Читать книгу The Blue Wall - Richard Washburn Child - Страница 7

Table of Contents

It may strike you as absurd that I did not accept the possibility that Virginia was suffering from delirium. I confess that, after I had closed the house door behind me, I was for the moment convinced of the connection between congestion at the base of the brain and the abnormal fancy of the child. I had come to the house on foot, no vehicle was waiting for me, and I remember that when I started off I turned in the direction leading away from the Estabrooks’ door.

The day had promised a much-needed rain; now the coming night threatened one of those angry tempests of the autumn. It was already dark and the street was deserted as if every one had hurried to find cover. The lighted windows suggested warmth and protection; but outside the dust and flying, rustling leaves, the dancing shadows on the pavements, the wail of the wind, the tossing treetops in the park, the musty odor of the death of the year all bore down upon the spirit and awoke that superstitious uneasiness which we inherit, I suppose, from ancestors who fled the storm to find shelter for their naked bodies in caves and hollow trees.

This wild and funereal scene and the proximity to the spot where poor MacMechem met his end brought him back into my memory, and again I found myself wondering, as he had wondered, and then I remembered the low cry I had heard issue from the window.

One feels at times that determination comes from without. You can almost imagine, then, that some part of your own self which exists outside your body has tapped you on the shoulder, spoken a command, and directed your action. Certainly I cannot remember why I turned around, nor can I recall why I went back toward the Estabrooks’. I do remember that it occurred to me that, if I should see the young lawyer or his wife, all that I asked of them about the other side of the blue wall would probably incline them to the belief that I was as mad as any hare of March. But even that thought did not retard my steps.

If I hesitated at the point where I again reached the Marburys’, it was for good cause, for what I saw gave me no little uneasiness. Out of the shadow of the Estabrooks’ entrance, where a high iron grilled fence curves toward the steps, there came, as if it were some wild and furtive animal startled from its shelter, a moving figure! …

I endeavor to speak with accuracy. … It was dark. Everything seemed to sway in the galloping wind—the trees, the shrubs, the magnetic arc lights and even the luxurious iron and stone inclosures before the line of houses. Furthermore the dust was blinding. In spite of all this, in spite of the fact that the vision was fleeting, I received the definite impression that this figure sought to escape unseen. It hurried away into the darkness, hugged the shadows, and took up a position in a place that would have been chosen by one who wished to observe secretly what I was about to do.

“Bah!” said I to myself. “Some loiterer. He cannot be connected with the Estabrooks’ affairs.”

Yet, for some reason, feeling that I was watched, I determined to walk away again, and as I went I looked along the ground in the manner of one who has lost something. The cross-street was near and I turned it. I thought after a moment or two of waiting under the wall of the corner residence that I heard receding footbeats on the pavement; therefore, having allowed a minute or two to pass, I retraced my steps. The figure was no longer anywhere in sight. Holding my hat so that the ugly gusts of cold wind would not blow it away, I walked up the white steps of the Estabrook home and pressed the electric button which projected from a bronze disk. This disk, so the sense of touch indicated, had at one time been one of those Chinese carved metal mirrors and was now set into the stone. I remember how it spoke to me of the extents to which the metropolitan architects and decorators will go to appeal to the whims and pretensions of the rich, who, after all, are out of the same mould as other men so obscure and wretched that the money spent for such a capricious ornament would support a family of them for six months. Perhaps the irony of it is that, no matter how much wealth may protect one from the others, it can never protect one from himself. And then—I pressed the button again.

There were silk curtains within the long heavy glass panels on either side of the door, but had a light been lit within I could have seen it. The whole house, however, was dark, and only by chance did I catch the sly movement of one of the curtains and the glint of an eye, peeping out at me. Whoever its owner might be, he or she had crept across the tiled vestibule silently and was now behind the outer door conducting a covert investigation.

“An odd procedure for a house of a respectable, conservative family,” said I to myself, and without hesitating I rang again.

A light in the ceiling of the vestibule glowed forth immediately and I heard the movement of heavy metal locks and latches; the door swung back and I found myself standing before a middle-aged woman dressed in the black-and-white garb of well-trained servants.

This woman had a face that one may find sometimes among veteran nuns—a strong and kindly face, patient and self-subjugated—the face of the convent. But, of course, old family serving-women may have this same expression, for they too are nuns in a sense; in household rites they renounce the world, and if the spirit does not sour, little by little, they take wordless vows and obliterate themselves in service. This woman who stood before me, with skirts and apron blown about her substantial figure by the chill wind that poured into the vestibule, seemed at first to be one of them. It was only when I perceived that her eyes were filled with some guilty fear, and that her hands were half raised as if to ward off some impending danger, that I began to suspect that hers was one of those masks which hypocrisy and deceit grow upon the countenance of evil souls.

“I wish to see Mr. Estabrook,” said I.

“He is not at home. He is away.”

“Mrs. Estabrook.”

“She is not well, sir. She cannot see anybody.”

These conventional answers seemed to put an end to the interview: if she had not spoken again, with that strange look of apprehension and terror rising to her eyes, I would have bowed and turned away. But her voice trembled as she moved toward me timidly and said, “Will you leave a message? Will you call again? Will you say—will you say—”

Her sentence failed like that. As it did, words sprang to my mouth. I looked at her accusingly.

“Yes,” I snapped. “On the second story of the Marburys’ house there is, of course, a partition. I called to ask Mrs. Estabrook what was on her side of that wall.”

This information acted like dynamite. You would have said that it had blown to pieces some vital organ of the old servant. The color ran out of her face as if her head had lost its connection with her body.

“This is terrible,” she choked. “Oh, ’tis awful! Who are you? Who can you be? Somebody has sent you.”

She caught the edge of the door and pushed it toward me.

“I know who you are,” she exclaimed. “You are somebody that is sent by him!”

With a final shove, then, she closed the crack which had remained, the locks moved again, the light in the vestibule went out, and I was alone on the step.

Such was the success of my first attempt to find an answer to MacMechem’s question—to solve the riddle of the blue wall. But I realized, as I stood there, looking up into the gray sky of night with its wind-driven clouds, that the presence of some peculiar form of good or evil was no longer in doubt; that little Virginia, with the sensitive receptiveness of childhood, of suffering, and of her own endearing, unworldly personality, had not been wrong; that MacMechem, like a true physician, had not excluded the unknown and now was vindicated, and that there are sometimes strange affairs that baffle our feeble diagnosis of mankind. …

This is merely a recital of the facts. I am not attempting to prove anything. I merely state that, as I descended the Estabrook steps and struck off into the park, the detective instinct which lies in every one of us had wakened in me. It may have been the reason for my turning around, after I had crossed the street, between the whirr and lights of two automobiles, and stood at the opening of one of the paths of the park.

The house I had just left met my scrutiny with a cold, impassive stare of its own—its look might have been the stare of the sphinx or of a good poker player. It gave no sign. My eyes traveled up to the roof, then back again to the ground, and only when my glance dropped did I see for the second time the lurking figure of the man.

“He was watching me from first to last,” said I to myself. “He probably saw my little strategy of waiting around the corner.”

Indeed, my first impulse was to walk rapidly over the way, head him off, and ask him his business; but I considered it unwise, and plunging into the shadows of the wailing trees, I walked briskly toward the distant lights that marked my district of the city.

You know, perhaps, the feeling that you are being followed. Without recognition of any definite sight or sound, you become more and more conscious of some one skulking in the shadows behind. Finally, you hear, in one of those moments when the wind catches its breath, the breaking of a twig, the disturbance among the dry leaves that have blown in drifts over the path, and you know that some one is there.

I admit freely that I felt I had involved myself in such a manner that some one wished to do me harm. If, on the other hand, he who followed sought to rob me, the situation was as bad. The park was deserted. One does not like to call for help unless certain of danger. And therefore, though I am no longer moulded for speed, I broke into a run.

I had gone but a few paces before the other discovered that I was in flight. I heard the rapid patter of his shoes behind me. In another twenty feet I heard his voice. It was not loud and it was cautious, but it reached my ears with a suggestion of extraordinary savageness.

“Stop!” it called with an oath. “I’ve got you. Stop!”

It was not a reassuring message, of course. I tried to run faster. A moment of this endeavor only showed me that my pursuer was gaining. I therefore stopped short, stepped into the heavy shadow of an evergreen, and waited for my new friend. Though it was dark I could see him as he came, and I assure you that it surprised me when I noted that the man was well-dressed and bore the appearance of respectability.

Just as he reached the spot in front of me, I saw him hesitate as if he had discovered that I was no longer running along in front of him. I knew that an encounter could not be avoided. Accordingly I sprang forward and drove my fist into his neck. Instantly I found myself grappling with him. I felt the watch in his waistcoat pocket as I pressed my knee into his stomach, and with my face near his I could see by the look in his eyes that my blow had staggered him and put him at a disadvantage. Some years ago I could deliver a heavy punch and the knack had stayed with me. I threw my weight against him once more, bore him down onto the leaves and gravel, and found myself on top.

Both of us were panting; we were breathing into each other’s faces when suddenly I saw his eyes open wide as if he had seen a vision.

“I know you now. You are the doctor!” cried he. “Stop! Tell me, for God’s sake, what’s wrong with my wife!”

“Your wife?” I cried, dumbfounded. “Who are you?”

He struggled to his feet and leered at me. His face twitched with emotion.

“I am Jermyn Estabrook,” he gasped.

You may imagine my astonishment when, after struggling with a man who had pursued me through the dark paths of the park like one who sought my life, he whom I had never seen before should now appeal to me as if I could lift him from the depths of some profound despair. He had cried out that I must tell him what was wrong with his wife. I had never so much as set eyes upon her. He had said he was Jermyn Estabrook. And though, with my face close to his, I could see that he was covered with bits of dead leaves and mud and the sweat of his desperate struggle, I felt that he told the truth.

“I have never been to your home but once in my life,” I said. “You were watching me on that occasion—to-night. That is plain. I did not go in.”

“I have made a mistake,” he gasped. “I’m sorry. I have been through torments beyond telling. Something is going on—some ghastly, horrible tragedy within my own walls.”

The word caught my ear; I gripped his shoulder.

“Listen, Estabrook,” I cried. “It is no time for us to mince matters. I am attending Marbury’s little child. It is an odd form of meningitis. I am fighting to save her. Do you understand?”

He shook his head stupidly as if worn dull by mental agony. “What of her?” he asked.

“What of her, eh?” I cried. “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you! She is affected—perhaps her life or death depends upon—something—or somebody—that is behind the wall—the blue wall—something in your house next door. Come! Let us go back there. Let us force this thing. It is your home! Enter it!”

“I can’t!” he cried, thrusting his fingers upward.

“Can’t!” I roared at him.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. I have promised her. She has my word.”

“But think, man, what may be going on there!” I said.

“I have sworn not to pass the door,” he said obstinately. “Heaven knows I am nearly crazy for light upon all this. But I must keep my word!”

As if to lend emphasis to his exclamation, a gust of wind roaring through the trees of the park brought the first deluge of rain—a cold, stinging downpour of the wild autumn night. Estabrook shivered. I could see that he was a man, badly tired, unnerved, and still dizzy from the blow I had given him.

“Follow me,” said I roughly. “You need warmth—stimulant. And I want your story, Estabrook.”

He looked at me with an empty stare, but at last nodded his assent, and without another word between us, we came to this house and into this very room.

He sat there before the fire—burning then as it is now—and as the warmth penetrated his trembling body, he seemed to regain his self-composure.

I saw then that this young man, well under forty, did not lack distinction of appearance. His head was carried upon his strong neck in the masterful manner of those who have true poise and strength of personality. His hair had turned gray above his ears, and his well-shaven face carried those lines that the grim struggles of our modern civilization gouge into the fullness of youth and health.

“I must tell somebody,” he said, while I was observing his features upon which the firelight danced. “I have never dreamed that I would come to such a pass. But you shall hear my love story. You may be able to throw some light upon it. Contrary to the notion of my friends, who consider me incapable of adventure, my experience in the affections is one that offers opportunity for speculation—it would appeal to a great detective!”

I leaned forward quickly. Such a statement from any man might awaken interest, but Estabrook was not any man. He represented the essence of conventional society. He belonged to a family of well-preserved traditions, a family whose reputation for conservative conduct and manners of cold self-restraint was well known in a dozen cities. They were that particular family, of a common enough name, which was known as the Estabrookses Arbutus. Jermyn had had a dozen grandfathers who, from one to another, had handed down the practice of law to him, as if for the Estabrooks it was an heirloom.

“Perhaps I had better tell you from the beginning,” said he, drawing the back of his fine hand across his forehead. “For it is strange—strange! And who can say what the ending will be?”

I counseled him to calm himself and asked that he eliminate as much as possible all unnecessary details of his story. I shall repeat, then, as accurately as possible, the story he told me. I will attempt to write it in his own words. …

BOOK II THE AUTOMATIC SHEIK