Her eyes fastened themselves in mute horror upon the object that first met their gaze; she could not breathe, her heart ceased beating, and every vestige of life seemed to pass beyond recall. She was looking upon the skeleton of a human being, crouched, hunched against the wall of the narrow passage, a headless skeleton, for the skull rolled out against her feet as the sliding door sank below the level. Slowly she backed away from the door, not knowing what she did, conscious only that her eyes could not be drawn from the horrifying spectacle.
“Oh, God!” she moaned, in direst terror. Her ghastly companion seemed to edge himself toward her, an illusion born in the changing position of the light as she retreated.
“Dorothy,” came a voice behind her, and she screamed aloud in terror, dropping the lantern and covering her face with her hands. As she swayed limply, a pair of arms closed about her and a voice she knew so well called her name again and again. She did not swoon, but it was an interminably long time to him before she exhibited the faintest sign of life other than the convulsive shudders that swept through her body. At last her hands clasped his arm fiercely and her body stiffened.
“Is it you, Phil? Oh, is it really you? Take me away from this place! Anywhere, anywhere! I’ll do anything you say, but don’t let that awful thing come near me!” she wailed. By the flickering light he caught the terrified expression in her eyes.
“You are safe, dear. I’ll carry you upstairs, if you like,” he said, softly.
“I can walk, or run. Oh, why did I come here? But, Phil,” suddenly, “we are locked in this place. We can’t get out!”
“Oh, yes, we can,” he cried, quickly. “Come with me.” He picked up the lantern, threw an arm about her and hurried toward the stairs that led aloft. Afterwards he was not ashamed to admit that he imagined he felt bony hands clutching at him from behind, and fear lent speed to his legs. Up the stairs they crowded, and he clutched at the huge handle on the door. In surprise, he threw his weight against the timbers, and a moment later dropped back with an exclamation of dismay. The door was locked!
“What does it mean!” he gasped. “I left it standing open when I came down. The draft must have shut it. Don’t be alarmed, Dorothy; I’ll kick the damned thing down. What an idiot I was to tell no one that I was coming down here.” But his kicking did not budge the door, and the noise did not bring relief. She held the lantern while he fought with the barricade, and she was strangely calm and brave. The queer turn of affairs was gradually making itself felt, and her brain was clearing quickly. She was not afraid, now that he was there, but a new sensation was rushing into her heart. It was the sensation of shame and humiliation. That he, of all men, should find her in that unhappy, inglorious plight, ending her bold dash for freedom with the most womanly of failures, was far from comforting, to say the least.
“Dorothy, I can’t move it. I’ve kicked my toes off, and my knees are bleeding, but there it stands like a rock. We’ve got to stay here till some one chances to hear us,” he said, ruefully. “Are you afraid now?”
“Why didn’t you spring the lock when you came down? This is a pretty pass, I must say,” she said, her voice still shaky, her logic abnormal.
“I like that! Were you any better off before I came than you are now? How were you going to get out, may I ask?” he demanded, coolly seating himself on the top step. She stood leaning against the wooden door, the diplomatic lantern between them.
“I was going out by another way,” she said, shortly, but a shudder gave the lie to the declaration.
“Do you know where that hidden passage leads to?” he asked, looking up into her face. She was brushing cobwebs from her dress.
“To a cave near the old church,” she replied, triumphantly.
“Blissful ignorance!” he laughed. “It doesn’t lead anywhere as it now exists. You see, there was a cave-in a few decades ago—”
“Is that the one that caved in?” she cried, in dismay.
“So Saxondale tells me.”
“And—and how did the—the—how did that awful thing get in there?” she asked, a new awe coming over her.
“Well, that’s hard to tell. Bob says the door has never been opened, to his knowledge. Nobody knows the secret combination, or whatever you call it. The chances are that the poor fellow whose bones we saw got locked in there and couldn’t get out. So he died. That’s what might have happened to you, you know.”
“Oh, you brute! How can you suggest such a thing?” she cried, and she longed to sit close beside him, even though he was her most detested enemy.
“Oh, I would have saved you from that fate, never fear.”
“But you could not have known that I was inside the passage.”
“Do you suppose I came down here on a pleasure trip?”
“You—you don’t mean that you knew I was here?”
“Certainly; it is why I came to this blessed spot. It is my duty to see that no harm comes to you, Dorothy.”
“I prefer to be called Miss Garrison,” coldly.
“If you had been merely Miss Garrison to me, you’d be off on a bridal tour with Ravorelli at this moment, instead of enjoying a rather unusual tete-a-tete with me. Seriously, Dorothy, you will be wise if you submit to the inevitable until fate brings a change of its own accord. You are brave and determined, I know, and I love you more than ever for this daring attempt to get out of Craneycrow, but you don’t know what it might have brought you to. Good heavens, no one knows what dangers lie in those awful passages. They have not been used in a hundred years. Think of what you were risking. Don’t, for your own sake, try anything so uncertain again. I knew you were down here, but no one else knows. How you opened that secret door, I do not know, but we both know what happened to one other poor wretch who solved the mystery.”
“I didn’t solve it, really I didn’t. I don’t know how it happened. It just opened, that’s all, and then I—oh, it was terrible!” She covered her eyes with her hands and he leaped to his feet.
“Don’t think about it, Dorothy. It was enough to frighten you to death. Gad, I should have gone mad had I been in your place.” He put his arm about her shoulder, and for a moment she offered no resistance. Then she remembered who and what he was and imperiously lifted angry eyes to his.
“The skeleton may have been a gentleman in his day, Mr. Quentin. Even now, as I think of him in horror, he could not be as detestable as you. Open this door, sir!” she said, her voice quivering with indignation.
“I wish I could—Dorothy, you don’t believe that I have the power to open this door and am blackguard enough to keep you here? My God, what do you think I am?” he cried, drawing away from her.
“Open this door!” she commanded, resolutely. He looked long and earnestly into her unflinching eyes, and his heart chilled as if ice had clogged the blood.
“I cannot open it,” he said at last. With not another word he sat down again at her feet, and, for what seemed like an age, neither spoke. The lantern sputtered warningly, but they did not know the light of its life was ebbing away. They breathed and thought, and that was all. At length the chill air began to tell, and he plainly heard the chatter of her teeth, the rustling of her dress as her body shivered. He arose, stiff and cold, drew off his coat and threw it about her shoulders. She resisted at first, but he was master. Later his waistcoat was wrapped about her throat and the warm lantern was placed at her feet, but she never gave him one look of gratitude.
At intervals he pounded on the door until finally there came the joyous, rasping sound of a key in the lock, and then excited exclamations filled the ears of the two prisoners.
CHAPTER XXVI
“THE KING OF EVIL-DOERS”
“Turk has been in Brussels,” said Quentin to her on the day following her underground adventure. She was walking in the courtyard, and her brain was busy with a new interest. Again had the lonely priest passed along the road far below, and she had made him understand that he was wanted at the castle gates. When he turned of
f the road and began slowly to climb the steep, she was almost suffocated with nervous excitement. Her experience of the day before had left her unstrung and on the verge of collapse, and she was beginning to enjoy a strange resignation.
She was beginning to feel that there were terrors worse than those of the kindly prison, and that escape might be tenfold more unpleasant than confinement. Then she saw the priest, and her half-hearted attempt to attract his attention to her plight, resulted so differently from what she had expected that her nerves were again leaping with the old desire to outwit her captors. He was coming to the castle, but how was she to acquaint him with the true state of affairs? She would not be permitted to see him, much less to 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, trying to appear at ease. She prayed for but a few moments’ time in which to cry out to him that she was a prisoner and the woman for whom 100,000 francs were offered in Brussels.
But now comes Quentin upon the scene. His voice was hoarse, and it was plain that he had taken a heavy cold in the damp cellar. She deliberately turned her back upon him, not so much in disdain as to hide the telltale confusion in her face. All hope of conversing with the priest was lost if Quentin remained near by.
“I sent him to Brussels, Dorothy, and he has learned something that will be of vital interest to you,” Philip went on, idly leaning against the gate as if fate itself had sent him there to frustrate her 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 to you. 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 time you may feel like listening. It concerns Prince Ugo.”
“Is he—what has happened to him?” she demanded, turning to him with alarm in her eyes.
“It is not what has happened to him, but to one who was his intimate. The woman who warned me to beware of his treachery has been murdered in Brussels. Shall I come to you here in an hour?”
“Yes,” she said, slowly, the consciousness of a new dread showing itself in her voice. It was not until he reentered the house that she became fully possessed of a desire to learn more of this startling news. Her mind went back to the strange young woman who came to her with the story of the prince’s duplicity, and her blood grew cold with the thought that brutal death had come to her so soon after that visit. She recalled the woman’s voice, her unquestioned refinement, her dignity of bearing and the positiveness with which she declared that Ugo would kill her if he knew the nature of her visit to his promised wife. And now she was dead—murdered! By whom? That question burst upon her with the force of a heavy blow. Who killed her?
A pounding on the heavy gate brought her sharply to the project of the moment. She walked as calmly as her nerves would admit to the gate and called in French:
“Who is there?”
“Father Paul,” came a subdued voice from the outside. “Am I wrong in believing that I was called here by some one in the castle? Kindly admit me. I am fatigued and athirst.”
“I cannot open the gate, good Father, You must aid me to escape from this place,” she cried, eagerly, her breast thumping like a hammer. There was no interruption, and she could have shrieked with triumph when, five minutes later, the priest bade her be of good cheer and to have confidence in him. He would come for her on the next night but one, and she should be freed. From her window in the castle she saw the holy man descend the steep with celerity not born of fatigue. When he reached the road below he turned and waved his hand to her and then made his way swiftly into the forest.
After it was all over and relief was promised, her excitement subsided and in its place began to grow a dull contemplation of what her rescue would mean to the people who were holding her captive. It meant exposure, arrest, imprisonment and perhaps death. The appeal she had succeeded in getting to the ears of the passing priest would soon be public property, and another day might see the jubilant minions of the law in front of Castle Craneycrow demanding her release and the surrender of the culprits. There was not the joy in her heart that she had expected; instead there was a sickening fancy that she had done something mean and treacherous. When she rejoined the unsuspecting party downstairs soon afterward, a mighty weakness assailed her, and it was she, instead of they who had boldly stolen her from her home, that felt the pangs of guilt. She went into the courtyard where Savage and Lady Jane were playing handball, while the Saxondales looked on, happily unconscious of a traitor in their midst. For an instant, pale and remorseful, she leaned against the door-post, struggling to suppress the tears of pity and contrition. Before she had fully recovered her strength Lady Jane was drawing her into the contest with Dickey. And so she played cravenly with those whose merry hearts she was to crush, listening to the plaudits of the two smiling onlookers. It was too late to save them, for a priest of God had gone out into the world to herald their guilt and to deal a blow that would shatter everything.
Quentin came down a little later, and she was conscious that he watched the game with eyes in which pleasure and trouble fought for supremacy. Tired at last of the violent exercise, the trio threw themselves upon the bench in the shade of the wall, and, with glowing faces and thumping breasts, two of them laughed over the antics they had cut. Dorothy’s lawless lover stood afar off, lonely and with the resignation of the despised. Presently he drew near and asked 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 agree with me,” he said.
“I did not want your coat, but you would give it to me,” said Dorothy, as if called upon to defend herself for some crime.
“It was you or I for the cold, you know,” he said, simply, “and I was your protector.”
“Right and good,” agreed Dickey. “Couldn’t do anything else. Lady needed a coat, had to have it, and she got it. Duty called and found him prepared. That’s why he always wears a coat in the presence of ladies.”
“I’ve had your friend, the skeleton, buried,” said Lord Bob. “Poor chap, 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 her ears.
“Shut up, Dickey,” exclaimed Quentin. “Do you care to hear about that 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 the dead 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 in which she was found was the one into which Turk had seen Courant disappear on the night of the veranda incident at the Garrison’s. Turk had been sent to Brussels by Quentin on a mission of considerable importance, arriving there soon after the body was discovered. He saw the woman’s face at the morgue and recognized her as the one who had approached Quentin in the train for Paris. Turk learned that the police, to all appearances had found a clew, but had suddenly dropped the whole matter and the woman was classified with the “unknown dead.” An attendant at the morgue carelessly remarked in his hearing that she was the mistress of a great man, who had sent them word to “throw her in the river.” Secretly Turk assured himself that there was no mistake as to the house in which she had been found, and by putting two and two together, it was not unnatural to agree with the morgue officer and to supply for his own benefit the name of the royal lover. The newspapers which Turk brought from Brussels to Castle Craneycrow contained ac
counts of the murder of the beautiful woman, speculated wildly as to her idenity and termed the transaction a mystery as unsolvable as the great abduction. The same papers had the report, on good authority, that Miss Garrison had been murdered by her captors in a small town in Spain, the authorities being so hot on the trail that she was put out of the way for safety’s sake.
But the papers did not know that a bearded man named Turk had slipped a sealed envelope under a door at the Garrison home, and that a distressed mother had assurance from the brigand chief that her daughter was alive and well, but where she could not be found. To prove that the letter was no imposition, it was accompanied by a lock of hair from Dorothy’s head, two or three bits of jewelry and a lace handkerchief that could not have belonged to another. Dorothy did not know how or when Baker secured these bits of evidence, When Quentin told her the chief object of Turk’s perilous visit to Brussels, her eyes filled with tears, and for the first time she felt grateful to him.
“I have a confession to make,” she said, after the story was finished and the others had deliberately charged Ugo with the crime. “That poor woman came to me in Brussels and implored me to give up the prince. She told me, Phil, that she loved him and warned me to beware of him. And she said that he would kill her if he knew that she had come to me.”
“That settles it!” exclaimed he, excitedly, the fever of joy in his eyes. “He killed her when he found that she had been to you. Perhaps, goaded to desperation, she confessed to him. Imagine the devilish delight he took in sniffing out her life after that! We have him now! Dorothy, you know as well as I that he and he alone had an object in killing her. You have only to tell the story of her visit to you and we’ll hang the miserable coward.” He was standing before her, eager-eyed and intense.
“You forget that I am not and do not for some time expect to be in a position to expose him. I am inclined to believe that the law will first require me to testify against you, Philip Quentin,” she said, looking fairly into his eyes, the old resentment returning like a flash. Afterward she knew that the look of pain in his face touched her heart, but she did not know it then. She saw the beaten joy go out of his eyes, and she rejoiced in the victory.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 153