There was not one in the house.But the next moment there was a loud report, either a door slamming or apistol-shot, and I ran to the head of the stairs.
There was no light below, but a current of cool night air came up thestaircase. And suddenly I realized that there was complete silence inthe house.
"Willie!" I cried out, in an agony of fright. But he did not reply. Andthen, suddenly, the telephone rang.
I did not answer it. I know now why it rang, that there was real anxietybehind its summons. But I hardly heard it then. I was convinced thatWillie had been shot.
I must have gone noiselessly down the stairs, and at the foot I randirectly into Willie. He was standing there, only a deeper shadow inthe blackness, and I had placed my hand over his, as it lay on thenewel-post, before he knew I was on the staircase. He wheeled sharply,and I felt, to my surprise, that he held a revolver in his hand.
"Willie! What is it?" I said in a low tone.
"'Sh," he whispered. "Don't move--or speak."
We listened, standing together. There were undoubtedly sounds outside,some one moving about, a hand on a window-catch, and finally notparticularly cautious steps at the front door. It swung open. I couldhear it creak as it moved slowly on its hinges.
I put a hand out to steady myself by the comfort of Willie's presencebefore me, between me and that softly-opening door. But Willie wasmoving forward, crouched down, I fancied, and the memory of thatrevolver terrified me.
"Don't shoot him, Willie!" I almost shrieked.
"Shoot whom?" said Willie's cool voice, just inside the door.
I knew then, and I went sick all over. Somewhere in the hall between uscrouched the man I had taken for Willie, crouched with a revolver inhis right hand. The door was still open, I knew, and I could hearWillie fumbling on the hall-stand for matches. I called out somethingincoherent about not striking a light; but Willie, whistling softly toshow how cool he was, struck a match. It was followed instantly by areport, and I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, Willie was standing unhurt, staring over the burningmatch at the door, which was closed, and I knew that the report had beenbut the bang of the heavy door.
"What in blazes slammed that door?" he said.
"The burglar, or whatever he is," I said, my voice trembling in spiteof me. "He was here, in front of me. I laid my hand on his. He had arevolver in it. When you opened the door, he slipped out past you."
Willie muttered something, and went toward the door. A moment later Iwas alone again, and the telephone was ringing. I felt my way backalong the hall. I touched the cat, which had been sleeping on thetelephone-stand. He merely turned over.
I have tried, in living that night over again, to record things as theyimpressed me. For, after all, this is a narrative of motive rather thanof incidents, of emotions as against deeds. But at the time, thebrief conversation over the telephone seemed to me both horrible andunnatural.
From a great distance a woman's voice said, "Is anything wrong there?"
That was the first question, and I felt quite sure that it was theBullard girl's voice. That is, looking back from the safety of the nextday, I so decided. At the time I had no thought whatever.
"There is nothing wrong," I replied. I do not know why I said it. Surelythere was enough wrong, with Willie chasing an armed intruder throughthe garden.
I thought the connection had been cut, for there was a buzzing on thewire. But a second or so later there came an entirely different voice,one I had never heard before, a plaintive voice, full, I thought, oftears.
"Oh, please," said this voice, "go out and look in your garden, or alongthe road. Please--quickly!"
"You will have to explain," I said impatiently. "Of course we will goand look, but who is it, and why--"
I was cut off there, definitely, and I could not get "central's"attention again.
Willie's voice from the veranda boomed through the lower floor. "This isI," he called, "No boiling water, please. I am coming in."
He went into the library and lighted a lamp. He was smiling when Ientered, a reassuring smile, but rather a sheepish one, too.
"To think of letting him get by like that!" he said. "The cheapest kindof a trick. He had slammed the door before to make me think he had goneout, and all the time he was inside. And you--why didn't you scream?"
"I thought it was you," I told him.
The library was in chaos. Letters were lying about, papers, books. Thedrawer of the large desk-table in the center of the room had been drawnout and searched. "The History of Bolivar County," for instance, waslying on the floor, face down, in a most ignoble position. In one placebooks had been taken from a recess by the fireplace, revealing a smallwall cupboard behind. I had never known of the hiding-place, but aglance into it revealed only a bottle of red ink and the manuscript of asermon on missions.
Standing in the disorder of the room, I told Willie about thetelephone-message. He listened attentively, and at first skeptically.
"Probably a ruse to get us out of the house, but coming a trifle lateto be useful," was his comment. But I had read distress in the secondvoice, and said so. At last he went to the telephone.
"I'll verify it," he explained. "If some one is really anxious, I'll getthe car and take a scout around."
But he received no satisfaction from the Bullard girl, who, he reported,listened stoically and then said she was sorry, but she did not rememberwho had called. On his reminding her that she must have a record, shecountered with the flat statement that there had been no call for usthat night.
Willie looked thoughtful when he returned to the library. "There's aqueer story back of all this," he said. "I think I'll get the car andscout around."
"He is armed, Willie," I protested.
"He doesn't want to shoot me, or he could have done it," was his answer."I'll just take a look around, and come back to report."
It was half-past three by the time he was ready to go. He was, as heobserved, rather sketchily clad, but the night was warm. I saw him off,and locked the door behind him. Then I went into the library to wait andto put things to rights while I waited.
The dawn is early in August, and although it was not more than half-pastfour when Willie came back, it was about daylight by that time. I wentto the door and watched him bring the car to a standstill. He shook hishead when he saw me.
"Absolutely nothing," he said. "It was a ruse to get me out of thehouse, of course. I've run the whole way between here and town twice."
"But that could not have taken an hour," I protested.
"No," he said. "I met the doctor--what's his name?--the local M.D.anyhow--footing it out of the village to a case, and I took him to hisdestination. He has a car, it seems, but it's out of order. Interestingold chap," he added, as I led the way into the house. "Didn't know mefrom Adam, but opened up when he found who I was."
I had prepared the coffee machine and carried the tray to the library.While I lighted the lamp, he stood, whistling softly, and thoughtfully.At last he said:
"Look here, Aunt Agnes, I think I'm a good bit of a fool, but--some timethis morning I wish you would call up Thomas Jenkins, on the Elmburgroad, and find out if any one is sick there."
But when I stared at him, he only laughed sheepishly. "You can see howyour suspicious disposition has undermined and ruined my once trustingnature," he scoffed.
He took his coffee, and then, stripping off his ulster, departed forbed. I stopped to put away the coffee machine, and with Maggie in mind,to hang up his motor-coat. It was then that the flashlight fell out. Ipicked it up. It was shaped like a revolver.
I stopped in Willie's room on my way to my own, and held it out to him.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
"Good heavens!" he said, raising himself on his elbow. "It belongsto the doctor. He gave it to me to examine the fan belt. I must havedropped it into my pocket."
And still I was nowhere. Suppose I had touched this flashlight at thefoot of the stairs and mistaken it for a revolv
er. Suppose that thedoctor, making his way toward the village and finding himself pursued,had faced about and pretended to be leaving it? Grant, in a word, thatDoctor Lingard himself had been our night visitor--what then? Why had hedone it? What of the telephone-call, urging me to search the road? Didsome one realize what was happening, and take this method of warning usand sending us after the fugitive?
I knew the Thomas Jenkins farm on the Elmsburg road. I had, indeed,bought vegetables and eggs from Mr. Jenkins himself. That morning, asearly as I dared, I called the Jenkins farm. Mr. Jenkins himself wouldbring me three dozen eggs that day. They were a little torn up outthere, as Mrs. Jenkins had borne a small daughter at seven A.M.
When I told Willie, he was evidently relieved. "I'm glad of it," he saidheartily. "The doctor's a fine old chap, and I'd hate to think he wasmixed up in any shady business."
He was insistent, that day, that I give up the house. He said it was notsafe, and I was inclined to agree with him. But although I did nottell him of it, I had even more strongly than ever the impression thatsomething must be done to help Miss Emily, and that I was the one whomust do it.
Yet, in the broad light of day, with the sunshine pouring into therooms, I was compelled to confess that Willie's theory was more thanupheld by the facts. First of all was the character of Miss Emily as Iread it, sternly conscientious, proud, and yet gentle. Second, there wasthe connection of the Bullard girl with the case. And third, therewas the invader of the night before, an unknown quantity where so muchseemed known, where a situation involving Miss Emily alone seemed tocall for no one else.
Willie put the matter flatly to me as he stood in the hall, drawing onhis driving gloves.
"Do you want to follow it up?" he asked. "Isn't it better to let it go?After all, you have only rented the house. You haven't taken over itshistory, or any responsibility but the rent."
"I think Miss Emily needs to be helped," I said, rather feebly.
"Let her friends help her. She has plenty of them. Besides, isn't itrather a queer way to help her, to try to fasten a murder on her?"
I could not explain what I felt so strongly--that Miss Emily could onlybe helped by being hurt, that whatever she was concealing, the longconcealment was killing her. That I felt in her--it is always difficultto put what I felt about Miss Emily into words--that she both hoped forand dreaded desperately the light of the truth.
But if I was hardly practical when it came to Miss Emily, I wasrational enough in other things. It is with no small pride--but withoutexultation, for in the end it cost too much--that I point to thesolution of one issue as my own.
With Willie gone, Maggie and I settled down to the quiet tenure of ourdays. She informed me, on the morning after that eventful night, thatshe had not closed an eye after one o'clock! She came into the libraryand asked me if I could order her some sleeping-powders.
"Fiddlesticks!" I said sharply. "You slept all night. I was up andaround the house, and you never knew it."
"Honest to heaven, Miss Agnes, I never slep' at all. I heard a horsegalloping', like it was runnin' off, and it waked me for good."
And after a time I felt that, however mistaken Maggie had been about hernight's sleep, she was possibly correct about the horse.
"He started to run about the stable somewhere," she said. "You can smileif you want. That's the heaven's truth. And he came down the drive onthe jump and out onto the road."
"We can go and look for hoof-marks," I said, and rose. But Maggie onlyshook her head.
"It was no real horse, Miss Agnes," she said. "You'll find nothing.Anyhow, I've been and looked. There's not a mark."
But Maggie was wrong. I found hoof-prints in plenty in the turf besidethe drive, and a track of them through the lettuce-bed in the garden.More than that, behind the stable I found where a horse had been tiedand had broken away. A piece of worn strap still hung there. It wassufficiently clear, then, that whoever had broken into the house hadcome on horseback and left afoot. But many people in the neighborhoodused horses. The clue, if clue it can be called, got me nowhere.
IV
For several days things remained in statu quo. Our lives went on evenly.The telephone was at our service, without any of its past vagaries.Maggie's eyes ceased to look as if they were being pushed out frombehind, and I ceased to waken at night and listen for untoward signs.
Willie telephoned daily. He was frankly uneasy about my remaining there."You know something that somebody resents your knowing," he said, a dayor two after the night visitor. "It may become very uncomfortable foryou."
And, after a day or two, I began to feel that it was being madeuncomfortable for me. I am a social being; I like people. In the citymy neighborly instincts have died of a sort of brick wall apathy, but inthe country it comes to life again. The instinct of gregariousness is asold as the first hamlets, I daresay, when prehistoric man ceased to livein trees, and banded together for protection from the wild beasts thatwalked the earth.
The village became unfriendly. It was almost a matter of a night. Oneday the postmistress leaned on the shelf at her window and chatted withme. The next she passed out my letters with hardly a glance. Mrs. Gravesdid not see me at early communion on Sunday morning. The hackman wasbusy when I called him. It was intangible, a matter of omission, notcommission. The doctor's wife, who had asked me to tea, called up andregretted that she must go to the city that day.
I sat down then and took stock of things. Did the village believe thatMiss Emily must be saved from me? Did the village know the story Iwas trying to learn, and was it determined I should never find out thetruth? And, if this were so, was the village right or was I? Theywould save Miss Emily by concealment, while I felt that concealment hadfailed, and that only the truth would do. Did the village know, or onlysuspect? Or was it not the village at all, but one or two people whowere determined to drive me away?
My theories were rudely disturbed shortly after that by a visit fromMartin Sprague. I fancied that Willie had sent him, but he evaded myquestion.
"I'd like another look at that slip of paper," he said. "Where do youkeep it, by the way?"
"In a safe place," I replied non-committally, and he laughed. The truthwas that I had taken out the removable inner sole of a slipper and hadplaced it underneath, an excellent hiding-place, but one I did not careto confide to him. When I had brought it downstairs, he read it overagain carefully, and then sat back with it in his hand.
"Now tell me about everything," he said.
I did, while he listened attentively. Afterward we walked back to thebarn, and I showed him the piece of broken halter still tied there.
He surveyed it without comment, but on the way back to the house hesaid: "If the village is lined up as you say it is, I suppose it isuseless to interview the harness-maker. He has probably repaired thatstrap, or sold a new one, to whoever--It would be a nice clue to followup."
"I am not doing detective work," I said shortly. "I am trying to helpsome one who is dying of anxiety and terror."
He nodded. "I get you," he said. But his tone was not flippant. "Thefact is, of course, that the early theory won't hold. There has been acrime, and the little old lady did not commit it. But suppose you findout who did it. How is that going to help her?"
"I don't know, Martin," I said, in a sort of desperation. "But I havethe most curious feeling that she is depending on me. The way she spokethe day I saw her, and her eyes and everything; I know you think itnonsense," I finished lamely.
"I think you'd better give up the place and go back to town," he said.But I saw that he watched me carefully, and when, at last he got up togo, he put a hand on my shoulder.
"I think you are right, after all," he said. "There are a good manythings that can't be reasoned out with any logic we have, but that aretrue, nevertheless. We call it intuition, but it's really subconsciousintelligence. Stay, by all means, if you feel you should."
In the doorway he said: "Remember this, Miss Agnes. Both a crime ofviolence and a confession
like the one in your hand are the products ofimpulse. They are not, either of them, premeditated. They are notthe work, then, of a calculating or cautious nature. Look for a big,emotional type."
It was a day or two after that that I made my visit to Miss Emily. I hadstopped once before, to be told with an air of finality that the invalidwas asleep. On this occasion I took with me a basket of fruit. I hadhalf expected a refusal, but I was admitted.
The Bullard girl was with Miss Emily. She had, I think, been kneelingbeside the bed, and her eyes were red and swollen. But Miss Emilyherself was as cool, as dainty and starched and fragile as ever. Moreso, I thought. She was thinner, and although it was a warm August day,a white silk shawl was wrapped around her shoulders and fastened with anamethyst brooch. In my clasp her thin hand felt hot and dry.
"I have been waiting for you," she said simply. She looked at AnneBullard, and the message in her eyes was plain enough. But the girlignored it. She stood across the bed from me and eyed me steadily.
"My dear," said Miss Emily, in her high-bred voice, "if you haveanything to do, Miss Blakiston will sit with me for a little while."
"I have nothing to do," said the girl doggedly. Perhaps this is not theword. She had more the look of endurance and supreme patience. There wasno sharpness about her, although there was vigilance.
Miss Emily sighed, and I