The Paternoster Ruby Part 14

In a moment he bestirs himself to ascertain what is afoot in his house at so unseemly an hour. Noiselessly he enters the hall from the library, in time to behold the marauder--by the latter's own candle flame, I was positive--ascending the front stairs.

And here the tragic episode departs from all precedent; at this stage it a.s.sumes its baffling aspects. If the thief had not been a member of the household--even but a temporary member--why should he have gone up the stairs instead of leaving the house by the nearest way? And again, why should Mr. Page have followed the thief so stealthily if he had not recognized him?

But the master of the house steals on up the stairs behind the other.

At about the time he arrives at the head of the stairs the thief vanishes: else why did Mr. Page pause to light the candle in the iron candlestick which stood upon the _etagere_?

Fatal move, that! In some manner the _etagere_ is knocked forward against the bal.u.s.trade; the thief is alarmed, although some door must have closed behind him. And now the old gentleman is facing no longer a thief merely, but a man with murder in his heart.

Which door had it been: Maillot's, or Burke's, or yet some other door?

Once more we are given a strong indication that Felix Page knew the man, for he and the a.s.sa.s.sin _in limine_ do not immediately close in combat. Not yet. Some words certainly pa.s.s. The taper in the heavy iron candlestick must burn long enough to account not only for the drops of paraffin scattered about over the floor, but those that ran like congealing tears down the side.

I could fancy the outraged and mystified old gentleman demanding an explanation, and before long exploding with wrath, the thief standing hopelessly convicted--caught "with the goods."

Suddenly the struggle is precipitated by the infuriated householder endeavoring to recover his property. We may safely a.s.sume that it was by no gentle means that he sought to do this, and at once the battle wages to and fro between the head of the stairs and the lateral pa.s.sage, quite up to the bath room door. The thief is striving to retain the leather box, the other to wrest it from him.

It is pretty certain, too, that the old gentleman hastily put down the iron candlestick before he grasped the box--on the floor, somewhere near the western angle of the bal.u.s.trade--and in the end, as the combat in one of its uncertain revolutions sweeps past it, the thief frees himself with a desperate effort, s.n.a.t.c.hes it from the floor, and becomes an a.s.sa.s.sin _in actu_.

The dull impact of the blow, as the scene is blinded by sudden darkness; the crash of the body against the railing; the dominant jar when the body strikes upon the landing below--and the dark deed is accomplished.

What next follows?

Panic on the part of the murderer, we may be sure, as he stands one second in a stupor of horror at what he has done; then he must have flown--whither?

It is at this juncture that Alexander Burke steps into the hall, and beholds nothing in the light of his own candle. It is at this point that Royal Maillot springs from his bed, collides with the open wardrobe door, and straightway forgets the tumult in his own physical suffering, until Burke raps upon his door. And it is at this point that, unless there was some third person in the house, either one or the other of these two young men has deliberately lied. In turning them both loose I trusted to convict the guilty man by his own conduct.

It will develop how far my course was justified.

The mute but vivid testimony would seem to lead, step by step and with irresistible logic, straight to the private secretary--had it not been for two circ.u.mstances which placed him once for all beyond the possibility of having been the person who struck the blow.

First, he would have been but as a babe in Felix Page's powerful grasp; there would have been no struggle at all.

Second, the fellow was an arrant coward, and he would never have offered the least resistance unless convinced that he was in imminent peril of his life--which was improbable.

The rear stairway was a.s.sociated with the thought of Burke's cowardice, for he had chosen that way to accompany Stodger: whose shoe-sole had left the flattened fragment of paraffin there?

For some time I had been alone in the house--save, of course, for the still, sheeted form. The place was as silent as any tomb. Then of a sudden a sound smote upon my ear that brought me in a flash to attention.

There is a certain fascination about a door slowly opening in a house which you suppose to be empty. Until you have found out the cause you ascribe it to anything from ghosts to Bengal tigers, and even then may be sure of a surprise. The invisible agency may turn out to be only the wind or a wandering cat. But it makes no difference what starts the door to swinging open; the bald fact of its doing so when by all known laws it should remain firmly shut, is _per se_ potent enough, or hypnotic enough,--or whatever influence it is that it exerts,--to root you at once to the spot until the Unseen declares itself. In truth, an opening door is pregnant with such infinite possibilities.

It was with some such sort of suspended animation that I stared down over the bal.u.s.trade and waited, my look glued upon the front door. It swung inward with a slowness inexpressibly aggravating. And then I recoiled with a little cry.

Miss Genevieve Cooper was standing in the lower hall, pale and trembling, and darting quick nervous glances in every direction.

CHAPTER XI

A PACT

At my involuntary expression of amazement, Miss Cooper looked up, and our eyes met. Her charming face immediately broke into a smile; her fears seemed to fall away from her like the dissolving of a sun-smitten mist.

"Mr. Swift!" she exclaimed under her breath. Her voice expressed relief.

And, too, she spoke as if there might be others in the house whom her errand did not in the least concern. "I 'm so glad! I was afraid I should not find you here."

The idea of her wanting to find me for _any_ reason was distinctly pleasing. I 'm afraid I appeared for the moment a trifle foolish; I was tongue-tied, at any rate.

"May I come up?" she went on brightly. "Or will you come down?"

She was so pretty standing there and looking up at me, so everything that a dainty, refined little lady should be, that I could have remained indefinitely watching her.

But I 'm glad to say that I did not. I found my tongue by and by, and voiced some inane remark to the effect that she might most a.s.suredly "come up," if she had the least inclination to do so, but, on the other hand, that I was more than willing to "come down." Which I did, when she made known her choice by sitting down in the settle Stodger and I had occupied some hours earlier.

But I moved down the steps deep in meditation. Great as had been my surprise when the opening front door disclosed Miss Cooper, I was not long in surmising why she had come, and I was more than a trifle reluctant to discuss the brutal details of the tragedy with a lady so obviously gentle and refined. The subject was so utterly foreign to anything within her experience that I felt she could harken to and review the different aspects of the crime only with shuddering aversion. But, dear me, how incapable is any man of estimating a woman's fort.i.tude!

While I descended to her, she continued to talk--the merest bit flurried, perhaps, but with a direct, fearless glance which the dullest comprehension must have understood.

"I suppose I should have rapped," she was saying; "but who was here to open the door? Poor Mr. Page! Poor man! How terrible it is!"

She was a little awed, and seemed glad when at last I stood confronting her.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, she made room on the settle for me to sit beside her. I did so, awkwardly enough. There was not the slightest trace of coquetry in her conduct, she was entirely free from the least indication of affectation, and I could not do otherwise than meet her in the same spirit, although I apprehended some difficult moments before our colloquy should be finished. Her errand must indeed be urgent that she should alone brave this house of death.

After a minute of hesitation on her part, during which she sat with downcast eyes while I took a base advantage of the opportunity to drink in her loveliness, she abruptly faced me. Her countenance reflected an expression of determination, tempered by the wistfulness of uncertainty and doubt.

"Mr. Swift," she began, in a straightforward manner, "it was simply impossible for me not to have sought you out--if not here, then at the police station, or wherever it is you make your headquarters."

I remarked that a message would have brought me speedily to her.

"Oh, no!" in quick protestation. "There is no place where we could have been private--to-day. And, besides, I would n't have put you to so much trouble."

"Trouble!" I interrupted. "I would have been only too glad."

She smiled at my warmth, proceeding:

"Anyhow, I succeeded in finding you alone; now tell me--truly--am I bothering you?"

"Truly, you are not bothering me in the least. I can fancy nothing nicer than sitting just like this and talking--with you. It's so--so--"

"Comfy?"--archly.

"Exactly. But that's a woman's word; I never would have thought of it."

The handsome eyes flashed a look at me which made me hastily revise my opinion that she was entirely free from any trace of coquetry.

"I did n't come here to listen to nice things," she said, smiling into my eyes; "I 'm awfully serious."

And, in very truth, she straightway grew grave. She drew a long breath, and sat suddenly more upright, questioning me with a look. Such fine, honest eyes!