Sight Unseen Part 13

With their entrance a spark of hospitality seemed to kindle in the cat lady's breast. It was evident that she liked Sperry. Perhaps she saw in him a method of weaning her cousin from traffic with the powers of darkness. She said something about tea, and went out.

Sperry looked across at the girl and smiled.

"Shall I tell them?" he said.

"I want very much to have them know."

He stood up, and with that unconscious drama which actuates a man at a crisis in his affairs, he put a hand on her shoulder. "This young lady is going to marry me," he said. "We are very happy today."

But I thought he eyed us anxiously. We were very close friends, and he wanted our approval. I am not sure if we were wise. I do not yet know.

But something of the new understanding between my wife and myself must have found its way to our voices, for he was evidently satisfied.

"Then that's all right," he said heartily. And my wife, to my surprise, kissed the girl.

Except for the cats, sitting around, the whole thing was strangely normal. And yet, even there, something happened that set me to thinking afterward. Not that it was strange in itself, but that it seemed never possible to get very far away from the Wells mystery.

Tea was brought in by Hawkins!

I knew him immediately, but he did not at once see me. He was evidently accustomed to seeing Sperry there, and he did not recognize my wife. But when he had put down the tray and turned to pick up Sperry's overcoat to carry it into the hall, he saw me. The man actually started. I cannot say that he changed color. He was always a pale, anemic-looking individual. But it was a perceptible instant before he stooped and gathered up the coat.

Sperry turned to me when he had gone out. "That was Hawkins, Horace," he said. "You remember, don't you? The Wellses' butler."

"I knew him at once."

"He wrote to me asking for a position, and I got him this. Looks sick, poor devil. I intend to have a go at his chest."

"How long has he been here?"

"More than a week, I think."

As I drank my tea, I pondered. After all, the Neighborhood Club must guard against the possibility of fraud, and I felt that Sperry had been indiscreet, to say the least. From the time of Hawkins' service in Miss Jeremy's home there would always be the suspicion of collusion between them. I did not believe it was so, but Herbert, for instance, would be inclined to suspect her. Suppose that Hawkins knew about the crime? Or knew something and surmised the rest?

When we rose to go Sperry drew me aside.

"You think I've made a mistake?"

"I do."

He flung away with an impatient gesture, then came back to me.

"Now look here," he said, "I know what you mean, and the whole idea is absurd. Of course I never thought about it, but even allowing for connivance--which I don't for a moment--the fellow was not in the house at the time of the murder."

"I know he says he was not."

"Even then," he said, "how about the first sitting? I'll swear she had never even heard of him then."

"The fact remains that his presence here makes us all absurd."

"Do you want me to throw him out?"

"I don't see what possible good that will do now."

I was uneasy all the way home. The element of doubt, always so imminent in our dealings with psychic phenomena, had me by the throat. How much did Hawkins know? Was there any way, without going to the police, to find if he had really been out of the Wellses' house that night, now almost two weeks ago, when Arthur Wells had been killed?

That evening I went to Sperry's house, after telephoning that I was coming. On the way I stopped in at Mrs. Dane's and secured something from her. She was wildly curious, and made me promise to go in on my way back, and explain. I made a compromise.

"I will come in if I have anything to tell you," I said.

But I knew, by her grim smile, that she would station herself by her window, and that I would stop, unless I made a detour of three blocks to avoid her. She is a very determined woman.

Sperry was waiting for me in his library, a pleasant room which I have often envied him. Even the most happily married man wishes, now and then, for some quiet, dull room which is essentially his own. My own library is really the family sitting-room, and a Christmas or so ago my wife presented me with a very handsome phonograph instrument. My reading, therefore, is done to music, and the necessity for putting my book down to change the record at times interferes somewhat with my train of thought.

So I entered Sperry's library with appreciation. He was standing by the fire, with the grave face and slightly bent head of his professional manner. We say, in the neighborhood, that Sperry uses his professional manner as armor, so I was rather prepared to do battle; but he forestalled me.

"Horace," he said, "I have been a fool, a driveling idiot. We were getting something at those sittings. Something real. She's wonderful.

She's going to give it up, but the fact remains that she has some power we haven't, and now I've discredited her! I see it plainly enough." He was rather bitter about it, but not hostile. His fury was at himself.

"Of course," he went on, "I am sure that she got nothing from Hawkins.

But the fact remains--" He was hurt in his pride of her.

"I wonder," I said, "if you kept the letter Hawkins wrote you when he asked for a position."

He was not sure. He went into his consulting room and was gone for some time. I took the opportunity to glance over his books and over the room.

Arthur Wells's stick was standing in a corner, and I took it up and examined it. It was an English malacca, light and strong, and had seen service. It was long, too long for me; it occurred to me that Wells had been about my height, and that it was odd that he should have carried so long a stick. There was no ease in swinging it.

From that to the memory of Hawkins's face when Sperry took it, the night of the murder, in the hall of the Wells house, was only a step. I seemed that day to be thinking considerably about Hawkins.

When Sperry returned I laid the stick on the table. There can be no doubt that I did so, for I had to move a book-rack to place it. One end, the handle, was near the ink-well, and the ferrule lay on a copy of Gibson's "Life Beyond the Grave," which Sperry had evidently been reading.

Sperry had found the letter. As I glanced at it I recognized the writing at once, thin and rather s.e.xless, Spencerian.

Dear Sir: Since Mr. Wells's death I am out of employment. Before I took the position of butler with Mr. Wells I was valet to Mr. Ellingham, and before that, in England, to Lord Condray. I have a very good letter of recommendation from Lord Condray. If you need a servant at this time I would do my best to give satisfaction.

(Signed) ARTHUR HAWKINS.

I put down the application, and took the anonymous letter about the bag from my pocketbook. "Read this, Sperry," I said. "You know the letter.

Mrs. Dane read it to us Sat.u.r.day night. But compare the writing."

He compared the two, with a slight lifting of his eyebrows. Then he put them down. "Hawkins!" he said. "Hawkins has the letters! And the bag!"

"Exactly," I commented dryly. "In other words, Hawkins was in Miss Jeremy's house when, at the second sitting, she told of the letters."

I felt rather sorry for Sperry. He paced the room wretchedly, the two letters in his hand.

"But why should he tell her, if he did?" he demanded. "The writer of that anonymous letter was writing for only one person. Every effort is made to conceal his ident.i.ty."

I felt that he was right. The point was well taken.