Castle Craneycrow

by George Barr McCutcheon

  XXVI. "THE KING OF EVIL-DOERS"

  "Turk has been in Brussels," said Quentin to her on the dayfollowing her underground adventure. She was walking in thecourtyard, and her brain was busy with a new interest. Again had thelonely priest passed along the road far below, and she had made himunderstand that he was wanted at the castle gates. When he turnedoff the road and began slowly to climb the steep, she was almostsuffocated with nervous excitement. Her experience of the day beforehad left her unstrung and on the verge of collapse, and she wasbeginning to enjoy a strange resignation.

  She was beginning to feel that there were terrors worse than thoseof the kindly prison, and that escape might be tenfold moreunpleasant than confinement. Then she saw the priest, and herhalf-hearted attempt to attract his attention to her plight,resulted so differently from what she had expected that her nerveswere again leaping with the old desire to outwit her captors. He wascoming to the castle, but how was she to acquaint him with the truestate of affairs? She would not be permitted to see him, much lessto talk with him; of that she was sure. Not knowing what else to do,she went into the courtyard and loitered near the big gates, tryingto appear at ease. She prayed for but a few moments' time in whichto cry out to him that she was a prisoner and the woman for whom100,000 francs were offered in Brussels.

  But now comes Quentin upon the scene. His voice was hoarse, and itwas plain that he had taken a heavy cold in the damp cellar. Shedeliberately turned her back upon him, not so much in disdain as tohide the telltale confusion in her face. All hope of conversing withthe priest was lost if Quentin remained near by.

  "I sent him to Brussels, Dorothy, and he has learned something thatwill be of vital interest to you," Philip went on, idly leaningagainst the gate as if fate itself had sent him there to frustrateher designs.

  "Don't talk to me now, Philip. You must give me time. In an hour,when I have gotten over this dreadful headache, I will listen toyou. But now, for heaven's sake, leave me to myself," she said,rapidly, resorting to deception.

  "I'm sorry I have disturbed you. In an hour, then, or at any timeyou may feel like listening. It concerns Prince Ugo."

  "Is he--what has happened to him?" she demanded, turning to him withalarm in her eyes.

  "It is not what has happened to him, but to one who was hisintimate. The woman who warned me to beware of his treachery hasbeen murdered in Brussels. Shall I come to you here in an hour?"

  "Yes," she said, slowly, the consciousness of a new dread showingitself in her voice. It was not until he reentered the house thatshe became fully possessed of a desire to learn more of thisstartling news. Her mind went back to the strange young woman whocame to her with the story of the prince's duplicity, and her bloodgrew cold with the thought that brutal death had come to her so soonafter that visit. She recalled the woman's voice, her unquestionedrefinement, her dignity of bearing and the positiveness with whichshe declared that Ugo would kill her if he knew the nature of hervisit to his promised wife. And now she was dead--murdered! By whom?That question burst upon her with the force of a heavy blow. Whokilled her?

  A pounding on the heavy gate brought her sharply to the project ofthe moment. She walked as calmly as her nerves would admit to thegate and called in French:

  "Who is there?"

  "Father Paul," came a subdued voice from the outside. "Am I wrong inbelieving that I was called here by some one in the castle? Kindlyadmit me. I am fatigued and athirst."

  "I cannot open the gate, good Father, You must aid me to escape fromthis place," she cried, eagerly, her breast thumping like a hammer.There was no interruption, and she could have shrieked with triumphwhen, five minutes later, the priest bade her be of good cheer andto have confidence in him. He would come for her on the next nightbut one, and she should be freed. From her window in the castle shesaw the holy man descend the steep with celerity not born offatigue. When he reached the road below he turned and waved his handto her and then made his way swiftly into the forest.

  After it was all over and relief was promised, her excitementsubsided and in its place began to grow a dull contemplation of whather rescue would mean to the people who were holding her captive. Itmeant exposure, arrest, imprisonment and perhaps death. The appealshe had succeeded in getting to the ears of the passing priest wouldsoon be public property, and another day might see the jubilantminions of the law in front of Castle Craneycrow demanding herrelease and the surrender of the culprits. There was not the joy inher heart that she had expected; instead there was a sickening fancythat she had done something mean and treacherous. When she rejoinedthe unsuspecting party downstairs soon afterward, a mighty weaknessassailed her, and it was she, instead of they who had boldly stolenher from her home, that felt the pangs of guilt. She went into thecourtyard where Savage and Lady Jane were playing handball, whilethe Saxondales looked on, happily unconscious of a traitor in theirmidst. For an instant, pale and remorseful, she leaned against thedoor-post, struggling to suppress the tears of pity and contrition.Before she had fully recovered her strength Lady Jane was drawingher into the contest with Dickey. And so she played cravenly withthose whose merry hearts she was to crush, listening to the plauditsof the two smiling onlookers. It was too late to save them, for apriest of God had gone out into the world to herald their guilt andto deal a blow that would shatter everything.

  Quentin came down a little later, and she was conscious that hewatched the game with eyes in which pleasure and trouble fought forsupremacy. Tired at last of the violent exercise, the trio threwthemselves upon the bench in the shade of the wall, and, withglowing faces and thumping breasts, two of them laughed over theantics they had cut. Dorothy's lawless lover stood afar off, lonelyand with the resignation of the despised. Presently he drew near andasked if he might join them in the shade.

  "What a dreadful cold you have taken, Phil," cried Lady Saxondale,anxiously.

  "Commonest sort of a cold, I assure you. Damp cellars don't agreewith me," he said.

  "I did not want your coat, but you would give it to me," saidDorothy, as if called upon to defend herself for some crime.

  "It was you or I for the cold, you know," he said, simply, "and Iwas your protector."

  "Right and good," agreed Dickey. "Couldn't do anything else. Ladyneeded a coat, had to have it, and she got it. Duty called and foundhim prepared. That's why he always wears a coat in the presence ofladies."

  "I've had your friend, the skeleton, buried," said Lord Bob. "Poorchap, he seemed all broken up over leaving the place."

  "Yes--went all to pieces," added Dickey.

  "Dickey Savage, do you think you are funny?" demanded Lady Jane,loftily. "I would not jest about the dead."

  "The last I saw of him he was grinning like the--"

  "Oh, you wretch!" cried the girl, and Dorothy put her fingers to herears.

  "Shut up, Dickey," exclaimed Quentin. "Do you care to hear aboutthat woman in Brussels, Dorothy?"

  "It is of no great consequence to me, but I'll listen if you like,"she said, slowly.

  Thereupon he related to the party the story of the finding of thedead woman in a house near the Garrison home in the Avenue Louise.She had been dead for two days and her throat was cut. The house inwhich she was found was the one into which Turk had seen Courantdisappear on the night of the veranda incident at the Garrison's.Turk had been sent to Brussels by Quentin on a mission ofconsiderable importance, arriving there soon after the body wasdiscovered. He saw the woman's face at the morgue and recognized heras the one who had approached Quentin in the train for Paris. Turklearned that the police, to all appearances had found a clew, buthad suddenly dropped the whole matter and the woman was classifiedwith the "unknown dead." An attendant at the morgue carelesslyremarked in his hearing that she was the mistress of a great man,who had sent them word to "throw her in the river." Secretly Turkassured himself that there was no mistake as to the house in whichshe had been found, and by putting two and two together, it was notunnatural to agree with the morgue officer and to supp
ly for his ownbenefit the name of the royal lover. The newspapers which Turkbrought from Brussels to Castle Craneycrow contained accounts of themurder of the beautiful woman, speculated wildly as to her idenityand termed the transaction a mystery as unsolvable as the greatabduction. The same papers had the report, on good authority, thatMiss Garrison had been murdered by her captors in a small town inSpain, the authorities being so hot on the trail that she was putout of the way for safety's sake.

  But the papers did not know that a bearded man named Turk hadslipped a sealed envelope under a door at the Garrison home, andthat a distressed mother had assurance from the brigand chief thather daughter was alive and well, but where she could not be found.To prove that the letter was no imposition, it was accompanied by alock of hair from Dorothy's head, two or three bits of jewelry and alace handkerchief that could not have belonged to another. Dorothydid not know how or when Baker secured these bits of evidence, WhenQuentin told her the chief object of Turk's perilous visit toBrussels, her eyes filled with tears, and for the first time shefelt grateful to him.

  "I have a confession to make," she said, after the story wasfinished and the others had deliberately charged Ugo with the crime."That poor woman came to me in Brussels and implored me to give upthe prince. She told me, Phil, that she loved him and warned me tobeware of him. And she said that he would kill her if he knew thatshe had come to me."

  "That settles it!" exclaimed he, excitedly, the fever of joy in hiseyes. "He killed her when he found that she had been to you.Perhaps, goaded to desperation, she confessed to him. Imagine thedevilish delight he took in sniffing out her life after that! Wehave him now! Dorothy, you know as well as I that he and he alonehad an object in killing her. You have only to tell the story of hervisit to you and we'll hang the miserable coward." He was standingbefore her, eager-eyed and intense.

  "You forget that I am not and do not for some time expect to be in aposition to expose him. I am inclined to believe that the law willfirst require me to testify against you, Philip Quentin," she said,looking fairly into his eyes, the old resentment returning like aflash. Afterward she knew that the look of pain in his face touchedher heart, but she did not know it then. She saw the beaten joy goout of his eyes, and she rejoiced in the victory.

  "True," he said, softly. "I have saved the woman I love, while hehas merely killed one who loved him." It angered her unreasonablywhen, as he turned to enter the house, Lady Saxondale put her armthrough his and whispered something in his ear. A moment or twolater Lady Jane, as if unable to master the emotion which impelled,hurried into the castle after them. Dickey strolled away, and shewas left with Lord Bob. It would have been a relief had he expressedthe slightest sign of surprise or regret, but he was asimperturbable as the wall against which he leaned. His mild blueeyes gazed carelessly at the coils of smoke that blew from his lips.

  "Oh," she wailed to herself, in the impotence of anger, "they alllove him, they all hate me! Why does he not mistreat me, insult me,taunt me--anything that will cost him their respect, their devotion!How bitterly they feel toward me for that remark! It will kill me tostay here and see them turn to him as if he were some god and I thedefiler!"

  That night there was a battle between the desire to escape and thereluctance she felt in exposing her captors to danger. In the endshe admitted to herself that she would not have Philip Quentinseized by the officers: she would give them all an equal chance toescape, he with the others. Her heart softened when she saw him, inher imagination, alone and beaten, in the hands of the police, ledaway to ignominy and death, the others perhaps safe through hisloyalty. She would refuse absolutely, irrevocably, to divulge thenames of her captors and would go so far as to perjure herself tosave them if need be. With that charitable resolution in her heartshe went to sleep.

  When she arose the next morning, Baker told her that Mr. Quentin wasill. His cold had settled on his lungs and he had a fever. LadySaxondale seemed worried over the rather lugubrious report fromDickey Savage, who came downstairs early with Phil's apologies fornot presenting himself at the breakfast table.

  While Quentin cheerfully declared that he would be himself beforenight, Dickey was in a doleful state of mind and ventured theopinion that he was "in for a rough spell of sickness." Whatdistresed the Saxondales most was the dismal certainty that a doctorcould not be called to the castle. If Quentin were to becomeseriously ill, the situation would develop into something extremelyembarrassing.

  He insisted on coming downstairs about noon, and laughed at theremonstrances of Lord Bob and Dickey, who urged him to remain in bedfor a day or two, at least. His cough was a cruel one, and his eyeswere bright with the fever that raced through his system. Themedicine chest offered its quinine and its plasters for his benefit,and there was in the air the tense anxiety that is felt when a childis ill and the outcome is in doubt. The friends of this strong,stubborn and all-important sick man could not conceal the fact thatthey were nervous and that they dreaded the probability of disasterin the shape of serious illness. His croaking laugh, his tearingcough and that flushed face caused Dorothy more pain than she waswilling to admit, even to herself.

  As night drew near she quivered with excitement. Was she to leavethe castle? Would the priest come for her? Above all, would he beaccompanied by a force of officers large enough to storm the castleand overpower its inmates? What would the night bring forth? Andwhat would be the stand, the course, taken by this defiant sick man,this man with two fevers in his blood?

  She had not seen or spoken to him during the day, but she hadfrequently passed by the door of the library in which he sat andtalked with the other men. An irresistible longing to speak to him,to tell him how much she regretted his illness, came over her. Therewas in her heart a strange tenderness, a hungry desire to comforthim just the least bit before she took the flight that was todestroy the hope his daring and skillfully executed scheme hadinspired.

  Three times she hesitated in front of the library door, but hercourage was not as strong as her desire. Were he alone she couldhave gone in and told him frankly that she would not expose him tothe law in the event that she ever had the opportunity. But theother men were with him. Besides, his cough was so distressing thatnatural pity for one suffering physical pain would have made itimpossible to talk to him with the essential show of indifference.

  At last, in despair, she left Lady Saxondale and her companion inthe courtyard and started up the stairs, resolved to be as far aspossible from the sound of that cough. Quentin met her at the footof the steps.

  "I'm going to lie down awhile," he said, wearily. "They seem to beworried about this confounded cold, and I'll satisfy them by packingmyself away in bed."

  "You should be very careful, Phil," she said, a suffocating feelingin her throat. "Your cough is frightful, and they say you have afever. Do be reasonable."

  "Dorothy," he said, pausing before her at the steps, his voice fullof entreaty, "tell me you don't despise me. Oh! I long to have yousay one tender word to me, to have one gentle look from your eyes."

  "I am very sorry you are suffering, Philip," she said, steeling herheart against the weakness that threatened.

  "Won't you believe I have done all this because I love you and----"he was saying, passionately, but she interposed.

  "Don't! Don't, Phil! I was forgetting a little--yes, I wasforgetting a little, but you bring back all the ugly thoughts. Icannot forget and I will not forgive. You love me, I know, and youhave been a kind jailer, but you must not expect to regain myrespect and love--yes, it was love up to the morning I saw you inthe dining-room of this castle."

  "I'll create a new love in your heart, Dorothy," he cried. "The oldlove may be dead, but a new one shall grow up in its place. You donot feel toward me to-day as you did a week ago. I have made someheadway against the force of your hatred. It will take time to wincompletely; I would not have you succumb too soon. But, just as sureas there is a God, you will love me some day for the love that mademe a criminal in the eyes of the world. I lov
e you, Dorothy; I loveyou!"

  "It is too late. You have destroyed the power to love. Phil, Icannot forgive you. Could I love you unless full forgiveness pavedthe way?"

  "There is nothing to forgive, as you will some day confess. You willthank and forgive me for what I have done." A fit of coughing causedhim to lean against the stair rail, a paroxysm of pain crossing hisface as he sought to temper the violence of the spell.

  "You should have a doctor," she cried, in alarm. He smiledcheerlessly.

  "Send for the court physician," he said, derisively, "The king ofevil-doers has the chills and fever, they say. Is my face hotDorothy?"

  She hesitated for a moment, then impulsively placed her cool handagainst his flushed forehead. Despite her will, there was a caressin the simple act, and his bright eyes gleamed with gladness. Hishand met hers as it was lowered from the hot brow, and his lipstouched the fingers softly.

  "Ah, the fever, the fever!" he exclaimed, passionately.

  "You should have a doctor," she muttered, as if powerless to frameother words.