The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916)/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
NOT EATON—OVERTON
SANTOINE awoke at five o'clock. The messenger whom he had despatched a few hours earlier had not yet returned. The blind man felt strong and steady; he had food brought him; while he was eating it, his messenger returned. Santoine saw the man alone and, when he had dismissed him, he sent for his daughter.
Harriet had waited helplessly at the house all day. All day the house had been besieged. The newspaper men—or most of them—and the crowds of the curious could be kept off; but others—neighbors, friends of her father's or their wives or other members of their families—claimed their prerogative of intrusion and question in time of trouble. Many of those who thus gained admittance were unused to the flattery of reporter's questions; and from their interviews, sensations continued to grow.
The stranger in Santoine's house—the man whom no one knew and who had given his name as Philip Eaton—in all the reports was proclaimed the murderer. The first reports in the papers had assailed him; the stories of the afternoon papers became a public clamour for his quick capture, trial and execution. The newspapers had sent the idle and the sensation seekers, with the price of carfare to the country place, to join the pack roaming the woods for Eaton. Harriet, standing at a window, could see them beating through the trees beyond the house; and as she watched them, wild, hot anger against them seized her. She longed to rush out and strike them and shame them and drive them away.
The village police station called her frequently on the telephone to inform her of the progress of the hunt. Twice, they told her, Eaton had been seen, but both times he had avoided capture; they made no mention of his having been fired upon. Avery, in charge of the pursuit in the field, was away all day; he came in only for a few moments at lunch time and then Harriet avoided him. As the day progressed, the pursuit had been systematized; the wooded spots which were the only ones that Eaton could have reached unobserved from the places where he had been seen, had been surrounded. They were being searched carefully one by one. Through the afternoon, Harriet kept herself informed of this search; there was no report that Eaton had been seen again, but the places where he could be grew steadily fewer.
The day had grown toward dusk, when a servant brought her word that her father wished to see her. Harriet went up to him fearfully. The blind man seemed calm and quiet; a thin, square packet lay on the bed beside him; he held it out to her without speaking.
She snatched it in dread; the shape of the packet and the manner in which it was fastened told her it must be a photograph. "Open it," her father directed.
She snapped the string and tore off the paper.
She stared at it, and her breath left her; she held it and stared and stared, sobbing now as she breathed. The photograph was of Hugh, but it showed him as she had never seen or known him; the even, direct eyes, the good brow, the little lift of the head were his; he was younger in the picture—she was seeing him when he was hardly more than a boy. But it was a boy to whom something startling, amazing, horrible had happened, numbing and dazing him so that he could only stare out from the picture in frightened, helpless defiance. That oppression which she had felt in him had just come upon him; he was not yet used to bearing what had happened; it seemed incredible and unbearable to him; she felt instinctively that he had been facing, when this picture was taken, that injustice which had changed him into the self-controlled, watchful man that she had known.
So, as she contrasted this man with the boy that he had been, her love and sympathy for him nearly overpowered her. She clutched the picture to her, pressed it against her cheek; then suddenly conscious that her emotion might be audible to her father, she quickly controlled herself.
"What is it you want to know, Father?" she asked.
"You have answered me already what I was going to ask, my dear," he said to her quietly.
"What, Father?"
"That is the picture of Eaton?"
"Yes."
"I thought so."
She tried to assure herself of the shade of the meaning in her father's tone; but she could not. She understood that her recognition of the picture had satisfied him in regard to something over which he had been in doubt; but whether this was to work in favor of Hugh and herself—she thought of herself now inseparably with Hugh—or whether it threatened them, she could not tell.
"Father, what does this mean?" she cried to him.
"What, dear?"
"Your having the picture. Where did you get it?"
Her father made no reply; she repeated it till he granted, "I knew where it might be. I sent for it."
"But—but, Father—" It came to her now that her father must know who Hugh was. "Who—"
"I know who he is now," her father said calmly. "I will tell you when I can."
"When you can?"
"Yes," he said. He was still an instant; she waited. "Where is Avery?" he asked her, as though his mind had gone to another subject instantly.
"He has not been in, I believe, since noon."
"He is overseeing the search for Eaton?"
"Yes."
"Send for him. Tell him I wish to see him here at the house; he is to remain within the house until I have seen him."
Something in her father's tone startled and perplexed her; she thought of Donald now only as the most eager and most vindictive of Eaton's pursuers. Was her father removing Donald from among those seeking Eaton? Was he sending for him because what he had just learned was something which would make more rigorous and desperate the search? The blind man's look and manner told her nothing.
"You mean Donald is to wait here until you send for him, Father?"
"That is it."
It was the blind man's tone of dismissal. He seemed to have forgotten the picture; at least, as his daughter moved toward the door, he gave no direction concerning it. She halted, looking back at him. She would not carry the picture away, secretly, like this. She was not ashamed of her love for Eaton; whatever might be said or thought of him, she trusted him; she was proud of her love for him.
"May I take the picture?" she asked steadily.
"Do whatever you want with it," her father answered quietly.
And so she took it with her. She found a servant of whom she inquired for Avery; he had not returned so she sent for him. She went down to the deserted library and waited there with the picture of Hugh in her hand. The day had drawn to dusk. She could no longer see the picture in the fading light; she could only recall it; and now, as she recalled it, the picture itself—not her memory of her father's manner in relation to it—gave her vague discomfort. She got up suddenly, switched on the light and, holding the picture close to it, studied it. What it was in the picture that gave her this strange uneasiness quite separate and distinct from all that she had felt when she first looked at it, she could not tell; but the more she studied it, the more troubled and frightened she grew.
The picture was a plain, unretouched print pasted upon common square cardboard without photographer's emboss or signature; and printed with the picture, were four plain, distinct numerals—8253. She did not know what they meant or if they had any real significance, but somehow now she was more afraid for Hugh than she had been. She trembled as she held the picture again to her cheek and then to her lips.
She turned; some one had come in from the hall; it was Donald. He was in riding clothes and was disheveled and dusty from leading the men on horseback through the woods. She saw at her first glance at him that his search had not yet succeeded and she threw her head back in relief. Donald seemed to have returned without meeting the servant sent for him and, seeing the light, he had looked into the library idly; but when he saw her, he approached her quickly.
"What have you there?" he demanded of her.
She flushed at the tone. "What right have you to ask?" Her instant impulse had been to conceal the picture, but that would make it seem she was ashamed of it; she held it so Donald could see it if he looked. He did look and suddenly seized the picture from her.
"Don!" she cried at him.
He stared at the picture and then up at her. "Where did you get this, Harriet?"
"Don!"
"Where did you get it?" he repeated. "Are you ashamed to say?"
"Ashamed? Father gave it to me!"
"Your father!" Avery started; but if anything had caused him apprehension, it instantly disappeared. "Then didn't he tell you who this man Eaton is?"
His tone terrified her, made her confused; she snatched for the picture but he held it from her. "Didn't he tell you what this picture is?"
"What?" she repeated.
"What did he say to you?"
"He got the picture and had me see it; he asked me if it was—Mr. Eaton. I told him yes."
"And then didn't he tell you who Eaton was?" Avery iterated.
"What do you mean, Don?"
He put the picture down on the table beside him and, as she rushed for it, he seized both her hands and held her before him. "Harry, dear!" he said to her. "Harry, dear—"
"Don't call me that! Don't speak to me that way!"
"Why not?"
"I don't want you to."
"Why not?"
She struggled to free herself from him.
"I know, of course," he said. "It's because of him." He jerked his head toward the picture on the table; the manner made her furious.
"Let me go, Don!"
"I'm sorry, dear." He drew her to him, held her only closer.
"Don; Father wants to see you! He wanted to know when he came in; he will let you know when you can go to him."
"When did he tell you that?"
"Just now."
"When he gave you the picture?"
"Yes."
Avery had almost let her go; now he held her hard again. "Then he wanted me to tell you about this Eaton."
"Why should he have you tell me about—Mr. Eaton?"
"You know!" he said to her.
She shrank and turned her head away and shut her eyes not to see him. And he was the man whom, until some strange moment a few days ago, she had supposed she was some time to marry. Amazement burned through her now at the thought; because this man had been well looking, fairly interesting and amusing and got on well both with her father and herself and because he cared for her, she had supposed she could marry him. His assertion of his right to intimacy with her revolted her, and his confidence that he had ability, by something he might reveal, to take her from Eaton and bring her back within reach of himself.
Or wasn't it merely that? She twisted in his arms until she could see his face and stared at him. His look and manner were full of purpose; he was using terms of endearment toward her more freely than he ever had dared to use them before; and it was not because of love for her, it was for some purpose or through some necessity of his own that he was asserting himself like this.
So she ceased to struggle against him, only drawing away from him as far as she could and staring at him, prepared, before she asked her question, to deny and reject his answer, no matter what it was.
"What have you to say about him, Donald?"
"Harry, you haven't come to really care for him; it was just madness, dear, only a fancy, wasn't it?"
"What have you to say about him?"
"You must never think of him again, dear; you must forget him forever!"
"Why?"
"Harry—"
"Donald, I am not a child. If you have something to say which you consider hard for me to hear, tell it to me at once."
"Very well. Perhaps that is best. Dear, either this man whom you have known as Eaton will never be found or, if he is found, he cannot be let to live. You understand?"
"Why? For the shooting of Cousin Wallace? He never did that! I don't believe that; I don't think Father believes that; you'll never make any jury believe that. So if that's all you have to tell me, let me go!"
She struggled again but Avery held her. "I was not talking about that; that's not necessary—to bring that against him."
"Necessary?"
"No; nor is it necessary, if he is caught, even to bring him before a jury. That's been done already, you see."
"Done already?"
Avery nodded again toward the photograph on the table. "Yes, Harry, have you never seen a picture with the numbers printed in below like that? Can't you guess yet where your father must have sent for that picture? Don't you know what those numbers mean?"
"What do they mean?"
"They are the figures of his number in what is called 'The Rogue's Gallery'; now have you heard of it?"
"Go on."
"And they mean he has committed a crime and been tried and convicted of it; they mean in this case that he has committed a murder!"
"A murder!"
"For which he was convicted and sentenced."
"Sentenced!"
"Yes; and is alive now only because before the sentence could be carried out, he escaped. That man, Philip Eaton, is Hugh—"
"Hugh!"
"Hugh Overton, Harry!"
"Hugh Overton!"
"Yes; I found it out to-day. The police have just learned it, too. I was coming to tell your father. He's Hugh Overton, the murderer of Matthew Latron!"
Harriet fought herself free. Denial, revolt stormed in her. "It isn't so!" she cried. "He is not that man! Hugh—his name is Hugh; but he is not Hugh Overton. Mr. Warden said Hugh—this Hugh had been greatly wronged—terribly wronged. Mr. Warden tried to help Hugh even at the risk of his own life. He would not—nobody would have tried to help Hugh Overton!"
"Mr. Warden probably had been deceived."
"No; no!"
"Yes, Harry; for this man is certainly Hugh Overton."
"It isn't so! I know it isn't so!"
"You mean he told you he was—some one else, Harry?"
"No; I mean—" She faced him defiantly. "Father let me keep the photograph! I asked him, and he said, 'Do whatever you wish with it.' He knew I meant to keep it! He knows who Hugh is, so he would not have said that, if—if—"
She heard a sound behind her and turned. Her father had come into the room. And as she saw his manner and his face she knew that what Avery had just told her was the truth. She shrank away from them. Her hands went to her face and hid it.
So this was that unknown thing which had stood between herself and Hugh—that something which she had seen a hundred times check the speech upon his lips and chill his manner toward her! Hadn't Hugh himself told her—or almost told her it was something of that sort? He had said to her on the train, when she urged him to defend himself against the charge of having attacked her father, "If I told them who I am, that would make them only more certain their charge is true; it would condemn me without a hearing!" And his being Hugh Overton explained everything.
She knew now why it was that her father, on hearing Hugh's voice, had become curious about him, had tried to place the voice in his recollection—the voice of a prisoner on trial for his life, heard only for an instant but fixed upon his mind by the circumstances attending it, though those circumstances afterward had been forgotten. She knew why she, when she had gazed at the picture a few minutes before, had been disturbed and frightened at feeling it to be a kind of picture unfamiliar to her and threatening her with something unknown and terrible. She knew the reason now for a score of things Hugh had said to her, for the way he had looked many times when she had spoken to him. It explained all that! It seemed to her, in the moment, to explain everything—except one thing. It did not explain Hugh himself; the kind of man he was, the kind of man she knew him to be—the man she loved—he could not be a murderer!
Her hands dropped from her face; she threw her head back proudly and triumphantly, as she faced now both Avery and her father.
"He, the murderer of Mr. Latron!" she cried quietly. "It isn't so!"
The blind man was very pale; he was fully dressed. A servant had supported him and helped him down the stairs and still stood beside him sustaining him. But the will which had conquered his disability of blindness was holding him firmly now against the disability of his hurts; he seemed composed and steady. She saw compassion for her in his look; and compassion—under the present circumstances—terrified her. Stronger, far more in control of him than his compassion for her, she saw purpose. She recognized that her father had come to a decision upon which he now was going to act; she knew that nothing she or any one else could say would alter that decision and that he would employ his every power in acting upon it.
The blind man seemed to check himself an instant in the carrying out of his purpose; he turned his sightless eyes toward her. There was emotion in his look; but, except that this emotion was in part pity for her, she could not tell exactly what his look expressed.
"Will you wait for me outside, Harriet?" he said to her. "I shall not be long."
She hesitated; then she felt suddenly the futility of opposing him and she passed him and went out into the hall. The servant followed her, closing the door behind him. She stood just outside the door listening. She heard her father—she could catch the tone; she could not make out the words—asking a question; she heard the sound of Avery's response. She started back nearer the door and put her hand on it to open it; inside they were still talking. She caught Avery's tone more clearly now, and it suddenly terrified her. She drew back from the door and shrank away. There had been no opposition to Avery in her father's tone; she was certain now that he was only discussing with Avery what they were to do.
She had waited nearly half an hour, but the library door had not been opened again. The closeness of the hall seemed choking her; she went to the front door and threw it open. The evening was clear and cool; but it was not from the chill of the air that she shivered as she gazed out at the woods through which she had driven with Hugh the night before. There the hunt for him had been going on all day; there she pictured him now, in darkness, in suffering, alone, hurt, hunted and with all the world but her against him!
She ran down the steps and stood on the lawn. The vague noises of the house now no longer were audible. She stood in the silence of the evening strained and fearfully listening. At first there seemed to be no sound outdoors other than the gentle rush of the waves on the beach at the foot of the bluff behind her; then, in the opposite direction, she defined the undertone of some faraway confusion. Sometimes it seemed to be shouting, next only a murmur of movement and noise. She ran up the road a hundred yards in its direction and halted again. The noise was nearer and clearer—a confusion of motor explosions and voices; and now one sound clattered louder and louder and leaped nearer rapidly and rose above the rest, the roar of a powerful motor car racing with "cut-out" open. The rising racket of it terrified Harriet with its recklessness and triumph. Yes; that was it; triumph! The far-off tumult was the noise of shouts and cries of triumph; the racing car, blaring its way through the night, was the bearer of news of success of the search.
Harriet went colder as she knew this; then she ran up the road to meet the car coming. She saw the glare of its headlights through the trees past a bend in the road; she ran on and the beams of the car's headlight straightened and glared down the road directly upon her. The car leaped at her; she ran on toward it, arms in the air. The clatter of the car became deafening and the machine was nearly upon her when the driver recognized that the girl in the road was heedless and might throw herself before him unless he stopped. He brought his car up short and skidding. "What is it?" he cried, as he muffled the engine.
"What is it? What is it?" she cried in return.
The man recognized her. "Miss Santoine!"
"What is it?"
"We've got him!" the man cried. "We've got him!"
"Him?"
"Him! Hugh Overton! Eaton, Miss Santoine. He's Hugh Overton; hadn't you heard? And we've got him!"
"Got him!"
She seemed to the man not to understand; and he had not time to explain further even to her. "Where is Mr. Avery?" he demanded. "I've got to tell Mr. Avery."
She made no response but threw herself in front of the car and clasped a wheel as the man started to throw in his gear. He cried to her and tried to get her off; but she was deaf to him. He looked in the direction of the house, shut off his power and leaped down. He left the machine and ran on the road toward the house. Harriet waited until he was away, then she sprang to the seat; she started the car and turned it back in the direction from which it had come. She speeded and soon other headlights flared at hers—a number of them; four or five cars, at least, were in file up the road and men were crowding and horsemen were riding beside them.
The captors of Hugh were approaching in triumphal procession. Harriet felt the wild, savage impulse to hurl her racing car headlong and at full speed among them. She rushed on so close that she saw she alarmed them; they cried a warning; the horsemen and the men on foot jumped from beside the road and the leading car swung to one side; but Harriet caught her car on the brakes and swung it straight across the road and stopped it; she closed the throttle and pulled the key from the starting mechanism and flung it into the woods. So she sat in the car, waiting for the captors of Hugh to come up.
These appreciated the hostility of her action without yet recognizing her. The motors stopped; the men on foot closed around. One of them cried her name and men descended from the leading car. Harriet got down from her machine and met them. The madness of the moments past was gone; as the men addressed her with astonishment but with respect, she gazed at them coolly.
"Where is he?" she asked them. "Where is he?"
They did not tell her; but reply was unnecessary. Others' eyes pointed hers to Hugh. He was in the back seat of the second machine with two men, one on each side of him. The lights from the car following and the refractions from the other lights showed him to her. He was sitting, or was being held, up straight; his arms were down at his sides. She could not see whether they were tied or not. The light did not shine so as to let her see his face clearly; but his bearing was calm, he held his head up. She looked for his hurts; there seemed to be bandages on his head but some one had given him a large cap which was pulled down so as to conceal the bandages. Plainly there had been no other capture; excitement was all centered upon him. Harriet heard people telling her name to others; and the newspaper men, who seemed to be all about, pushed back those who would interfere with her reaching the second machine.
She disregarded them and every one else but Hugh, who had seen her and had kept his gaze steadily upon her as she approached. She stopped at the side of the car where he was and she put her hand on the edge of the tonneau.
"You have been hurt again, Hugh?" she managed steadily.
"Hurt? No," he said as constrainedly. "No."
A blinding flare and an explosion startled her about. It was only a flashlight fired by one of the newspaper photographers who had placed his camera during the halt. Harriet opened the door to the tonneau. Two men occupied the seats in the middle of the car; it was a large, seven passenger machine. "I will take this seat, please," she said to the man nearer. He got out and she sat down. Those who had been trying to start the car which she had driven across the road, had given up the task and were pushing it away to one side. Harriet sat down in front of Eaton—it was still by that name she thought of him; her feelings refused the other name, though she knew now it was his real one. She understood now her impulse which had driven her to try to block the road to her father's house if only for a moment; they were taking him there to deliver him up to Avery—to her father—who were consulting there over what his fate was to be.
She put her hand on his; his fingers closed upon it, but after his first response to her grasp he made no other; and now, as the lights showed him to her more clearly, she was terrified to see how unable he was to defend himself against anything that might be done to him. His calmness was the calmness of exhaustion; his left arm was bound tightly to his side; his eyes, dim and blank with pain and weariness, stared only dully, dazedly at all around.
The car started, and she sat silent, with her hand still upon his, as they went on to her father's house.