The Blind Man's Eyes Part 20

"He would be called, I judge, a rather likable-looking man?" Santoine said tentatively; his question plainly was only meant to lead up to something else; Santoine had judged in that particular already.

"I think he makes that impression."

"Certainly he does not make the impression of being a man who could be hired to commit a crime?"

"Very far from it."

"Or who would commit a crime for his own interest--material or financial interest, I mean?"

"No."

"But he might be led into crime by some personal, deeper interest. He has shown deep feeling, I believe--strong, personal feeling, Harriet?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Eaton,"--Santoine addressed him suddenly,--"I understand that you have admitted that you were at the house of Gabriel Warden the evening he was killed while in his car. Is that so?"

"Yes," said Eaton.

"You are the man, then, of whom Gabriel Warden spoke to his wife?"

"I believe so."

"You believe so?"

"I mean," Eaton explained quietly, "that I came by appointment to call on Mr. Warden that night. I believe that it must have been to me that Mr. Warden referred in the conversation with his wife which has since been quoted in the newspapers."

"Because you were in such a situation that, if Mr. Warden defended you, he would himself meet danger?"

"I did not say that," Eaton denied guardedly.

"What, then, was your position in regard to Mr. Warden?"

Eaton remained silent.

"You refuse to answer?" Santoine inquired.

"I refuse."

"In spite of the probability that Mr. Warden met his death because of his intention to undertake something for you?"

"I have not been able to fix that as a probability."

The blind man stopped. Plainly he appreciated that, where Connery and Avery had failed in their questionings, he was not likely to succeed easily; and with his limited strength, he proceeded on a line likely to meet less prepared resistance.

"Mr. Eaton, have I ever injured you personally--I don't mean directly, as man to man, for I should remember that; have I ever done anything which indirectly has worked injury on you or your affairs?"

"No," Eaton answered.

"Who sent you aboard this train?"

"Sent me? No one."

"You took the train of your own will because I was taking it?"

"I have not said I took it because you were taking it."

"That seems to be proved. You can accept it from me; it has been proved. Did you take the train in order to attack me?"

"No."

"To spy upon me?"

"No."

Santoine was silent for an instant. "What was it you took the train to tell me?"

"I? Nothing."

Santoine moved his head upon the pillow.

"Father!" his daughter warned.

"Oh, I am careful, Harriet; Dr. Sinclair allows me to move a little....

Mr. Eaton, in one of the three answers you have just given me, you are not telling the truth. I defy you to find in human reasoning more than four reasons why my presence could have made you take this train in the manner and with the attending circ.u.mstances you did. You took it to injure me, or to protect me from injury; to learn something from me, or to inform me of something. I discard the second of these possibilities because you asked for a berth in another car and for other reasons which make it impossible. However, I will ask it of you. Did you take the train to protect me from injury?"

"No."

"Which of your former answers do you wish to change, then?"

"None."

"You deny all four possibilities?"

"Yes."

"Then you are using denial only to hide the fact, whatever it may be; and of the four possibilities I am obliged to select the first as the most likely."

"You mean that I attacked you?"

"That is not what I said. I said you must have taken the train to injure me, but that does not mean necessarily that it was to attack me with your own hand. Any attack aimed against me would be likely to have several agents. There would be somewhere, probably, a distant brain that had planned it; there would be an intelligent brain near by to oversee it; and there would be a strong hand to perform it. The overseeing brain and the performing hand--or hands--might belong to one person, or to two, or more. How many there were I cannot now determine, since people were allowed to get off the train. The conductor and Avery--"

"Father!"

"Yes, Harriet; but I expected better of Avery. Mr. Eaton, as you are plainly withholding the truth as to your reason for taking this train, and as I have suffered injury, I am obliged--from the limited information I now have--to a.s.sume that you knew an attack was to be made by some one, upon that train. In addition to the telegram, addressed to you under your name of Eaton and informing of my presence on the train, I have also been informed, of course, of the code message received by you addressed to Hillward. You refused, I understand, to favor Mr. Avery with an explanation of it; do you wish to give one now?"

"No," said Eaton.