The Indian Drum Part 15

She flushed uneasily. "You mustn't attach any importance to that; I didn't mean you to. There was no reason for what Mr. Corvet said, except in Mr. Corvet's own mind. He had a quite unreasonable animosity--"

"Against Mr. Spearman, you mean."

She did not answer.

"His animosity was against Mr. Spearman, Miss Sherrill, wasn't it?

That is the only animosity of Mr. Corvet's that any one has told me about."

"Yes."

"It was against Mr. Spearman that he warned you, then?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." He turned and, not waiting for the man, let himself out.

He should have known it when he had seen that Spearman, after announcing himself as unable to get back to the office, was with Constance.

He went swiftly around the block to his own house and let himself in at the front door with his key. The house was warm; a shaded lamp on the table in the larger library was lighted, a fire was burning in the open grate, and the rooms had been swept and dusted. The Indian came into the hall to take his coat and hat.

"Dinner is at seven," Wa.s.saquam announced. "You want some change about that?"

"No; seven is all right."

Alan went up-stairs to the room next to Corvet's which he had appropriated for his own use the night before, and found it now prepared for his occupancy. His suitcase, unpacked, had been put away in the closet; the clothing it had contained had been put in the dresser drawers, and the toilet articles arranged upon the top of the dresser and in the cabinet of the little connecting bath. So, clearly, Wa.s.saquam had accepted him as an occupant of the house, though upon what status Alan could not guess. He had spoken of Wa.s.saquam to Constance as his servant; but Wa.s.saquam was not that; he was Corvet's servant--faithful and devoted to Corvet, Constance had said--and Alan could not think of Wa.s.saquam as the sort of servant that "went with the house." The Indian's manner toward himself had been noncommittal, even stolid.

When Alan came down again to the first floor, Wa.s.saquam was nowhere about, but he heard sounds in the service rooms on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

He went part way down the service stairs and saw the Indian in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Wa.s.saquam had not heard his approach, and Alan stood an instant watching the Indian's tall, thin figure and the quick movements of his disproportionately small, well-shaped hands, almost like a woman's; then he scuffed his foot upon the stair, and Wa.s.saquam turned swiftly about.

"Anybody been here to-day, Judah?" Alan asked.

"No, Alan. I called tradesmen; they came. There were young men from the newspapers."

"They came here, did they? Then why did you say no one came?"

"I did not let them in."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing."

"Why not?"

"Henry telephoned I was to tell them nothing."

"You mean Henry Spearman?"

"Yes."

"Do you take orders from him, Judah?"

"I took that order, Alan."

Alan hesitated. "You've been here in the house all day?"

"Yes, Alan."

Alan went back to the first floor and into the smaller library. The room was dark with the early winter dusk, and he switched on the light; then he knelt and pulled out one of the drawers he had seen Spearman searching through the night before, and carefully examined the papers in it one by one, but found them only ordinary papers. He pulled the drawer completely out and sounded the wall behind it and the part.i.tions on both sides but they appeared solid. He put the drawer back in and went on to examine the next one, and, after that, the others. The clocks in the house had been wound, for presently the clock in the library struck six, and another in the hall chimed slowly. An hour later, when the clocks chimed again, Alan looked up and saw Wa.s.saquam's small black eyes, deep set in their large eye sockets, fixed on him intently through the door. How long the Indian had been there, Alan could not guess; he had not heard his step.

"What are you looking for, Alan?" the Indian asked.

Alan reflected a moment. "Mr. Sherrill thought that Mr. Corvet might have left a record of some sort here for me, Judah. Do you know of anything like that?"

"No. That is what you are looking for?"

"Yes. Do you know of any place where Mr. Corvet would have been likely to put away anything like that?"

"Ben put papers in all these drawers; he put them up-stairs, too--where you have seen."

"Nowhere else, Judah?"

"If he put things anywhere else, Alan, I have not seen. Dinner is served, Alan."

Alan went to the lavatory on the first floor and washed the dust from his hands and face; then he went into the dining-room. A place had been set at the dining table around the corner from the place where, as the worn rug showed, the lonely occupant of the house had been accustomed to sit. Benjamin Corvet's armchair, with its worn leather back, had been left against the wall; so had another unworn armchair which Alan understood must have been Mrs. Corvet's; and an armless chair had been set for Alan between their places. Wa.s.saquam, having served the dinner, took his place behind Alan's chair, ready to pa.s.s him what he needed; but the Indian's silent, watchful presence there behind him where he could not see his face, disturbed Alan, and he twisted himself about to look at him.

"Would you mind, Judah," he inquired, "if I asked you to stand over there instead of where you are?"

The Indian, without answering, moved around to the other side of the table, where he stood facing Alan.

"You're a Chippewa, aren't you, Judah?" Alan asked.

"Yes."

"Your people live at the other end of the lake, don't they?"

"Yes, Alan."

"Have you ever heard of the Indian Drum they talk about up there, that they say sounds when a s.h.i.+p goes down on the lake?"

The Indian's eyes sparkled excitedly. "Yes," he said.

"Do you believe in it?"

"Not just believe; I know. That is old Indian country up there, Alan--L'arbre Croche--Cross Village--Middle Village. A big town of Ottawas was there in old days; Pottawatomies too, and Chippewas.

Indians now are all Christians, Catholics, and Methodists who hold camp meetings and speak beautifully. But some things of the old days are left. The Drum is like that. Everybody knows that it sounds for those who die on the lake."

"How do they know, Judah? How do you yourself know?"

"I have heard it. It sounded for my father."