He rose to the surface, tore the gag from his mouth, and dashed the water from his eyes. He was just outside the pier. His left arm and shoulder were useless, and a little cry escaped him as he tried to move them. Wildly he looked around him. Unless in some way he could intervene, Charlebois now would go rushing to his death in the wake of the motor boat. But as yet there was nothing in sight except the dinghy and the motor boat itself. The dinghy had, of course, been dragged out of the opening by the motor boat, and, Stranway could see that the two men in her, evidently afraid to hang on for fear of the explosion, had cast off, leaving Krinler to his fate, and were now sculling for their lives around the end of the pier. The motor boat was headed out into the stream, but still there was no sign of—yes, there she was! Swinging at full speed around the end of the pier opposite to that taken by the dinghy, a white wave curling from her bows, came the Cherokee.
"Cherokee! Cherokee!" Stranway shouted with all his might.
They did not hear him! He groaned in agony—then raised himself to his armpits, treading water desperately, splashing frantically with his uninjured hand and arm.
"Cherokee! Cherokee!" he yelled like a madman. "Stop! It's Stranway! For God's sake, don't follow that boat! Stop! Cherokee! Cherokee!"
His lips moved in silent gratitude. They had heard him. The Cherokee was heading around in his direction. But now he was no longer watching her—he was straining his eyes riverward. It was hard to keep afloat, for the pain in his arm and shoulder were draining the last of his strength away from him, and his brain was growing strangely sick and giddy; but he knew he was waiting, watching for something. He went under once, came up—and a great flare of light that was dotted with black specks of wreckage met his eyes, and to his ears there came the roar of a terrific concussion. He told himself in a curious sing-song way that this was what he had been waiting for, and that the motor boat was torn to splinters. Then he went under again—and he realised then that he was being pulled in over the Cherokee's side, while Charlebois' voice in anxious tones reached him, it seemed, from a great distance:
"What has happened? Are you hurt, my boy? And Krinler, where is Krinler?"
"Krinler—Krinler is dead," Stranway answered weakly—and fainted.
Chapter XXV.
The Message
Table of Contents
Stranway tossed the book he had been reading, or, rather, attempting to read, aside; and, rising from the lounging chair which, half an hour before he had drawn up beside the reading lamp in his cosily furnished Sixth Avenue quarters, he began to pace uneasily up and down the room. It was no use! He could not focus his mind upon even a single paragraph. All day a sense of depression had been growing steadily upon him, and, do what he would, he could not shake it off. And now he had reached a state of mind where his spirits were at a lower ebb than ever.
A prescience of evil—a foreboding? Why? Was it superstition? Ridiculous! There wasn't anything in the world that could not be explained by natural causes. Well, then, what natural cause was there wherewith to explain his present mental condition? Was he a bit under par—had he been working too hard? He shook his head. No, that wasn't it. Physically, he had never felt better than at this present moment. What was it, then? He might as well fight it out here and now and get to the bottom of it—and get rid of it! There must be a cause. Was it the cumulative effect of the strange and unusual happenings that had been going on now for many months—for a year? Perhaps? Anyway, whether that was the solution or not, it was at least not an illogical possibility. Everything in life, from the little things to the great, was climacteric. But why, if that were the explanation, should there be any more reason for a climax to-night than there had been last night, or last month, or a year ago? Conditions were relatively the same. He halted at the window, pushed the portière absently aside, thrust his hands in his pockets, and stood staring out at the street below him. It was late, near midnight, and the thoroughfare, that section of it at least that confronted him, was practically deserted. There was nothing to see. But still he stood there—and his mind, steered now into the channel of the past twelve months, began to plot a mental chart, as it were, of the route that he had travelled.
It was a year since the night that defined itself in his mind, not as the night when he had so nearly lost his life at Krinler's hands, but as the night when he had been so sure that he had won the love of the woman who had come to mean everything in life to him, so sure that from then on the mysterious barrier that had existed between them, whatever it might have been, was finally and for all time removed, and that he would thereafter be free to go to her when he would—but since that night he had never seen her.
And then, almost immediately following that same night, an unaccountable thing had happened. Charlebois had removed the Red Ledger from the safe in the Red Room of Dominic Court, and from that time he, Stranway, had never laid eyes on it. It had not slowed up or interfered with the work of the organisation, for, during the year as Stranway recalled it, beginning with the account of Chen Yang and the Golden Joss, a score—yes, perhaps twice that number!—of entries must have been written off; but the Red Ledger itself was no more in evidence.
On both these counts he had questioned the little old gentleman—once in reference to the Red Ledger; many, many times in reference to the Orchid. But Charlebois had been more evasive than ever; indeed, a decided change had come over Charlebois himself. He was still the same lovable, affectionate, and, yes, implacable little old gentleman as ever, but he had become markedly preoccupied, and there had come into the kindly blue eyes a trace of trouble and anxiety that of late had never left them.
To his questions anent the removal of the Red Ledger, he, Stranway, had received only a quizzical shake of the head in reply; and the answer to his oft-reiterated questions about the Orchid were summed up in the statement that she was safe and well, and that the time was drawing near when, unless misfortune intervened, he, Stranway, would see her again under happier conditions than had existed before—nothing more definite than that.
No longer ago than that afternoon he had brought the subject up again, and he remembered Charlebois' answer now word for word.
"Yes, I know! I know!" the little old gentleman had said, with an affectionate pat of the hand on his, Stranway's, shoulder. "I know your secret, my boy; and, I believe, hers too. And it has made me very happy—but you must wait, as I have already told you so many times. It will not be long now—sooner, much sooner, perhaps, than, from your past experience, you might expect."
That was all. Not another word had he been able to get out of the little old gentleman.
With a shrug of his shoulders that he tried to pass off upon himself as one of philosophical resignation, Stranway half turned from the window—and abruptly turned back again. A car had suddenly drawn up at the curb in front of his door, and in the light from a near-by street lamp he thought he recognised it as one of the cars belonging to Dominic Court. The next instant any doubt about it was dismissed, as he saw that it was Flint who left the driver's seat and now got out of the car.
A queer, twisted little smile crossed Stranway's lips. What was bringing Flint here to-night? He, Stranway, was a little "jumpy" of course, but what was the reason for this unlooked-for visit? Was Flint a sort of harbinger of evil, coming suddenly now to substantiate with some ill tidings his, Stranway's, strange forebodings? Was something amiss that would only too miserably justify the sense of depression that clung to him so persistently—or was it merely, as so often happened, that some relatively trivial matter, but one however requiring immediate attention, had cropped up unexpectedly at Dominic Court? Certainly, all had been quiet there when he had left the Red Room several hours earlier that evening.
He walked to the entrance door of his apartment, and opened it as Flint was in the act of pushing the bell button.
"Well, Flint?" he demanded quickly.
The man had a flat package in his hand, which he extended to Stranway.
&
nbsp; "I was to give you this," he said briefly.
Stranway took the package.
"No other message?" he asked.
Flint pointed to a white envelope that was tucked under the string with which the package was tied.
"Nothing but that," he answered.
"I see," said Stranway; and then abruptly: "Have you just come from the Court?"
"Yes," Flint answered, "just a few minutes ago."
"Everything all right there?"
"Yes," said Flint, "so far as I know. Had you any particular reason for asking, or any message you want me to take back?"
"No," said Stranway half to himself; "no particular reason. I just wanted to know that everything was quiet. There's no message to take back."
"I'll get along, then," said Flint.
"Right!" responded Stranway. "Good-night."
He closed the door, and, carrying the package to his sitting-room table, opened the envelope that accompanied it. It contained a note in Charlebois' crabbed, angular hand. He read it slowly, a strange, intent expression gathering on his face:
"Dominic Court,
"Thursday evening.
"MY DEAR BOY,—I shall be away all day to-morrow, but I shall be back at nine o'clock in the evening. Come to me in the Red Room at that hour to-morrow night without fail. Allow nothing, however important it may appear to be, to interfere with this. I shall have strange things to say to you, and matters of the gravest importance to discuss.
"But meanwhile I desire you to read the pages I am sending with this note, as they have a very direct bearing on what I shall have to say to you when we are together. They were written by me nineteen years ago and within a few days of the actual date upon which the events that they relate took place—and they were written at the time in order that no single detail, of what you will recognise must have been the most poignant and tragic experience of my life, should escape my memory in after years.
"C"
The most poignant and tragic experience in Charlebois' life! Stranway, with a premonition of he knew not what sweeping upon him, hastily picked up the package and untied it. It contained a number of sheets of paper, written, like the note, in Charlebois' unmistakable hand, but the writing was a little faded and the paper was slightly yellowish with age. Nineteen years ago, Charlebois had said! Stranway drew the lounging chair closer to the table, adjusted the reading lamp, and sat down to read the manuscript.
Chapter XXVI.
The Old Manuscript
Table of Contents
The manuscript began without date line, or preamble of any sort:
It was a night of violent storm, and, save for the intermittent flashes of lightning, sullenly, pitilessly black. Moaning, with my hands stretched out before me as a blind man walks in unknown paths, I staggered on. I was weak, ill, at the end of my strength, and I remember that I muttered queerly to myself:
"Go on! Go about your business! You, in the prime of life—begging! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Go on, now—get out of here!"
My reeling brain kept repeating and reiterating the words with a sort of horrible, fiendish insistency, as though to beat through the state of semi-unconsciousness that was stealing upon me, and so taunt me to the last in ghoulish glee with the inhuman irony of it all.
I took a step forward—and lunged against a tree trunk, my feet sinking ankle deep in a pool of soft, oozy mud and water. Who was it had spoken those words—where was it that I had heard them? They seemed to repeat themselves in a woman's voice; a woman's voice that somehow, too, seemed to be accompanied by the slam of a door—or was that only the crash of a tree to earth in the forest around me, or but a fiercer onrush of wind that, sweeping merciless, icy sheets of rain upon me, drenched and numbed me so!
In the prime of life! Suddenly I laughed aloud, hysterically, wildly. It was true, quite true! I was in my prime. How old was I—forty-one, or two, or three—or was it forty-five? But it was true—I was in my prime—friendless, penniless, alone, ill with a malady that had racked and robbed me of vitality since childhood; near, now, to death's door, unless help came soon. Again I laughed, and I remember that I shuddered at the unnatural sound. The prime of life—what a ghastly, damning jest!
I pressed my hand fiercely over the wet, unshorn hair that had straggled into my eyes. If I could only think—rationally! If I could only stop that giddy swimming in my head long enough to make some logical use of the little bodily strength that was left, instead of expending it in aimless wanderings! Where was I? Who was it had spoken those words—and where was I when I had heard them?
A woman—yes; it was a woman who had uttered them. I could remember a woman in a doorway. It was in a little village somewhere with a single street, the—yes, that was it!—the last house in the village, because after that there had been woods and forest and mountains. Yes, that was it—the last house, my last chance of succour since all the others had rebuffed me—and she had slammed the door in my face. Then I had stumbled out into the woods, into the forest, into the mountains, into this entombing maze in which I had lost myself, and that was now holding me a prisoner for death. That had been early morning—it was night now.
A deep-toned, ominous rumble grew louder, nearer—then with a terrifying crash, bursting like the discharge of heavy artillery, a peal of thunder echoed, reverberated and died away in sullen, angry murmurs, as though reluctant to depart. I shivered and crouched against a tree. The next instant the night was as full noontide. A forked, jagged tongue of lightning tore across the sky, and again, and once again; and the forest seemed to bow its head in chidden hopelessness before Heaven's wrath: the giant trees with drooping tops and wind-torn boughs; the small brush, borne down and listless; the damp, sodden, spiritless earth beneath; while around and on every side, like strange, irregular paths leading to everywhere and to nowhere, the flashes opened dim avenues between the trees whose end was—blackness.
At the third flash my eyes fixed and held, straining to my right where an avenue, longer, more regular than those myriad other perplexing openings, showed in the lightning's glare—and at its end, for an instant, I caught the sheen of dark, turbulent, lashing water. Then all was inky black again.
Painfully, slowly, I started forward in that direction. Why, or with what hope that might be realised in so doing, I did not know. It seemed, perhaps, that it was ordained I should see that sheet of water. Subconsciously, vaguely, the thought came to me that it might be a river, and, possibly, somewhere, a house upon its bank; concretely, it was merely for the moment a definite objective.
Again and again I stumbled. I had grown weaker. My head was light and dizzy. Even the tree trunks seemed to elude my groping hands, and I fell continuously against them, bruising my body and tearing my face. But it did not hurt me. I was past all that. I did not feel the blows.
It was a long way to the river, to the water, to whatever it was—and it had looked to be only a few yards off! But, finally, I staggered out from between two trees that, somehow, had always seemed to be maliciously thrusting themselves in front of me, always blocking my way, and reached the edge of the water. And then suddenly I cried out hoarsely, and began to run, spurting madly, frantically. A yard, two, three I covered—and then my strength failed. I pitched forward on my face, panting, gasping, crying weakly to myself, for ahead of me through the darkness showed a tiny pin-point of light.
For a long time I lay full length upon the soft muddy earth, the rain whipping and lashing at my thinly clad form, the wind cutting through the soaked garments, chilling me to the bone; then over my senses there began to steal a sensation of rest and relaxation, and there was no more cold, and the pain and weakness and misery were being supplanted by an agreeable languor, a feeling of dreamy comfort and repose, and——
The light!
With a supreme effort I roused myself—had I been so near the end! I prayed for strength to reach the light, just for strength enough to reach the light! I was on my feet now, rocking dizzily, my lim
bs shaking beneath me. I took a step forward, stumbled, recovered myself, and for a little way made progress more steadily, then stumbled again, and this time fell.
Was it an hour, ten minutes, or a year of nights? It might have been one or the other to me, for all was chaos, turmoil in my brain. There were no such things as surroundings any more; everything was extraneous save only the point of light—that was the one lucid idea that remained to me.
Again and again, I stumbled, fell, rose and staggered on. There was shelter where that light was—and food. Food! How long was it since I had eaten anything? Yesterday—nothing. The day before, then? Perhaps! Perhaps I had eaten then—I did not remember.
I was crawling now—the last ten yards. It was a window light, and what a warm, heavenly patch of white radiance it threw out into the storm! It looked so cheery, so human. Surely anybody with a light like that would let me in! They wouldn't slam the door upon me! No, they couldn't do that! I was safe now—safe.
Past the window and to the door I crawled, pulled myself to my feet, and banged upon the panels with my fists. And then I cried out hopelessly, despairingly, and clung to the side-posts of the door to keep myself from falling. The light was gone!
The Red Ledger Page 20