The Black Eagle Mystery
Page 19
CHAPTER XIX
JACK TELLS THE STORY
That night Babbitts, O'Mally and I left for Quebec. Before we went thewires that connected us with the Canadian city had been busy. St. Foy584 had been located, a house on a suburban road, occupied for the lasttwo weeks by an American called Henry Santley. Instructions were carriedover the hundreds of intervening miles to surround the house, toapprehend Santley if he tried to get away, and to watch for the lady whowould join him that night. Unless something unforeseen and unimaginableshould occur we had Barker at last.
As we rushed through the darkness, we speculated on the reasons for hislast daring move--the sending for his daughter. O'Mally figured it outas the result of a growing confidence--he was feeling secure and wantedto help her. He had had ample proof of her discretion and had probablysome plan for her enrichment that he wanted to communicate to her inperson. I was of the opinion that he expected to leave the country andintended to take her with him, sending back later for the mother. He wasassured of her trust and affection, knew she believed in him, and wascertain the murder hadn't been and now never would be discovered. Hecould count on safety in Europe and with his vast gains could settledown with his wife and his daughter to a life of splendid ease. Well,we'd see to _that_. The best laid schemes of mice and men!
The sun was bright, the sky sapphire clear as the great rock of Quebec,crowned with its fortress roofs, came into view. The two rivers claspedits base, ice-banded at the shore and in the middle their dark currentsflowing free. Snow and snow and snow heaved and billowed on thesurrounding hills, paved the narrow streets, hooded the roofs of theancient houses. Through the air, razor-edged with cold and crystalclear, came the thin broken music of sleigh bells, ringing up from everylane and alley, jubilant and inspiring, and the sleighs, low running,flew by with the wave of their streaming furs and the flash of scarletstandards.
Glorious, splendid, a fit day, all sun and color and music, for me tocome to Carol!
A man met us at the depot, a silent, wooden-faced policeman of somekind, who said yes, he thought the lady was there, and then piloted usglumly into a sleigh and mounted beside the driver. A continuous, vaguecurrent of sound came from Babbitts and O'Mally as we climbed a steephill with the Frontenac's pinnacled towers looming above us and thenshot off down narrow streets where the jingle of the bells was flungback and across, echoing and reverberating between the old stone houses.It made me think of a phrase the boys in the office used, "coming withbells!"
We went some distance through the town and out along a road, where thebuildings drew apart from one another, villas and suburban houses behindwalls and gardens. At a smaller one, set back in a muffling of whitenedshrubberies, the sleigh drew in toward the sidewalk. Before the otherscould disentangle themselves from the furs and robes, I was out andracing up the path.
My eyes, ranging hungrily over the house, thinking perhaps to see her atone of the windows, saw in it something ominous and secretive. There wasnot a sign of life, every pane darkened with a lowered blind. All aboutit the snow was heaped and curled in wave-like forms as if endeavoringto creep over it, to aid in the work of hiding its dark mystery.Barker's lair, his last stand! It looked like it, white wrapped, silent,inscrutable.
As I leaped up the piazza steps the door was opened by a man in uniform.He touched his hat and started to speak, but I pushed him aside and camein peering past him down a hall that stretched away to the rear. At thesound of his voice a door had opened there and a woman came out. For amoment she was only a shadow moving toward me up the dimness of thehalf-lit passage. Then I recognized her, gave a cry and ran to her.
My hands found hers and closed on them, my eyes looking down into thedark ones raised to them. Neither of us spoke, it didn't occur to me toexplain why I was there and she showed no surprise at seeing me. Itseemed as if we'd known all along we were going to meet in that darkpassage in that strange house. And standing there silent, hand claspedin hand, I saw something so wonderful, so unexpected, that thesurroundings faded away and for me there was nothing in the world butwhat I read in her beautiful, lifted face.
I never had dared to hope, never had thought of her as caring for me.All I had asked was the right to help and defend her. Perhaps underdifferent circumstances, when things were happy and easy, I'd haveaspired, gone in to try and win. But in the last dark month, when we'dcome so close, we'd only been a woman set upon and menaced, and a manbraced and steeled to do battle for her. Now, with her stone-cold handsin mine, I saw in the shining depths of her eyes--Oh, no, it's toosacred. That part of the story is between Carol and me.
There had been sounds and voices in the vestibule behind us. They camevaguely upon my consciousness, low and then breaking suddenly into alouder key, phrases, exclamations, questions. I don't think if the househad been rocked by an earthquake I'd have noticed it, and it wasn't tillO'Mally came down the passage calling me, that I dropped her hands andturned. His face was creased into an expression of excitedconsternation, and he rapped out, not seeing Carol:
"What the devil are you doing there? Haven't you heard?" Then his eyecatching her, "Oh, it's Miss Whitehall. Well, young lady, you must havehad a pretty tough time here last night."
She simply drooped her eyelids in faint agreement.
"What do you mean?" I cried, and looked from O'Mally's boisterouslyconcerned countenance to Carol's worn, white one. "What is it, somethingmore?"
She gave a slight nod and said:
"The last--the end this time."
O'Mally wheeled on me:
"She hasn't told you. He shot himself--here, last night, shortly aftershe arrived."
Before I had time to answer, Babbitts and the man in uniform, a policeinspector, were beside us. Babbitts was speechless--as I was myself--butthe inspector, pompous and stolid, answered my look of shockedamazement:
"A few minutes after one. Fortunately I'd got your instructions and thehouse was surrounded. My men heard the report and the screams and brokein at once."
I looked blankly from one to the other. There was a confused horror inmy mind, but from the confusion one thought rose clear--Barker had donethe best, the only thing.
The inspector, ostentatiously cool in the midst of our aghast concern,volunteered further:
"He didn't die till near morning and we got a full statement out of him.For an hour afterward he was as clear as a bell--they are that waysometimes--and gave us all the particulars, seemed to want to. I've gotit upstairs and from what I can make out he was one of the sharpest,most daring criminals I ever ran up against. I've had the body kept herefor your identification. Will you come up and see it now?"
He moved off toward the stairs. O'Mally and Babbitts, mutteringtogether, filing after him. I didn't go but turned to Carol, who hadthrust one hand through the balustrade that ran up beside where we werestanding. As the tramp of ascending feet sounded on the first steps, sheleaned toward me, her voice hardly more than a whisper:
"Do you know who it is?"
"Who what is?" I said, startled by her words and expression.
"The man upstairs?"
I was terror-stricken--the experiences of the night had unhinged hermind. I tried to take her hand, but she drew it back, her lips formingwords just loud enough for me to hear:
"You don't. It's Hollings Harland."
"Carol!" I cried, certain now she was unbalanced.
She drew farther away from me and slipping her hand from the balustradepointed up the stairs:
"Go and see. It's he. There's nothing the matter with me, but I want youto see for yourself. Go and see and then come back here and I'll tellyou. I know everything now."
I went, a wild rush up the stairs. In a room off the upper hall, thelight tempered by drawn blinds, were O'Mally, Babbitts and theinspector, looking at the dead body of Hollings Harland.