The Bartlett Mystery Part 13

The room, the whole house, had been in darkness when she had thrown herself on the bed. But, somewhere, had she not been conscious of a light at some moment? Had she dreamed this, or had she seen it? She sat up in bed, staring and startled. The room was in darkness. In her ears were the words: "She is the image of her mother."

She had heard them in some world, she did not know in which. She listened with the keen ears of fear. Not a wagon nor a taxi any longer moved in the street; no step pa.s.sed; the house was silent.

But after a long ten minutes the darkness seemed to become pregnant with a sound, a steady murmur. It was as if it came from far away, as if a brook had spurted out of the granite of Manhattan, and was even more like a dream-sound than those words which still buzzed in Winifred's ear. Somehow that murmur as of water in the night made Winifred think of a face, one which, as far as she could remember, she had never consciously seen--a man's face, brown, hard, and menacing, which had looked once into her eyes in some state of semi-conscious being, and then had vanished. And now this question arose in her mind: was it not that face, hard and brown, which she had never seen, and yet once had seen--were not those the cruel lips which somewhere had whispered: "She is the image of her mother?"

Winifred, sitting up in bed, listened to the steady, dull murmuring a long time, till there came a moment when she said definitely: "It is in the house."

For, as her ears grew accustomed to its tone, it seemed to lose some of its remoteness, to become more local and earthly. Presently this sound which the darkness was giving out became the voices of people talking in subdued undertones not far off. Nor was it long before the murmur was broken by a word sharply uttered and clearly heard by her--a gruff and unmistakable oath. She started with fright at this, it sounded so near.

She was certain now that there were others in the house with her. She had gone to bed alone. Waking up in the dead of the small hours to find men or ghosts with her, her heart beat horribly.

But ghosts do not swear--at least such was Winifred's ideal of the spirit world. And she was brave. Nerving herself for the ordeal, she found the courage to steal out of bed and make her way out of the room into a pa.s.sage, and she had not stood there listening two minutes when she was able to be certain that the murmur was going on in a back room.

How earnest that talk was--how low in pitch! It could hardly be burglars there, for burglars do not enter a house in order to lay their heads together in long conferences. It could not be ghosts, for a light came out under the rim of the door.

After a time Winifred stole forward, tapped on a panel, and her heart jumped into her mouth as she lifted her voice, saying:

"Aunty, is it you?"

There was silence at this, as though they had been ghosts, indeed, and had taken to flight at the breath of the living.

"Speak! Who is it?" cried Winifred with a fearful shrillness now. A chair grated on the floor inside, hurried steps were heard, a key turned, the door opened a very little, and Winifred saw the gaunt face of Rachel Craik looking dourly at her, for she had frightened this masterful woman very thoroughly.

"Oh, aunt, it _is_ you!" gasped Winifred with a flutter of relief.

"You are to go to bed, Winnie," said Rachel.

"It is you! They have let you out, then?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what happened; let me come in--"

"Go back to bed; there's a good girl. I'll tell you everything in the morning."

"Oh, but I am glad! I was so lonely and frightened! Aunt, what was it all about?"

"About nothing; as far as I can discover," said Rachel Craik--"a mere mare's-nest found by a set of stupid police. Some man--a Mr. Ronald Tower--was supposed to have been murdered, and I was supposed to have some connection with it, though I had never seen the creature in my life. Now the man has turned up safe and sound, and the pack of noodles have at last thought fit to allow a respectable woman to come home to her bed."

"Oh, how good! Thank heaven! But, you have some one in there with you?"

"In here--where?"

"Why, in the room, aunt."

"I? No, no one."

"I am sure I heard--"

"Now, really, you must go to bed, Winifred! What are you doing awake at this hour of the morning, roaming about the house? You were asleep half an hour ago--"

"Oh, then, it was your light I saw in my sleep! I thought I heard a man say: 'She is the image--'"

"Just think of troubling me with your dreams at this unearthly hour! I'm tired, child; go to bed."

"Yes--but, aunt, this day's work has cost me my situation. I am dismissed!"

"Well, a holiday will do you good."

"Good gracious--you take it coolly!"

"Go to bed."

A sudden din of tumbling weights and splintering wood broke out behind the half-open door. For, within the room a man had been sitting on a chair tilted back on its two hind legs. The chair was old and slender, the man huge; and one of the chair-legs had collapsed under the weight and landed the man on the floor.

"Oh, aunt! didn't you say that no one--" began Winifred.

The sentence was never finished. Rachel Craik, her features twisted in anger, pushed the young girl with a force which sent her staggering, and then immediately shut the door. Winifred was left outside in the darkness.

She returned to her bed, but not to sleep. It was certain that her aunt had lied to her--there was more in the air than Winifred's quick wits could fathom. The fact of Rachel Craik's release did not clear up the mystery of the fact that she had been arrested. Winifred lay, spurring her fancy to account for all that puzzled her; and underlying her thoughts was the man's face and those strange words which she had heard somewhere on the borders of sleep.

She fancied she had seen the man somewhere before. At last she recalled the occasion, and almost laughed at the conceit. It was a picture of Sitting Bull, and that eminent warrior had long since gone to the happy hunting-grounds.

Meantime, the murmur of voices in the back room had recommenced and was going on. Then, towards morning, Winifred became aware that the murmur had stopped, and soon afterward she heard the click of the lock of the front door and a foot going down the front steps.

Rising quickly, she crept to the window and looked out. Going from the door down the utterly empty street she saw a man, a big swaggerer, with something of the over-seas and the adventurer in his air. It was Ralph "Voles," the "brother" of Senator William Meiklejohn. But Winifred could not distinguish his features, or she might have recognized the man she had seen in her half-dreams, and who had said: "She must be taken out of New York--she is the image of her mother."

Voles had hardly quitted the place before a street-car conductor, who had taken temporary lodgings the previous evening in a house opposite, hurried out into the coldness of the hour before dawn. He seemed pleased at the necessity of going to work thus early.

"Oh, boy!" he said softly. "I'm glad there's somethin' doin' at last. I was getting that sleepy. I could hardly keep me eyes open!"

When Detective Clancy came to the Bureau a few hours later he found a memorandum to the effect that a Mr. Ralph V. Voles, of Chicago, stopping at a high-grade hotel in Fifth Avenue, had dined with Rachel Craik in a quiet restaurant, had parted from her, and met her again, evidently by appointment. The two had entered the house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street separately shortly before midnight, and Voles returned to his hotel at four o'clock in the morning.

Clancy shook his head waggishly.

"Who'd have thought it of you, Rachel?" he cackled. "And, now that I've seen _you_, what sort of weird specimen can Mr. Ralph V. Voles, of Chicago, be? I'll look him up!"

CHAPTER IX

THE FLIGHT

Carshaw and Fowle enjoyed, let us say, a short but almost triumphal march to the nearest police-station. Their escort of loafers and small boys grew quickly in numbers and enthusiasm. It became known that the arrest was made in East One Hundred and Twelfth Street, and that street had suddenly become famous. The lively inhabitants of the East Side do not bother their heads about grammatical niceties, so the gulf between "the yacht murder" and "the yacht murderers" was easily bridged. The connection was clear. Two men in a boat, and two men in the grip of the law! It needed only Fowle's ensanguined visage to complete the circle of reasoning. Consciousness of this ill-omened popularity infuriated Carshaw and alarmed Fowle. When they arrived at the precinct station-house each was inclined to wish he had never seen or heard of Winifred Bartlett!

Their treatment by the official in charge only added fuel to the flame.

The patrolman explained that "these two were fighting about the girl who lives in that house in East One Hundred and Twelfth," and this vague statement seemed all-sufficient. The sergeant entered their names and addresses. He went to the telephone and came back.