The Return of Peter Grimm Part 34

"That's the one!" cried Mrs. Batholommey. "That's it! The same colour."

"You say the envelope was addressed to my uncle?"

"Yes. It gave me such a turn to see those letters all addressed to a man who wasn't alive to----"

"Oh, what does it all mean?" cried the girl.

"We are going to find out," said McPherson with sudden determination.

"Kathrien, draw those window shades close. I want the room darkened as much as possible."

"Oh, Doctor," protested Mrs. Batholommey as Kathrien hastened to obey, "you're surely not going to----?"

"Be quiet. You needn't stay unless you want to."

"Oh, I'll stay. It's my duty. But I don't approve. Please understand that."

Kathrien had returned to her place by the fire and had lifted Willem back on her lap. The doctor, gazing into s.p.a.ce, said in a low, reverential tone:

"Peter Grimm! If you have come back to us, if you are in this room--if this boy has spoken truly,--give us some sign, some indication----"

"Why, Andrew, I can't," answered the Dead Man. "Not to _you_. I have, to the boy. I can't make you hear me, Andrew. The obstacles are too strong for me."

"Peter Grimm," went on the doctor after a moment of dead silence, "if you cannot make your presence known to me--and I realise there must be great difficulties--will you try to send your message by Willem? I presume you _have_ a message?"

Another s.p.a.ce of tense silence.

"Well, Peter," resumed McPherson patiently, "I am waiting. We are all waiting."

"Then stop talking and listen to Willem," ordered Peter Grimm.

The doctor involuntarily glanced at the boy. Willem's wide-open eyes were glazed like a sleep-walker's. The hands that had been folded in his lap now hung limply at his sides. His lips parted, and droning, mechanical, lifeless words came from between them.

"There was Anne Marie--and me--and the Other One," said he.

"What Other One?" asked McPherson, speaking in a low, emotionless voice so as not to break in on the thought current.

"The man that came there," droned the boy.

"What man?"

"The man that made Anne Marie cry."

"What man made Anne Marie cry?"

"I--I can't remember," returned the boy, a hesitant note of trouble creeping into his dead voice.

"Yes, you can," prompted Peter Grimm. "You _can_ remember, Willem.

You're afraid!"

"So you _do_ remember the time when you were with Anne Marie?" whispered Kathrien as the lad hesitated. "You always told me you didn't. Doctor, I have the strangest feeling. A feeling that all this somehow concerns _me_, and that I must sift it to the bottom. Think, Willem. Who was it that came and went at the house where you lived with Anne Marie?"

"That is what _I_ asked you, Willem," said Peter Grimm.

"That is what _he_ asked me," replied Willem mechanically.

"Who?" demanded McPherson. "Who asked you that question, Willem?"

"Mynheer Grimm."

"When?"

"Just now."

"Just now!" cried Kathrien and Mrs. Batholommey in a breath.

"S-sh!" admonished the doctor. "So you both asked the same question, eh?

The man that came to see----?"

"It can't be possible," expostulated Mrs. Batholommey, "that the boy has any idea what he is talking about."

A glare from McPherson silenced her. Then the doctor asked:

"What did you tell Mr. Grimm, Willem?"

The boy hesitated.

"Better make haste," adjured the Dead Man, "Frederik is coming back."

Willem, with a shudder, glanced fearfully toward the outer door.

"Why does he do that?" wondered Kathrien. "He looked that way at the door when he spoke of 'the Other One.' Why should he?"

"He's afraid," answered Peter Grimm.

"I'm afraid," echoed Willem.

Kathrien gathered him more closely in her warm young arms and whispered soothingly to him. The fear died out of his eyes.

"You're not afraid, any more?" she rea.s.sured him.

"N-no," he faltered, "but--oh, _please_ don't let Mynheer Frederik come back, Miss Kathrien! _Please_, don't! Because--because then I'll be afraid again. I know I will."

McPherson whistled low and long. A light was beginning to break upon his shrewd Scotch brain.

"Willem!" pleaded the Dead Man. "_Willem!_"

"Yes, sir," answered the boy.