The Black Eagle Mystery Part 24

"No," I heard myself say, "they have _not_ found him."

"Thank you," she murmured, and went back to her play with the pencil.

I drew myself to the edge of my chair and laid a hand on the corner of the desk:

"You've asked me a question and I've answered it. Now let _me_ ask one.

Why are you so interested in the movements of Johnston Barker?"

She stiffened, I could see her body grow rigid under its thin silk covering. The hand holding the pencil began to tremble:

"Wouldn't anyone be interested in such a sensational event? Isn't it natural? Perhaps knowing Mr. Barker personally-as I told you in Mr.

Whitney's office-I'm more curious than the rest of the world, that's all."

The trembling of her hand made it impossible for her to continue drawing. She threw down the pencil and locked her fingers together, outstretched on the paper, a breath, deep taken and sudden, lifting her breast. It was pitiful, her lonely fight. I was going to say something-anything, to make her think I didn't see, when she spoke again:

"Do any of you-you men who are hunting him-ever think that he may not be _able_ to come back?"

"Able?" I exclaimed excitedly, for now again I thought something was coming. "What do you mean by able?"

I had said-or looked-too much. With a smothered sound she jumped to her feet and before I could rise or stay her with a gesture, brushed past me and moved to the window. There, for a moment, she stood looking out, her splendid shape, crowned with its ma.s.s of black hair, in silhouette against the thin white curtains.

"Look here, Miss Whitehall," I said with grim resolution, "I've got to say something to you that you may not like, may think is b.u.t.ting in, but I can't help it."

"What?" came on a caught breath.

"If you know anything about Barker-his whereabouts, his inability to come back-why don't you tell it? It will help us and help you."

She wheeled round like a flash, all vehement denial.

"_I-I?_ I didn't mean that I _knew_. I was only wondering, guessing.

It's just as I told Mr. Whitney that day. And you seem to think I'm not open, am hiding something. Why should I do that? What motive could I have to keep secret anything I might know that would bring Mr. Barker to justice?"

As she spoke she moved toward me, bringing up in front of me, her eyes almost fiercely demanding. Mine fell before them. It was no use. With my memory of those letters, of her mysterious plot with Barker clear in my mind, I could go no farther.

I muttered some sentences of apology, was sorry if I'd offended her, hadn't meant to imply anything, was carried away by my zeal to find the absconder. She seemed mollified and moved to her seat by the desk. Then suddenly, as if a spring that had upheld her had snapped, she dropped into the chair, limp and pallid.

"I'm tired, I'm not myself," she faltered. "I don't seem to know what I'm saying. All this-all these dreadful things-have torn me to pieces--"

Her voice broke and she averted her face but not before I'd seen that her eyes were s.h.i.+ning with tears. That sight brought a pa.s.sionate exclamation out of me. I went toward her, my arms ready to go out and enfold her. But she waved me back with an imploring gesture:

"Oh go-I beg of you, go-I want peace-I want to be alone. Please go-Please don't torment me any more. I can't bear it."

She dropped her face into her hands, shrinking back from me, and I turned and left her. My steps as I went down the hall were the only sounds in the place, but the silence seemed to thrill with unloosed emotions, to hum and sing with the vibrations that came from my nerves and my heart and my soul.

The big moments in your life ought to come in beautiful places, at least that's what I've always thought. But they don't-anyway with me. For as I went down that dingy staircase, full of queer smells, dark and squalid, the greatest moment I'd ever known came to me-I loved her!

I'd loved her always-I knew it now. Out in the country those few first times, but then more as a vision, something that wove through my thoughts, aloof and unapproachable, like an inspiration and a dream. And that day in Whitney's office as a woman. And every day since, deeper and stronger, seeing her beset, realizing her danger, longing with every fiber to help her. It was the cause of that burst of the old fury, of the instinct that kept me close and secretive, of this day's fruitless attempt to make her speak. All the work, the growing dread, the rush of events, had held me from seeing, crowded out recognition of the wonderful thing. I stood in the half-lit, musty little hall in a trance-like ecstasy, outside myself, holding only that one thought-I loved her-I loved her-I loved her!

Presently I was in the street, walking without any consciousness of the way, toward the Park. The ecstasy was gone, the present was back again-the present blacker and more terrible after those radiant moments.

I don't know how to describe that coming back to the hideous reality.

Everything was mixed up in me-pa.s.sion, pity, hope, jealousy. There was a s.p.a.ce when that was the fiercest, gripped me like a physical pang, and then pa.s.sed into a hate for Barker, the man she loved who had left her to face it alone. I think I must have spoken aloud-I saw people looking at me, and if my inner state was in any way indicated on my outer envelope I wonder I wasn't run in as a lunatic.

In a quiet bypath in the Park I got a better hold on myself and tried to do some clear thinking. The first thing I had to do was to rule Barker out. Even if my fight was to give her to him I must fight; that I couldn't do till we heard from Ford. Until then it was wisdom to say nothing, to keep my pose of a disinterested adherent of the theory of her innocence. If Ford's story exculpated her she was out of the case forever. If it didn't I couldn't decide what I'd do till I heard where it placed her.

It was a momentary deadlock with nothing for it but to wait. That I was prepared to do-go to Buffalo, get through my job there and come back.

But I'd come back with my sword loose in its scabbard to do battle for my lady.

CHAPTER XIV

MOLLY TELLS THE STORY

You can imagine after that disappointment in Philadelphia-it seems an unfeeling way to speak of the death of an old gentleman-how we all turned our eyes and kept them fixed on Tony Ford.

Friday night Babbitts told me the hospital had reported he couldn't be seen till Monday. The others were in a fever, he said, O'Mally smoking big black cigars by the gross and Jack Reddy gone off to Buffalo, and Mr. George that scared Ford would slip off some way he'd have liked to put a cordon of the National Guard round the hospital.

Then came Sat.u.r.day-and Gee! up everything burst different to what anybody had expected.

It started with Mr. George. Being so nervous he couldn't rest he called up the hospital in the morning and got word that there'd been a mistake in the message of the day before and that Mr. Ford was well enough to see the Philadelphia detectives that afternoon. Before midday Babbitts and O'Mally were gathered in, and while I was waiting on pins and needles in Ninety-fifth Street and Jack Reddy was off unsuspecting in Buffalo, the two of them were planted by Tony Ford's bedside, hearing the story that lifted the Harland case one peg higher in its surprise and grewsomeness.

O'Mally and Babbitts had their plans all laid beforehand. They were two plain-clothes men from Philadelphia, who had just come on a new lead-the finding of Sammis. When they'd opened that up before him, they were going to pa.s.s on to the murder-take him by surprise. If Ford made the confession they hoped to shake out of him, the warrant for his arrest would be issued and the Harland case come before the public in its true light.

Babbitts had never seen Ford and when he described him to me it didn't sound like the same man. He was lying propped up with pillows, his head swathed in bandages, and his face pale and haggard. Under the covers his long legs stretched most to the end of the cot, and his big, powerful hands were lying limp on the counterpane. He was in a private room, in an inside wing of the hospital, very quiet and retired.

When the attendant left and they introduced themselves he looked sort of scowling from one to the other. Both noticed the same thing-a kind of uneasiness, as if his apprehensions were aroused, and for all his broken head he was on the job, not weak and indifferent, but wary and alert.

This wasn't what they wanted so they started in telling him the news they thought would please him and put him at his ease. A clue had been picked up in Philadelphia that looked like the mystery of his attack was solved.

"In fact," says O'Mally, "a man's been run to earth there that we're pretty sure is the one."

Both men were watching him and both saw a change come over him that caught their eyes and held them. Instead of being relieved he was scared.

"Have you got the man?" he said.

O'Mally nodded:

"That's what we have."

"Who is he?"

"Party called Sammis. Answers to the description--"

Before he could go further Ford raised himself on his elbow, looking downright terrified.

"Joseph Sammis?" he said, his eyes set staring on O'Mally.