The River's End Part 8

XI

Stunned by a shock that for a few moments paralyzed every nerve center in his body, John Keith stood with the slip of white paper in his hands. He was discovered! That was the one thought that pounded like a hammer in his brain. He was discovered in the very hour of his triumph and exaltation, in that hour when the world had opened its portals of joy and hope for him again and when life itself, after four years of h.e.l.l, was once more worth the living. Had the shock come a few hours before, he would have taken it differently. He was expecting it then.

He had expected it when he entered McDowell's office the first time. He was prepared for it afterward. Discovery, failure, and death were possibilities of the hazardous game he was playing, and he was unafraid, because he had only his life to lose, a life that was not much more than a hopeless derelict at most. Now it was different. Mary Josephine had come like some rare and wonderful alchemy to trans.m.u.te for him all leaden things into gold. In a few minutes she had upset the world. She had literally torn aside for him the hopeless chaos in which he saw himself struggling, flooding him with the warm radiance of a great love and a still greater desire. On his lips he could feel the soft thrill of her good-night kiss and about his neck the embrace of her soft arms. She had not gone to sleep yet. Across in the other room she was thinking of him, loving him; perhaps she was on her knees praying for him, even as he held in his fingers Shan Tung's mysterious forewarning of his doom.

The first impulse that crowded in upon him was that of flight, the selfish impulse of personal salvation. He could get away. The night would swallow him up. A moment later he was mentally castigating himself for the treachery of that impulse to Mary Josephine. His floundering senses began to readjust themselves.

Why had Shan Tung given him this warning? Why had he not gone straight to Inspector McDowell with the astounding disclosure of the fact that the man supposed to be Derwent Conniston was not Derwent Conniston, but John Keith, the murderer of Miriam Kirkstone's father?

The questions brought to Keith a new thrill. He read the note again. It was a definite thing stating a certainty and not a guess. Shan Tung had not shot at random. He knew. He knew that he was not Derwent Conniston but John Keith. And he believed that he had killed the Englishman to steal his ident.i.ty. In the face of these things he had not gone to McDowell! Keith's eyes fell upon the card again. "With the compliments of Shan Tung." What did the words mean? Why had Shan Tung written them unless--with his compliments--he was giving him a warning and the chance to save himself?

His immediate alarm grew less. The longer he contemplated the slip of paper in his hand, the more he became convinced that the inscrutable Shan Tung was the last individual in the world to stage a bit of melodrama without some good reason for it. There was but one conclusion he could arrive at. The Chinaman was playing a game of his own, and he had taken this unusual way of advising Keith to make a getaway while the going was good. It was evident that his intention had been to avoid the possibility of a personal discussion of the situation. That, at least, was Keith's first impression.

He turned to examine the window. There was no doubt that Shan Tung had come in that way. Both the sill and curtain bore stains of water and mud, and there was wet dirt on the floor. For once the immaculate oriental had paid no attention to his feet. At the door leading into the big room Keith saw where he had stood for some time, listening, probably when McDowell and Mary Josephine were in the outer room waiting for him. Suddenly his eyes riveted themselves on the middle panel of the door. Brady had intended his color scheme to be old ivory--the panel itself was nearly white--and on it Shan Tung had written heavily with a lead pencil the hour of his presence, "10.45 P.M." Keith's amazement found voice in a low exclamation. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter-hour after twelve. He had returned to the Shack before ten, and the clever Shan Tung was letting him know in this cryptic fashion that for more than three-quarters of an hour he had listened at the door and spied upon him and Mary Josephine through the keyhole.

Had even such an insignificant person as Wallie been guilty of that act, Keith would have felt like thrashing him. It surprised himself that he experienced no personal feeling of outrage at Shan Tung's frank confession of eavesdropping. A subtle significance began to attach itself more and more to the story his room was telling him. He knew that Shan Tung had left none of the marks of his presence out of bravado, but with a definite purpose. Keith's psychological mind was at all times acutely ready to seize upon possibilities, and just as his positiveness of Conniston's spiritual presence had inspired him to act his lie with Mary Josephine, so did the conviction possess him now that his room held for him a message of the most vital importance.

In such an emergency Keith employed his own method. He sat down, lighted his pipe again, and centered the full resource of his mind on Shan Tung, dissociating himself from the room and the adventure of the night as much as possible in his objective a.n.a.lysis of the man. Four distinct emotional factors entered into that a.n.a.lysis--fear, distrust, hatred, personal enmity. To his surprise he found himself drifting steadily into an unusual and unexpected mental att.i.tude. From the time he had faced Shan Tung in the inspector's office, he had regarded him as the chief enemy of his freedom, his one great menace. Now he felt neither personal enmity nor hatred for him. Fear and distrust remained, but the fear was impersonal and the distrust that of one who watches a clever opponent in a game or a fight. His conception of Shan Tung changed. He found his occidental mind running parallel with the oriental, bridging the s.p.a.ces which otherwise it never would have crossed, and at the end it seized upon the key. It proved to him that his first impulse had been wrong. Shan Tung had not expected him to seek safety in flight. He had given the white man credit for a larger understanding than that. His desire, first of all, had been to let Keith know that he was not the only one who was playing for big stakes, and that another, Shan Tung himself, was gambling a hazard of his own, and that the fraudulent Derwent Conniston was a trump card in that game.

To impress this upon Keith he had, first of all, acquainted him with the fact that he had seen through his deception and that he knew he was John Keith and not Derwent Conniston. He had also let him know that he believed he had killed the Englishman, a logical supposition under the circ.u.mstances. This information he had left for Keith was not in the form of an intimidation. There was, indeed, something very near apologetic courtesy in the presence of the card bearing Shan Tung's compliments. The penciling of the hour on the panel of the door, without other notation, was a polite and suggestive hint. He wanted Keith to know that he understood his peculiar situation up until that particular time, that he had heard and possibly seen much that had pa.s.sed between him and Mary Josephine. The partly opened window, the mud and wet on curtains and floor, and the cigarette stubs were all to call Keith's attention to the box on the table.

Keith could not but feel a certain sort of admiration for the Chinaman.

The two questions he must answer now were, What was Shan Tung's game?

and What did Shan Tung expect him to do?

Instantly Miriam Kirkstone flashed upon him as the possible motive for Shan Tung's visit. He recalled her unexpected and embarra.s.sing question of that evening, in which she had expressed a suspicion and a doubt as to John Keith's death. He had gone to Miriam's at eight. It must have been very soon after that, and after she had caught a glimpse of the face at the window, that Shan Tung had hurried to the Shack.

Slowly but surely the tangled threads of the night's adventure were unraveling themselves for Keith. The main facts pressed upon him, no longer smothered in a chaos of theory and supposition. If there had been no Miriam Kirkstone in the big house on the hill, Shan Tung would have gone to McDowell, and he would have been in irons at the present moment. McDowell had been right after all. Miriam Kirkstone was fighting for something that was more than her existence. The thought of that "something" made Keith writhe and his hands clench. Shan Tung had triumphed but not utterly. A part of the fruit of his triumph was still just out of his reach, and the two--beautiful Miss Kirkstone and the deadly Shan Tung--were locked in a final struggle for its possession.

In some mysterious way he, John Keith, was to play the winning hand.

How or when he could not understand. But of one thing he was convinced; in exchange for whatever winning card he held Shan Tung had offered him his life. Tomorrow he would expect an answer.

That tomorrow had already dawned. It was one o'clock when Keith again looked at his watch. Twenty hours ago he had cooked his last camp-fire breakfast. It was only eighteen hours ago that he had filled himself with the smell of Andy Duggan's bacon, and still more recently that he had sat in the little barber shop on the corner wondering what his fate would be when he faced McDowell. It struck him as incongruous and impossible that only fifteen hours had pa.s.sed since then. If he possessed a doubt of the reality of it all, the bed was there to help convince him. It was a real bed, and he had not slept in a real bed for a number of years. Wallie had made it ready for him. Its sheets were snow-white. There was a counterpane with a fringe on it and pillows puffed up with billowy invitation, as if they were on the point of floating away. Had they risen before his eyes, Keith would have regarded the phenomenon rather casually. After the swift piling up of the amazing events of those fifteen hours, a floating pillow would have seemed quite in the natural orbit of things. But they did not float.

They remained where they were, their white b.r.e.a.s.t.s bared to him, urging upon him a common-sense perspective of the situation. He wasn't going to run away. He couldn't sit up all night. Therefore why not come to them and sleep?

There was something directly personal in the appeal of the pillows and the bed. It was not general; it was for him. And Keith responded.

He made another note of the time, a half-hour after one, when he turned in. He allotted himself four hours of sleep, for it was his intention to be up with the sun.

XII

Necessity had made of Keith a fairly accurate human chronometer. In the second year of his fugitivism he had lost his watch. At first it was like losing an arm, a part of his brain, a living friend. From that time until he came into possession of Conniston's timepiece he was his own hour-gla.s.s and his own alarm clock. He became proficient.

Brady's bed and the Circe-breasted pillows that supported his head were his undoing. The morning after Shan Tung's visit he awoke to find the sun flooding in through the eastern window of his room, The warmth of it as it fell full in his face, setting his eyes blinking, told him it was too late. He guessed it was eight o'clock. When he fumbled his watch out from under his pillow and looked at it, he found it was a quarter past. He got up quietly, his mind swiftly aligning itself to the happenings of yesterday. He stretched himself until his muscles snapped, and his chest expanded with deep breaths of air from the windows he had left open when he went to bed. He was fit. He was ready for Shan Tung, for McDowell. And over this physical readiness there surged the thrill of a glorious antic.i.p.ation. It fairly staggered him to discover how badly he wanted to see Mary Josephine again.

He wondered if she was still asleep and answered that there was little possibility of her being awake--even at eight o'clock. Probably she would sleep until noon, the poor, tired, little thing! He smiled affectionately into the mirror over Brady's dressing-table. And then the unmistakable sound of voices in the outer room took him curiously to the door. They were subdued voices. He listened hard, and his heart pumped faster. One of them was Wallie's voice; the other was Mary Josephine's.

He was amused with himself at the extreme care with which he proceeded to dress. It was an entirely new sensation. Wallie had provided him with the necessaries for a cold sponge and in some mysterious interim since their arrival had brushed and pressed the most important of Conniston's things. With the Englishman's wardrobe he had brought up from barracks a small chest which was still locked. Until this morning Keith had not noticed it. It was less than half as large as a steamer trunk and had the appearance of being intended as a strong box rather than a traveling receptacle. It was ribbed by four heavy bands of copper, and the corners and edges were reinforced with the same metal.

The lock itself seemed to be impregnable to one without a key.

Conniston's name was heavily engraved on a copper tablet just above the lock.

Keith regarded the chest with swiftly growing speculation. It was not a thing one would ordinarily possess. It was an object which, on the face of it, was intended to be inviolate except to its master key, a holder of treasure, a guardian of mystery and of precious secrets. In the little cabin up on the Barren Conniston had said rather indifferently, "You may find something among my things down there that will help you out." The words flashed back to Keith. Had the Englishman, in that casual and uncommunicative way of his, referred to the contents of this chest? Was it not possible that it held for him a solution to the mystery that was facing him in the presence of Mary Josephine? A sense of conviction began to possess him. He examined the lock more closely and found that with proper tools it could be broken.

He finished dressing and completed his toilet by brushing his beard. On account of Mary Josephine he found himself regarding this hirsute tragedy with a growing feeling of disgust, in spite of the fact that it gave him an appearance rather distinguished and military. He wanted it off. Its chief crime was that it made him look older. Besides, it was inclined to be reddish. And it must tickle and p.r.i.c.k like the deuce when--

He brought himself suddenly to salute with an appreciative grin.

"You're there, and you've got to stick," he chuckled. After all, he was a likable-looking chap, even with that handicap. He was glad.

He opened his door so quietly that Mary Josephine did not see him at first. Her back was toward him as she bent over the dining-table. Her slim little figure was dressed in some soft stuff all crinkly from packing. Her hair, brown and soft, was piled up in shining coils on the top of her head. For the life of him Keith couldn't keep his eyes from traveling from the top of that glowing head to the little high-heeled feet on the floor. They were adorable, slim little, aristocratic feet with dainty ankles! He stood looking at her until she turned and caught him.

There was a change since last night. She was older. He could see it now, the utter impropriety of his cuddling her up like a baby in the big chair--the impossibility, almost.

Mary Josephine settled his doubt. With a happy little cry she ran to him, and Keith found her arms about him again and her lovely mouth held up to be kissed. He hesitated for perhaps the tenth part of a second, if hesitation could be counted in that s.p.a.ce. Then his arms closed about her, and he kissed her. He felt the snuggle of her face against his breast again, the crush and sweetness of her hair against his lips and cheek. He kissed her again uninvited. Before he could stop the habit, he had kissed her a third time.

Then her hands were at his face, and he saw again that look in her eyes, a deep and anxious questioning behind the shimmer of love in them, something mute and understanding and wonderfully sympathetic, a mothering soul looking at him and praying as it looked. If his life had paid the forfeit the next instant, he could not have helped kissing her a fourth time.

If Mary Josephine had gone to bed with a doubt of his brotherly interest last night, the doubt was removed now. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes shone. She was palpitantly, excitedly happy. "It's YOU, Derry,"

she cried. "Oh, it's you as you used to be!"

She seized his hand and drew him toward the table. Wallie thrust in his head from the kitchenette, grinning, and Mary Josephine flashed him back a meaning smile. Keith saw in an instant that Wallie had turned from his heathen G.o.ds to the worship of something infinitely more beautiful. He no longer looked to Keith for instructions.

Mary Josephine sat down opposite Keith at the table. She was telling him, with that warm laughter and happiness in her eyes, how the sun had wakened her, and how she had helped Wallie get breakfast. For the first time Keith was looking at her from a point of vantage; there was just so much distance between them, no more and no less, and the light was right. She was, to him, exquisite. The little puckery lines came into her smooth forehead when he apologized for his tardiness by explaining that he had not gone to bed until one o'clock. Her concern was delightful. She scolded him while Wallie brought in the breakfast, and inwardly he swelled with the irrepressible exultation of a great possessor. He had never had anyone to scold him like that before. It was a scolding which expressed Mary Josephine's immediate proprietorship of him, and he wondered if the pleasure of it made him look as silly as Wallie. His plans were all gone. He had intended to play the idiotic part of one who had partly lost his memory, but throughout the breakfast he exhibited no sign that he was anything but healthfully normal. Mary Josephine's delight at the improvement of his condition since last night shone in her face and eyes, and he could see that she was strictly, but with apparent unconsciousness, guarding herself against saying anything that might bring up the dread shadow between them. She had already begun to fight her own fight for him, and the thing was so beautiful that he wanted to go round to her, and get down on his knees, and put his head in her lap, and tell her the truth.

It was in the moment of that thought that the look came into his face which brought the questioning little lines into her forehead again. In that instant she caught a glimpse of the hunted man, of the soul that had traded itself, of desire beaten into helplessness by a thing she would never understand. It was gone swiftly, but she had caught it. And for her the scar just under his hair stood for its meaning. The responsive throb in her breast was electric. He felt it, saw it, sensed it to the depth of his soul, and his faith in himself stood challenged.

She believed. And he--was a liar. Yet what a wonderful thing to lie for!

"--He called me up over the telephone, and when I told him to be quiet, that you were still asleep, I think he must have sworn--it sounded like it, but I couldn't hear distinctly--and then he fairly roared at me to wake you up and tell you that you didn't half deserve such a lovely little sister as I am. Wasn't that nice, Derry?"

"You--you're talking about McDowell?"

"To be sure I am talking about Mr. McDowell! And when I told him your injury troubled you more than usual, and that I was glad you were resting, I think I heard him swallow hard. He thinks a lot of you, Derry. And then he asked me WHICH injury it was that hurt you, and I told him the one in the head. What did he mean? Were you hurt somewhere else, Derry?"

Keith swallowed hard, too. "Not to speak of," he said. "You see, Mary Josephine, I've got a tremendous surprise for you, if you'll promise it won't spoil your appet.i.te. Last night was the first night I've spent in a real bed for three years."

And then, without waiting for her questions, he began to tell her the epic story of John Keith. With her sitting opposite him, her beautiful, wide-open, gray eyes looking at him with amazement as she sensed the marvelous coincidence of their meeting, he told it as he had not told it to McDowell or even to Miriam Kirkstone. A third time the facts were the same. But it was John Keith now who was telling John Keith's story through the lips of an unreal and negative Conniston. He forgot his own breakfast, and a look of gloom settled on Wallie's face when he peered in through the door and saw that their coffee and toast were growing cold. Mary Josephine leaned a little over the table. Not once did she interrupt Keith. Never had he dreamed of a glory that might reflect his emotions as did her eyes. As he swept from pathos to storm, from the madness of long, black nights to starvation and cold, as he told of flight, of pursuit, of the merciless struggle that ended at last in the capture of John Keith, as he gave to these things words and life pulsing with the beat of his own heart, he saw them revisioned in those wonderful gray eyes, cold at times with fear, warm and glowing at other times with sympathy, and again shining softly with a glory of pride and love that was meant for him alone. With him she was present in the little cabin up in the big Barren. Until he told of those days and nights of hopeless desolation, of racking cough and the nearness of death, and of the comradeship of brothers that had come as a final benediction to the hunter and the hunted, until in her soul she was understanding and living those terrible hours as they two had lived them, he did not know how deep and dark and immeasurably tender that gray mystery of beauty in her eyes could be. From that hour he worshiped them as he worshiped no other part of her.

"And from all that you came back the same day I came," she said in a low, awed voice. "You came back from THAT!"

He remembered the part he must play.

"Yes, three years of it. If I could only remember as well, only half as well, things that happened before this--" He raised a hand to his forehead, to the scar.

"You will," she whispered swiftly. "Derry, darling, you will!"

Wallie sidled in and, with an adoring grin at Mary Josephine, suggested that he had more coffee and toast ready to serve, piping hot. Keith was relieved. The day had begun auspiciously, and over the bacon and eggs, done to a ravishing brown by the little j.a.p, he told Mary Josephine of some of his bills of fare in the north and how yesterday he had filled up on bacon smell at Andy Duggan's. Steak from the cheek of a walrus, he told her, was equal to porterhouse; seal meat wasn't bad, but one grew tired of it quickly unless he was an Eskimo; polar bear meat was filling but tough and strong. He liked whale meat, especially the tail-steaks of narwhal, and cold boiled blubber was good in the winter, only it was impossible to cook it because of lack of fuel, unless one was aboard ship or had an alcohol stove in his outfit. The tidbit of the Eskimo was birds' eggs, gathered by the ton in summer-time, rotten before cold weather came, and frozen solid as chunks of ice in winter.

Through one starvation period of three weeks he had lived on them himself, crunching them raw in his mouth as one worries away with a piece of rock candy. The little lines gathered in Mary Josephine's forehead at this, but they smoothed away into laughter when he humorously described the joy of living on nothing at all but air. And he added to this by telling her how the gluttonous Eskimo at feast-time would lie out flat on their backs so that their womenfolk could feed them by dropping chunks of flesh into their open maws until their stomachs swelled up like the crops of birds overstuffed with grain.