Читать книгу The House of Invisible Bondage - J.U. Giesy - Страница 4

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MISS NEWELL withdrew, closing the door behind her. Jim and I looked into one another's eyes. Semi Dual had demonstrated the subtle, qualities that made it hard indeed to take him unawares. Something more than a half-hour ago he had indicated the belief that Marya Harding would call upon us with a companion. She was here—would appear before us inside a minute.

"Well," said Jim, laying his cigar on an ashtray upon my desk in expectation of her entrance, "that's that. Now, what the devil—"

The door swung open. Marya Harding came through it smiling, together with a somewhat younger woman who did not smile.

My major attention centered on the second woman. Marya was beautiful, as always, in that dark, Oriental fashion of hers; but this second girl was like a beam of sunshine half dimmed by an intervening cloud.

She was slender and blond, with hair the color of strained honey, eyes of an almost pansy purple, and lips a trifle set now as though by the stress of inner emotion, but which one fancied could be tender on occasion, beneath a straight patrician little nose. Oh, yes, there was breeding in that face, the lines and angles that spoke of past generations of careful selection in blood. And not only in her face but in her bearing, as Marya made the introductions, were those past generations displayed. One felt it, knew that Moira Mason was a beautiful creation it had taken a long time to produce, the fruit of a family tree that had been long in growth.

And of course I knew who she was. Heaven knew her name was often enough in the papers, her picture on the society page. Moira Mason was the daughter of Adrian Mason, one of our city's most aggressive and influential financiers.

Bryce nodded his head in recognition.

"Miss Mason," I said, and took the slim hand she extended briefly into my own, and found its fingers cold.

We gave our visitors chairs. Marya sank into hers, still smiling. Marriage, I thought, had improved her. She had never seemed more charming to me before. But still I knew, even as she settled herself gracefully in her seat, that our interest was not with her-that it lay in Moira Mason, the clouded sunbeam of a woman whom until that moment I had thought of, if at all, as a human butterfly.

And Marya's first words after she was seated confirmed my evaluation of the situation. She came directly to the reason for their call, though in a fashion that showed a slight embarrassment.

"I hope you gentlemen won't think I'm forming a habit of running to you every time I'm in need of help, but will just feel that whenever there is a need you are the men I think of first. Really, though, it's Moira who needs the sort of assistance you can render.

"And I told her I was positive you would give it. I made her come, promised her to explain, and see if we could enlist your aid. I told her all you and your wonderful friend Mr. Semi Dual had done for Bob and me in the past. I-I-thought-felt sure-from what I know of him-that if you would intercede for us-he might be willing to help her, if anything can be done. You see, she was engaged to Mr. Imer Lamb, and—"

"Imer Lamb!" Jim exploded.

I couldn't blame him either. Imer Lamb was in jail for an assault upon his valet, if one could believe the newspaper account Jim had quoted to me this morning. Here was a beautiful girl, his fiancée, her features shadowed by trouble, appealing to us through a mutual friend, in Imer Lamb's behalf. I glanced at her, and back to Marya Harding.

She was looking straight at Jim.

"You know, then, about his arrest," she was saying. "That's bad enough, of course. But there is more to it than the papers print. It's-that I hoped to take up with Mr. Dual, if we could induce you to sponsor our request. His-attack on his valet is really only the culmination of something that has been going on for some time. If we could see your friend-explain—"

I interrupted. "We understand fully, Mrs. Harding, and there will be no difficulty in what you ask. You know Semi Dual, and you know something of the way in which he works. Because of that I am going to tell you now that your request was granted before ever you made it in words. Before you reached here this morning Dual called us on the telephone and instructed us to bring you and Miss Mason to him as soon as you arrived."

Her eyes widened.

"He called you-told you that?" she exclaimed softly and glanced at Moira Mason, who had lifted herself to a tensely erect position on her chair.

"Just that," I told her. "Of course he did not mention Miss Mason's name, but he spoke of your bringing a companion."

"But," she began, "we spoke of coming here to no one. How-"

"Did he know?" I interrupted again. "You thought about it, talked it over between yourselves; and he caught your thought, Mrs. Harding, and read your intent. It is telepathy-a sort of mental radio, if you like. He does that sort of thing."

"It's wonderful, almost unbelievable," she said. "Do you hear, Moira? He's going to see us; and he'll help Imer. I feel sure he will."

"It is-wonderful indeed," Moira Mason spoke for the first time since she had been seated.

"Then, can we go to him now?" Marya Harding prompted.

"Of course," I agreed, and rose.

Five minutes later I escorted both women from the elevator grille on the twentieth floor to the bronze and marble stairway that led to Semi Dual's domain on the roof.

We mounted. It was a July day, and Semi's garden, slumbered under the light of late morning like a dream picture more than a scene of the modern world. There were beds of shrubbery and flowers flanking the central path, the nodding, drowsy heads roses, red and white and yellow. Their perfume was a warm spice in our nostrils.

And before us was the tower, a thing of dark etched shadows, and whiteness. There was the tiny fountain with a gray and white dove on the rim of its basin, and the little ancient sundial marking the hour of our approach.

Moira Mason cried out softly as we reached the top.

At the sound of her soft-toned exclamation, I glanced at the girl. Surprised admiration was in her face.

I trod on the annunciator plate. The chimes in the tower rang mellow as the distant note of an old-time shepherd's pipe. Other doves rose up from its facade and fluttered into startled flight.

Marya Harding spoke with a little catch in, her words. "But, Mr. Glace, this is marvelous—like a picture come to life."

"It is the place Dual has made to insure himself quiet, while he studies life," I said, and led the way up the central path to the door of the tower, etched a dark oblong in its nearer side.

It stood open before us, and, as we entered, Henri, Dual's one companion in the seclusion he customarily maintained, bowed before us, a tray in his hands.

On it were three glasses of a sparkling beverage I recognized as a blend of pure fruit juices, wonderfully refreshing, which I had tasted more than once.

"Welcome, mesdames and monsieur," Henri greeted our arrival. "The master requests that you drink, and refresh yourselves."

We stood in the anteroom to Semi's quarters, an apartment done in varying shades of brown. I myself handed their glasses to the two women, and noted their glance run about the room.

"This is like The Arabian Nights," Marya. Harding laughed in a somewhat nervous fashion, and sipped at her glass. I smiled at her. It was all an old story to me. But I could quite appreciate its effect on those who came upon it without warning. It had impressed me in somewhat the same fashion the first time, and since. I drained my glass, took hers and Moira Mason's from their hands, replaced them on Henri's tray.

He deposited the latter on a little table.

"And now the master awaits the ladies' pleasure," he said. "You know the way, M. Glace."

I nodded. There was a door on the farther side that gave into a room beyond. I crossed to it and rapped.

"Enter."

I set the door open and ushered my companions through it.

Dual sat at a huge desk, clad, as was his custom when at home, in a flowing robe of white, edged with purple on cuff and collar. Beyond him a window, its expanse occupying nearly the whole width of the room, threw his splendid head into silhouette. Beyond him also; at one end of the desk, a life-sized bronze figure of Venus, really an electrolier, held an apple of golden glass in a gracefully outstretched hand. There was a great clock in a corner, a wonderful Persian rug upon the floor.

I closed the door behind me.

Semi Dual rose. Bending from the hips, he bowed. Before straightening he smiled.

"Welcome, Marya, the fingers of whose soul I have felt seeking contact with mine this morning," he said. "And thou"—he turned his glance to; Moira Mason, his gray eyes searching her face—"whom I perceive to be troubled in spirit, so that I deem that thy sister woman brings thee to me in thy, rather than her own, behalf, thou art welcome also."

"Thank you," Miss Mason said in little more than a whisper. One could see her visibly affected by Semi Dual's costume and manner as well as his speech and his instant appraisal of the situation as affecting her.

Marya, however, was in a measure prepared for something of the sort from her contact with him in the past. She presented Moira by name, and we all found seats.

"And now tell me," Semi prompted, once more with a smile upon his lips.

It was Marya who complied, at first. Briefly she told him what she had already told Bryce and me. Semi Dual watched her closely.

"Moira came to me this morning after she knew of his arrest," she said. "I thought that if you would listen to her story you might be able to tell her how it would all come out."

"At least I shall listen," Dual spoke after a momentary silence that followed her words. "It is written, 'Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, ask and ye shall receive.' Wherefore I shall listen, and if it lie within my power I shall give."

His gray eyes turned again to Moira Mason. "Tell me, my child."

"There is so little to tell," she said, almost like a puzzled child indeed. "I really don't understand. It's like a nightmare. Imer is so different from what he was. It's as though some evil power had changed him lately—since we have been engaged. I've known him a long time, and a-a dearer boy never lived.

"But in the last month he hasn't been himself; he's been irritable, irascible. And I'd never known him to lose control of himself before. We quarreled a few days ago. You know he's been flying of late. He's been doing stunt flying. It's very dangerous. I asked him to be careful, and he flew into a rage, became actually violent. I tried to calm him, tried to put my arms about his neck, and he tore them away and threw me from him, and rushed out of the house. See—" She extended an arm on which were the discolored marks of fingers.

"And before that he'd always been gentle, for all his strength. He's a strong man, Mr. Dual. I'm sure he wouldn't have willingly hurt me. Yet he did. And yet the very next day he came back as though nothing had happened.

"He didn't mention it. It was as though he didn't know, or had forgotten. And now—last night—he attacked his valet, beating him, choking him, apparently meaning to kill him. They say he would have killed him if a neighbor had not heard the noise of their fight and rushed in and helped his man overpower Imer until they could call the police. It—it almost seems as though he were going—crazy."

She broke off with a caught-in breath and quivering lips.

Dual stirred, opened his eyes, sat up. While she had been speaking he had been lying back in his chair relaxed. One might have fancied from his posture, his closed eyes, the slow rise and fall of his chest, that he slept. But I, who knew him, knew also that he did not; that back of his lowered lids his alert mind was doubly awake, was focusing, centering all its analytical ability on her words, apprehending her every slightest statement, appraising it, marking it for a future reference perhaps.

"You love him?" he said now.

"Oh, yes."

Faint color stole into Moira Mason's cheeks.

"And how well do you love him?" Semi Dual demanded.

"Why, I, hardly know how to answer," she faltered. "How does one put a value on—love?"

Semi Dual nodded. "How indeed?" he returned. "But let me put it this way. Do you love him more than yourself?"

"Oh, yes." She did not hesitate.

"Then," Semi said, "answer me such questions as I shall ask. You have known him a long time. Do you know of any past worries, any unpleasant episodes in his life?"

"No-o." She shook her head. "He's always seemed more a happy, care-free boy to me than anything else."

"He has not been prone to dissipation?" he asked.

"Not any real dissipation," she said.

"Does he drink? Have you ever seen him intoxicated?"

"No—never. He takes an occasional drink, but not enough to muddle him ever. He smokes a good deal. No, Mr. Dual, he is not a dipsomaniac."

Dual turned to me with a question. "Do you know anything of the young man in question, Gordon?"

I told, him briefly what Jim had told: me that morning concerning Lamb's connection with the brokerage firm operated by his brother.

"But George isn't really his brother," Moira amended my information when I had ceased. "He is no relation really, except by adoption. He is really the son of a friend of Imer's father. When the man died and left George an orphan, after asking Imer's father to take care of his child, Mr. Lamb adopted him."

Semi Dual turned to his desk, took a sheet of paper from a neatly piled stack upon it, and picked up a pencil.

"And what is Imer's age?" he asked. "Give me as nearly as possible the day, month, and hour of his birth, as well as the place."

"He was born right here," Moira told him. "And he'll be twenty-seven on the 29th of this coming September. I know that, but I do not know the hour. Is it important?"

"If he was born here we can possibly gain the information from the vital statistics of the Board of Health," Semi said. "And now the same information concerning yourself if you please."

She complied. I saw her delicately chiseled nostrils flare. "You're going to work, aren't you?" she cried as Semi wrote down the data she furnished. "Marya told me something about how you do it. You're going to tell me if anything can be done for Imer—how everything is going to turn out?"

"Perhaps." Dual finished jotting down the' information he had asked for. "Do you know at what time he attacked his valet last night?"

"It was somewhere around midnight," Miss Mason replied. "At least George says so. I saw him this morning. He was trying to get Imer released on bail, but so far without success."

"The police blotter will show the time of the arrest at least," Dual said. "You saw your friend, Mr. Imer Lamb, this morning?"

For a moment the girl's lips quivered again before she answered. "Oh, yes, I went to the jail, but he didn't seem to want to talk. He told me to stay away in the future."

"You say he did not wish to talk?" Semi questioned. "Just how did he appear, Miss Mason?"

"He seemed depressed—morose," Moira explained. "He asked me to have George bring him a pipe and some tobacco, and I said I would. And I called George after I left Imer. That was when he told me he was trying to arrange for his release on bail."

"The valet was seriously injured?" Semi queried.

"No." She shook her head. "Fortunately not. Mr. Lamb said he wasn't going to make any trouble for Imer, and that he had asked to stay on at Imer's apartment until he can arrange to get him out. But if Imer is really going insane—" Once more her voice broke.

"Peace," said Semi Dual, reverting from the more modern beating and diction which had held him during the last few minutes to that he had employed at first. "Peace, thou troubled child! What shall be, time and time only will tell. Yet I have listened to you, and now I shall seek to do whatsoever I can.

"And there are certain steps to be taken before I may learn what I shall learn. Therefore abide in peace, and strengthen thy heart with this thought, that all things pass, even as clouds from off the sun. That which today is a riddle, tomorrow we shall understand.

"Wherefore today I shall seek to read the riddle you have placed before me. And tomorrow I shall strive to place at least a portion of the truth within your hands. Take that thought with thee in leaving me to the task which is now become mine."

The interview was ended. He rose. Marya, and Moira Mason, and I regained our feet. Semi bowed to the women, touched their hands.

"Peace," he said again to Moira. "It is the greatest boon, my child. Hence we use the word in parting from a friend. Peace with thee till tomorrow." Again he bowed.

Once we were back in the garden passing toward the stairway from it to the busy twentieth century world, she spoke, addressing me directly: "Your friend is a strange man Mr. Glace—a strange man."