The House of Intrigue/Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I STOOD in the center of my ponderously furnished room which was in reality a ponderously fortified cell, trying to argue the matter of that apparition out with myself.
It was not the first thing of the kind that had confronted me that night. I had caught a glimpse of the ghostly head that had appeared for a moment above the stair-railing. Later on, I had walked past the apparition of Bud Griswold in the driving rain. And Copperhead Kate had declared that a specter had slipped into the room of the four-poster and dropped an automatic at her side, before vanishing.
What was the meaning of it all? Who was the white-faced wanderer loitering so anxious-eyed about the house of mysteries? And why was she so afraid of being seen? And who knew of her presence there? And what had that to do with the disappearance of the dead girl who had so mysteriously and disturbingly vanished into thin air? And, above all, what was Wendy Washburn's interest in those movements? And what part in that tangled drama of intrigue could the calm-eyed Alicia Ledwidge be playing?
These were questions which I found it impossible to answer. My head was in too much of a whirl even to thresh over them, one by one, until some grain of truth was shaken from all that meaningless chaff. Then, more to regain a grip on myself, and get the thought of all such specters out of my mind, I crossed to the door and started to look about for the bit of metal which I remembered had fallen there, or had seemed to fall there.
I found it lying on the highly waxed parquet-flooring, close beside one of the rugs. It was a key, small but strong, and of odd shape, and it was of polished nickel, as bright as the metal circles about my wrist.
That common brightness, in fact, gave me an idea. I held the key in my teeth, raised my hands and twisted them about. The key, I found, fitted the hand-cuffs. And with one turn of it I had them unlocked, and my hands were once more free.
The next moment I ran to the door. It was still unlocked, though the key remained in its place. But what caught my attention was a bundle of clothing which lay on the floor, close to the door.
I gave a gasp of astonishment, of relief, as I stared down at them. For I recognized that little pile as my lost clothing, from shoes to hat and gloves. That ghost, whatever her motives, was at least a most obliging one.
I looked up and down the hall, wonderingly, trying to fathom what good angel could be ordering specters about on my behalf. But nothing was in sight. The house stood as gloomy and silent as a tomb. And the mystery of it all still hung close about me, like a harbor fog on a November night.
I caught up that welcome bundle, however, took the key from the outside of the door, and retreated within my guard-room, carefully locking myself in. Then I peeled off Copperhead Kate's ill-fitting apparel, kicked off the over-sized suede shoes, and thankfully and triumphantly donned my own humble duds. Then I took a deep breath, a breath of deliverance, shot through with gratitude, for whatever troubles or dangers might still await me before I once more made my way back to the world, I felt that I had a fresh grip on life, a forlorn rag or two of dignity which that frantic night had not altogether torn away from me.
But I did not linger to luxuriate in this feeling, since I was all the time being swayed by a much stronger one. I wanted to get away from that house, and get away from it for good.
So I crept over to the door, took the key from the lock, and stepped outside. There was no one in sight.
I may have been excited, at that prospect of escape, but I was not too excited to remember that it would be better not to be recognized as I left that house. So I slipped back into the room, found Copperhead Kate's heavy veil, knotted it about my hat and fastened it there by a couple of hair-pins.
Then I crept out through the door again, relocked it and pocketed the key. I could hear my own heart beating as I moved slowly forward, step by step, toward the stair-head. I lifted my veil and stood there listening, to make sure that the coast was still clear, for on this occasion I preferred to have no interruptions, either earthly or unearthly.
As I stood there, straining my ears, a faint murmur of voices came to me. This sound seemed to come from behind a closed door, somewhere deeper in the house. It should have proved a disturbing sound to me. But instead of hurrying my steps, for some reason, it halted them. I crept about the stair-head and groped my way along the wall, listening from time to time as the sounds grew clearer.
Then, as I padded along the panels of a closed door, I realized that the talking was taking place in the room before me. The next moment I had my ear pressed flat against that panel, and I knew at once that it was old Theobald Scripps who was speaking. There was no mistaking those smooth and unctuous accents.
"But if there's been a murder committed in this house, somebody must have done it!"
"Well, who did it?" demanded a querulous voice which at once made me think of Enoch Bartlett.
"Why, don't you understand," retorted the old lawyer, impressively lowering his voice, "that it was this street-girl who did it? Don't you see that every reasonable evidence points to her as the guilty party?"
It was plainly old Ezra Bartlett who spoke next.
"That's easy enough to say. But how are we going to hitch that particular crime on that particular girl? How are we ever going to frame up a case that'll hold good?"
"The case is already complete," contended the voice of the old attorney. "We've got the girl here, where we want her. What brought her here is our own business. What she did in this house will stand against her. For who will accept the story that she'll try to tell? Who'll swallow the explanation of how she first gained admission here?"
"Explanations be damned!" piped the angry voice of old Enoch Bartlett. "We don't want explanations! What we want is a will, sir, a will duly signed and witnessed by Clarissa Rhinelander Bartlett!"
"Of course you do," acknowledged the other. "But you don't also want ten years in state's prison, do you? If you do, sir, simply continue along the path you have been following! For there's a muddle here that's got to be cleared up before any man in this room can feel clear to leave this house!"
"Fiddlesticks!" ejaculated Enoch Bartlett.
"But who got us into that muddle?" demanded his brother Ezra.
"That girl did, of course!"
"Then that girl's got to pay for it! She's had her fun, by gad, and now she can face the music!"
"And we've got Locke, haven't we, to back us up in anything we claim?" demanded the other shrill-voiced old rascal. "And there's Klinger here, to do the same!"
That talk was none too lucid to me, but there were a few features about it that kept my ear glued to the door panel. For I knew as I listened that it was me, Little Me, they were talking about. And it wasn't exactly the sort of conversation that you make soothing-sirup out of. I may have been tired in body, but I was awake to the finger-tips as I stood there in the darkness overhearing that star-chamber discussion as to how I was to be disposed of.
"But what about this man Washburn?" I heard Enoch Bartlett's voice inquire. I waited, without breathing, to catch the answer to that question.
"Washburn?" scoffed the old lawyer. "Why, my personal conviction is that Washburn is the man who's duping us all, and that he's a bigger crook than the woman herself!"
"It's not a matter of conviction," broke in Doctor Klinger's heavily contemptuous voice. "It's a matter of common knowledge, a matter of fact!"
"What is?" bit out Ezra Bartlett.
"That this man Washburn is nothing but a social highwayman! That he lives by his wits!"
"Of which he has more, apparently, than a number of people in this immediate neighborhood," piped out the irate Enoch Bartlett.
"But which of those two women was working with Washburn?" demanded the more practical-minded of the two old brothers.
"The woman who brought him back to the house—the baby-faced one! We've got to get her taken care of, and it has got to be for life!" announced that venomous old attorney as calmly as though he was talking of doing away with a house-cat. "And if there's any doubt about taking care of her that way, we'll have to take care of her the other way!"
"Hoity-toity!" I breathed against that polished hardwood panel. But in spite of myself I could feel a little scramble of chills go up and down my backbone. Then a still sharper needling of nerve-ends ran like an electric shock about my body, for close behind me, in the darkness, I caught the sound of a softly moving figure.
My eyes were accustomed to the darkness, by this time, and as I stood flat in the shelter of the heavy door-frame I could make out a vague Something grope slowly past me. A faint rustling of skirts told me that this something was a woman. She had groped by me without becoming conscious of my presence there, I felt sure, because there had been no pause in her steady advance. All her attention, in fact, seemed centered on making her passage along those darkened walls a silent one. And I did my best, as I followed her, to keep my movements equally silent.
It was not until she approached the vague half-light from the stair-well that I could even venture a guess as to her identity. Then, as she peered anxiously down this well, I saw that it was Alicia Ledwidge. And what startled me most, as she took her flight down that all but lightless stairway, was that she carried a black club-bag in her hand.
The shock of this, however, was submerged in a still greater shock, as a little wave is swamped by a bigger one. The situation, I realized, was not so simple as it seemed. For as that stealthy figure of the trained nurse crept cautiously down the stair-way I noticed that it was being followed by another figure, equally stealthy.
Who or what this second stalker was I could not make out. I merely surmised that it must be a man, since the second creeping shadow plainly bulked heavier and higher than the first. But it followed on after the other, step by step, with a sort of timber-wolf intentness that sorely tempted me to scream out a call of warning.
Instead of doing that altogether unwise, if natural, thing, however, I crept on to the stair-railing and followed after them. For the second moving shadow, I noticed, had drawn closer to the first.
It must have been at the exact moment the woman reached the floor below that the man following her made his spring. It was a sudden spring, but it was almost noiseless. And equally silent seemed the brief struggle that took place there in the darkness.
I could hear a faint gasp, more of pain than of fear, a sound of quickened breathing, and an even fainter sound of contending bodies. Then came a quiet thud, a thud that was more a vibration than a sound, and the louder note of hurrying steps passing from muffling rug to the polished hardwood floor.
Then still again, and with equal abruptness, the unexpected happened. Those hurrying steps were not half-way across the wide hall before the entire place flowered into sudden light.
At the same moment I beheld Wendy Washburn with the forefinger of his left hand pressed against a button-switch in the wall. In his right hand, I noticed, he held a heavy walking-stick. He held it obliquely across his shoulder, as a marching soldier carries a rifle. I surmised, from his attitude, that it was poised there, in position for striking. But I was no longer watching Wendy Washburn and his walking-stick. My eye had traveled on to the man in the checked tweed suit with the black club-bag. I could see him distinctly, in the clear light below me, as he leaped for the street door, I knew, even before I saw his face, that it was Pinky McClone.
He did not go to the door. He knew, apparently, that it was too late. He seemed to realize that he had a fight to face, before he could achieve his freedom, for he dropped the club-bag and swung about as Wendy Washburn edged in between him and his iron-grilled avenue of escape.
He swung about without hesitation and quite without fear. At the first sight of my Hero-Man, in fact, a hunger for combat seemed to seize him. It was as though Pinky, in beholding that opponent of his, beheld an old and implacable enemy. And he went at that enemy as though there were a good many ancient scores to be wiped out.
It wasn't a long fight, but it was a bitter one, and at the very beginning of it the walking-stick went clattering across the polished floor, so that it soon became a contest of strength against strength.
I was so interested in that fight that I kept creeping farther and farther down the stairway, a step at a time, with my eyes staring and my heart in my mouth. And there was no division of sympathy on my part. I knew exactly how I wanted that fight to go. They may have both been criminals, those two, but they were as far apart in their make-up, it seemed to me, as one pole is from the other. And it wasn't the brawnier man that I wanted to win.
But I noticed, with a gulp, that this same brawnier man was doing what most brawny men do, under the circumstances. He was getting the better of it; he was, in fact, skillfully and deliberately sparring for his coup de grace. I saw that Wendy Washburn was going to get his, as my old friend Myrtle would have said. I saw that he was going down to defeat, ignominious and inevitable defeat, by way of the knock-out route. And being a woman, I promptly and actively interfered in what seemed to me an altogether unfair struggle. I interfered by catching up the walking-stick that lay at the foot of the stairs, poising it above my head as I ran forward and bringing it down on Pinky McClone's thick skull just above his big pink ear.
He went down like a bag of feathers.
I stood staring at him. I stood, wide-eyed, looking down at his suddenly humbled strength, wondering what they'd do with this second body in that house of horrors.
Then Wendy Washburn, who'd been wiping the blood off his face, where his lip was cut, got back enough breath to cry out a quiet "Thank God."
"What for?" I asked him sharply, almost accusingly, for my teeth were doing a fox-trot of pure panic by this time. "For killing that man?"
Wendy snorted aloud as he caught up the club-bag.
"That man's not dead," he calmly announced. "But we may be, if we're not out of this house pretty soon!"
I felt a little thrill, a wayward little thrill of something that was both pride and pleasure, at hearing him bracket me with himself in even a common danger. It wasn't the mere thought of escape as I watched him unlatch the door, that brought a wave of relief through all my tired body. It was more the thought of having some one else beside me, of having at least something which might be construed as a confederate, of knowing that I was no longer acting entirely alone in all that tangled maze.
My Hero-Man opened the street door and peered out. Then he motioned for me to follow him.
But I couldn't help glancing back over my shoulder, in the hope of beholding some reassuring sign of life from the inert Pinky McClone. Instead of seeing Pinky McClone, however, I saw an altogether different figure. It was a ghost-like figure staring down from the gloom at the head of the wide stair-way. It stared down with a look of wistful trouble 
And being a woman, I promptly interfered
"Get me out o' here!" I gasped to Wendy Washburn as he held the street door open for me.
It was an altogether unnecessary remark, for he was already doing exactly what I had commanded him to do. I scarcely noticed him, in fact, when he stopped short and stared about in the driving rain.
"My car's gone!" I heard him gasp.
"What difference does it make?" I rather stupidly asked, for my mind, just at that moment, wasn't on automobiles.
"It means that we'll have to take a taxicab," he said with a short laugh, as he linked his free arm in mine and we started westward over the wet sidewalk, with heads down, against the driving rain. But I kept looking back to make sure that a ghostly face wasn't floating in the air just over my left shoulder.