Part 58

“It was this way,” he went on. “About three miles up Carterstown way there’s a bad piece of road. There’s a steep hill, and a crossroad cuts across the foot of it, and it’s too narrer for two cars to pass. It’s a bad piece, and I always been keerful there. I was keerful that night. I was coming along the crossroad, and I heard another car somewhere, and I sounded the horn two or three times before I come to the foot of the hill. Jest as I got there, and was turning up the hill, down comes another car, full tilt. I couldn’t git out o’ the way. There’s stone walls on both sides. I tried to back, but he crashed into me. I kind of fainted, I guess. My cab was all smashed up, and I was cut pretty bad with glass. They found me lying there about an hour after. The other fellow--he was killed.” He stopped for a minute. “If it hadn’t been fer his license number, nobody could ’a’ known who he was, he was so smashed up. Seems he was from New York, driving a taxi belonging to one of them big companies.”

“Poor fellow!” said Lexy.

“Yes,” said the other solemnly. “I kin say that, too, whatever he meant to do.”

“Meant to do?”

The countryman came a step nearer.

“I keep thinking about it,” he said in a half whisper. “This is the queer thing about it, miss. That there car didn’t start till _I got to the foot of the hill_! The engine was just racing, and the car wasn’t moving along--I _know_ that. It was as if he’d been waiting up there for me, and then down he came as if he meant”--the speaker paused again--“to kill me,” he ended.

“But--” Lexy began, and then stopped.

She had a very odd feeling that this story was somehow of great importance to her, but that she must put it away, that she must keep it in her mind until later. This wasn’t the time to think about it.

“Joe,” she said, “I want to hear more about this--all about it; but not now. I’m too tired.”

He gave himself a shake, like a dog. Then he turned to her with a slow, good-natured smile.

“I guess you are!” he said. “Lucky for you I just happened to be late to-night, taking them Ainsly girls ’way out to their house after a dance. Hop in, miss!”

Lexy got in, and they set off. She leaned back and closed her eyes, but they flew open again as if of their own accord. There was something she wanted to see. Through the glass she could see Joe’s burly shoulders, a little hunched--Joe, who, like herself, wasn’t sure.

“Not now!” said something inside her. “Don’t think about that now. Try not to think at all. Wait! Something is going to happen.”

At the corner of the road leading to Mrs. Royce’s, she tapped on the window. Joe stopped the cab with a jerk, sprang down from his seat, and ran around to open the door.

“What’s the matter, miss?”

“Nothing,” said Lexy. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Joe. I thought I’d get out here and slip into the house quietly, without disturbing any one.”

Joe grinned sheepishly.

“I’ve got kind of jumpy since--that,” he said. “Howsomever, come on, miss!”

“Oh, I don’t mean to trouble you!”

“I’m going to see you safe inside that there house!” Joe declared firmly.

Grateful for his genuine kindness, Lexy made no further protest. Side by side they walked down the lane, their footsteps noiseless in the thick dust, and Joe opened the garden gate without a sound.

“I thought perhaps I could climb up that tree and get in at my window,” Lexy whispered.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Joe, “and come down and let you in by the back door.”

He was up the tree like a cat. He went cautiously along a branch, until he could reach the roof of the shed with his toes. He dropped down on the roof, and Lexy saw him disappear into her room. She went to the back door. In a minute she heard the key turn inside, and the door opened.

“Thank you ever so much, Joe!” she whispered.

But he paid no attention to her. He stood still, drawing deep breaths of the night air.

“Them roses!” he said. “The smell of ’em made me kind of sick, like. Throw ’em out, miss! Don’t go to sleep with them roses in the room!”

Lexy did not answer for a time.

“I’ll see you to-morrow, Joe,” she said. “I’ll pay you for the taxi, and have a talk with you. And thank you, Joe, ever so much!”

He touched his cap, murmured “Good night,” and off he went.

Lexy went in, locked the kitchen door behind her, and stood there, leaning against it, half dazed by the great light that was coming into her mind. She was beginning to understand! The roses--the roses with their strange and powerful fragrance! Her hysterical outburst after her tea at Dr. Quelton’s house! She was beginning to understand, not the details, but the one tremendous thing that mattered.

“He did it,” she said to herself. “He made all this happen. I didn’t just break down. I haven’t been weak and hysterical. He made it all happen!”

For a time her relief was an ecstasy. She could trust herself again. She was so happy in that knowledge that she could have shouted aloud, to waken Mrs. Royce and Captain Grey, and tell them. The monstrous burden was lifted, she was free, she was her old sturdy, trustworthy self again.

She sank into a chair by the kitchen table, staring before her into the dark, her lips parted in a smile of gratitude and delight; and then, suddenly, the smile fled. She rose to her feet, her hands clenched, her whole body rigid.

“He did it!” she said again. “It’s the vilest and most horrible thing any one can do. He tried to steal my soul. He turned me into that poor, terrified, contemptible creature. I’ll never in all my life forgive him. I’m going to find out--about that, and about Caroline. I’ll never give up trying, and I’ll never forgive him!”

She groped her way through the dark kitchen and into the hall. That was where she had first seen Dr. Quelton. She stopped and turned, as if she were looking into his face.

“I’m stronger than you!” she whispered.

XVI

Lexy came down to breakfast a little late the next morning, but in the best of spirits, and with a ferocious appetite. She had no idea how or when she had left the house the night before, but obviously neither Mrs. Royce nor Captain Grey knew anything about it, and that sufficed. She could go on eating, quite untroubled by their friendly anxiety. Let them think what they chose--it no longer mattered to her.

For, in spite of the warm liking she had for them both, she felt entirely cut off from them now. If she told them the truth, they would not believe her, they would not and could not help her. Nobody on earth would help her. She faced that fact squarely. Whatever Dr. Quelton had meant to accomplish, he had perfectly succeeded in doing one thing--he had discredited her. Anything she said now would be regarded as the irresponsible statement of a hysterical girl.

Very well! She had done with talking. She meant to act now.

“It was awfully nice of your sister to send me those roses,” she observed.

Captain Grey was standing by the window in the dining room, keeping her company while she ate. He turned his head aside as she spoke, but not before she had noticed on his sensitive face the odd and touching look that always came over it at any mention of his sister. Evidently he worshiped her, and yet Lexy was certain that he was somehow disappointed in her.

“She likes you very much,” he said.

“I’m glad,” said Lexy; “but how did you manage to keep the roses so wonderfully fresh, Captain Grey?”

“The doctor wrapped them for me--some rather special way, you know--damp paper, and then a cloth. He told me not to open them until I gave them to you. Very clever chap, isn’t he?”

“He is!” agreed Lexy, with a faint smile.

“Mind if I smoke, Miss Moran?” asked the young man. “Thanks!”

He lit a cigarette and sat down on the window sill. He was silent, and so was Lexy, for she fancied that he had something he wished to say.

“Miss Moran,” he said, at last, “you’ll go there again to see her, won’t you?”

Lexy considered for a moment.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I was afraid you might think--it’s the atmosphere of the place--I’m sure of it--that made you nervous the other afternoon. It’s something about the place, you know. I’ve felt it myself. I was afraid you wouldn’t care to go again, and I don’t like to think of her there--alone.”

“She’s not alone,” observed Lexy blandly. “She has her clever husband.”

“Yes, I know that, of course, but he’s--well, he’s not very cheery,” said the young man earnestly.

Lexy couldn’t help laughing.

“No, he’s not very cheery,” she admitted. “Of course I’ll go again--this afternoon, if you’d like.”

“I say! You are good!” he cried. “I know jolly well that you don’t want to go.”

“I do, though,” declared Lexy.

“Shall we walk over?”

“If you don’t mind,” said Lexy, “I’ll go by myself. There’s something I want to attend to first. I’ll meet you there at four o’clock.”

“Right-o!” said he. “Then you won’t mind if I go there for lunch?”

She assured him that she wouldn’t.

“You poor dear thing!” she added, to herself. His solicitude touched her. He seemed to feel himself responsible for her, as if she were a very delicate and rather weak-minded child. “You’re not very cheery, either!” she thought. And indeed he was not. His meeting with his sister had upset him badly. Ever since he had first seen her, he had been troubled and anxious and downcast. “And that’s because she’s not human,” thought Lexy. “She’s beautiful, and gentle, and all that, but she’s like a ghost. Of course it bothers him!”

She did not give much more thought to Captain Grey, however. As soon as he left the house, she went upstairs into the little sewing room, and until lunch time she was busy writing the clearest and briefest account she could of what had occurred. This she put into an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Charles Houseman and laid it on her bureau.

“If anything happened, I suppose they’d give it to him,” she said to herself. “I’d like him to know.”

Somehow this gave her a good deal of comfort. Not that she expected anything to happen, or was at all frightened, but she did not deny that Dr. Quelton was a singularly unpleasant sort of enemy to have; and he was her enemy--she was sure of it.

Just because he had made such a point of her arriving after four o’clock, she had made up her mind to reach the house well before that hour--which would not please him. Directly after lunch she walked down to the village. She found Joe taking a nap in his cab, outside the station; and, regardless of the frightful curiosity of the villagers, she stood there talking to him for a long time. He assured her, with his sheepish grin, that he had told no one of his having met her the night before, and he willingly promised never to mention it to any one without her consent.

“I ain’t so much of a talker,” he said.

That was true, too. He was reluctant, to-day, to talk about his strange adventure with the cab on the hill; but Lexy made him answer her questions, and he wavered in no respect from his first version.

“There was an inquest, an’ all,” he said. “I’m darned glad it’s all over!”

“It isn’t!” thought Lexy. “Somehow it belongs with other things. It’s a piece of the puzzle. I can’t fit it in now, but I will some day!”

So she thanked Joe, and paid him for last night’s trip, though he made miserable and embarrassed efforts to stop her. Then she set off on her way.

It was four o’clock by her watch when she reached the garden gate. She stopped for a moment with her hand on the latch, and, in spite of herself, a little shiver ran through her. The battered old house in the tangled garden looked more menacing to-day, in the tranquil spring sunshine, than it had in the rain. It was utterly lonely and quiet. Lexy could hear nothing but the distant sound of the surf, which was like the beating of a tired heart.

Against the advice of Mrs. Enderby, almost against her own reason, she had come here to Wyngate, and to the house--and she had seen Caroline. The thing which was beyond reason had been right--so right that it frightened her; and now it bade her go on. It was like a voice telling her that her feet were set in the right path.

Lexy pushed open the gate and went in. The pleasant young parlor maid opened the door. She looked alarmed.

“I don’t know, miss,” she said. “Mrs. Quelton--I’ll go and ask the doctor.”

But from the hall Lexy had caught sight of Mrs. Quelton in the drawing-room alone, and, with an affable smile for the anxious parlor maid, she went in there.

“I’m afraid I’m awfully early--” she began, and then stopped short in amazement.

Mrs. Quelton did not welcome the visitor, did not smile or speak. She lay back in her chair and stared at Lexy with dilated eyes and parted lips. Her face was as white as paper, and strangely drawn.

“Are you ill?” cried Lexy, running toward her.

Mrs. Quelton only stared at her with those brilliant, dilated eyes. Lexy took the other woman’s hand, and it was as cold as ice, and utterly lifeless.

“Mrs. Quelton! Are you ill?” she asked again.

Somehow it added to her horror to see, as she bent over her, that the unfortunate woman’s face was ever so thickly covered with some curious sort of paint or powder. It made her seem like a grotesque and horrible marionette.

“She’s old!” thought Lexy. “She’s terribly, terribly old!”

She drew back her hand, for she could not touch that painted face. She didn’t fail in generous pity, but she could not overcome an instinctive repugnance. She turned around, intending to call the parlor maid, and there was Dr. Quelton striding down the long room with a glass in his hand. Without even glancing at Lexy, he stooped over his wife, raised her limp head on one arm, and put the glass to her lips. She drank the contents, and lay back again, with her eyes closed. Almost at once the color began to return to her ashen cheeks. Her arms quivered, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at him with a faint, dazed smile.

“You’re better now,” he said.

“Better!” she repeated. “But you were late! I needed it--I needed it!”

“Come, now!” he said indulgently. “The faintness has passed. Now you must go up to your room and rest a little before tea.”

She rose, and to Lexy’s surprise her movements showed no trace of weakness. Then, turning her head, she caught sight of the girl, and her face lighted with pleasure.

“Miss Moran!” she cried. “How very nice to--”

“Miss Moran will wait, I’m sure,” the doctor interrupted. “You must rest for half an hour, Muriel.”

Taking her by the arm, he led her down the room. In the doorway she looked back and smiled at her visitor; and if anything had been needed to steel Lexy’s heart against the doctor, that smile on his wife’s face would have done it--that poor, plaintive little smile.

Standing there by Mrs. Quelton’s empty chair, she waited for him to return, a cold and terrible anger rising in her. She heard his step in the hall, heavy and deliberate, and presently he reëntered the room and came toward her, his blank, dull eyes fixed upon nothing. She was quite certain that he wanted to put her out of his way, and that he had no scruple whatever as to methods; yet for all her youth and inexperience, her utter loneliness, she felt that she was a match for him.

“So you’ve come back to us, Miss Moran,” he said in his lifeless voice. “I was afraid you might not.”

“Oh, but why not?” Lexy inquired in a brisk and cheerful tone. “I like to come here!”

A curious thrill of exultation ran through her, for she saw on the doctor’s face the faintest shadow of a frown. He was perplexed! She baffled him, and he didn’t know whether she understood what had happened.

“It is a great pleasure to Mrs. Quelton and myself,” he said politely. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at her. “Perhaps,” he went on, “you would be kind enough to spend a week here with us some time? Although I’m afraid you might find it very dull.”

“Oh, no!” Lexy assured him. “I’d love to come--whenever it’s convenient for you.”

They were still looking directly into each other’s eyes.

“Suppose we say to-morrow?” suggested Dr. Quelton.

“Thank you!” said Lexy. “I’ll come to-morrow!”

XVII

Captain Grey was enchanted with the idea of Lexy’s spending a week with his sister. He was going, too. Indeed, Lexy felt sure that Mrs. Quelton had wanted him to go there some time ago, and that he had refused simply on her own account. He didn’t like to leave her alone at Mrs. Royce’s, and after her nervous breakdown that afternoon nothing could have induced him to do so. He was anxious about her. He tried, with what he believed was great tact, to find out her plans for the future. He was genuinely troubled by the loneliness and uncertainty of her life.

Lexy appreciated all this, and she liked the young man very much--perhaps as much as he liked her; but the sympathetic understanding which had promised to develop on the night when they talked together in the firelight had never developed. Something had checked it. They were the best of friends, but Captain Grey never again referred to what Lexy had told him about Caroline Enderby, and about her reason for coming to Wyngate; and Lexy said nothing, either. Evidently he thought that it had been a far-fetched, romantic notion of hers, and hoped that she had forgotten all about it.

Lexy did not try to undeceive him. Her story would be too fantastic for him to believe. Nobody would believe it, except a person with absolute faith not only in her honesty but in her intelligence and clear-sightedness; and there was no such person. She was not resentful or grieved over this. She accepted it quietly, and prepared to go forward alone.

It had occurred to her lately that perhaps Mr. Houseman had been right, and that Caroline had gone away of her own free will; but she meant to _know_. She had seen the missing girl in Dr. Quelton’s house. Whatever the doctor might say about the false evidence of the senses, Lexy’s confidence in her own clear gray eyes was not in the least shaken. She had seen Caroline once, and she was going to see her again. That was why she was going to the Tower.

“It’ll do Muriel no end of good,” said Captain Grey, when they were in the taxi. “She’s--to tell you the truth, Miss Moran, I don’t feel altogether easy about her.”

“Why?” asked Lexy, very curious to know what he thought.

“Well,” he said, “it’s hard to put it into words; but that’s not a wholesome sort of life for a young woman, shut away like that. The doctor says her health’s not good, but it’s my opinion that if she got about more--saw more people, you know--”

Lexy felt a great pity for him. Apparently he did not even suspect what she was now sure of--that the unfortunate Muriel was hopelessly addicted to some drug, which her husband himself gave to her.

“And I hope he’ll go back to India before he does find out,” she thought. “It’s too horrible--he worships her so!”

“I’ve tried, you know,” he went on. “I wanted to take her into the city, to a concert. Seems confoundedly queer, doesn’t it, the way she’s lost interest in her music? She didn’t want to go. Then about the emerald--”

“Oh!” said Lexy, who had forgotten about the emerald.

“Chap I know designed a setting for it. It’s unset now, you know, and I thought I’d like to do that for her while I was here; but she doesn’t seem interested. I can’t even get her to let me see the thing. I’ve asked her two or three times, but she always puts me off. Do you think it bores her?”

“Perhaps it does,” replied Lexy.

“Well,” said the young man, “when a woman’s bored by a jewel like that, she’s in a bad way. I wish you could see it!”

“I wish I could,” said Lexy, and added to herself: “But I don’t think I ever shall. Probably her husband’s got it.”

They had now reached the Tower. The parlor maid opened the door for them, and at once conducted Lexy upstairs to her room.

It was a big room, with four windows, and very comfortably furnished; but even a fire burning in the grate and two or three shaded electric lamps could not give it a homelike air. There was a musty smell about it, and there was an amazing amount of dust. It was neat, but it wasn’t clean. Dust rose from the carpet when she walked, and from the chair cushions when she sat down. She saw fluff under the bed and under the bureau.

“Not much of a housekeeper, poor soul!” thought Lexy. “It’s a pity. One could do almost anything with a house like this, and all this beautiful old furniture!”

But this, after all, was a minor matter. She took off her hat, washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

“The house is strange to me,” she said to herself, with a grin. “I shouldn’t wonder if I turned the wrong way, and got lost!”

That was what she intended to do. She did not expect to make any sensational discoveries, for Dr. Quelton did not seem to be the sort of person who would leave clews lying about for her to pick up; but she did hope that she might see or hear something--Heaven knows what--that might bring her nearer to Caroline.

So, instead of walking toward the stairs, she turned in the opposite direction, along a hall lined with doors, all of them shut. At the end there was a grimy window, through which the sun shone in upon the dusty carpet and the faded wall paper. There was a forlorn and neglected air about the place, a stillness which made it impossible for her to believe that there was any living creature behind those closed doors.

“I wish I had cheek enough to open some of them,” she thought; “but I’m afraid I haven’t. I shouldn’t know what to say if there was some one in the room. After all, I’m supposed to be a guest. I’ve got to be a little discreet about my prying.”