The House of Mystery Part 18

XIII

ANNETTE TELLS THE TRUTH

It seemed to Blake, waiting in Rosalie's sitting-room for a quarter of nine, that this silent house of mystery vibrated suppressed excitement.

He sat with his hands clenched, his body leaning forward, in the att.i.tude of one waiting the signal to strike. Rosalie, sitting opposite him, sent over a smile of rea.s.surance now and then, but neither spoke.

There was no need of words. They had talked out the smallest detail of Rosalie's plot, even to mapping the location of the furniture. Inch by inch, objection after objection, she had conquered his cautions and scruples; had persuaded him that the dramatic method was the best method. When Blake entered the house, nothing was left to chance except the question whether Norcross would miss his engagement to "sit" with Mrs. Markham. Rosalie settled that. From the front windows, she had observed the green limousine automobile waiting by the curbing outside; through her open registers she had caught the murmur of conversation.

So even Rosalie, whose tongue ran by custom in greased grooves, found nothing to say until the little mantel clock tapped three times to announce a quarter to the hour. It brought Blake to his feet with such a jerk that Rosalie shook both her hands at him by way of caution. At the door she stopped a second, put her lips to his ear.

"I don't have to tell you to be brave, boy," she said. "But keep your head and don't git independent. You do what I say!"

She touched his side pocket, which bulged. "An' not too brash with that!" she added. "Revolvers is good for bluffs but bad for real business!"

Blake nodded. And for the second time they crept down the silent, padded halls to those apartments above Mrs. Markham's alcove library.

They approached, then, not the closet door, but the door leading to that boudoir which he had seen once before through Rosalie's hole in the wall paper. Rosalie applied a key, turned it with infinite caution, opened the door, motioned him in. The room appeared as before. The light burned low over the white desk; the portieres hung close. Rosalie pointed to the rounded, further end of the room--the s.p.a.ce where he had seen the ghostly thing which was Annette disappear through the floor.

That floor s.p.a.ce was bare; a rug, rolled up, rested against the further wainscot. Blake took it in, and smiled at Rosalie as though to say, "everything is ready I see!" Then for a minute they stood immobile, listening. A murmur of conversation came up from below, and in the room behind the portieres someone was breathing, lightly, regularly. Rosalie touched his arm and beckoned. Moving without sound, they lifted the portieres, stepped within.

No light inside that room, except the low radiance from a p.r.o.ne figure by the outer wall. It seemed at first that this ghost of Annette lay suspended between heaven and earth. Blake's mind put down the awe which was stealing over his senses. His eyes sharpened until he could make out a few details.

At the right, dimly suggested, was a disordered bed. Annette lay on a couch. The robes swathed her from head to foot, but the veil over her face was parted as though to give her air. Her eyes were closed; her arms, with something strained and stretched in their att.i.tude, lay along her sides.

And now Rosalie had her lips at his ear.

"Quick!" she said.

Blake crept to Annette's side and spoke in a low tone.

"Annette, this is I--Walter, your lover. You belong to me. I revoke no other commands, but you are to listen to me also and do as I tell you.

Answer me first. You have been commanded to rise when you hear music?"

As by the miracle of one speaking in normal tones out of sleep, Annette answered:

"Yes."

"Speak low. You have been commanded to enter the other room then, turn out the light, lift a trap, let down a rope ladder, descend it, and say certain things?"

"Yes." The tone was less than a whisper.

"Have you been given anything special to say to-night--has anything been impressed upon you?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"After the rest, I am to say: 'Robert, they tell me that the great danger is near. They give me a message which I do not understand--"Declare that dividend tomorrow." You do not know the awful things which will come if you do not.'"

Blake could hear Rosalie catch her breath at this. It came to him, also, that he had intervened at the very climax of Mrs. Markham's operation on Robert H. Norcross. But he went on firmly:

"Obey that. Do as you were told. But do something else. So that you will remember, I am going to whisper it in your ear."

Blake leaned over for a minute, and whispered. Presently he raised himself a little, so that he bent over her face, and said in a low speaking voice:

"Do all that. I command you. I am Walter, and you must obey me. And remember especially--when you have done it all, then wake--wake and do not be alarmed. Do you hear?"

"Yes."

"Will you obey?"

"Yes."

"You will not be frightened?"

"No."

Rosalie touched his arm. Blake, with one last look back, stepped outside and dropped the portieres. Rosalie drew him into the hall, softly locked the door, beckoned him to follow to the head of the stairs. And hard upon this movement, the piano downstairs began:

_Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta._

"Make no noise--and hurry!" whispered Rosalie. Down the stairs they went, and stationed themselves by the hall door of the drawing-room.

There, it was pitch dark. Without risk of being seen, they could look along the dim reaches of Mrs. Markham's parlors. From a point above their heads, a little, shaded cabinet-lamp gave a fan of low light which shone full on the dark curtains of the alcove library. They could make out, by his white hair and collar, the back of a man, and a shadowy figure at the piano. "Wild roamed an Indian maid" was falling away to its dying chord. Silence settled again; the back of the old man swayed. Mrs. Markham spoke from the piano stool:

"I feel your influence, Helen. You are stronger every time, dear, because his love grows stronger. Come, dear--come."

A pillar of light glowed against the cabinet curtains. Norcross rose; Blake could catch a suggestion of his face and collar against the dark draperies. There came the same exchange of love words, of pats, of caressing speeches, which he had heard from the closet; even now, better understood as this thing was, the sound of them drew his finger nails up into his palms.

Rosalie's touch brought him back to his sense of observation. Here, now, came the climax; here the moment upon which everything depended.

The low, sweet contralto voice was saying:

"They tell me that the great danger is near. They give me a message which I do not quite understand. They say, 'Declare that dividend to-morrow!' You cannot know what awful things will follow if you do not."

Rosalie's clutch tightened on Blake's arm. For the voice had ceased altogether. A silent moment; then they saw the pillar of light become a crumpled blotch on the floor, heard a sudden shuffle of feet, heard Annette's voice, loud, clear, distinct, crying:

"This is a lie! I am not Helen Whitton! I am Annette Markham. I am not a spirit! I am alive! You are being fooled--fooled!"

There followed a jangle of piano keys, as though something had dropped upon the keyboard.

In that instant, Rosalie Le Grange jerked the string of the cabinet light, throwing the shutter wide open. The details of that group by the curtain blazed into Blake's sight as he jumped forward--Annette, all in black, her white gauze robes a crumpled heap at her feet, swaying in the center of the floor; Norcross a huddle against the wall; Mrs.

Markham, stiff as though frozen to stone, leaning against the piano.

More light blazed on them; Blake knew that Rosalie, according to program, had lit the gas. He reached the curtains an instant before Mrs. Markham, roused to sudden, cat-like action, threw herself toward Annette. Blake came between; out of his pocket he whipped the revolver.

"I'm talking to you all!" he said. "You, old fool over there, and you, you devil! I'll kill the first that moves!"

Now Rosalie had slipped up beside Mrs. Markham, laid a hand on her shoulder.