The Circular Study

by Anna Katharine Green

  CHAPTER V.

  WHY THE IRON SLIDE REMAINED STATIONARY.

  The rest must be told in Thomas's own words, as it forms the chief partof the confession he made before the detectives:

  According to my promise, I took my young wife to Felix's house on theday and at the hour proposed. We went on foot, for it was not far fromthe hotel where we were then staying, and were received at the door byan old servant who I had been warned could neither speak nor hear. Atsight of him and the dim, old-fashioned hall stretching out inaristocratic gloom before us, Eva turned pale and cast me an inquiringlook. But I reassured her with a smile that most certainly contradictedmy own secret dread of the interview before us, and taking her on myarm, followed the old man down the hall, past the open drawing-room door(where I certainly thought we should pause), into a room whose plainappearance made me frown, till Bartow, as I have since heard him called,threw aside the portiere at one end and introduced us into my brother'sstudy, which at that moment looked like fairyland, or would have, ifFelix, who was its sole occupant, had not immediately drawn ourattention to himself by the remarkable force of his personality, neverso impressive as at that moment.

  Eva, to whom I had said little of this brother, certainly nothing whichwould lead her to anticipate seeing either so handsome a man or one ofsuch mental poise and imposing character, looked frightened and a trifleawe-struck. But she advanced quite bravely toward him, and at myintroduction smiled with such an inviting grace that I secretly expectedto see him more or less disarmed by it.

  And perhaps he was, for his already pale features turned waxy in theyellow glare cast by the odd lantern over our heads, and the hand he hadraised in mechanical greeting fell heavily, and he could barely stammerout some words of welcome. These would have seemed quite inadequate tothe occasion if his eyes which were fixed on her face, had not betrayedthe fact that he was not without feeling, though she little realized thenature of that feeling or how her very life (for happiness is life) wastrembling in the balance under that indomitable will.

  I who did know--or thought I did--cast him an imploring glance, and,saying that I had some explanations to make, asked if Mrs. Adams mightnot rest here while we had a few words apart.

  He answered me with a strange look. Did he feel the revolt in my toneand understand then as well as afterward what the nature of mycompliance had been? I shall never know. I only know that he stoppedfumbling with some small object on the table before him, and, bowingwith a sarcastic grace that made me for the first time in my intercoursewith him feel myself his inferior, even in size, led the way to a smalldoor I had failed to notice up to this moment.

  "Your wife will find it more comfortable here," he observed, with slowpauses in his speech that showed great, but repressed, excitement. Andhe opened the door into what had the appearance of a small but elegantsleeping-apartment. "What we have to say cannot take long. Mrs. Adamswill not find the wait tedious."

  "No," she smiled, with a natural laugh, born, as I dare hope, of herperfect happiness. Yet she could not but have considered the proceedingstrange, and my manner, as well as his, scarcely what might be expectedfrom a bridegroom introducing his bride to his only relative.

  "I will call you--" I began, but the vision of her dimpled face abovethe great cluster of roses she carried made me forget to complete mysentence, and the door closed, and I found myself face to face withFelix.

  He was breathing easier, and his manner seemed more natural now that wewere alone, yet he did not speak, but cast a strange, if not inquiring,glance about the room (the weirdest of apartments, as you all wellknow), and seeming satisfied with what he saw, why I could not tell, ledthe way up to the large table which from the first had appeared to exerta sort of uncanny magnetism upon him, saying:

  "Come further away. I need air, breathing place in this close room, andso must you. Besides, why should she hear what we have to say? She willknow the worst soon enough. She seems a gentle-hearted woman."

  "An angel!" I began, but he stopped me with an imperious gesture.

  "We will not discuss your wi--Mrs. Adams," he protested. "Where is JohnPoindexter?"

  "At the hotel," I rejoined. "Or possibly he has returned home. I nolonger take account of his existence. Felix, I shall never leave mywife. I had rather prove recreant to the oath I took before I realizedthe worth of the woman whose happiness I vowed to destroy. This is whatI have come to tell you. Make it easy for me, Felix. You are a man whohas loved and suffered. Let us bury the past; let us----"

  Had I hoped I could move him? Perhaps some such child's notion hadinfluenced me up to this moment. But as these words left my lips, nay,before I had stumbled through them, I perceived by the set look of hisfeatures, which were as if cast in bronze, that I might falter, but thathe was firm as ever, firmer, it seemed to me, and less easy to beentreated.

  Yet what of that? At the worst, what had I to fear? A struggle whichmight involve Eva in bitter unpleasantness and me in the loss of afortune I had come to regard almost as my own. But these were pettyconsiderations. Eva must know sooner or later my real name and the storyof her father's guilt. Why not now? And if we must start life poor, itwas yet life, while a separation from her----

  Meanwhile Felix had spoken, and in language I was least prepared tohear.

  "I anticipated this. From the moment you pleaded with me for theprivilege of marrying her, I have looked forward to this outcome andprovided against it. Weakness on the part of her bridegroom was to beexpected; I have, therefore, steeled myself to meet the emergency; foryour oath must be kept!"

  Crushed by the tone in which these words were uttered, a tone thatevinced power against which any ordinary struggle would end in failure,I cast my eyes about the room in imitation of what I had seen him do afew minutes before. There was nothing within sight calculated to awakendistrust, and yet a feeling of distrust (the first I had really felt)had come with the look he had thrown above and around the mosque-likeinterior of the room he called his study. Was it the calm confidence heshowed, or the weirdness of finding myself amid Oriental splendors andunder the influence of night effects in high day and within sound of theclanging street cars and all the accompanying bustle of every-daytraffic? It is hard to say; but from this moment on I found myselfaffected by a vague affright, not on my own account, but on hers whosevoice we could plainly hear humming a gay tune in the adjoiningapartment. But I was resolved to suppress all betrayal of uneasiness. Ieven smiled, though I felt the eyes of Evelyn's pictured countenanceupon me; Evelyn's, whose portrait I had never lost sight of from themoment of entering the room, though I had not given it a direct look andnow stood with my back to it. Felix, who faced it, but who did not raisehis eyes to it, waited a moment for my response, and finding that mywords halted, said again:

  "That oath must be kept!"

  This time I found words with which to answer. "Impossible!" I burst out,flinging doubt, fear, hesitancy, everything I had hitherto trembled atto the winds. "It was in my nature to take it, worked upon as I was byfamily affection, the awfulness of our father's approaching death, and athousand uncanny influences all carefully measured and prepared for thisend. But it is not in my nature to keep it after four months of naturalliving in the companionship of a man thirty years removed from hisguilt, and of his guileless and wholly innocent daughter. And you cannotdrive me to it, Felix. No man can force another to abandon his own wifebecause of a wicked oath taken long before he knew her. If you thinkyour money----"

  "Money?" he cried, with a contempt that did justice to mydisinterestedness as well as his own. "I had forgotten I had it. No,Thomas, I should never weigh money against the happiness of living withsuch a woman as your wife appears to be. But her life I might. Carry outyour threat; forget to pay John Poindexter the debt we owe him, and thematter will assume a seriousness for which you are doubtless poorlyprepared. A daughter dead in her honeymoon will be almost as great agrief to him as a dishonored one. And either dead or dishonored he mustfind her, when he comes here in sea
rch of the child he cannot longforget. Which shall it be? Speak!"

  Was I dreaming? Was this Felix? Was this myself? And was it in my earsthese words were poured?

  With a spring I reached his side where he stood close against the table,and groaned rather than shrieked the words:

  "You would not kill her! You do not meditate a crime of blood--here--onher--the innocent--the good----"

  "No," he said; "it will be you who will do that. You who will not wishto see her languish--suffer--go mad--Thomas, I am not the raving beingyou take me for. I am merely a keeper of oaths. Nay, I am more. I havetalents, skill. The house in which you find yourself is proof of this.This room--see, it has no outlet save those windows, scarcely if at allperceptible to you, above our heads, and that opening shielded now by asimple curtain, but which in an instant, without my moving from thisplace, I can so hermetically seal that no man, save he be armed withcrowbar and pickaxe, could enter here, even if man could know of ourimprisonment, in a house soon to be closed from top to bottom by mydeparting servant."

  "May God protect us!" fell from my lips, as, stiff with horror, I let myeyes travel from his determined face, first to the windows high over myhead and then to the opening of the door, which, though but a few stepsfrom where I stood, was as far as possible from the room into which mydarling had been induced to enter.

  Felix, watching me, uttered his explanations as calmly as if the matterwere one of every-day significance. "You are looking for the windows,"he remarked. "They are behind those goblin faces you see outlined on thetapestries under the ceiling. As for the door, if you had looked to theleft when you entered, you would have detected the edge of a huge steelplate hanging flush with the casing. This plate can be made to slideacross that opening in an instant just by the touch of my hand on thisbutton. This done, no power save such as I have mentioned can move itback again, not even my own. I have forces at my command for sending itforward, but none for returning it to its place. Do you doubt mymechanical skill or the perfection of the electrical apparatus I havecaused to be placed here? You need not, Thomas; nor need you doubt thewill that has only to exert itself for an instant to--Shall I press thebutton, brother?"

  "No, no!" I shouted in a frenzy, caused rather by my knowledge of thenature of this man than any especial threat apparent in his voice orgesture. "Let me think; let me know more fully what your requirementsare--what she must suffer if I consent--and what I."

  He let his hand slip back, that smooth white hand which I had more thanonce surveyed in admiration. Then he smiled.

  "I knew you would not be foolish," he said. "Life has its charms evenfor hermits like me; and for a _beau garcon_ such as you are----"

  "Hush!" I interposed, maddened into daring his full anger. "It is not mylife I am buying, but hers, possibly yours; for it seems you haveplanned to perish with us. Is it not so?"

  "Certainly," was his cold reply. "Am I an assassin? Would you expect meto live, knowing you to be perishing?"

  I stared aghast. Such resolve, such sacrifice of self to an idea wasbeyond my comprehension.

  "Why--what?" I stammered. "Why kill us, why kill yourself----"

  The answer overwhelmed me.

  "Remember Evelyn!" shrilled a voice, and I paused, struck dumb with asuperstitious horror I had never believed myself capable ofexperiencing. For it was not Felix who spoke, neither was it anyutterance of my own aroused conscience. Muffled, strange, and startlingit came from above, from the hollow spaces of that high vault lit withthe golden glow that henceforth can have but one meaning for me--death.

  "What is it?" I asked. "Another of your mechanical contrivances?"

  He smiled; I had rather he had frowned.

  "Not exactly. A favorite bird, a starling. Alas! he but repeats what hehas heard echoed through the solitude of these rooms. I thought I hadsmothered him up sufficiently to insure his silence during thisinterview. But he is a self-willed bird, and seems disposed to defy thewrappings I have bound around him; which fact warns me to be speedy andhasten our explanations. Thomas, this is what I require: JohnPoindexter--you do not know where he is at this hour, but I do--receiveda telegram but now, which, if he is a man at all, will bring him to thishouse in a half-hour or so from the present moment. It was sent in yourname, and in it you informed him that matters had arisen which demandedhis immediate attention; that you were on your way to your brother's(giving him this address), where, if you found entrance, you would awaithis presence in a room called the study; but that--and here you will seehow his coming will not aid us if that steel plate is once started onits course--if the possible should occur and your brother should beabsent from home, then he was to await a message from you at the Plaza.The appearance of the house would inform him whether he would find youand Eva within; or so I telegraphed him in your name.

  "Thomas, if Bartow fulfils my instructions--and I have never know him tofail me--he will pass down these stairs and out of this house in justfive minutes. As he is bound on a long-promised journey, and as heexpects me to leave the house immediately after him, he has drawn everyshade and fastened every lock. Consequently, on his exit, the house willbecome a tomb, to which, just two weeks from to-day, John Poindexterwill be called again, and in words which will lead to a demolition whichwill disclose--what? Let us not forestall the future, our horriblefuture, by inquiring. But Thomas, shall Bartow go? Shall I not by signshe comprehends more readily than other men comprehend speech indicate tohim on his downward passage to the street that I wish him to wait andopen the door to the man whom we have promised to overwhelm in his hourof satisfaction and pride? You have only to write a line--see! I havemade a copy of the words you must use, lest your self-command should betoo severely taxed. These words left on this table for hisinspection--for you must go and Eva remain--will tell him all he needsto know from you. The rest can come from my lips after he has read thesignature, which in itself will confound him and prepare the way forwhat I have to add. Have you anything to say against this plan?Anything, I mean, beyond what you have hitherto urged? Anything that Iwill consider or which will prevent my finger from pressing the buttonon which it rests?"

  I took up the paper. It was lying on the table, where it had evidentlybeen inscribed simultaneously with or just before our entrance into thehouse, and slowly read the few lines I saw written upon it. You knowthem, but they will acquire a new significance from your presentunderstanding of their purpose and intent:

  I return you back your daughter. Neither she nor you will ever see me again. Remember Evelyn!

  AMOS'S SON.

  "You wish me to sign these words, to put them into my own handwriting,and so to make them mine? Mine!" I repeated.

  "Yes, and to leave them here on this table for him to see when heenters. He might not believe any mere statement from me in regard toyour intentions."

  I was filled with horror. Love, life, human hopes, the world'sfriendships--all the possibilities of existence, swept in oneconcentrated flood of thought and feeling through my outragedconsciousness, and I knew I could never put my name to such a blasphemyof all that was sacred to man's soul. Tossing the paper in his face, Icried:

  "You have gone too far! Better her death, better mine, better thedestruction of us all, than such dishonor to the purest thing heavenever made. I refuse, Felix--I refuse. And may God have mercy on us all!"

  The moment was ghastly. I saw his face change, his finger tremble whereit hovered above the fatal button; saw--though only in imagination asyet--the steely edge of that deadly plate of steel advancing beyond thelintel, and was about to dare all in a sudden grapple with this man,when a sound from another direction caught my ear, and looking around interror of the only intrusion we could fear, beheld Eva advancing fromthe room in which we had placed her.

  That moment a blood-red glow took the place of the sickly yellow whichhad hitherto filled every recess of this weird apartment. But I scarcelynoticed the change, save as it affected her pallor and gave to hercheeks the color that was lac
king in the roses at her belt.

  Fearless and sweet as in the hour when she first told me that she lovedme, she approached and stood before us.

  "What is this?" she cried. "I have heard words that sound more like theutterances of some horrid dream than the talk of men and brothers. Whatdoes it mean, Thomas? What does it mean, Mr. ----"

  "Cadwalader," announced Felix, dropping his eyes from her face, butchanging not a whit his features or posture.

  "Cadwalader?" The name was not to her what it was to her father."Cadwalader? I have heard that name in my father's house; it wasEvelyn's name, the Evelyn who----"

  "Whom you see painted there over your head," finished Felix, "my sister,Thomas's sister--the girl whom your father--but I spare you, childthough you be of a man who spared nothing. From your husband you maylearn why a Cadwalader can never find his happiness with a Poindexter.Why thirty or more years after that young girl's death, you who were notthen born are given at this hour the choice between death and dishonor.I allow you just five minutes in which to listen. After that you willlet me know your joint decision. Only you must make your talk where youstand. A step taken by either of you to right or left, and Thomas knowswhat will follow."

  Five minutes, with such a justification to make, and such a decision toarrive at! I felt my head swim, my tongue refuse its office, and stooddumb and helpless before her till the sight of her dear eyes raised inspeechless trust to mine flooded me with a sense of triumph amid all theghastly terrors of the moment, and I broke out in a tumult of speech, inexcuses, explanations, all that comes to one in a more than mortalcrisis.

  She listened, catching my meaning rather from my looks than my words.Then as the minutes fled and my brother raised a warning hand, sheturned toward him, and said:

  "You are in earnest? We must separate in shame or perish in thisprison-house with you?"

  His answer was mere repetition, mechanical, but firm:

  "You have said it. You have but one minute more, madam."

  She shrank, and all her powers seemed leaving her, then a reaction came,and a flaming angel stood where but a moment before the most delicate ofwomen weakly faltered; and giving me a look to see if I had the courageor the will to lift my hand against my own flesh and blood (alas for usboth! I did not understand her) caught up an old Turkish dagger lyingonly too ready to her hand, and plunged it with one sideways thrust intohis side, crying:

  "We cannot part, we cannot die, we are too young, too happy!"

  It was sudden; the birth of purpose in her so unexpected and so rapidthat Felix, the ready, who was prepared for all contingencies, for theleast movement or suggestion of escape, faltered and pressed, not thefatal button, but his heart.

  One impulsive act on the part of a woman had overthrown all thefine-spun plans of the subtlest spirit that ever attempted to work itswill in the face of God and man.

  But I did not think of this then; I did not even bestow a thought uponthe narrowness of our escape, or the price which the darling of my heartmight be called upon to pay for this supreme act of self-defence. Mymind, my heart, my interest were with Felix, in whom the nearness ofdeath had called up all that was strongest and most commanding in hisstrong and commanding spirit.

  Though struck to the heart, he had not fallen. It was as if the willwhich had sustained him through thirty years of mental torture held himerect still, that he might give her, Eva, one look, the like of which Ihad never seen on mortal face, and which will never leave my heart orhers until we die. Then as he saw her sink shudderingly down and thedelicate woman reappear in her pallid and shrunken figure, he turned hiseyes on me and I saw,--good God!--a tear well up from those orbs ofstone and fall slowly down his cheek, fast growing hollow under thestroke of death.

  "Eva! Eva! I love Eva!" shrilled the voice which once before hadstartled me from the hollow vault above.

  Felix heard, and a smile faint as the failing rush of blood through hisveins moved his lips and brought a revelation to my soul. He, too, lovedEva!

  When he saw I knew, the will which had kept him on his feet gave way,and he sank to the floor murmuring:

  "Take her away! I forgive. Save! Save! She did not know I loved her."

  Eva, aghast, staring with set eyes at her work, had not moved from hercrouching posture. But when she saw that speaking head fall back, thefine limbs settle into the repose of death, a shock went through herwhich I thought would never leave her reason unimpaired.

  "I've killed him!" she murmured. "I've killed him!" and looking wildlyabout, her eyes fell on the cross that hung behind us on the wall. Itseemed to remind her that Felix was a Catholic. "Bring it!" she gasped."Let him feel it on his breast. It may bring him peace--hope."

  As I rushed to do her bidding, she fell in a heap on the floor.

  "Save!" came again from the lips we thought closed forever in death. Andrealizing at the words both her danger and the necessity of her notopening her eyes again upon this scene, I laid the cross in his arms,and catching her up from the floor, ran with her out of the house. Butno sooner had I caught sight of the busy street and the stream ofhumanity passing before us, than I awoke to an instant recognition ofour peril. Setting my wife down, I commanded life back into her limbs bythe force of my own energy, and then dragging her down the steps,mingled with the crowd, encouraging her, breathing for her, living inher till I got her into a carriage and we drove away.

  For the silence we have maintained from that time to this you must notblame Mrs. Adams. When she came to herself--which was not for days--shemanifested the greatest desire to proclaim her act and assume itsresponsibility. But I would not have it. I loved her too dearly to seeher name bandied about in the papers; and when her father was taken intoour confidence, he was equally peremptory in enjoining silence, andshared with me the watch I now felt bound to keep over her movements.

  But alas! His was the peremptoriness of pride rather than love. JohnPoindexter has no more heart for his daughter than he had for his wifeor that long-forgotten child from whose grave this tragedy has sprung.Had Felix triumphed he would never have wrung the heart of this man. Ashe once said, when a man cares for nothing and nobody, not even forhimself, it is useless to curse him.

  As for Felix himself, judge him not, when you realize, as you now must,that his last conscious act was to reach for and put in his mouth thepaper which connected Eva with his death. At the moment of death histhought was to save, not to avenge. And this after her hand had struckhim.