The Stolen Singer Part 22

"Had you ever seen the man Chatelard before?"

"Never to my knowledge."

"Did he visit you on board the yacht?"

"Only once. I was put into the charge of an old lady, a Frenchwoman, Madame Sofie; evidently a trusted chaperon, or nurse, or something like that. When I came to myself in a very luxurious cabin in the yacht, this old woman was talking to me in French--a strange medley that I could make nothing of. When I was better she questioned me about everything, saying '_Mon Dieu!_' at every answer I made. Then she left me and was gone a long time; and when she came back, that man was with her. I learned afterward that he was called Monsieur Chatelard. They both looked at me, arguing fiercely in such a furious French that I could not understand more than half they said. They looked as if they were appraising me, like an article for sale, but Madame Sofie held out steadily, on some point, against Monsieur Chatelard, and finally it appeared that she converted him to her own point of view. He went away very angry, and I did not see him again, except at a distance, until the night of the wreck."

"Did you find out where they were going, or who was back of their scheme?"

"No, nothing; or very little. There was money involved. I could tell that. But no names were mentioned, nor any places that I can remember.

You see, I was ill from the effects of the chloroform, and frightened, too, I think."

"I don't wonder," said Aleck, wrinkling his homely face. He remained silent while he searched, mentally, for a clue.

"I found out, through my maid, who arrived today, that some one of the kidnapping party had been clever enough to send a false message to the hotel, explaining my sudden departure."

"I see, I see," said Aleck, going over the story in his mind. And presently, "Where does Hand come in? And how did Jim happen to be aboard the _Jeanne D'Arc_?"

"Hand was some sort of henchman to Monsieur Chatelard, I believe. And he told me that your cousin was picked up in New York harbor, swimming for life, it appeared. No one seemed to know any more."

Aleck stopped short, looked at Agatha, pursed his lips for a whistle and remained silent. They had arrived at the porch steps, and were tacitly waiting for the doctors to descend and give them, if possible, some encouragement for the coming night. But the story of the _Jeanne D'Arc_ had grown more complicated than Aleck had antic.i.p.ated, and much was yet to be explained. Aleck was slow, as always, in thinking it through, but he figured it out, finally, to a certain point, and expressed himself thus: "That's the way with your steady fellows; they're all the bigger fools when they do jump."

"Pardon me, I didn't catch--"

"Oh, nothing," said Aleck, half irritably. "I only said Jim needed a poke, like that heifer over in the next field."

Agatha understood the boyish irritation, cloaking the love of the man.

"You may be able to get more information about your cousin from Mr.

Hand," she said. "He would be likely to know as much as anybody."

"Well, however it happened, he's here now!"

"Though if it had not been for his fearful struggle for me, he would not have been so ill," said Agatha miserably. Aleck, with one foot on the low step of the piazza, stopped and turned squarely toward her.

His face was no less miserable than Agatha's, but behind his wretchedness and anxiety was some masculine reserve of power, and a longer view down the corridors of time. He held her eye with a look of great earnestness.

"I love old Jim, Miss Redmond. We've been boys and men together, and good fellows always. But don't think that I'd regret his struggle for you, as you call it, even if it should mean the worst. He couldn't have done otherwise, and I wouldn't have had him. And if it's to be a--a home run--why, then, Jim would like that far better than to die of old age or liver complaint. It's all right, Miss Redmond."

Aleck's slow words came with a double meaning to Agatha. She heard, through them, echoes of James Hambleton's boyhood; she saw a picture of his straight and dauntless youth. She held out to Aleck a hand that trembled, but her face shone with grat.i.tude.

Aleck took her hand respectfully, kindly, in his warm grasp.

"Besides," he said simply, "we won't give up. He's got a fighting chance yet."

CHAPTER XVII

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

Lights in a country house at night are often the signal of birth or death, sometimes of both. The old red house threw its beacon from almost every window that night, and seemed mutely to defy the onslaught of enveloping darkness, whether Plutonic or Stygian. Time was when Parson Thayer's library lamp burned nightly into the little hours, and through the uncurtained windows the churchyard ghosts, had they wandered that way, could have seen his long thin form, wrapped in a paisley cloth dressing-gown, sitting in the glow. He would have been reading some old leather-bound volume, and would have remained for hours almost as quiet and noiseless as the ghosts themselves. Now he had stepped across his threshold and joined them, and new spirits had come to burn the light in the old red house.

Agatha, half-dressed, had slept, and woke feeling that the night must be far advanced. The house was very still, with no sound or echo of the incoherent tones which, for now many days, had come from the room down the hall. She lit a candle, and the sputtering match seemed to fill the house with noise. Her clock indicated a little past midnight.

It was only twenty minutes since she had lain down, but she was wide awake and refreshed. While she was pinning up her hair in a big ma.s.s on the top of her head, she heard in the hall slow, steady steps, firm but not heavy, even as in daytime. Susan Stoddard did not tiptoe.

Agatha was at the door before she could knock.

"You had better come for a few minutes," Mrs. Stoddard said. The tones were, in themselves, an adjuration to faith and fort.i.tude.

"Yes, I will come," said Agatha. They walked together down the dimly lighted hall, each woman, in her own way, proving how strong and efficient is the discipline of self-control.

In the sick-room a screen shaded the light from the bed, which had been pulled out almost into the middle of the room. Near the bed was a table with bottles, gla.s.ses, a covered pitcher, and on the floor an oxygen tank. Doctor Thayer's ma.s.sive figure was in the shadow close to the bed, and Aleck Van Camp leaned over the curved footboard. James lay on his pillow, a ghost of a man, still as death itself. As Agatha grew accustomed to the light, she saw that his eyes were closed, the lips under the ragged beard were drawn and slightly parted; his forehead was the pallid forehead of death-in-life. Neither the doctor nor Aleck moved or turned their gaze from the bed as Agatha and Mrs.

Stoddard entered. The air was still, and the profound silence without was as a mighty reservoir for the silence within.

Agatha stood by the footboard beside Aleck, while Mrs. Stoddard, getting a warm freestone from the invisible Mr. Hand in the hall, placed it beneath the bedclothes. Aleck Van Camp dropped his head, covering his face with his hands. Agatha, watching, by and by saw a change come over the sick man's face. She held her breath, it seemed, for untold minutes, while Doctor Thayer reached his hand to the patient's heart and leaned over to observe more closely his face.

"See!" she whispered to Aleck, touching his shoulder lightly, "he is looking at us." When Aleck looked up James was indeed looking at them with large, serious, half-focussed eyes. It was as if he were coming back from another world where the laws of vision were different, and he was only partially adjusted to the present conditions. He moved his hands feebly under the bedclothes, where they were being warmed by the freestone, and then tried to moisten his lips. Agatha took a gla.s.s of water from the table, looked about for a napkin, but, seeing none, wet the tips of her fingers and placed them gently over James's lips. His eyes followed her at first, but closed for an instant as she came near.

When they opened again, they looked more natural. As he felt the comfort of the water on his lips, his features relaxed, and a look of recognition illumined his face. His eyes moved from Agatha to Aleck, who was now bending over him, and back to Agatha. The look was a salute, happy and peaceful. Then his eyes closed again.

For an hour Agatha and Aleck kept their watch, almost fearing to breathe. Doctor Thayer worked, gave quiet orders, tested the heartbeats, let no movement or symptom go unnoticed. For a time James kept even the doctor in doubt whether he was slipping into the Great Unknown or into a deep and convalescent sleep. By the end of the hour, however, Jimsy had decided for natural sleep, urged thereto, perhaps, by that unseen playwright who had decreed another time for the curtain; or perhaps he was kept by Doctor Thayer's professional persuasions, in defiance of the prompter's signal. However the case, the heart slowly but surely began to take up its job like an honest force-pump, the face began to lose its death-like pallor, the breathing became more nearly normal. Doctor Thayer, with Mrs. Stoddard quiet and efficient at his elbow, worked and tested and worked again, and finally sat moveless for some minutes, watch in hand, counting the pulsations of James's heart.

At the end of the time he laid the hand carefully back under the clothes, put his watch in his pocket, and finally got up and looked around the room.

Mrs. Stoddard was pouring something into a measuring gla.s.s. Agatha was standing by the window, looking out into the blue night; and Aleck could be seen through the half-open door, pacing up and down the hall.

Doctor Thayer turned to his sister.

"Give him his medicine on the half-hour, and then you go to bed. That man Hand will do now." Then he went to the door and addressed Aleck.

"Well, Mr. Van Camp, unless something unexpected turns up, I think your cousin will live to jump overboard again."

Offhand as the words were, there was unmistakable satisfaction, happiness, even triumph in his voice, and he returned Aleck's hand-clasp with a vise-like grip. His masculinity ignored Agatha, or pretended to; but she had followed him to the door. As the old man clasped hands with Aleck, he heard behind him a deep, "O Doctor!" The next instant Agatha's arms were around his neck, and the back of his bald head was pressed against something that could only have been a cheek. Surprising as this was, the doctor did not stampede; but by the time he had got clear of Aleck and had reached up his hand to find the cheek, it was gone, and the arms, too. Susan Stoddard somehow got mixed up in the general _Te Deum_ in the hall, and for the first time, now that the fight was over, allowed her feminine feelings--that is, a few tears--to come to the surface.

Aleck, however, went to pieces, gone down in that species of mental collapse by which deliberate, judicial men become reckless, and strong men become weak. He stepped softly back into the bedroom and leaned again over the curved footboard, his face quite miserable. He went nearer, and held his ear down close to the bedclothes, to hear for himself the regular beating of the heart. Slowly he convinced himself that the doctor's words might possibly be true, at least. He turned to Hand, who had come in and was adjusting the shades, and asked him: "Do _you_ believe he's asleep?" in the tone of one who demands an oath.

"Oh, yes, sir; he's sleeping nicely, Mr. Van Camp. I saw the change the moment I came in."

Aleck still hesitated to leave, fearful, apparently, lest he might take the blessed sleep away with him. As he stood by the bed, a low but distinct whistle sounded outside, then, after a moment's interval, was repeated. Aleck lifted his head at the first signal, took another look at James and one at Hand, then light as a cat he darted from the room and down the stairs, leaving the house through one of the tall windows in the parlor. Mr. Chamberlain was standing near the lilac bushes, his big figure outlined dimly in the darkness.

"Shut up!" Aleck whispered fiercely, as he ran toward him. "He's just got to sleep, Chamberlain; gone to sleep, like a baby. Don't make an infernal racket!"

"Oh, I didn't know. Didn't mean to make a racket," began Chamberlain, when Aleck plumped into him and shook him by the shoulders.

"He's asleep--like a baby!" he reiterated. And Chamberlain, wise comrade, took Aleck by the arm and tramped him off over the hill to settle his nerves. They walked for an hour arm in arm over the road that lay like a gray ribbon before them in the night, winding up slantwise along the rugged country.

Dawn was awake on the hills a mile away, and by and by Aleck found tongue to tell the story of the night, which was good for him. He talked fast and unevenly, and even extravagantly. Chamberlain listened and loved his friend in a sympathy that spoke for itself, though his words were commonplace enough. By the time they had circled the five-mile road and were near the house again, Aleck was something like himself, though still unusually excited. Chamberlain mentioned casually that Miss Reynier had been anxious about him, and that all his friends at the big hotel had worried. Finally, he, Chamberlain, had set out for the old red house, thinking he could possibly be of service; in any case glad to be near his friend.

"And, by the way," Chamberlain added; "you may be interested to hear that accidentally I got on the track of that beggar who ate the hermit's eggs. Took a tramp this morning, and found him held up at a kind of sailor's inn, waiting for money. Grouchy old party; no wonder his men shipped him."

Aleck at first took but feeble interest in Chamberlain's discoveries; he was still far from being his precise, judicial self. He let Chamberlain talk on, scarcely noticing what he said, until suddenly the ident.i.ty of the man whom Chamberlain was describing came home to him.

Agatha's story flashed back in his memory. He stopped short in his tracks, halting his companion with a stretched-out forefinger.

"Look here, Chamberlain," he said, "I've been half loony and didn't take in what you said. If that's the owner or proprietor of the _Jeanne D'Arc_--a man known as Monsieur Chatelard, French accent, blond, above medium size, prominent white teeth--we want him right away. He kidnapped Miss Redmond in New York, and I shouldn't wonder if he kidnapped old Jim and stole the yacht besides. He's a bad one."