The Chief Legatee Part 23

The action seemed to recall Hazen to himself. He wheeled about and recommenced his quiet pacing to and fro.

"I beg pardon," he quietly finished. "If it is Georgian, she must stand my friend. That is all I was going to say. If it is, against all reason and probability, her strangely restored twin, I shall leave this house by midnight, never probably to see any of you again. So you perceive that it is inc.u.mbent upon us to work promptly. Are you ready to hear what I have to propose?"

"Yes."

Hazen paused again, this time in front of the door. Laying his hand lightly on one of the panels, he glanced back at Ransom.

"You are nicely placed here for observation. Your door directly faces the hall she must traverse in returning to her room."

"That's quite true."

"She's in her room now. Ah, you know that?"

"Yes." Ransom seemed to have no other word at his command.

"Will she come out again before night to eat or to visit?"

"There's no telling. She's very fitful. No one can prophesy what she will do. Sometimes she eats in the landlady's room, sometimes in her own, sometimes not at all. If you have frightened her, or she has been disturbed in any way by your companion who shows such interest in her and in me, she probably will not come out at all."

"But she must. I expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this matter of ident.i.ty. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless to meet with your approval?"

"Yes, but looks cannot always be trusted. I must know just what you mean to do. I will leave nothing to a mind and hand I do not trust any more fully than I do yours. You are too eager for Georgian's money; too little interested in herself; _and you are too sly in your ways_. I overlooked this when you had the excuse of a possible distrust of myself. But now that your confidence is restored in me, now that you recognize the fact that I stand outside of this whole puzzling affair and have no other wish than to know the truth about it and do my duty to all parties concerned, secrecy on your part means more than I care to state. If you persist in it I shall lend myself to nothing that you propose, but wait for time to substantiate her claim or prove its entire falsity."

"You will!"

The words rang out involuntarily. It almost seemed as if the man would spring with them straight at the other's throat. But he controlled himself, and smiling bitterly, added:

"I know the marks of human struggle. I have read countenances from my birth. I've had to, and only one has baffled me--_hers_. But we are going to read that too and very soon. We are going to learn, you and I, what lies behind that innocent manner and her rude, uncultivated ways. We are going to sound that deafness. I say _we_," he impressively concluded, "because I have reconsidered my first impulse and now propose to allow you to partic.i.p.ate openly, and without the secrecy you object to, in all that remains to be done to make our contemplated test a success. Will that please you? May I count on you now?"

"Yes," replied Ransom, returning to his old monosyllable.

"Very well, then, see if you can make a scrawl like this."

Pulling a piece of red chalk from his pocket, he drew a figure of a somewhat unusual character on the bare top of the table between them; then he handed the chalk over to Ransom, who received it with a stare of wonder not unmixed with suspicion.

"I'm not an adept at drawing," said he, but made his attempt, notwithstanding, and evidently to Hazen's satisfaction.

"You'll do," said he. "That's a mystic symbol once used by Georgian and myself in place of our names in all mutual correspondence, and on the leaves of our school-books and at the end of our exercises. It meant nothing, but the boys and girls we a.s.sociated with thought it did and envied us the free-masonry it was supposed to cover. A ridiculous make-believe which I rate at its full folly now, but one which cannot fail to arouse a hundred memories in Georgian. We will scrawl it on her door, or rather you shall, and according to the way she conducts herself on seeing it, we shall know in one instant what you with your patience and trust in time may not be able to arrive at in weeks."

Ransom recalled some of the tests he had himself employed, many of which have been omitted from this history, and shrugged his shoulders mentally, if not physically. If Hazen noted this evidence of his lack of faith, he remained entirely unaffected by it, and in a few minutes everything had been planned between them for the satisfactory exercise of what Hazen evidently regarded as a crucial experiment. Ransom was about to proceed to take the first required step, when they heard a disturbance in front, and the coach came driving up with a great clatter and bang and from it stepped the lean, well-groomed figure of Mr. Harper.

"Bah!" exclaimed Hazen with a violent gesture of disappointment. "There comes your familiar. Now I suppose you will cry off."

"Not necessarily," returned Ransom. "But this much is certain. I shall certainly consult him before hazarding this experiment. I am not so sure of myself or--pardon me--of yourself as to take any steps in the dark while I have at hand so responsible a guide as the man whom you choose to call my familiar."

CHAPTER XXII

A SUSPICIOUS TEST

"Let him make his experiment. It will do no harm, and if it rids us of him, well and good."

Such was Mr. Harper's decision after hearing all that Mr. Ransom had to tell him of the present situation.

"His disappointment when he learns that he has nothing to hope for from his sister's generosity calls for some consideration from us," proceeded the lawyer. "Go and have your little talk with the landlady or take whatever other means suggest themselves for luring this girl from her room. I will summon Hazen and hold him very closely under my eye till the whole affair is over. He shall get no chance for any hocus-pocus business, not while I have charge of your interests. He shall do just what he has laid out for himself and nothing more; you may rely on that."

Ransom expressed his satisfaction, and left the room with a lighter heart than he had felt since Hazen came upon the scene. He did not know that all he had been through was as nothing to what lay before him.

It was an hour before he returned. When he did, it was to find Hazen and the lawyer awaiting him in ill-concealed impatience. These two were much too incongruous in tastes and interests to be very happy in a forced and prolonged tete-a-tete.

"Have you done it?" exclaimed Hazen, leaping eagerly to his feet as the door closed softly behind Ransom. "Is she out of her room? I have listened and listened for her step, but could not be sure of it. There seem to be a lot of people in the house to-night."

"Too many," quoth Ransom. "That is why I couldn't get hold of Mrs. Deo any sooner. Anitra is having her hair brushed or something else of equal importance done for her in one of the rear rooms. So we can proceed fearlessly. Have you looked to see if you can get a good glimpse of her door through the keyhole of this one?"

"Haven't you already made a trial of that? Then do so now," suggested Hazen, drawing out the key and laying it on the table.

But this was too uncongenial a task for Ransom.

"I shall be satisfied," said he, "if Mr. Harper tells me that it can."

"It can," a.s.serted that gentleman, falling on his knees and adjusting his eye to the keyhole. "Or rather, you can see plainly the face of any one approaching it. I don't suppose any of us expected to see the door itself."

"No, it is not the door, but the woman entering the door, we want to see.

Did you ask for an extra lamp?"

"Yes, and saw it placed. It is on a small table almost opposite her room."

"Then everything is ready."

"All but the mark which I am to put on the panel."

"Very good. Here is the chalk. Let us see what you mean to do with it before you risk an attempt on the door itself."

Ransom thought a minute, then with one quick twist produced the following:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Correct," muttered Hazen, with what Harper thought to be a slight but unmistakable shudder. "One would think you had been making use of this very cabalistic sign all your life."

"Then _one_ would be mistaken. I have simply a true eye and a ready hand."

"And a very remarkable memory. You have recalled every little line and quirk."

"That's possible. What I have made once I can make the second time. It's a peculiarity of mine."