The Black Eagle Mystery Part 32

Then he turned his whole attention to business, flung himself into it.

The making of money filled his life, became his life till he saw the girl in the elevator, who so strikingly resembled the woman he had loved in his youth.

"This was what he told Carol and this she believed. She was convinced of the truth of every word and tried to convince me. But I was full of suspicions. Having found himself the father of such a girl might he not go to any lengths to gain her love and confidence? His life was empty, he was lonely, Carol would have been the consolation and pride of his old age. Gentlemen-" she looked at the listening faces-"can you blame me? A youth blasted, years of brooding bitterness-might not that make a woman incredulous and slow to trust again?

"When she saw the way I took it she went about the business of proving it. Through a lawyer she learned that contract marriages at that time in that state were valid. I _had_ been Johnston Barker's wife and she was legitimate. But I hung back. Many things moved me. He wanted to acknowledge us, take us to live with him and I shrank from all that publicity and clamor. Also-I am telling everything-I think I was jealous of him, fearful that he might take from me some of the love which had made my life possible.

"I knew she saw him often, and that she heard from him by letter. All through the end of December and the early part of January she urged and pleaded with me. And finally I gave in-I had to, I couldn't stand between her and what he could give her-and the day came when I consented to see him. That day was the fifteenth of January."

George cleared his throat and O'Mally stirred uneasily in his chair. The old man rumbled an encouraging "fifteenth of January," and she went on:

"She left in the morning greatly excited, telling me she would phone him that she had good news and would bring him home with her that evening.

She was radiant with joy and hope when I kissed her good-bye. When she returned that night-long after her usual time-all that hope and joy were dashed to the ground.

"As you know, she did see him that afternoon and told him of my consent.

He appeared overjoyed and said he would come, but first must go to Mr.

Harland's offices on the floor above to talk over a matter of great importance. This, he said, would probably occupy half to three-quarters of an hour, after which he would return to her. As they wished to avoid all possibility of gossip through her clerks or the people in the building, they decided not to meet in her offices, but in the church which is next door. From there they would take a cab and come to me.

"The appointment was for a quarter-past six. Carol was ahead of time and waited for him over an hour, then came home, shattered, broken, almost unable to speak-for, as you know, he never came."

She paused, her face tragic with the memory of that last, unexpected blow. No one spoke, and looking round at them, she threw out her hands with a gesture of pleading appeal:

"What could I think? Was it unnatural for me to disbelieve him again?

Hasn't all that's come out shown he was what I'd already found him-false to his word and his trust?"

"Does your daughter think that, too?" asked the chief.

"No. She believes in him, even now, with him in hiding and branded as a traitor. But that's Carol-always ready to trust where her heart is. She says it's all right, that he'll come back and clear himself, but I can see how she's suffering, how she's struggling to keep her hopes alive."

I burst out-wild horses couldn't have kept me quiet any longer. Reaching a long arm across the table, without any consciousness that I was doing it, I laid my hand on Mrs. Whitehall's:

"How did she get out of the building that night?"

She looked surprised, and strangely enough embarra.s.sed.

"Why-why-" she stammered, and then suddenly, "you seem to know so much here-do you know anything about Mr. Harland and Carol?"

"Something," said the chief guardedly.

"Everything," I shot out, not caring for her, or him, or the case, or anything but the answer to my question.

"Then I don't mind telling you, though Carol wouldn't like it." She glanced tentatively at me. "Did you know he was in love with her?"

"All about it. Yes. Go on-"

"She went down by the stairs, all those flights, to avoid him. I guessed the way he felt about her. I knew it soon after the business was started and told her but she only laughed at me. That afternoon, when he came to her office, she saw I was right. Not that he said anything definite, but by his manner, the questions he asked her. He was wrought up and desperate, I suppose, and let her see that he was jealous of Mr. Barker, demanding the truth, whether she loved him, whether she intended marrying him. She was angry, but seeing that he had lost control of himself, told him that her feeling for Mr. Barker was that of a daughter to a father and never would be anything else. That seemed to quiet him and he went away.

"When she was leaving her offices she heard foot-steps on the floor above and looking up saw him through the bal.u.s.trade walking to the stair head. She at once thought he was coming to see her and not wanting any more conversation with him, stole out and down the hall to the side corridor, where the service stairs are. Her intention was to pick up the elevator on the floor below, but on second thoughts she gave this up and walked the whole way. Finding her gone he would probably take the elevator himself and they might meet in the car or the entrance hall. Of course we know now she was all wrong. It was not to see her he was coming down, it was to make up his mind to die."

My actions must have surprised them. For without a word to Mrs.

Whitehall I jumped up and left the room-I couldn't trust myself to speak, I had to be alone. In my own office I shut the door and stood looking with eyes that saw nothing out of the window, over the roofs to where the waters of the bay glittered in the sun. Have you ever felt a relief so great it made you shaky? Probably not-but wait till you're in the position I was. The room rocked, the distance was a golden blue as I whispered with lips that were stiff and dry:

"Thank G.o.d! Oh, thank G.o.d! Oh, thank G.o.d!"

I don't know how long a time pa.s.sed-maybe an hour, maybe five minutes-when the door opened and George's head was thrust in:

"What are you doing shut in here? Get a move on-we want you. The telephone returns have come."

I followed him back. Mrs. Whitehall was not there-the chief and O'Mally had their heads together over a slip of paper.

"Here you, Jack," said the old man turning sharply on me. "You've got to go out tonight with O'Mally. They're in Quebec."

He handed me the slip of paper. On it was one memorandum. The night before at 12.05 New York, Lenox 1360 had called up Quebec, St. Foy 584.

CHAPTER XIX

JACK TELLS THE STORY

That night Babbitts, O'Mally and I left for Quebec. Before we went the wires that connected us with the Canadian city had been busy. St. Foy 584 had been located, a house on a suburban road, occupied for the last two weeks by an American called Henry Santley. Instructions were carried over the hundreds of intervening miles to surround the house, to apprehend Santley if he tried to get away, and to watch for the lady who would join him that night. Unless something unforeseen and unimaginable should occur we had Barker at last.

As we rushed through the darkness, we speculated on the reasons for his last daring move-the sending for his daughter. O'Mally figured it out as the result of a growing confidence-he was feeling secure and wanted to help her. He had had ample proof of her discretion and had probably some plan for her enrichment that he wanted to communicate to her in person.

I was of the opinion that he expected to leave the country and intended to take her with him, sending back later for the mother. He was a.s.sured of her trust and affection, knew she believed in him, and was certain the murder hadn't been and now never would be discovered. He could count on safety in Europe and with his vast gains could settle down with his wife and his daughter to a life of splendid ease. Well, we'd see to _that_. The best laid schemes of mice and men!

The sun was bright, the sky sapphire clear as the great rock of Quebec, crowned with its fortress roofs, came into view. The two rivers clasped its base, ice-banded at the sh.o.r.e and in the middle their dark currents flowing free. Snow and snow and snow heaved and billowed on the surrounding hills, paved the narrow streets, hooded the roofs of the ancient houses. Through the air, razor-edged with cold and crystal clear, came the thin broken music of sleigh bells, ringing up from every lane and alley, jubilant and inspiring, and the sleighs, low running, flew by with the wave of their streaming furs and the flash of scarlet standards.

Glorious, splendid, a fit day, all sun and color and music, for me to come to Carol!

A man met us at the depot, a silent, wooden-faced policeman of some kind, who said yes, he thought the lady was there, and then piloted us glumly into a sleigh and mounted beside the driver. A continuous, vague current of sound came from Babbitts and O'Mally as we climbed a steep hill with the Frontenac's pinnacled towers looming above us and then shot off down narrow streets where the jingle of the bells was flung back and across, echoing and reverberating between the old stone houses.

It made me think of a phrase the boys in the office used, "coming with bells!"

We went some distance through the town and out along a road, where the buildings drew apart from one another, villas and suburban houses behind walls and gardens. At a smaller one, set back in a m.u.f.fling of whitened shrubberies, the sleigh drew in toward the sidewalk. Before the others could disentangle themselves from the furs and robes, I was out and racing up the path.

My eyes, ranging hungrily over the house, thinking perhaps to see her at one of the windows, saw in it something ominous and secretive. There was not a sign of life, every pane darkened with a lowered blind. All about it the snow was heaped and curled in wave-like forms as if endeavoring to creep over it, to aid in the work of hiding its dark mystery.

Barker's lair, his last stand! It looked like it, white wrapped, silent, inscrutable.

As I leaped up the piazza steps the door was opened by a man in uniform.

He touched his hat and started to speak, but I pushed him aside and came in peering past him down a hall that stretched away to the rear. At the sound of his voice a door had opened there and a woman came out. For a moment she was only a shadow moving toward me up the dimness of the half-lit pa.s.sage. Then I recognized her, gave a cry and ran to her.

My hands found hers and closed on them, my eyes looking down into the dark ones raised to them. Neither of us spoke, it didn't occur to me to explain why I was there and she showed no surprise at seeing me. It seemed as if we'd known all along we were going to meet in that dark pa.s.sage in that strange house. And standing there silent, hand clasped in hand, I saw something so wonderful, so unexpected, that the surroundings faded away and for me there was nothing in the world but what I read in her beautiful, lifted face.

I never had dared to hope, never had thought of her as caring for me.

All I had asked was the right to help and defend her. Perhaps under different circ.u.mstances, when things were happy and easy, I'd have aspired, gone in to try and win. But in the last dark month, when we'd come so close, we'd only been a woman set upon and menaced, and a man braced and steeled to do battle for her. Now, with her stone-cold hands in mine, I saw in the s.h.i.+ning depths of her eyes-Oh, no, it's too sacred. That part of the story is between Carol and me.

There had been sounds and voices in the vestibule behind us. They came vaguely upon my consciousness, low and then breaking suddenly into a louder key, phrases, exclamations, questions. I don't think if the house had been rocked by an earthquake I'd have noticed it, and it wasn't till O'Mally came down the pa.s.sage calling me, that I dropped her hands and turned. His face was creased into an expression of excited consternation, and he rapped out, not seeing Carol: