Colin stared. Could it be possible that Genghis Khan was unknown in the neighborhood?
“You don’t take my meaning,” he said frankly. “I’m not referring to Marco, but to the real monkey, the one he calls Genghis Khan.”
The agent shook his head. Both men looked blank.
“Didn’t know he had one, mister. Must be some pet that came in one of the small boxes. Well, I’ve got my bills of lading to check over. If you want to go out to Reed’s place, Jimmy here will show you the way. Won’t you, Jimmy? That is, unless you’ve been there before.”
“I know the way,” nodded O’Hara, “and thanks for the time you’ve given me!”
As he started up the road the lounger called after him.
“Say, mister, don’t be surprised at nothing you hear there. That Miss Reed, his girl that lives there with him, is loony! I never seen her, but I’ve heard she takes on somethin’ awful every wunst in a while. An’ say, don’t buy none of his imitation fancies, neither. I c’n put you next to some real good — “
But with an impatient wave of the arm O’Hara strode out of hearing. Without reason he resented intensely the man’s reference to the girl. And to follow it up with advice about live stock! Had the fool no sense of what was fitting?
Though he resolutely declined to face the fact, O’Hara was taking an astonishing amount of interest in this mad girl, to whom he had never spoken, whom he had seen for a scant three minutes. He might refer to her as a “blessed and miraculous memory” all he pleased, but it was not so much memory as a faint hope of seeing her again that made this present visit the most exciting he had ever planned paying in his life.
The day had begun fine and sunny, but a high wind had arisen. Now, at four in the afternoon, masses of dark cloud were surging across the sky, threatening rain before nightfall. Dust and dry, brown leaves swirled around and past him, and he had to cling to his hat lest it follow the leaves. The branches of the trees whipped and writhed in a wind that was stripping away the last of their October splendors.
Colin walked slowly, for he wished to think over the things he had just learned.
“Sheep, calves, poultry, and hares. Now which of those four could groan like an-earthquake? Faith, it sounds like a riddle! Something did moan last night, and ‘twas no cage dragged over a floor, either. It frightened the poor little Dusk Lady upstairs. But if the people about here know nothing of Genghis Khan, why may it not be that Reed has other secrets-for museums, says he, and menageries?
“Now, what sort of beasts would those be? I never did hear of a man that could breed the larger carnivora with any success at all in captivity-or not in these latitudes. Freaks, then. Maybe. Now, what is this queer ‘science’ of Reed’s? Does he cut the poor brutes up alive and hang the fore part of one on the hind part of another?”
O’Hara had been reading “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” and its vivisectionary horrors had stirred his imagination.
“If there’s anything like that going on here,” he thought, “‘tis high time it was put a stop to. I did not like that man Reed at first, and now, after thinking him over, I do not at all. He’s too smooth and too polite, and behind it he hides a nasty temper. And his glasses are too big and ridiculous. I’d like to see the lad with them off, and his beard off too. A man might as well wear a mask as all that adornment. I may have seen him before, and I may not, but if I could see him shaved it would help me decide.”
Here he postponed further reflection, for he had come up to the wrought-iron gates. He sought the button of the electric bell and pressed it. It rang in the gatelodge, as before, but since it seemed unlikely that the entire time of Reed’s one servant was spent in that sepulchral refuge, Colin assumed that the button had two connections, one of them at the house.
It was in that lodge, the agent had said, that the last owner had hanged himself. Recalling his experience of last night, a doubt flashed through Colin’s mind like a flying spark. It was gone in an instant. He had his superstitious side, but seldom allowed it to get the better of him. That pale oval in the gatelodge doorway had been Marco’s face. Ghosts do not push doors open, nor close them to, and, anyway, it would be a very inefficient “haunt” that showed itself only to disappear so instantly. Colin smiled at the thought and looked beyond the lodge.
Within, the grounds seemed more desolate, though less mysterious, than on the previous night. Through the trees, which had shed so many of their leaves that afternoon, he caught glimpses of gray granite walls, and above them the roofs of the old, many-gabled house-and yet above them, like a misplaced reminiscence of the Orient-a strange, round, domed affair.
The dome form is one of the glories of architecture, but this one was not beautiful at all. It somehow suggested that an incredibly large, white fungus had sprouted there in the night and not yet been discovered and removed by the outraged dwelling’s owner. Somewhere, some time-where and when, thought Colin, had he once before received that impression of a dome?
A fugitive memory that he could not place-and now Marco came rustling down through the leaves on the unswept drive. He met O’Hara with that same frightened stealthy look which seemed his habitual expression, and opened the gate with the air of a conspirator.
“What ails you, man?” demanded O’Hara as he entered. “You’re shivering like a wet poodle dog. Is it the ague you have?”
The man shook his head and replied in his mumbled toothless voice:
“Last night-you made great noise last night. Too much noise! Silence-silence!”
Colin stared. He had supposed the man normal save in appearance, but it appeared he was only half-witted.
“All right, my lad,” he said soothingly. “Since noise troubles you so I’ll try and make less of it today. Will I find Mr. Reed at the house?”
Again Marco shook his head and, putting a hand in the pocket of his worn corduroys, pulled out a crumpled envelope. “Here,” he mumbled, extending it to O’Hara. “There are words on the white paper inside!”
“A note, eh? Now, what — “
Colin tore open the envelope. As the albino had phrased it, there were indeed words on the white paper inside, and words, moreover, which he read with considerable disappointment. The letter ran:
My dear Mr. O’Hara: I am writing this in case you should honor me with a visit this afternoon, as you spoke of doing. It is with great regret that I am obliged to postpone the pleasure of showing you about my little place, but imperative business calls me away. I cannot set the exact time of my return, but probably it will be in the course of a few days. I will then drop you a line, and sincerely hope that your visit may be repeated. Again regretting this involuntary rudeness to an invited guest, believe me, Most sincerely yours, Chester T. Reed.
Colin glanced from Reed’s note to find the albino’s eyes fixed on his face, but, as usual, not with the least appearance of seeing him. One could hardly believe that those black, pointlike pupils were designed to look outward.
“So, your master has left you in charge here?” queried Colin thoughtfully.
“I am here-yes.”
“But I mean, is it alone you are? No one to look after-Miss Reed?”
Marco frowned and pointed, first to the note, then to the gate.
“The master said-after reading, go!”
“Faith, you’ve a polite way of dismissing his guests, friend Marco!”
Colin hesitated. Could it be possible that Reed had actually gone away and left his pitifully lovely daughter in the charge of this red-eyed and possibly degenerate creature?
If so, what had been none of his business became his business or that of any other decent man. There must be some law of the State to cover such a situation. He decided to consult his brother-in-law. That clever lawyer could surely advise him. In the meantime —
“Marco,” he said, “look me in the eye and heed well what I say. Should any harm come to Miss Reed in her father’s absence, be sure I’ll know of it, and be sure that it’s myself you’ll
have to deal with for it. D’ye understand? I could tear you to bits, little man, and well you know it!”
“The master said-after reading, go!”
“Oh, I’ll go! But do you think of my words and heed them! And tell your master that the O’Hara was here. Good day to you, Marco!”
The gates clicked shut behind him. Colin paused outside to light a cigar, with difficulty shielding the match from the gale. When he glanced back through the iron scrolls Marco had disappeared.
“‘Tis ashamed of myself I am,” mused Colin, “threatening violence to a weak, white worm like him! But that’s the best I could think of to do. I do not know what is wrong with that place, nor with the master of it, but that something is wrong I am sure as sure can be. And I could hardly invade the man’s premises by force to look into the matter. Or could I?”
He stared thoughtfully through the beautiful gates that Sutphen Jerrard himself had imported from Italy. As he looked, the first few drops of driven rain beat stingingly upon Colin’s face, and the wind ripped through the trees like the breath of a giant’s shouting-violent, impetuous, intolerant of all foul vapors and secret vileness.
CHAPTER XVIII. A Voice
BUT Colin did not invade Reed’s place that afternoon. For one thing he wanted Rhodes’ opinion before acting. He knew himself for an impetuous man, more used to the rough, forthright ways of the open than the ruled order of civilization. He feared committing some blunder, overriding the law in some way that might injure the girl rather than help her. Yes, he must talk to Rhodes.
He returned to his lonely bungalow in a mood so meditative that he was scarcely aware of the wild tempest that raved and tore at his drenched figure as he ascended the hill-road from Carpentier.
Night had fallen-a roaring blackness, and there had been no one to light up against his coming. He stumbled in, switching on the lights through the house as he went. They were comfortable, cheery rooms that sprang into view, still wearing some few of the homelike touches given them by Cliona, but for some reason the sight of them only emphasized the trouble of his mind.
Still pondering gloomily, Colin exchanged his dripping clothes for dry ones. Then he called Green Gables on the telephone. His sister answered, and, having informed her of the negative result of his visit to Undine, he asked for Tony.
But Tony, it seemed, was in town, having been detained on business. He would be home later in the evening.
“I’ll call him later, then,” said Colin, and bade his sister goodby.
He went through the dining-room, and from a bracket of the sideboard there a little porcelain image smiled benignly at his passing form. The broken shield still lay beside it. He had kept the godling “for the sake of the dream it would always bring to mind,” but that “dream” was far from his thoughts tonight.
He passed Quetzalcoatl’s small eidolon without a glance, and sought the kitchen, where he began preparing his supper. The cold rain had given him an appetite that even vague worry could not spoil. Having made a wonderfully good meal, he pushed the dishes to one side of the kitchen-table and lighted his pipe with a deep sigh of physical contentment.
But the satisfaction of his appetite had by no means quieted his mind. Back and forth fled his thoughts, spinning an invisible, intangible web between the bungalow at Carpentier and the house at Undine, till it seemed as if the cords of it had entangled his very body and were dragging him forth into the storm again.
What was the real connection between the huge, bloody thing that left its trail on this hill and that grating, vibratory roar he had heard last evening as he sat in Reed’s entrance-hall? Was there a connection? And why did Reed keep a mad girl in the very surroundings best calculated to increase her dementia? And why should he, Colin O’Hara, care so very intensely what Reed did for his daughter, or left undone?
Could insanity rouse love? No. Common sense told him that the barrier of madness was higher than he could cross. Then it must be only pity that he felt for this poor daughter of Chester Reed. Pity, it seemed, was a force of fearful power! What was she doing now? What fate hung over her? Or was this feeling of indefinite dread no more than a film of his too active fancy?
Now and again, while Colin sat smoking and frowning through the smoke, the whole bungalow would shake, quivering as if in the grasp of some fierce monster. It was just that, and the monster was the living, raving wind. It dashed rain against the windows with savage roars, and shouted among the branches, daring the man within to match his strength to its violence.
Colin wished that Rhodes had been in. He wanted authority-authority to remove the girl definitely and forever from the care of a father not fit to have charge of her. Did he take her by force and prematurely, it might weaken the case. How could he tell? Rhodes was the law-wise lad —
The wind’s voice no longer defied him-it was calling, pleading with him in great shouts and gasps of terror. It was a reckless, impetuous messenger, tearing at his windows and his heart in gusty throbs of wordless passion. There he sat, stolid, content in his animal comfort, and the wind knew that which should drag him through storm, fire, or hell’s self, could it but impart its dread information.
Colin laid down his pipe and rose with a troubled frown. Wandering into the living-room he touched a match to the pile of kindling and logs in the fireplace. For a while the snapping, friendly flames were a solace to his rising discontent, but soon the feeling of unrest returned like a flowing tide.
The wind-the wind! Its invisible hand was shaking at the latch. Down it plunged through the chimney and spat contemptuous smoke and ashes at his stubborn inertia. It howled scorn at him for an irresolute, doubting fool, and wailed sorrowfully about the house in a long prophecy of bitterness and lifelong regret.
Till at last he could bear no more.
“Colin O’Hara,” said he, “you’re a fool; but if go you must, then go and have done with it!”
Suddenly he tramped to his room and again changed, this time to heavy hunting clothes, with stout, water-proof boots, donned an ulster and pulled a steamer-cap well down over his ears. Then he hesitated. Should he carry the blued steel weapon that still lay in his suitcase?
Colin had a certain scorn for any weapons other than the very efficient ones provided him by nature. To his mind there was something childish, even cowardly, about the look of a pistol in that great right hand of his. In the end he flung the thing into a drawer, hunted out and thrust in his overcoat pocket a small flashlight, extinguished the living-room fire, and marched from the house, nose in air in defiance of his own folly.
The gale fairly snatched the breath from his nostrils, but Colin lowered his head and lunged onward down the hill. He knew where he was going, and if he were thrusting himself in where no one wanted or needed him-well, let it be that way.
It was then eight o’clock, and he was just in time to catch the local that ran every two hours until midnight. At Undine he descended and was glad to observe that even the socially minded agent had been driven to cover by the storm. Passing through the small group of stores and dwellings beyond the station, Colin walked on out the pike, fairly leaning his weight against the blast, and too blinded by rain to get much good of the flaring and far-separated roadlights.
Instinctively it was toward the gate that he directed his steps, but reaching it he found his purpose too indefinite for convenience. Should he ring the bell and Marco answer it, what reason could he offer to gain him admittance?
If he were going in at all, it was clear that the entry must be clandestine. Once more he eyed that spike-topped wall with speculative glance. Then he recalled that the station-lounger had spoken of board-fences enclosing part of the estate. A fence might be easier to, scale, and might just possibly be spikeless.
Ten minutes later found Colin standing on the further bank of Llewellyn Creek, a spot he had reached by following the pike across the bridge and turning in at a little foot-path branching off beyond. It led a hundred yards or so along the bank and ceased at what hi
s flashlight showed to be another bridge, a single, narrow arch of stone, crumbling and without hand-rail or parapet.
On the other side, there appeared to be a small building, rising flush with the stream’s bank and standing out somewhat from a high wooden barrier.
Crossing the bridge, Colin found himself faced by a plain wooden door set in a windowless wall of granite.
What interested him was that this door was not only unlocked, but slightly open. He entered, and his light playing over walls and floor showed a large, bare, dusty place. Boxes and packing-cases were stacked on one another, and in a corner lay a few rusty bits of old machinery. Nothing alive here save rats.
Perhaps it was the contents of one of those packing cases that gave off so unpleasant an odor. There was the dusty, disused smell natural to such a place, and through it whiffs of this other, and by no means agreeable, exhalation. Colin wrinkled his nose and sniffed. Failing to identify its source, he dismissed the matter and looked for an inner exit.
Crossing the old wooden floor, broken in more than one place, he discovered a pair of double doors, like those of a carriage-house. These, too, were unbarred and slightly ajar.
Someone had surely been careless. Colin wondered if Genghis Khan were once more abroad, but thought not. No sensible monkey would choose a night like this for its rambles.
Emerging from the storehouse he found his feet on a narrow plank walk that skirted a length of twelve-foot-high wire-fencing. It looked strong enough. Those springy steel meshes might have withstood the attack of a mad elephant. Curiosity, subordinated before to his concern for the girl, welled up now, and, yielding to it, Colin sent the light of his flash through the meshes.
The darting ray disclosed an expanse of trampled mud and wet turf, and beyond that a small, semi-enclosed shed. He held his light steady upon it. The rain, which had for a few moments diminished, descended again in driven, slanting sheets, but he thought he had glimpsed a heap of something gray that stirred as his light found it. Then a plaintive, long-drawn “Ba-a-a!” reached his ears. Colin snapped off his light in disgust. He had disturbed the innocent rest of some harmless sheep.
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