The Black Eagle Mystery

by Geraldine Bonner

  CHAPTER XIII

  JACK TELLS THE STORY

  To say that the expectant Whitney office got a jolt is putting itmildly. On the threshold of success, to meet such a setback enragedGeorge and made even the chief grouchy. The new developments added newcomplications that upset their carefully elaborated theories. There hadto be a readjustment. Whoever Sammis was and whatever his motive couldhave been it was undoubtedly he who had attacked Tony Ford.

  It was inexplicable and mysterious. The chief had an idea that there wasa connection between Sammis and Barker, that the man now dead might havebeen "planted" in Philadelphia to divert the search from the live man,who had stolen to safety after a rise to the surface in Toronto. Georgescouted it; an accidental likeness had fooled them and made them wastevaluable time. The devil was on the side of Barker, taking care of hisown.

  It did look that way. Investigation of the few clues we had led tonothing. The tailor, whose bill was found in Sammis's pocket, rememberedselling a suit and overcoat to a man called Sammis on January tenth. Hewas a quiet, polite old party who looked poor and shabby but bought goodclothes and paid spot cash for them. The typewritten letter indicatedthat Sammis had been sent to Philadelphia and well paid for some workthat had not yet started. It was upon this letter the chief based hiscontention that Sammis's appearance in the case was not acoincidence--he was another of Barker's henchmen, and it was part ofBarker's luck that at the crucial moment he should have died.

  But it was all speculation, nothing certain except that we had lost ourman again. Philadelphia had dropped out as a point of interest and thecase swung back to New York, where it now centered round the bed of TonyFord.

  We were in constant communication with the hospital and on Thursdayreceived word that Ford would recover. That lifted us up from the smashof Wednesday night. When he was able to speak we would hearsomething--everything if he could be scared into a full confession. Thehospital authorities refused to let anyone see him till he was perfectlyfit, a matter of several days yet. That suited us, as we wanted nospeech with him till he was strong enough to stand the shock of ourknowledge. Caught thus, with his back against the wall, we expected himto make a clean breast of it.

  The enforced waiting was--to me anyway--distracting. With the hope I'dhad of Barker gone, I was now looking to Ford. He _must_, he _could_exonerate her, there wasn't the slightest doubt of it. But to have towait for it, to be cool and calm, to get through the next few days--Ifelt like a man caught in the rafters of a burning building, trying tobe patient while they hacked him out.

  After the news from the hospital the temperature of the office fell toan enforced normal. O'Mally went back to his burrow and Babbitts to hispaper with his big story still in the air. That night in my place, Imeasured off the sitting room from eight till twelve--five strides fromthe bookcase to the window, seven from the fire to the folding doors.

  If _I_ could only induce her to speak, if she herself would only clearup the points that were against her, there was still a chance of gettingher out of it before Ford opened up. That she had something to hide,some mystery in connection with her movements that night, some secretunderstanding with Barker, even I had to admit. But whatever it was itwould be better to reveal it than to go on into the fierce white lightthat would break over the Harland case within a week.

  In that midnight pacing I tried to think of some way I could force herto tell--to tell _me_, but the clocks chimed on and the fire died on thehearth and I got nowhere. She knew me so slightly, might think I was seton by the office, the very fact that I was what I was might seal herlips closer. Instead of breaking down her reticence I might increase it,strengthen that wall of secretiveness behind which she seemed to betaking refuge like a hunted creature.

  When I went to the office on Friday morning the chief asked me to go toBuffalo that night, to look up some witnesses in the Lytton case. Itwould take me all Saturday and I could get back by Sunday night or atthe latest Monday morning. A phone message sent to the hospital before Icame in had drawn the information that Tony Ford would not be able tosee the Philadelphia detectives--O'Mally and Babbitts posed in thatrole--till Monday. That settled it--better to be at work out of townthan hanging about cursing the slowness of the hours.

  But the questions of the night before haunted me. Why, anyway, couldn'tI go to see her? Wasn't it up to me, whether I succeeded or not, to makethe effort to break through her silence--the silence that was liable todo her such deadly damage? I _had_ to see her. I couldn't keep away fromher. At lunch time I called her up and asked her if I could come. Shesaid yes and named four that afternoon. On the stroke I was in thevestibule, pushing the button below her name, and with my heart thumpingagainst my ribs like a steel hammer.

  She opened the door and as I followed her up the little hall told me theservant had been sent away and her mother was out. As on that formervisit she seated herself at the desk, motioning me to a chair opposite.The blinds were raised, the room flooded with the last warm light of theafternoon. By its brightness I saw that she was even paler and more wornthan she had been that other time--obviously a woman harassed and preyedupon by some inner trouble.

  On the way up I had gone over ways of approach, but sitting there in thequiet pretty room, so plainly the abode of gentlewomen, I couldn't workround to the subject. She didn't give me any help, seeming to assumethat I had dropped in to pay a call. That made it more difficult. When awoman treats you as if you're a gentleman, actuated by motives of commonpoliteness, it's pretty hard to break through her guard and pry into hersecrets.

  She began to talk quickly and, it seemed to me, nervously, telling mehow the owner of their old farm on the Azalea Woods Estates had offeredthem a cottage there, to which they would move next week. It was smallbut comfortable, originally occupied by a laborer's family who had goneaway. The people were very kind, would take no rent, and she and hermother could live for almost nothing till she found work. I sympathizedwith the idea, she'd get away from the wear and tear of the city, havetime to rest and recuperate after her recent worry. She dropped her eyesto a paper on the desk and said:

  "Yes, I'm tired. Everything was so sudden and unexpected. I once thoughtI was strong enough to stand anything--but all this--"

  She stopped and picking up a pencil began making little drawings on thepaper, designs of squares and circles.

  "It's worn you out," I said, looking at her weary and colorless face.Like the thrust of a sword a pang shot through me--love of a man, hiddenand disgraced, had blighted that once blooming beauty.

  She nodded without looking up:

  "It's not the business only, there have been other--other--anxieties."

  That was more of an opening than anything I'd ever heard her say. Icould feel the smothering beat of my heart as I answered, as quietly asI could:

  "Can't you tell them to me? Perhaps I can help you."

  One of those sudden waves of color I'd seen before passed across herface. As if to hide it she dropped her head lower over the paper,touching up the marks she was making. Her voice came soft andcontrolled:

  "That's very kind of you, Mr. Reddy--But I know you're kind--I knew itwhen I first met you a year ago in the country. No, I can't tell you."

  I leaned nearer to her. If I had a chance to make her speak it was nowor never.

  "Miss Whitehall," I said, trying to inject a simple, casual friendlinessinto my voice. "You're almost alone in the world, you've no one--no man,I mean--to look after you or your interests. You don't know how muchhelp I might be able to give you."

  "In what way?" she asked, with her eyes still on the paper.

  For a moment I was nonplused. I couldn't tell her what I knew--Icouldn't go back on my office. I was tied hand and foot; all I could dowith honesty was to try to force the truth from her. Like a fool Istammered out:

  "In advice--in--in--a larger knowledge of the world than you can have."

  She gave a slight, bitter smile, and tilting her head backward lookedcritically at her drawings:r />
  "My knowledge of the world is larger than you think--maybe larger thanyours. There's only one thing you can do for me, but there is one."

  I leaned nearer, my voice gone a little hoarse:

  "What is it?"

  She turned her head and looked into my eyes. Her expression chilled me,cold, challenging, defiant:

  "Tell me if the Whitney Office has found Johnston Barker yet?"

  For a second our eyes held, and in that second I saw the defiance dieout of hers and only question, a desperate question, take its place.

  "No," I heard myself say, "they have _not_ found him."

  "Thank you," she murmured, and went back to her play with the pencil.

  I drew myself to the edge of my chair and laid a hand on the corner ofthe desk:

  "You've asked me a question and I've answered it. Now let _me_ ask one.Why are you so interested in the movements of Johnston Barker?"

  She stiffened, I could see her body grow rigid under its thin silkcovering. The hand holding the pencil began to tremble:

  "Wouldn't anyone be interested in such a sensational event? Isn't itnatural? Perhaps knowing Mr. Barker personally--as I told you in Mr.Whitney's office--I'm more curious than the rest of the world, that'sall."

  The trembling of her hand made it impossible for her to continuedrawing. She threw down the pencil and locked her fingers together,outstretched on the paper, a breath, deep taken and sudden, lifting herbreast. It was pitiful, her lonely fight. I was going to saysomething--anything, to make her think I didn't see, when she spokeagain:

  "Do any of you--you men who are hunting him--ever think that he may notbe _able_ to come back?"

  "Able?" I exclaimed excitedly, for now again I thought something wascoming. "What do you mean by able?"

  I had said--or looked--too much. With a smothered sound she jumped toher feet and before I could rise or stay her with a gesture, brushedpast me and moved to the window. There, for a moment, she stood lookingout, her splendid shape, crowned with its mass of black hair, insilhouette against the thin white curtains.

  "Look here, Miss Whitehall," I said with grim resolution, "I've got tosay something to you that you may not like, may think is butting in, butI can't help it."

  "What?" came on a caught breath.

  "If you know anything about Barker--his whereabouts, his inability tocome back--why don't you tell it? It will help us and help you."

  She wheeled round like a flash, all vehement denial.

  "_I--I?_ I didn't mean that I _knew_. I was only wondering, guessing.It's just as I told Mr. Whitney that day. And you seem to think I'm notopen, am hiding something. Why should I do that? What motive could Ihave to keep secret anything I might know that would bring Mr. Barker tojustice?"

  As she spoke she moved toward me, bringing up in front of me, her eyesalmost fiercely demanding. Mine fell before them. It was no use. With mymemory of those letters, of her mysterious plot with Barker clear in mymind, I could go no farther.

  I muttered some sentences of apology, was sorry if I'd offended her,hadn't meant to imply anything, was carried away by my zeal to find theabsconder. She seemed mollified and moved to her seat by the desk. Thensuddenly, as if a spring that had upheld her had snapped, she droppedinto the chair, limp and pallid.

  "I'm tired, I'm not myself," she faltered. "I don't seem to know whatI'm saying. All this--all these dreadful things--have torn me topieces----" Her voice broke and she averted her face but not before I'dseen that her eyes were shining with tears. That sight brought apassionate exclamation out of me. I went toward her, my arms ready to goout and enfold her. But she waved me back with an imploring gesture:

  "Oh go--I beg of you, go--I want peace--I want to be alone. Pleasego--Please don't torment me any more. I can't bear it."

  She dropped her face into her hands, shrinking back from me, and Iturned and left her. My steps as I went down the hall were the onlysounds in the place, but the silence seemed to thrill with unloosedemotions, to hum and sing with the vibrations that came from my nervesand my heart and my soul.

  The big moments in your life ought to come in beautiful places, at leastthat's what I've always thought. But they don't--anyway with me. For asI went down that dingy staircase, full of queer smells, dark andsqualid, the greatest moment I'd ever known came to me--I loved her!

  I'd loved her always--I knew it now. Out in the country those few firsttimes, but then more as a vision, something that wove through mythoughts, aloof and unapproachable, like an inspiration and a dream. Andthat day in Whitney's office as a woman. And every day since, deeper andstronger, seeing her beset, realizing her danger, longing with everyfiber to help her. It was the cause of that burst of the old fury, ofthe instinct that kept me close and secretive, of this day's fruitlessattempt to make her speak. All the work, the growing dread, the rush ofevents, had held me from seeing, crowded out recognition of thewonderful thing. I stood in the half-lit, musty little hall in atrance-like ecstasy, outside myself, holding only that one thought--Iloved her--I loved her--I loved her!

  Presently I was in the street, walking without any consciousness of theway, toward the Park. The ecstasy was gone, the present was backagain--the present blacker and more terrible after those radiantmoments. I don't know how to describe that coming back to the hideousreality. Everything was mixed up in me--passion, pity, hope, jealousy.There was a space when that was the fiercest, gripped me like a physicalpang, and then passed into a hate for Barker, the man she loved who hadleft her to face it alone. I think I must have spoken aloud--I sawpeople looking at me, and if my inner state was in any way indicated onmy outer envelope I wonder I wasn't run in as a lunatic.

  In a quiet bypath in the Park I got a better hold on myself and tried todo some clear thinking. The first thing I had to do was to rule Barkerout. Even if my fight was to give her to him I must fight; that Icouldn't do till we heard from Ford. Until then it was wisdom to saynothing, to keep my pose of a disinterested adherent of the theory ofher innocence. If Ford's story exculpated her she was out of the caseforever. If it didn't I couldn't decide what I'd do till I heard whereit placed her.

  It was a momentary deadlock with nothing for it but to wait. That I wasprepared to do--go to Buffalo, get through my job there and come back.But I'd come back with my sword loose in its scabbard to do battle formy lady.