The Whisper on the Stair/Chapter 14
The happiness was effaced from the features of Jessica Pomeroy as a ragged gray cloud wipes out the sun. Gone was her little moment of forgetfulness and returned the ever-present menace. The moments of conscious happiness in the ordinary life are woefully small and few, little glowing incandescent islands entirely surrounded by cares. They are to be seized and held close for their brief stay, because when once they go it is not within the power of man to recreate, to “recapture the first fine careless rapture” that was that instant.
Something of all this dragged its way through the consciousness of Jessica as the taxicab bore her speedily back to her little flat—the flat where Ignace Teck awaited her. Happiness, then, was something to be looked at but not to be seized. It is the soap bubble of life, the will-o’-the-wisp of every day. She remembered that in “Alice in Wonderland” Alice was told that they never have jam to-day; they always have it yesterday or to-morrow—never to-day. Happiness, she decided, was close kin to that jam. Strange, too, how her thoughts of happiness were linked up with the figure of a clean-cut young man by the name of Valentine Morley, a man she had spoken to so few times she scarcely knew the sound of his voice. If he could have known. . . . Jessica re-read Teck’s note as the taxicab shivered along the darkened streets.
Come to your rooms at once. Important! Don’t waste a moment. Will explain when you arrive.
I. T.
This note had broken up her dinner party before it was half over; she had been snatching at her moment of happiness when she received it. The wording of the note had made it imperative that she leave at once; as to the news that awaited her, she had no inkling. She knew only that Teck considered it of supreme importance that she return at once, and, obeying the fear that was always within her where this man was concerned, she was doing so. Nobody knew the extent of the fear and loathing that the sight of this man Ignace Teck held for her. This was something she held locked in her breast, always remembering that this man had become a loathly object through his devotion to her. He had sacrificed himself for her, and she considered it but just that she should give herself to him. True, the right sort of man would have refused to hold her in the bonds of gratitude—but he was Ignace Teck, who was wrapt in no such considerations.
He rose when she entered her living room, and addressed her ungraciously.
“Well, you took your time about coming, I must say.”
She regarded him calmly, as always.
“I came as rapidly as possible,” she intoned, “What is it you wanted?”
He paused for a moment before speaking, and made as if to place the stumps that were his hands on her shoulders. She evaded him with a single motion, as though unconscious of what he had wanted to do, but he looked at her significantly, and the angry red mounted into his well-fed countenance.
“You always avoid me, Jessica,” he rasped. “Is it on account of my deformity? I know I am no pretty object, but if you will remember, I came by these⸺”
“I know—I know, Ignace,” she broke in hastily. “What is it you wanted to see me about? Something that was so important⸺”
“That I had to break up a nice little tête-à-tête between you and that Morley idiot,” he broke in, leering sarcastically. “It would have to be important, of course, to interrupt that. Your relations with this man⸺”
“My relations with this man are none of your business, Ignace Teck,” she broke in, “and don’t get the idea that you can order me around as though I belonged to you already. I don’t—and I’m not so sure that I ever will . . .” she paused and looked at him without speaking with her lips, but her burning eyes spoke the balance of the sentence.
“What do you mean?” he thundered at her. “If Valentine Morley has induced you to⸺”
“I need nobody to induce me to do what my common sense and my regard for the decencies instructed me long ago should be done,” she went on firmly, now that the matter had been begun.
“You promised to marry me⸺”
“I promised to marry you,” she confirmed, interrupting him again, “but the promise is not binding if you are a murderer. Nobody can be held to such a promise and⸺”
“How dare you say such a thing to me?” he interposed quietly, his eyes narrowing and the scar across his face becoming purple, a deep gash across the sallow skin of his evil lineaments, “Just what do you mean by that?”
“You know very well what I mean,” she threw back at him, two spots of color flaring in her cheeks. “I mean that you murdered Matthew Masterson—I know it as though I had been present. It is exactly what you would do⸺”
“That’s a lie!” he interposed in a staccato whisper.
“Do you mean to say that you didn’t steal thebooks⸺”
“Oh, that!” he dismissed that with a wave of a formless wrist, and a flicker of feeling shaded its way across his expressionless, except for the scar, face. “That was important—I needed them. But as for the bookseller, I deny that I killed him.”
“What is there in those books that makes them so important?” she asked, forcing herself to calmness. “I had them here for so long—you could have had them at any time for the asking; but no sooner do I dispose of them than⸺”
“You will know in good time what there is in the books. To tell you the truth,” he whispered confidentially, “I am not exactly sure myself of what there is in them—except . . .” he trailed off into an expressive silence, and she watched his features unbelievingly, knowing that there was more he did not choose to divulge.
“If you think that there is a clue in them concerning the money that was left by my father,” she put in finally, “perhaps it will be well to remind you that the money belongs to me, in any event. Why should you take it upon yourself⸺”
“Never mind that,” he interrupted harshly. “It concerns me, too. Do you think that after these years of waiting I am going to permit myself to be cast aside by you like a worn-out mare in a stable of blooded stock? Think it over carefully, Jessica—do you think I am the type of man who would permit it?”
She had no answer to this, but there was the pallor of weariness in her face as she sank down into a soft chair on the opposite side of the room from him.
“I have a way of getting what I go after,” he said after a pause, “and nobody knows that better than you—so you might just as well be good.”
“Just what do you mean?” she inquired, flaring at him angrily. “Am I something that a man can go after—something to be had simply because he has made up his mind that he wants her?”
“Come, come,” he smiled, and his face was strangely whimsical when he smiled that way, in strange contrast to the sinister appearance of the man when his features were in repose. “Don’t be theatrical about it—there is no need for that mask between us, my dear. You have promised to marry me—and when women promise to marry me—” he smiled again—“I always make them stick to their promise. I suppose I’m queer that way, but”⸺he shrugged his shoulders⸺“I can’t help it. Life is very peculiar, and we must seize our moments of happiness on the fly!”
This was so close to her own thoughts that she could hardly help gasping. She had rather prided herself on that bit of philosophy, but if philosophy was so easy that others could—without effort—think the same things, why it was scarcely worth while. Somebody has said that a great philosopher is one who says the things you have always thought but have never formulated into so many words. If what he writes causes you to nod your head and say, “Yes, that’s just what I have always thought,” he is a great philosopher. This is to be doubted.
“But this business that was so important that you had to call me back to-night⸺”
“It’s just this,” he leaned over to her and spoke in a sibilant whisper. “I have rather a straight tip that the police are very close to making an arrest in the Masterson case and that I had better leave now while the leaving is fairly good⸺”
“But I thought you just said you had nothing to do with the murder of that poor old⸺”
“I didn’t,” he answered, “but it might be a bit difficult to prove just at this time. Because I did get the books, you see. So I thought it might be wise for us to go at once⸺”
“Us?” she inquired, looking at him curiously. “I hardly see why you include me in this affair⸺”
“Because,” he said slowly, with a slight significant lift of his bushy brows, “if I don’t—the police will. They are sure to include you in this. They know of our relations with one another; if they don’t, it won’t be difficult for them to find out, anyway, and⸺”
“But this is monstrous!” she ejaculated. “To have you drag me into a mess of this nature, when⸺”
“I didn’t, my dear,” he interposed calmly, silencing her with a wave of his arm. “It is circumstances that seem to drag you into it, not I. You know, in view of the fact that you sold the books, it will be difficult to keep you out of it—innocent as you are—as we are, that is. But if we go away at once—to-night!” he staccatoed the last word at her in a way that made her shudder—“I have reason to believe we will not be suspected or molested.”
“Where were you thinking of going she asked quietly.
He shrugged his shoulders and considered for a moment. “Down in Virginia, perhaps⸺” he suggested.
“Well, go ahead,” she threw at him coldly, and her eyes seemed the only live thing in her pale face as she spoke.
“I’m going,” he nodded slowly. “So are you.”
He spoke as though this were an accepted fact; as though it required but for him to enunciate the words to assure her that she was indeed going. It was a matter-of-fact, simple and concise statement of the future.
“But not with you,” she said. “Not to Virginia—I’ll go where I please. And moreover, I want you to stay away from my property down there.”
“Ah, yes—your property,” he acquiesced. “My mortgage⸺”
“As you know, I have sent down the money to satisfy the mortgage. It is now my property completely, and I don’t want you down there—is that plain?”
He nodded silently, and held his peace for a few moments.
“You don’t want me down there,” he repeated at last, as one who, repeating a lesson by rote, parrots the words almost without knowing what they signify. His shifty, small eyes contracted.
“No,” she reiterated. “I want you to stay away from there.”
“Yes, you would,” he said. “You are afraid that if the money turns up down there⸺”
“Whether it turns up or not has nothing to do with you. It is mine and it’s going to stay mine.”
He had no answer for this for a few moments. When he rose finally, it was as one who has made his decision; one who has planned his course.
“We are both going to Virginia—to-night,” he said softly, walking to her in his soft, catfooted way, lithe as a mountain animal, evil eyed and treacherous.
She shrank back from his advance and would have screamed, but there was something in his greenish tinged eyes that held her, something horrible that clove her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Pale as death and rigid, she watched him come to her.