to be a long journey. "It was on the +afternoon of November 19 that my husband, a physician, came into our +apartment in San Francisco and announced to me that he had just secured +a remunerative position with a wealthy man down at Mont-Mer. He said +that the work would begin immediately and we must be ready to leave the +following day. I asked him for more details and he told me that the +position was a secretaryship which would involve little labor and afford +us a luxurious home with excellent salary. He had never been a success +in his profession, owing chiefly to the fact that he was dissipated, and +I had seriously considered leaving him and going back to the stage. But +I had decided to give him another chance, and since he appeared to find +my questions concerning this new work annoying, I agreed to go and allow +him to explain more fully when we should arrive. + +"We went down in our own car and arrived at Rest Hollow in +mid-afternoon. My husband showed me over the house and grounds and I +thought I had never seen such a beautiful place. There was no one about +when we came, and after he had given me every opportunity to be +favorably impressed with the new home, we went to an upstairs +sitting-room in the left wing, and he told me, while he smoked one of +the expensive-looking cigars that he found there, further details +concerning his employer. I learned that he was an invalid, a young man +by the name of Roger Kenwick, who was recuperating from too strenuous +service overseas. We discussed the matter for only a few minutes before +my husband announced that it was time for him to go to the depot and +meet his charge, who was being brought up from Los Angeles by the +previous companion, who had taken him there to be outfitted with winter +clothes. + +"This development in the case rather startled me, and as we walked along +the upper hall and over into the right wing, which he said had been +recently cleaned but was not to be used, I demanded more specific +details concerning the arrangement. I wanted particularly to know why +there was to be a change of 'secretaries' and whether the young man +himself was willing to accept the companionship of people whom he had +never seen. + +"My husband had been drinking. I think he must have found a well-stocked +wine-closet at Rest Hollow. And he finally grew furious at my +insistence. The more angry he became the more he betrayed to me the fact +that there was something to conceal. He had never told me the name of +the man who had offered him this position, but I knew that there must be +an intermediary. While I continued to question him he opened the door of +one of the rooms in the right wing, hoping, I suppose, to distract my +attention. We went on with our discussion there. And at last I refused +pointblank to have anything to do with the affair, and told him that I +was going to leave him and go back to the profession that would afford +me an honest living. This infuriated him. He lost all self-control and +confessed then, what I had already begun to suspect, that young Kenwick +was a mental patient and had been in no way consulted in the +arrangement. This disclosure terrified me, for I knew that my husband +was not a competent person for such a responsibility. Hot words followed +between us, and ended in his knocking me senseless on the floor. When I +recovered consciousness, perhaps an hour later, I found myself locked +into the room with no possible means of escape. The blow had dislodged a +vertebra and I was in horrible pain. For a long time I lay on the bed +massaging the injured place and trying to get comfortable. + +"Early in the evening I heard some one being dragged into the house from +the rear. I was unable to see anything, of course, but I could +distinctly hear footsteps and the subsequent running around of an +attendant. I concluded that my husband had returned drunk, and I was +relieved to know that he had evidently not brought the patient with him. +I knew that I had no recourse but to wait until the stupor had worn off +and my husband came to release me. I spent a wakeful and wretched night. +In the morning----" + +Here a vivid and convincing description of her first encounter with the +patient ensued. She drew a clear-cut picture of her own horror in +hearing footsteps outside her door and of having the name "Roger +Kenwick" called in through the closed portal; of her terror at finding +herself unaccountably alone with a man whom she believed to be a violent +maniac. + +Here Dayton held up the narrative. "What evidence did he give to +convince you of his insanity?' + +"None at first. He seemed to talk quite rationally, and fearing that I +might make him angry if I kept silence, I made evasive answers to his +questions. He prepared food and sent it up to me at what I know now must +have been immense physical cost to himself. I had come to the conclusion +that he, like myself, was the victim of some foul conspiracy and had +decided to risk confiding in him when all at once his manner changed. He +began to talk wildly of finding a loaded revolver and of shooting any +one who came near the place. A few minutes later, for no apparent +reason, I heard him smash a window in the room just under mine. My +terror increased a hundredfold, for I know absolutely nothing about the +proper care of the insane. Late that same night I heard him crawl out +through the broken window, and he called up to me that he was either +going to get help or commit suicide. + +"Almost insane myself now with terror, I waited until I heard his +footsteps grow faint in the distance, then worked at the lock of my +door, and at last succeeded in picking it with a pen-knife. Then I +rushed downstairs, turned on the lights, and tried to make my escape. I +had several of my own personal keys in my possession, and with one of +these I opened the front door, which had been securely locked, I suppose +by the gardener. My one frantic object was to get away and find my +husband. + +"But just as I got the door open I heard a shot fired from the side of +the house. I hurried around there, and when I reached the spot from +which the sound had come, I found just what I feared--a man lying dead +under the window. I thought, of course, that it was the patient who had +killed himself in a mania, as he had threatened to do. Filled with +horror at the idea of leaving him there alone and uncovered in the +storm, I ran back to the living-room, picked up the first thing at hand +(an Indian blanket), and threw it over him. Then I hurried to the +nearest house, about a mile away, and gave the alarm. + +"Believing that it was my husband's neglect that had caused the tragedy, +my purpose was to find him and get his version of the story before I +betrayed him. So I furnished no further information to the authorities +in town save that Roger Kenwick, the inmate of Rest Hollow, had +committed suicide. I really knew nothing else about it but that bare +fact. + +"But that night I discovered, when I reached Mont-Mer, that my husband +had been killed in an auto accident while coming out from the depot. I +went to the morgue and identified his body, ordered the remains to be +shipped north for interment, and left, unknown to any one, on the late +northbound train. The undertaker told me that there had been no other +victim of the tragedy, so I reasoned that the story which Mr. Kenwick +had told me about a sprained leg was true, after all, that he had been +injured in the catastrophe and had, by a curious freak of chance, found +his way back alone to the very place that was awaiting him and in which +he had been living for the preceding ten months." + +Dayton declared himself satisfied with the testimony and turned the +witness over to the prosecution. The district attorney had recovered his +interest. "Mrs. Marstan," he said, groping for his glasses, "can you +produce a certificate of marriage to Dr. Marstan?" + +"I cannot. Important papers, including that, were among the few things +that I took to Rest Hollow in November, and you have been informed that +the place is completely destroyed." + +"That will do." + +She stepped down from the stand, and for the first time her eyes rested +upon the prisoner. In them was an expression that would have given him +new courage had he seen it, but Roger Kenwick sat motionless as a +statue, his gaze fixed immutably upon the floor. It was only when the +name of the next witness was called that he came back to a sense of his +surroundings. "Call Granville Jarvis." + +Dayton surveyed the Southerner sharply before he put his first question. +"You are the detective whom Richard Glover employed in San Francisco to +shadow the prisoner?" + +"I am." + +"How long were you in Mr. Glover's employ?" + +"About two weeks." + +"Two _weeks_? Why did you give up the case then?" + +"Because at the end of that time I was convinced that Roger Kenwick was +neither mentally unbalanced nor guilty of any crime. I communicated this +opinion to Mr. Glover and resigned from further service." + +"But you still continued to shadow the prisoner?" + +"I still continued to cultivate his acquaintance. I considered him one +of the most interesting men I had ever met." + +"And your connections with him since then have been of a purely +friendly character? Not in any way professional, Mr. Jarvis?" + +"No, I can't say that. For a few weeks after I had resigned from Mr. +Glover's service I was asked to take up the case again from a different +angle; employed, I may say, by some one else." + +"By whom?" + +For just an instant the witness hesitated. Then, "By Mr. Clinton +Morgan." + +"Describe that incident, please." + +Jarvis clasped his hands behind his head and stared off into space. "It +was near the end of December that Professor Morgan came to my rooms one +evening and asked my assistance on the case of Richard Glover." + +For the first time since the beginning of the trial, the chief witness +for the prosecution betrayed an unguarded emotion. The narrow slit of +amber, showing between his drooping lids, widened. + +"My caller," Jarvis went on, "explained to me that he and his sister, +who were friends of Roger Kenwick, had stumbled upon a clue the previous +day that had made them suspect that there was foul play about his death; +that perhaps he might even be alive after all, and a base advantage +taken of his helplessness." + +Here Dayton interjected a question. "Was there any special reason why +Professor Morgan should have chanced upon you as the detective for this +investigation? Had you had any previous connection with him?" + +"Only an academic connection. He knew, through university affiliations, +that I was out here on the coast doing some research work for Columbia +in my chosen profession--criminal psychology." + +"Then you are not a detective?" + +"Not in the strict sense of the word. The finding out of a criminal is +only the introductory part of my interest." + +"Proceed with your story, Mr. Jarvis." + +"Well, Professor Morgan and I had lunched together several times over at +the Faculty Club on the campus, so I was not greatly surprised to +receive a call from him. Furthermore, having heard the other side of +this case, I was much interested in the opportunity to study it from a +new angle. For while I was in Mr. Glover's employ, I had, unsuspected by +Kenwick himself, subjected him to a variety of exacting psychological +tests. Under the pretext of making some photographic experiments in +which I was at that time interested, I had enlisted his aid on several +occasions and in this way had made a rather thorough examination of his +five senses, his power of association, his memory (both for +retentiveness and recall), and had tried him out, by means of various +athletic games, for muscular coördination, endurance, poise, and many +other essentials of normality. In only one of these did I find him +defective. And that one was memory. + +"My research was made the more interesting by the fact that shortly +after I undertook the work for Mr. Glover the subject gave me, +voluntarily and quite unsuspectingly, the complete story of his strange +adventure at Rest Hollow, an adventure for which he frankly confessed +that he could not account. It coincided exactly with the hypothesis +which I had established for him; that he had at one period of his life +been mentally unbalanced, and that he had in some way re-gained his +sanity but not completely his memory. When I knew that there was likely +to be a crime attributed to him (for Mr. Glover had hinted as much) my +interest doubled. For Mr. Kenwick had on various occasions shown himself +possessed of the highest ideals and a fineness of caliber which I have +not often encountered. And so, in the employ of Professor Morgan, I +shifted the focal point and turned the search-light of science upon the +accuser. It has resulted in the most startling revelations." + +There was an inarticulate stir in the crowded room. From the rear seats +men and women strained forward to catch every word as it fell, clear-cut +and decisive, from the scientist's lips. Jarvis sat with one hand thrust +into his pocket, and his keen eyes fixed upon the group of lawyers +below. A casual observer of the scene might easily have mistaken his +position and assigned to him the role of prosecuting attorney. + +"There was an insurmountable barrier, of course," he continued, "to my +making any personal examination of Mr. Glover, as I had done with the +former subject. One man was innocent and unsuspecting; the other, I felt +certain, would be on his guard. And he was. Since I left his service, +Richard Glover has avoided me. So a more indirect means of accomplishing +my task had to be devised. After some consideration I decided to enlist +the aid of an ally whom I knew to be both clever and discreet." + +A long-drawn sigh swept the court-room. It was that sigh, a mixture of +eagerness and satisfaction by means of which an audience at a theater +indicates to the actors that the performance is living up to its +advertisements. + +"Mr. Kenwick himself," the witness went on in his calm, even voice, "had +called my attention to a certain Madame Rosalie, a spiritualistic +medium, who was taking the city by storm. He had interviewed her for his +paper, and from his description I imagined that she might be able and +willing to assist me. So I went to see her, and at the first mention of +Mr. Kenwick's name she became intensely interested." + +Here Dayton's voice, sounding a curious little note of exultation, broke +in again. "You have referred to this medium as 'Madame Rosalie.' Was +that her professional or her real name?" + +"Her professional name. Her real name, as she disclosed it to me on the +occasion of my first call, was Madeleine Marstan." + +Another moment of silence and then the witness proceeded. "Having told +me her real name, she went on to describe her unexpected encounter, a +few days previously, with Roger Kenwick, who she had thought was dead. +It seemed that when Kenwick had come to her for a sitting, his name had +been accidentally revealed to her by another client, and it had struck +her with the force of a blow. For it recalled to her mind a horrible +adventure at Mont-Mer, which she narrated for me then in detail. At +first she had surmised that this must be some relative of the +unfortunate young man, and she had done all she could, she said, to +start him upon the track of the tragedy. When she discovered that it was +the man himself, she was glad to place all her powers at my disposal. +For she had returned to the city in November with two dominating +purposes; first to find some employment which would bring in quick money +and so pay her husband's debts and clear his name, and second to +discover, if possible, the identity of the man who had led them both +into the miserable Mont-Mer trap, which resulted so disastrously for +every one concerned in it. She had not been able to make a stage +contract, she said, for the season was too far advanced, and so she had +turned to the occult, in which she had always felt a deep interest, and +for which she knew herself to have an unaccountable talent. Fortunately +her strange psychic ability had caught the attention of one of the +university faculty and she had been given just the publicity which she +needed. + +"And so we deliberately plotted between us the scientific testing of +Richard Glover. I prepared a list of apparently random words in which +were mingled what I call 'dangerous terms'; that is, words which were +connected with the adventure at Rest Hollow. When these and the other +tests were ready, I induced Glover, by means of a casual suggestion from +a mutual acquaintance, to seek the aid of 'Madame Rosalie.' I felt +certain that if he were not intimately connected with the tragedy he +would scorn this idea, and that if he were, it was exactly the time that +he would turn to the supernatural for aid. And I was not mistaken. For +almost immediately he called upon the clairvoyant. And his response to +the tests for association was amazing even to me. If I may quote from +the list of words----" He drew a folded paper from his pocket. "Among +many perfectly irrelevant terms I had smuggled in such words as +'blanket' and 'window' and 'oleander.' Madame Rosalie reported that his +gaze always returned to such suggestive words (despite her admonition to +look at something else) before she could change the card. The +subconscious response to evil association was almost perfect. There were +many other tests, of course, and by the time he had completed them he +had shown an intimate knowledge of the crime at Rest Hollow and an +uneasiness from which any skilful psychologist could take his +starting-point. And then, as a culminating incident, he supplied to the +medium, quite of his own accord, the name 'Rest Hollow,' and put to her +the unexpected question, 'Where is Ralph Regan?' + +"Having been thus convinced that he was the man we sought, Mrs. Marstan +and I continued our investigations together. She went out with him, upon +several occasions, and once, by pre-arrangement, accompanied him to the +theater. On the same evening I invited Kenwick, and, all at once, called +his attention to Glover. The response was like match to powder. The +visual image of his former warden restored, in large degree, his memory. +He was eager to reëstablish the connection. Mrs. Marstan had been +careful to point out Kenwick to her escort, and the result was just what +we had foreseen. It was he who evaded the encounter, supplying a pretext +upon which he and Mrs. Marstan immediately left the theater. + +"But Glover now suspected that he was entrapped. He had already, I knew, +put another detective upon Kenwick's track. When news was published of +Mrs. Fanwell's arrival in Mont-Mer, and the subsequent demand to have +the disappearance of her brother investigated, he decided that his only +course was to act at once. Mrs. Marstan, aided by her unmistakable +psychic ability, had advised him to follow his third plan, and this +plan was to have Kenwick convicted of murder." + +"And this was the report that you turned over to Professor Morgan at the +end of your investigation?" Dayton inquired. + +"This was the report. I was working on it with him up in San Francisco +until late last night. We almost missed the train trying to fit together +the final details. But I think the story, as I have given it to you, is +now complete." + +"Now, one other thing, Mr. Jarvis. In the first part of your testimony +you said that Mr. Morgan told you that he had stumbled upon a clue that +had made him suspicious of Glover. Did he disclose to you the nature of +that clue?" + +"Not at first. I told him that I preferred to work upon some theories of +my own, unprejudiced by any evidence that he might have to offer." + +"And how many times have you seen Mr. Morgan since then?" + +"Only once. We came down from San Francisco together last night." + +"Then you made no reports to him before?" + +For the first time, the witness hesitated. Then his reply came with the +customary clearness. "Not to him. I have reported to Miss Morgan on +several occasions." + +"Then you have been really working with her upon this case?" + +"Yes, almost entirely with her." + +There was a very obvious reluctance in his voice now, but Dayton went on +imperturbably. "When you came down from San Francisco last night, Mr. +Jarvis, was Professor Morgan's sister in your party?" + +"Yes." + +Dayton swept a glance over the rows of faces before him. "Is Miss Morgan +in the court-room now?" + +"She has just come in." The promptness with which the witness had given +his earlier testimony served to make his present reluctance the more +apparent. + +Dayton brought his eyes back to the witness-stand. "That will do." + +Jarvis stepped down. The voice of the auditors, beginning in a subdued +murmur, rose in marked crescendo. No word in it could be distinguished +from another. Yet upon Roger Kenwick's sensitive nerves this message +from the outer world registered. It was unmistakably applause. + +For the first time since the trial began, he felt his mask of graven +indifference slipping from him. He was trembling in every fiber, and +with one unsteady hand he made a pathetic effort to quiet the other. And +then there fell upon his ears like the crash of thunder Dayton's curt +command, "Call Miss Morgan." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +As the men standing in the far aisle made way for the new witness, +Kenwick sat with averted eyes. Through the open window he stared out at +the court-house palms which grew to gigantic size and then diminished +under his blistering gaze. It was a monstrous thing, he told himself, +for Clinton Morgan to allow this; to permit his sister to subject +herself to such a strain. What could he be thinking about? But +underneath his miserable apprehension for her there was something else; +something else that sent the fiery blood rioting through his veins. For +she must have been willing. Over and over he repeated to himself this +assurance. She must have been willing to come to his defense, for had +she not been, they could have found a way to avoid it. + +Marcreta Morgan, in long fur-trimmed motor-coat and dark veil, took the +place which Granville Jarvis had vacated. She had none of Madeleine +Marstan's calm self-assurance, but although she gave her testimony in a +low voice, it was distinctly audible throughout the court-room. She sat +with one gloved hand clasping the arm of the chair and her eyes resting +upon Dayton. Only once, at the very end of the examination, did she +raise them to meet the argus-eyed spectators. Dayton put his questions +in an easy conversational tone as though he and the witness were alone +in the room. + +"Miss Morgan, how long have you known the prisoner?" + +"About two years." + +"Describe the occasion of your first meeting." + +She did so in words that sounded carefully rehearsed. + +"And after he left San Francisco to go East and visit his brother did +you ever hear from him?" + +"Yes. He wrote frequently, telling me about his brother's recovery from +illness and other affairs, and then later that he had decided to enlist +in the army." + +"At that time, Miss Morgan, had you ever known the State's witness here, +Richard Glover?" + +"It was about that time that I first met him." + +"Describe your first encounter with him." + +Again the carefully prepared report. But she was gaining in +self-possession now, and the veil seemed to annoy her. With steady +fingers she reached up and removed it. Clinton Morgan, watching her +from the front row of seats, with a hawklike vigilance, was suddenly +reminded of that Sunday night in the old library when she had first +broken her long silence concerning Roger Kenwick, and had seemed all at +once to come into a belated heritage. + +The jurymen were leaning slightly forward in their seats, their eyes +fixed upon the regal, fur-coated figure with delicately flushed profile +showing clear-cut as a cameo against the frosted window-pane. Dayton +thought that he caught an elusive fragrance that reminded him of +something growing in his mother's garden. + +"And how many times," he proceeded, "how many times have you seen +Richard Glover during the past year?" + +"I can't say exactly. For several months after our first meeting I +didn't see him at all. But during the last three months his calls have +been more and more frequent." + +"Has your brother known of these visits?" + +"My brother was in government service in Washington until about two +months ago. He didn't know of them until he returned." + +"And has he approved of them?" + +"No, I can't say that he has." + +"Did he ever give any reason for his opposition?" + +"He told me that he suspected Mr. Glover of being an adventurer who was +in need of----" + +Here the district attorney interrupted. "We object. The suspicions of +another person are irrelevant, incompetent, and have nothing to do with +the case." + +"Sustained," the judge decreed. "Stick to the facts, Mr. Dayton." + +"During those three months, Miss Morgan, has Richard Glover made an +effort to induce you to marry him?" + +Her reply was given in a very low voice, but Dayton was sure that the +jury caught it and he did not ask her to repeat. It was evident that the +audience heard it, too, for another murmur rose and trailed off into +silence before the lawyer went on. "Is it true that _you_ were the one +who discovered the clue which led you and your brother to seek the +services of Mr. Jarvis on this case?" + +She acknowledged it with a single word. + +"And what was that clue?" + +The gloved fingers closed a little closer over the arm of the chair. And +then followed a story which caused Roger Kenwick to tear his gaze away +from the fantastic palm-trees and fix it upon Richard Glover's face. +There was no resentment in his eyes, but only the dawning of a great +light. Granville Jarvis, watching him as a physician might watch beside +the bedside of an unconscious patient, knew by the leaping flame in +those somber eyes that the last lap of the long journey had been +covered, and that Roger Kenwick's memory had come home to him. But if +that knowledge brought him a scientist's satisfaction, he gave no sign +of it. After that one intent moment, his eyes returned to the +witness-stand and fixed themselves upon Marcreta Morgan's face. Dayton +was proceeding relentlessly. + +"If you knew from the first that Richard Glover had stolen this story +which he read to you as his own, why didn't you relate the circumstance +to Mr. Kenwick when you saw him on the night that he was arrested for +murder?" + +The reply came haltingly, as though the witness were feeling her way +over uneven ground. "My brother and I had consulted Mr. Jarvis about +that and he had advised against it. He didn't wish to arouse any +suspicions in--in the prisoner's mind just then. And--well, you see, Mr. +Kenwick and I had not seen each other since his--illness and during +that first meeting we both avoided everything connected with--with the +tragedy as much as possible. Of course if we had known that this charge +of--of crime was to be preferred against him, I suppose we would have +acted differently." + +This was no carefully rehearsed response, but nothing that she could +have said would have disclosed more clearly the inside workings of the +opposition's conspiracy. The web that had been woven around the prisoner +had enmeshed with him every one who had ever been intimately associated +with his past. + +And now that romance had entered upon the sordid scene the whole aspect +of the case was changed. The air became charged all at once with an +electric current of sympathy. To every man and woman in the room Richard +Glover now appeared in the guise of a baffled adventurer, and Roger +Kenwick as a man who had loved, and because of cruel circumstance had +lost. But had he really lost? The crux of public interest shifted with +the abruptness of a weathercock, from mystery to romance. + +"You assert, Miss Morgan, that you knew this story, 'A Brother of +Bluebeard,' to be the one which the prisoner had read to you before he +left for the East almost two years ago. What proof could you furnish of +this?" + +"At the time that Mr. Glover read the story to me I had in my possession +the sequel to it, which Mr. Kenwick had sent me in manuscript for my +criticism, just before he left for training-camp. It used many of the +same characters and was rooted in the same plot." + +"Could you produce that manuscript?" + +"Mr. Jarvis can produce it. I turned it over to him." + +The former witness leaned forward and laid a heap of pencil-written +manuscript upon the table. But Dayton scarcely glanced at it. With one +hand he pushed it aside, and then shifted the current of his interest +into another channel. "When, and by what means, Miss Morgan, did you +discover that Roger Kenwick had returned from France mentally disabled?" + +Her reply to this question came in a voice that was struggling against +heavy odds for composure. "It was exactly one year ago to-day that I +received that news. Several letters of mine to--the prisoner were +returned to me unopened. And with them came a communication from Mr. +Everett Kenwick telling me that--that it had become necessary for them +to send his brother to a private asylum." + +"Did you know where that asylum was?" + +"Not then. He told me that he was debating over several different places +but that he had almost decided upon a friend's home in southern +California. He didn't tell me where this home was. I think he realized +that--that I would rather not know." + +"And when did you discover that that place was Mont-Mer?" + +"On the night that Mr. Kenwick was reported dead." + +A murmur that was distinctly a wave of sympathy filled the chamber. But +eagerness to catch the next question quieted it. + +"After that first letter telling you about the prisoner's misfortune, +did you ever hear from Mr. Everett Kenwick again?" + +"Only once. Just a week before he died, he wrote again. He had just lost +his wife and he seemed to have a premonition that he was not going to +live very long." + +She was feeling for her handkerchief in the pocket of the fur-trimmed +coat. Some of the men in the court-room averted their eyes. The face of +more than one woman softened. Clinton Morgan sat regarding his sister +with a curious composure. In his eyes was that mixture of compassion and +awe that he had worn on the night when the gold and ivory book had +betrayed to him her secret. + +"Yes?" Dayton went on gently, but with the same relentless persistence. +"He wrote to you again? And what did he say?" + +"He said that he wanted me to have something that had belonged--to his +brother. He told me that he felt that Roger Kenwick would have wished me +to have it. And with the letter there came a box in which I found----" + +She had finished her search in the pocket of the motor-coat, and now she +held something between her gloved fingers. "Mr. Everett Kenwick himself +had only received it a short time before. There had been some delay and +confusion about it, owing I suppose to his brother having been sent +home--in just the way that he was. He himself never knew that he had won +it. But it was such a wonderful display of courage----And the French +officer whose life he had saved sent a letter, too, saying that France +was grateful and wanted to express her appreciation in some way so----" + +And then she held it up before them; before the lawyers and the jury +and the crowd of spectators--a bit of metal on its patch of ribbon. +Holding it out before them, she sat there like a sovereign waiting to +confer a peerage. And not the judge's gavel nor the commanding voice of +the district attorney could still the tumult that rose and swelled into +tumultuous applause. + + * * * * * + +On the day following the notorious Kenwick murder trial, the Mont-Mer +papers carried little other news. A special representative from the "San +Francisco Clarion" and several Los Angeles journalists fed their copy +over the wires and had extras out in both cities by eight o'clock. + +"Kenwick Acquitted" was the head-line which his own paper ran, with his +picture and one of Richard Glover sharing prominence upon the front +page. And because of Kenwick's previous connection with this daily and +the fact that the two star witnesses for the defense were well known in +the Bay region, the "Clarion's" story was the most comprehensive and +colorful. + +It opened with a report of Dayton's speech which, it appeared, had +electrified every one in the court-room, including the prisoner himself. +But it had been unnecessary for the attorney to make a plea for his +client, after the quietly dramatic testimony of the last witness for +the defense. In thrilling terms the "Clarion" described Kenwick's final +service at the front, when he had made his way alone across +No-Man's-Land and saved for France one of her most gallant officers, and +had given in exchange that thing which is more precious than life +itself. Only through an accident, which had killed the man who had meant +to batten upon his misery, had he been released from a pitiable bondage. + +Having thus sketched in his "human interest," the reporter proceeded to +tell the story which had proved so overwhelmingly convincing to the jury +and audience. How, in his skilfully planned narrative, Richard Glover +had transposed the identities of the two dead men. How, upon receiving +his commission from Everett Kenwick, he had first turned over his charge +to Ralph Regan, admitted by his own sister to be an addict to drugs and +a ne'er-do-well whom she was helping, in a surreptitious way, to +support. How the accounts, forwarded from the Kenwick lawyer in New +York, showed that Regan must have received out of the arrangement only +his living and enough of the drug to keep him satisfied but not wholly +irresponsible. How, upon his own infrequent visits to the patient (whom +he himself had conducted across the continent instead of the mythical +Bailey) Glover had foreseen two months before the tragedy that Regan +could no longer be relied upon and had told him that he was about to be +dismissed. + +How he had then secured the services of one Edward Marstan, whom he +believed to be without family, and who represented himself as a +physician in good standing but heavily in debt. How the arrangement had +been made that he assume charge of the patient at the Mont-Mer depot, +whither Kenwick was to be brought up from a day's sojourn in Los Angeles +by Regan. How the physician, accompanied by his wife, had arrived from +San Francisco that very day; how Marstan had quarreled with his wife, +and leaving her unconscious in a room at Rest Hollow, had gone into town +to get his charge. How, on the way out from town he had been killed in +an accident while driving his own car, and how, by a curious fate, +Kenwick had been restored to sanity and had found his way back alone to +his former asylum. + +The story then went on to relate how Ralph Regan, evidently desperate +over his loss of a home and drug supplies, had returned to Rest Hollow +by stealth the following night, either to make a plea to the new +caretaker or to search for drugs, and of how, finding the house dark and +apparently deserted, he had forsaken all hope of reinstatement and had +ended his life with the revolver which he had brought either for murder +of Marstan or for suicide. The shot which he fired, the paper stated, +had evidently been used to test his own nerve or the cartridges; and it +had done its work. Letters written to his sister a few weeks before the +tragedy, and produced by her in court, indicated a depression amounting +to acute melancholia. + +Recalled to the witness-stand and subjected to crucial +cross-examination, the gardener at Rest Hollow had broken down in his +testimony, admitted that he was afraid of Glover, and that although he +had been in too dazed a condition on the fatal night to examine the body +of the dead man, he knew Ralph Regan to have been the former attendant +and had frequently talked to him about the patient's symptoms, about +which Regan appeared to know little and care less. + +The narrative then went on to tell how Richard Glover had discovered +among the possessions of his charge certain manuscripts which he deemed +suitable for publication, and how he had, after the death of the elder +Kenwick, sold one of them under the name of Ralph Regan, choosing a +real rather than a fictitious name in order that he might shift the +theft to helpless shoulders if it were ever discovered. How he had, with +the Kenwick capital entrusted to him, invested in large realty holdings +which had completely absorbed his attention. How he had padded his +accounts in order to wring extra money from Everett Kenwick under the +guise of "special treatments" for the patient and so on. How on the +night of the fatality he had driven to Rest Hollow from Los Angeles to +give some final instructions to the new employee, and how, stumbling +upon the dead body of Regan, he had been shocked to find himself +involved in a tragedy. How he had then cold-bloodedly decided to have +the body identified as Kenwick, partly to save himself from the charge +of criminal neglect and partly because he knew that Everett Kenwick had +left in his will a bequest that was to come to him "for faithful +service" upon the death or recovery of his brother. How, not dreaming +that his charge would ever recover, he had thus used his death as a +means of gaining extra funds which he badly needed just at that time. + +How he had accordingly selected certain of the patient's personal +possessions with which he had been entrusted, to deceive the coroner. +How all the subsequent action had seemed to play into his hands: the +coroner's easy acquiescence in the suicide theory and the identity of +the body; the chance discovery, through Arnold Rogers, that the story of +Kenwick's self-destruction had already been accepted by the community. + +How, preceding the coroner's inquest, Glover had spent the morning +tracing the antecedent action of the tragedy and had heard of the +accident which had killed Marstan. How he had erred in suspecting that +the real victim of the tragedy was Kenwick and that the attendant had +had the body identified as his own and then made his escape, fearing to +communicate the news of the disaster to his employer. How he, Glover, +had been startled to discover later that Kenwick was not only alive but +had apparently recovered his mental health. + +The remainder of the story was given as the testimony of Madeleine +Marstan, well-known favorite in the former Alcazar stock company, and +Granville Jarvis, expert psychologist, whose skilful work was a strong +plea for the admission of that newest of the sciences into court-room +procedure. + +During this latter testimony, the "Clarion" asserted, interest had been +divided between the ultimate fate of the accused and the valuable +contributions which the laboratory experiments of the witness had given +the case. The word-tests which he had provided to the medium were, he +had explained, one of the surest means of discovering the train of +associations which lodge in the guilty mind. He had never been convinced +that Glover himself had committed a murder, but suspected that his crime +lay in trying to fasten it upon a man whom he knew to be both innocent +and helpless. The cards, containing a mixture of irrelevant and relevant +words, had been shown him and then he had been instructed to turn his +head in the opposite direction. These instructions he had carefully +observed except in the cases of terms which held evil associations. In +such cases his eyes almost invariably turned back to the card with the +printed word. Such terms as "gravel" and "oleander" had produced this +attraction. But they had also aroused his suspicions. And from the day +of his first call upon "Madame Rosalie" the situation between them had +been a succession of clever manoeuvers. Neither one of them had dared +to let the other go. But in this encounter Mrs. Marstan had had the +advantage. What he was able to find out about her was little compared +with what she had discovered concerning him. + +That she possessed unmistakable psychic powers could not be disputed. By +a means of communication, which she could not herself explain, she had +received at the time of Roger Kenwick's interview with her a message +from the spirit of Isabel Kenwick, confessing that it was she who had +unwittingly brought Richard Glover into his life, and entreating his +forgiveness. + +As to the concluding story of the actress, it was concerned with her +description of how she had identified the body of her husband at the +morgue on the evening of her flight from Rest Hollow; of how she had +turned all arrangements for its shipment and burial over to the Mont-Mer +and San Francisco undertakers, desiring to figure as little as possible +in connection with the death of the man who had ruined her life. Of how +she had succeeded in paying the debts against his name and had recently +signed a stage contract with an eastern theatrical company. + +When the trial was ended the crowd that jammed the room rose and surged +toward the man in the prisoner's box, like a human tidal wave. "Keep +them back, Dayton," Kenwick implored. "I don't want to talk to them." + +Somehow his attorney managed to check the onrush, and the throng of +congratulatory spectators was headed toward the exits. The room was +almost empty when some one touched the prisoner's arm. + +"Can you give me a few words?" It was one of the local reporters. +"You're a newspaper man yourself, Mr. Kenwick, and you know how it is +about these things." + +Kenwick shook him off. "Come around later, to the hotel, if you like," +he said, and turned to take a hand that was timidly held out to him. + +"I didn't know whether you'd be willing to speak to me or not, Mr. +Kenwick. But I just wanted to tell you that I'm satisfied, more than +satisfied with--the way it has all come out." + +"I am glad to hear that, Mrs. Fanwell," Kenwick told her gravely. "I +would never have been quite satisfied myself unless I had heard you say +that. I wish you would leave your address with Dayton, for, you see, I +feel a little bit responsible for you, and I would like to put you in +the way of getting a new hold on life." + +The only other person in the room with whom he stopped to talk was +Madeleine Marstan, who stood in conversation with Dayton near the door. +To her his words of thanks were the more eloquent perhaps because they +came haltingly, impeded by an emotion which he could not master. + +"It was nothing," she told him. "Nothing that I didn't owe you, Mr. +Kenwick." + +"I don't see that you owed me anything," he objected. "As the affair has +developed, we were both the victims of an ugly plot. It certainly was +not your fault. And once out of that accursed house, _you_ were free." + +"Not my fault--no," she repeated, "but my responsibility afterward." She +gazed past him out of the window where, at the curb, Arnold Rogers was +assisting a fur-coated figure into the Paddington limousine. "You see, +Edward Marstan was my husband and----Well, some day you may come to +realize, Mr. Kenwick, that when a woman has loved, there is no such word +as 'free.'" + +At the foot of the stairway Kenwick spoke with an almost curt +suppression to Granville Jarvis. "I'm going over to the hotel with +Morgan. Come over there." + +The other man made no reply save a slight inclination of his head, and +there was in his eyes an expression which haunted and mystified the +released prisoner. + +"Jarvis is a wizard," he said to Clinton Morgan as they walked the few +short blocks to Mont-Mer's leading hostelry. "If they ever let down the +bars of the court-room to men like that, they'll revolutionize legal +procedure. He seems to have seen this case from every angle." + +"From more angles than you imagine," his friend replied. "And he had let +me in on some of the most interesting of his findings that were not +revealed in court. For instance, he examined that gardener this morning, +just for his own satisfaction. The boy was willing, even flattered by +the attention. Jarvis told me afterward that a witness like that ought +to be ruled out of court. And he is typical of the mass of men and women +who assist in acquitting the guilty and sending the innocent to the +gallows. The average physician examining him would pronounce him normal. +He can hear a sound distinctly, for instance, but he is afflicted with +that common defect, the equivalent, Jarvis says, of color-blindness in +the visual realm, which makes it impossible for him to tell whether the +sound comes from behind or in front of him. And he lacks completely a +visual memory. He could recall the exact words that Gifford said to him +on the night of the suicide but he couldn't remember whether the body +was covered or uncovered when he saw it. And as for the tests with +Glover----By the way, what are you going to do with Glover?" + +"I don't know yet. I haven't got that far. I think I can forgive him +everything except that infamous story about Everett being close with me +while I was under age. Why, I had too much money while I was in college, +Morgan. That's the chief reason why I didn't push my literary work with +greater zeal. The creative temperament is naturally indolent. It +requires a spur, not necessarily a financial one, but so much the better +if it is. Of course Glover and I will have to have a financial +reckoning. I can see now why my frantic messages to our family lawyer +were never answered. I suppose he's had dozens of communications from +people purporting to be connected by blood or marriage with the Kenwick +estate. Yes, Glover has got some things to answer to me for, but----" +His mind flew back to that last evening that he had spent in the +fire-lit living-room on Pine Street. "He brought hell into my life for a +time," he ended slowly. "But he brought--something else into it, too." + +It was half an hour later, after Kenwick had bathed and dressed for +dinner, that Granville Jarvis came up to his room. Kenwick admitted him +with an inarticulate word of greeting. Then while with fumbling fingers +he put on a fresh collar, he made an attempt at normal conversation. + +"Been expecting you," he said. "Morgan is down in the lobby. We'll all +have dinner here first and then----" + +"Can't do it," Jarvis cut in. "I have another engagement for dinner, and +I'm leaving town on the eight-forty northbound. I just ran up to say +good-by and--good luck." + +"Where are you going?" + +Jarvis smiled. "To Argentina, so far as you are concerned. But you can +call it Columbia if you like. I'm returning to my work there. You see, +I've been away on leave." + +"You've got to stay long enough for me to tell you something," Kenwick's +voice cut in authoritatively. "But you couldn't stay long enough, +Jarvis, for me to thank you for what you've done." + +His caller held up a hand. "Please don't. Not that--please." + +"But," Kenwick went on, "you've got to hear an apology. I was just about +on the verge of a collapse over there, and when you got up in court as +the representative of Glover----Well, I didn't know the game, you see +and I thought----" + +"I know; Brutus." It was Jarvis who finished the sentence. "And in a +sense, you were right," he went on slowly. "For what I did, I did--not +for you." + +"You did it for science, of course; because to you I was an interesting +case. But what can I ever do to repay you? How can----" + +"I have been paid." The same haunting, baffling expression was in the +scientist's eyes, and he was not looking at the man whom his testimony +had freed. + +"Oh, I don't mean money!" Kenwick cried hotly. "I know you have that!" + +"I don't mean money, either." He forced his gaze back to his host. And +then that sixth sense which is in the soul of every creative artist +awoke in Kenwick's being and made his eyes luminous with understanding. + +Jarvis picked up his hat from the chair into which it had dropped. "I'm +going out to the Paddingtons' for dinner," he said casually. "I'll have +about----" He snapped open the cover of his watch, then closed it again. +"The most devilish thing about life on this planet, Kenwick, is that we +can't do very much for each other. The game is largely solitaire. But +for any good that I ever did I've been well repaid. Any man ought to be +satisfied, I think, when the gods allow him two full hours--in Utopia." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was the morning after his acquittal that Kenwick and Marcreta Morgan +drove out of the Paddington gateway in one of the Utopia machines. They +turned to the left and took the stretch of perfect asphalt road that led +to the old Raeburn house. + +The mystery of its destruction had never been explained. Richard Glover, +and every one else who was connected with the case of Ralph Regan, had +proved a satisfactory alibi. The owner of Rest Hollow had been notified +by wire of its destruction and he had replied with orders that the +grounds were to be kept locked and admission denied to all callers. It +had undoubtedly been one of the handsomest homes in a community of +handsome homes, but since the first days of its existence fate had +destined it for tragedy. And perhaps its owner was relieved to know that +only a pile of whitening ashes marked the grave of his own romance and +the prison of another man's hope. At all events, the mystery of its +passing never has been solved, and conjecture concerning it is still a +favorite topic around the tea-tables of Mont-Mer's fashionable suburban +district. + +"But I want to _see_ it in ruins," Kenwick had told Marcreta after their +first radiant hour together. "I want to know that it is really gone off +the face of the earth, so that when it comes to me in memory I can +assure myself that it is only a dream." + +They turned the last corner and came suddenly in sight of the tall iron +gate. Across it a sinister chain swung ominously, warning the world away +from communication with that most dreadful affliction that can befall a +human soul. The ruins of Rest Hollow loomed somber and shapeless before +them, and Roger Kenwick brought his car to a stop in the very spot where +Arnold Rogers had once halted, hesitated, and then gone on his way. +Guarding the pile like a battered but relentless sentinel was the tall, +charred chimney of the dining-room. As he looked at it, Kenwick's hand +sought instinctively for that of the woman beside him, as though to +assure himself of her reality. And then he heard himself ask the +question that for so long had beaten against his brain. + +"How could you do it? How could you send me away that night, dear, into +the horrors of war and--this, without hope?" + +"I couldn't know," she told him desperately. "I couldn't foresee what was +coming. And I wanted you to win a place in the world. I wanted you to +win, as I knew you could if you were unhampered by----" + +"Unhampered!" He echoed the word incredulously, as though it were quite +new and its meaning not clear. "Is any one ever hampered by love and +inspiration and all that----" + +"You don't understand," she said. "Nobody can understand physical +disability except those who have suffered it. My mother had a sister who +was a bed-ridden invalid. She helped her husband to find his place in +the world and keep it. But he never seemed to realize that she had +helped him. He always thought, though I suppose he never said, that his +marriage had held him back. And she died at last of a broken heart. +Through all my youth I had her tragedy before me." + +There was a moment of silence between them. And then Kenwick spoke +slowly. "You hadn't much faith in me, Marcreta. You admit now that you +loved me, yet you hadn't much faith--in my character or my----" + +"But love comes a long time before faith, Roger. It always does. And I +was younger then. I didn't know so much about life and--and character. +But, oh, when they wrote me about this! I would have given anything on +earth to have lived over again our last night together!" + +"I know! I know!" His voice was vibrant with self-reproach. + +"Your brother must have been splendid," she went on. "He wrote me such a +wonderful letter. But he couldn't soften it; nobody can ever dilute the +big tragedies of life. We must drink them unstrained. I knew that you +were somewhere in this county, and when I came down here, just that one +time, I liked to feel that I was near you. I couldn't have endured to +see you, but I wanted to be near you for a little while before--I did +anything else. And then that night when you came back, I couldn't be +sure----Everything was so changed. You were so different from the +carefree boy who had gone away. I knew, of course, that you would be; in +a sense, I wanted you to be. But I didn't want you to feel bound by +anything that had gone before. I was afraid you might feel that way. Oh, +a woman is at such a disadvantage, Roger. She is always at a +disadvantage if the man she loves is honorable and chivalrous." + +"I had work to do," he reminded her gently. "I had to quiet the title to +my name. For when a woman marries a man, Marcreta, she marries his past, +every bit of it. Before I could offer my life to you again, I had to be +certain that every minute of it was clean and decent and above reproach. +I was not willing to let any of it go on the grounds of +irresponsibility. I never would have been satisfied. And you never would +have been satisfied. There would always have been for both of us +terrible moments of doubt. The bramble-bush lay between us. I had to +tear it away first; I had to tear it away and look bravely at whatever +lay underneath." + +A shaft of golden sunlight suddenly broke through the January clouds and +slanted across the road. Roger Kenwick's eyes followed it as though +seeking for the treasure that might lie revealed at last at the end of a +rainbow. A sharp exclamation escaped him. And he felt the quick response +of the hand that still lay in his. + +Drawing the heavy motor-cloak closer about her, he helped Marcreta +Morgan out of the car and guided her to a spot about a hundred yards on +the other side of the iron gate. "I remember now!" His words came in the +low, awed voice of one who suddenly encounters in broad daylight some +object that has played conspicuous part in an evil and oft-recurring +dream. + +"At last!" he said, and stood rooted to the roadside gazing at the thing +for which, during the last two months, he had been so desperately +groping. "This one thing," he went on, "this one thing about those +impenetrable months here I do remember. I believe that if I had chanced +to see it on that afternoon of my recovery, if I had only chanced to +come this way instead of around by the other road, it might have +restored to me some memory of this place." + +They stood now on the edge of the strip of pavement, where dead leaves +spread a spongy carpet between the asphalt and the barbed-wire fence +that bordered the opposite estate. And what they looked upon was a huge +boulder, half embedded in the earth. By some mighty and persistent force +it had been rent asunder, and now, up through the cleft which tore its +surface with a long jagged scar, a sapling eucalyptus-tree, perfectly +shaped and beautifully proportioned, had pushed its way. A zephyr or +perhaps a bird had sown the seed in this rock-bound prison. And with a +vitality that appeared incredible it had taken root and grown there, +stretching vigorous, red-tipped leaves heavenward. In some miraculous +manner its tap-root had found the sustaining soil, and its flame-colored +crown the sunlight. There it stood, on the lonely road to Rest Hollow, a +living torch of liberty, flaunting its heroic triumph above the +shattered body of its foe. + +"On the day that Glover first brought me here, I saw that tree." +Kenwick's voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "I remember looking +out at it from an opening in the fence. I didn't know just why I was +here, but I had a sense of--I can't describe it to you--but it was a +sense of _imprisonment_. I knew that if I wanted to get out of that +place I couldn't do it, and there's no feeling on earth like that. And +then I saw--this, and it thrilled me. In a curious, unexplainable way it +gave me hope. I don't recall anything else about the place, and I don't +remember whether I ever saw this again. But during these last two months +I have been looking for something that I knew I had lost out of my life, +and here it is." + +Marcreta Morgan reached over and touched the sapling's damp bark with +reverent fingers. From a cleft in the conquered boulder came the pungent +odor of the crushed leaves that were sustaining this new life. She +turned to the man beside her with shining eyes. + +"The resurrection!" she cried. + +He drew her close to him beneath the tender branches of the valiant +little sapling. + +"An imprisoned soul," he whispered, "liberated at last--by the miracle +of love." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Rest Hollow Mystery, by Rebecca N. Porter + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40416 *** |