CHAPTER VIII
THE MAN IN WHITE
It was at the sixth hole that they passed the man ahead who was playingall alone--a courteous young fellow in white flannels, who smiled andbowed them "through" in silence.
They thanked him, drove from the tee, and left the polite and reticentyoung man still apparently hunting for a lost ball.
Like other things which depended upon dexterity and precision, Tressahad taken most naturally to golf. Her supple muscles helped.
At the ninth hole they looked back but did not see the young man inwhite flannels.
Hammock, set with pine and palmetto, and intervals of evil-lookingswamp, flanked the course. Rank wire-grass, bayberry and scrub palmettobounded the fairgreen.
On every blossoming bush hung butterflies--Palomedesswallowtails--drugged with sparkle-berry honey, their gold and blackvelvet wings conspicuous in the sunny mist.
"Like the ceremonial vestments of a Yezidee executioner," murmured thegirl. "The Tchortchas wear red when they robe to do a man to death."
"I wish you could forget those things," said Cleves.
"I am trying.... I wonder where that young man in white went."
Cleves searched the links. "I don't see him. Perhaps he had to go backfor another ball."
"I wonder who he was," she mused.
"I don't remember seeing him before," said Cleves.... "Shall we startback?"
They walked slowly across the course toward the tenth hole.
Tressa teed up, drove low and straight. Cleves sliced, and they walkedtogether into the scrub and towards the woods, where his ball hadbounded into a bunch of palm trees.
Far in among the trees something white moved and vanished.
"Probably a white egret," he remarked, knocking about in the scrub withhis midiron.
"It was that young man in white flannels," said Tressa in a low voice.
"What would he be doing in there?" he asked incredulously. "That'smerely a jungle, Tressa--swamp and cypress, thorn and creeper,--and noman would go into that mess if he could. There is no bottom to thoseswamps."
"But I saw him in there," she said in a troubled voice.
"But when I tell you that only a wild animal or a snake or a bird couldmove in that jungle! The bog is one vast black quicksand. There's deathin those depths."
"Victor."
"Yes?" He looked around at her. She was pale. He came up and took herhand inquiringly.
"I don't feel--well," she murmured. "I'm not ill, you understand----"
"What's the matter, Tressa?"
She shook her head drearily: "I don't know.... I wonder whether I shouldhave tried to amuse you this morning----"
"You don't think you've stirred up any of those Yezidee beasts, do you?"he asked sharply.
And as she did not answer, he asked again whether she was afraid thatwhat she had done that morning might have had any occult consequences.And he reminded her that she had hesitated to venture anything on thataccount.
His voice, in spite of him, betrayed great nervousness now, and he sawapprehension in her eyes, also.
"Why should that man in white have followed us, keeping out of sight inthe woods?" he went on. "Did you notice about him anything to disturbyou, Tressa?"
"Not at the time. But--it's odd--I can't put him out of my mind. Sincewe passed him and left him apparently hunting a lost ball, I have notbeen able to put him out of my mind."
"He seemed civil and well bred. He was perfectly good-humoured--allcourtesy and smiles."
"I think--perhaps--it was the way he smiled at us," murmured the girl."Everybody in the East smiles when they draw a knife...."
He placed his arm through hers. "Aren't you a trifle morbid?" he saidpleasantly.
She stooped for her golf ball, retaining a hold on his arm. He picked uphis ball, too, put away her clubs and his, and they started backtogether in silence, evidently with no desire to make it eighteen holes.
"It's a confounded shame," he muttered, "just as you were becoming sorested and so delightfully well, to have anything--any unpleasant flashof memory cut in to upset you----"
"I brought it on myself. I should not have risked stirring up thesinister minds that were asleep."
"Hang it all!--and I asked you to amuse me."
"It was not wise in me," she said under her breath. "It is easy todisturb the unknown currents which enmesh the globe. I ought not to haveshown you Yian. I ought not to have shown you Yulun. It was my fault fordoing that. I was a little lonely, and I wanted to see Yulun."
They came down the river back to the canoe, threw in their golf bags,and embarked on the glassy stream.
Over the calm flood, stained deep with crimson, the canoe glided in thesanguine evening light. But Tressa sang no more and her head was bentsideways as though listening--always listening--to something inaudibleto Cleves--something very, very far away which she seemed to hearthrough the still drip of the paddles.
They were not yet in sight of their landing when she spoke to him,partly turning:
"I think some of your men have arrived."
"Where?" he asked, astonished.
"At the house."
"Why do you think so?"
"I think so."
They paddled a little faster. In a few minutes their dock came intoview.
"It's funny," he said, "that you should think some of our men havearrived from the North. I don't see anybody on the dock."
"It's Mr. Recklow," she said in a low voice. "He is seated on ourveranda."
As it was impossible to see the house, let alone the veranda, Clevesmade no reply. He beached the canoe; Tressa stepped out; he followed,carrying the golf bags.
A mousy light lingered in the shrubbery; bats were flying against asalmon-tinted sky as they took the path homeward.
With an impulse quite involuntary, Cleves encircled his young wife'sshoulders with his left arm.
"Girl-comrade," he said lightly, "I'd kill any man who even looked asthough he'd harm you."
He smiled, but she had not missed the ugly undertone in his words.
They walked slowly, his arm around her shoulders. Suddenly he felt herstart. They halted.
"What was it?" he whispered.
"I thought there was something white in the woods."
"Where, dear?" he asked coolly.
"Over there beyond the lawn."
What she called the "lawn" was only a vast sheet of pink and whitephlox, now all misty with the whirring wings of sphinx-moths andNoctuidae.
The oak grove beyond was dusky. Cleves could see nothing among thetrees.
After a moment they went forward. His arm had fallen away from hershoulders.
There were no lights except in the kitchen when they came in sight ofthe house. At first nobody was visible on the screened veranda under theorange trees. But when he opened the swing door for her a shadowy figurearose from a chair.
It was John Recklow. He came forward, bent his strong white head, andkissed Tressa's hand.
"Is all well with you, Mrs. Cleves?"
"Yes. I am glad you came."
Cleves clasped the elder man's firm hand.
"I'm glad too, Recklow. You'll stop with us, of course."
"Do you really want me?"
"Of course," said Cleves.
"All right. I've a coon and a surrey behind your house."
So Cleves went around in the dusk and sent the outfit back to the hotel,and he himself carried in Recklow's suitcase.
Then Tressa went away to give instructions, and the two men were lefttogether on the dusky veranda.
"Well?" said Recklow quietly.
Cleves went to him and rested both hands on his shoulders:
"I'm playing absolutely square. She's a perfectly fine girl and she'llhave her chance some day, God willing."
"Her chance?" repeated Recklow.
"To marry whatever man she will some day care for."
"I see," said Recklow drily.
There was a silence,
then:
"She's simply a splendid specimen of womanhood," said Cleves earnestly."And intensely interesting to me. Why, Recklow, I haven't known a dullmoment--though I fear she has known many----"
"Why?"
"Why? Well, being married to a--a sort of temporary figurehead--shut uphere all day alone with a man of no particular interest to her----"
"Don't you interest her?"
"Well, how could I? She didn't choose me because she liked meparticularly."
"Didn't she?" asked Recklow, still more drily. "Well, that does make ita trifle dull for you both."
"Not for me," said the younger man naively. "She is one of the mostinteresting women I ever met. And good heavens!--what psychic knowledgethat child possesses! She did a thing to-day--merely to amuse me----" Hechecked himself and looked at Recklow out of sombre eyes.
"What did she do?" inquired the older man.
"I think I'll let her tell you--if she wishes.... And that reminds me.Why did you come down here, Recklow?"
"I want to show you something, Cleves. May we step into the house?"
They went into a little lamplit living-room. Recklow handed a newspaperclipping to Cleves: the latter read it, standing:
"HAD DEADLIEST GAS READY FOR GERMANS
"_'Lewisite' Might Have Killed Millions_
"WASHINGTON, APRIL 24.--Guarded night and day and far out of human reach on a pedestal at the Interior Department Exposition here is a tiny vial. It contains a specimen of the deadliest poison ever known, 'Lewisite,' the product of an American scientist.
"Germany escaped this poison by signing the armistice before all the resources of the United States were turned upon her.
"Ten airplanes carrying 'Lewisite' would have wiped out, it is said, every vestige of life--animal and vegetable--in Berlin. A single day's output would snuff out the millions of lives on Manhattan Island. A drop poured in the palm of the hand would penetrate to the blood, reach the heart and kill the victim in agony.
"What was coming to Germany may be imagined by the fact that when the armistice was signed 'Lewisite' was being manufactured at the rate of ten tons a day. Three thousand tons of this most terrible instrument ever conceived for killing would have been ready for business on the American front in France on November 1.
"'Lewisite' is another of the big secrets of the war just leaking out. It was developed in the Bureau of Mines by Professor W. Lee Lewis, of Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., who took a commission as a captain in the army.
"The poison was manufactured in a specially built plant near Cleveland, called the 'Mouse Trap,' because every workman who entered the stockade went under an agreement not to leave the eleven-acre space until the war was won. The object of this, of course, was to protect the secret.
"Work on the plant was started eighteen days after the Bureau of Mines had completed its experiments.
"Experts are certain that no one will want to steal the sample. Everybody at the Exposition, which shows what Secretary Lane's department is doing, keeps as far away from it as possible."
When Cleves had finished reading, he raised his eyes in silence.
"That vial was stolen a week ago," said Recklow gravely, "by a young manwho killed one guard and fatally wounded the other."
"Was there any ante-mortem statement?"
"Yes. I've followed the man. I lost all trace of him at Palm Beach, butI picked it up again at Ormond. _And now I'm here_, Cleves."
"You don't mean you've traced him here!" exclaimed Cleves under hisbreath.
"He's here on the St. Johns River, somewhere. He came up in amotor-boat, but left it east of Orchard Cove. Benton knows this country.He's covering the motor-boat. And I--came here to see how you aregetting on."
"And to warn us," added Cleves quietly.
"Well--yes. He's got that stuff. It's deadlier than the newspapersuspects. And I guess--I guess, Cleves, he's one of those damned Yezideewitch-doctors--or sorcerers, as they call them;--one of that sect ofAssassins sent over here to work havoc on feeble minds and do murder onthe side."
"Why do you think so?"
"Because the dirty beast lugs his shroud around with him--a bed-sheetstolen from the New Willard in Washington.
"We were so close to him in Jacksonville that we got it, and hisluggage. But we didn't get him, the rat! God knows how he knew we werewaiting for him in his room. He never came back to get his luggage.
"But he stole a bed-sheet from his hotel in St. Augustine, and that ishow we picked him up again. Then, at Palm Beach, we lost the beggar, butsomehow or other I felt it in my bones that he was after you--you andyour wife. So I sent Benton to Ormond and I went to Palatka. Bentonpicked up his trail. It led toward you--toward the St. Johns. And thereptile has been here forty-eight hours, trying to nose you out, Isuppose----"
Tressa came into the room. Both men looked at her.
Cleves said in a guarded voice:
"To-day, on the golf links at Orchard Cove, there was a young man inwhite flannels--very polite and courteous to us--but--Tressa thought shesaw him slinking through the woods as though following and watching us."
"My man, probably," said Recklow. He turned quietly to Tressa andsketched for her the substance of what he had just told Cleves.
"The man in white flannels on the golf links," said Cleves, "was wellbuilt and rather handsome, and not more than twenty-five. I thought hewas a Jew."
"I thought so too," said Tressa, calmly, "until I saw him in the woods.And then--and then--suddenly it came to me that his smile was the smileof a treacherous Shaman sorcerer.
"... And the idea haunts me--the memory of those smooth-faced, smilingmen in white--men who smile only when they slay--when they slay body andsoul under the iris skies of Yian!--O God, merciful, long suffering,"she whispered, staring into the East, "deliver our souls from Satan whowas stoned, and our bodies from the snare of the Yezidee!"