The Secret of Lonesome Cove Part 38

"I don't know. On the afternoon of July fifth I left Hedgerow House rather hurriedly. My maid, whom I trust implicitly, was to follow with my trunks, including my jewel case. She arrived, a day later, with part of the jewels missing, and a note from Father Blair saying that there had been a robbery, but that I was to say nothing of it."

"July fifth," remarked Kent with his lids dropped over the keen gaze of his eyes. "It was the following morning that the unknown body was found on the beach near Mr.-near the Nook."

Her face showed no comprehension. "I have heard nothing of any body,"

she replied.

"Did none of the talk come to your ears of a strange woman found at Lonesome Cove?"

"No. Wait, though. After the funeral, one of the cousins began to speak of a mystery, and Mr. Blair shut him off."

"Your necklace was taken from that body."

Her eyes grew wide. "Was she the thief?" she asked eagerly.

"The person who took the necklace from the body is the one for whom I am searching. Now, Mrs. Blair, will you tell me, in a word, how your husband met his death?"

Her gaze did not falter from his, but a look of suffering came into her eyes, and the hands in her lap closed and opened, and closed again.

"Perhaps I can save you by putting it in another form. Your father-in-law gave you to understand, did he not, that Wilfrid Blair met and quarreled with-with a certain person, and was killed in the encounter which followed?"

"How shall I ever free myself from the consciousness of my own part in it?" she shuddered. "Don't-don't speak of it again. I can't bear it."

"You won't have to, very long," Kent a.s.sured her. "Let us get back to the jewels. You would be willing to make a considerable sacrifice to recover them?"

"Anything!"

"Perhaps you've heard something of this man?"

Drawing a newspaper page from his pocket, Kent indicated an advertis.e.m.e.nt outlined in blue pencil. It was elaborately "displayed,"

as follows:

_Your Fate is Written in the Heavens_

_Consult The_ Star-Master

Past, Present and Future are Open Books to His Mystic Game-Be Guided Aright in Business, Love & Health Thousands to Whom he has pointed Out the Way of the Stars Bless Him for His Aid.

_Consultation by Appointment_ Preston Jax Suite 77 Mystic Block, 10 Royal Street

Mrs. Blair glanced at the announcement.

"Some of my friends have been to him," she said. "For a time he was rather a fad."

"But you haven't ever consulted him, yourself?"

"No, indeed."

"That is well. I want you to go there with me to-day."

"To that charlatan? Why, Professor Kent, I thought you were a scientific man."

"Translate 'science' down to its simplest terms in Saxon English," said Kent.

"It would be 'knowing', I suppose."

"Exactly. When I think a man knows something which I wish to know but do not know, I try to possess myself of his knowledge, whether he is microscopist, astrologer, or tinsmith. To that extent I am a scientist."

"And you expect the stars to tell us something about my lost topazes?"

"They seem to have had some influence on the career of the original owner," said Kent, with his half smile. "And one star has already lighted up the beginning of the trail for me."

"I can't understand your motives," she said. "But I know that I can trust you. When do you wish me to go?"

"I have an appointment for us at high noon."

As the clock struck twelve, Kent and Mrs. Blair pa.s.sed from the broad noonday glare of the street into the tempered darkness of a strange apartment. It was hung about with black cloths, and lighted by the effulgence of an artificial half-moon and several planets, contrived, Kent conjectured, of isingla.s.s set into the fabric, with arc lights behind them. A soft-footed servitor, clad throughout in black, appeared from nowhere, provided chairs, set a pitcher of water beside them, and vanished silently. A faint, heavy, but not unpleasant odor as of incense, hovered in the air. The moon waxed slowly in brightness, illumining the two figures.

"Very well fixed up," whispered Kent to his companion. "The astrologer is now looking us over."

In fact, at that moment, a contemplating and estimating eye was fixed upon them from a "dead" star in the farther wall. The eye beheld a girl whose delicate but vivid loveliness was undimmed by the grisly trappings of mourning which a Christian civilization has borrowed from barbarism to belie its own Christianity withal, rested a moment, and pa.s.sed, with more of scrutiny, to her companion.

Preston Jax did not, as a rule, receive more than one client at a time.

Police witnesses travel in pairs, and the Star-master was of a suspicious nature. Only an extraordinary fee, and the cultured languor of the voice which requested the appointment over the telephone, had induced him to relax his rule. Now, however, his uneasiness was appeased. He beheld a gentleman clad in such apparel as never police spy nor investigating agent wore; a rather puzzling "swellness" (the term is culled from Mr. Jax's envious thoughts), since it appeared to be individual, without being in any particular conspicuous. Mr. Jax, an adept in extracting information, wondered if he could persuade the visitor to disclose his tailor to the stars; for he was, himself, in light vacational moments at Atlantic City and in the Waldorf-Astoria something of a "dresser". One point, however, the connoisseurship of the Star-master could hardly approve: the monocle displayed in his visitor's left eye, though it was rea.s.suring to his professional judgment. The visitor was obviously "light".

Quitting his peep-hole, the Star-master pressed a b.u.t.ton. Strains of music, soft and sourceless, filled the air (from a phonograph m.u.f.fled in rugs). The moon glow paled a little. There was a soft rustle and fluctuation of wall draperies in the apartment. The light waxed. The Star-master stood before his visitors.

They beheld a man of undistinguished size and form, eked out by a splendid pomposity of manner. To this his garb contributed. All the signs of the zodiac had lent magnificence to the long, black, loose robe with gaping sleeves, which he wore. Mrs. Blair noted with vague interest that it was all hand embroidered.

Pale and hard the face rose from this somber and gorgeous appareling. It was a remarkable face, small, calm, and compacted of muscles. Muscles plumped out the broad cheeks; muscles curved about the jaws; muscles worked delicately along the club of a nose. The chin was just one live, twitching muscle. Even the faint screwed lines at the eye-corners suggested muscle. And, withal, there lurked in the countenance a suggestion of ingenuousness. The man looked like a bland and formidable baby. He looked even more like a puma.

With a rhythmical motion of arms and hands he came forward, performed a spreading bow of welcome, and drew back, putting his hand to his brow, as if in concentration of thought. Marjorie Blair felt an unholy desire to laugh. She glanced at Professor Kent, and, to her surprise, found him exhibiting every evidence of discomposure. He fidgeted, fanned himself with his hat, mopped his brow and palpably flinched under the solemn regard of the mage.

"Stupid of me," he muttered, in apology. "Gets on one's nerves, you know. Awesome, and all that sort of thing, fussing with the stars."

Preston Jax bestowed a patronizing smile upon his visitor.

Protectiveness, benign and a.s.sured, radiated from him.

"Fear nothing," said he. "The star forces respond to the master-will of him who comprehends them. Madam, the date, year, month and day of your birth, if you please?"

"March 15th, 1889," replied Mrs. Blair.

Propelled by an unseen force, a celestial globe mounted on a nickeled standard, rolled forth. The Star-master spun it with a practised hand.

Slowly and more slowly it turned, until, as it came to a stop, a ray of light, mysteriously appearing, focused on a constellation.

"Yonder is your star," declared the astrologist. "See how the aural light seeks it."

"Oh, I say!" murmured he of the monocle. "Weird, you know! Quite gets on one's nerves. Quite!"

"Sh-h-h-h!" reproved Preston Jax. "Silence is the fitting medium of the higher stellar mysteries. Madam, your life is a pathway between happiness and grief. Loss, like a speeding comet, has crossed it here.