Chapter XX

_The Blind Terror_

For three days I wandered in a phantasmagoric wilderness, my principal obsession making me identify myself with that pair of Hebrew spies staggering under the weight of those enormous grapes; would we never lose sight of Rahab's scarlet cord, and be again in safety and quiet! Then the confusion in my head cleared away, and I saw that it was really Betty who sat by my bed and not "Black Jack" Thaneford.

* * * * *

Yes, John Thaneford lies quiet and still in S. Saviour's churchyard--with his forefathers and mine--and enmity should end at the edge of the grave. God knows that each one of us needs forgiveness, both human and divine, for the deeds done in the flesh.

* * * * *

This morning I am allowed to sit up. Betty is busy at her household accounts, and Little Hugh is playing on the floor with blocks and tin soldiers. What a tremendous big chap he is! Perhaps a trifle shy of me at present, but time will soon put that to rights.

* * * * *

A beautiful day, and I am feeling almost if not quite myself. To-morrow I am to get up, and Chalmers Warriner is coming to dinner.

* * * * *

It is a long and well nigh incredible story to which I have been listening this evening. But it explains everything and clears up everything, and the shadow that has hung over "Hildebrand Hundred" for so long has finally fled away; never, thank God! to return.

* * * * *

_Imprimis_, let me register full and frank confession of my unutterable folly in ever doubting Betty; or, for that matter, my dear friend Chalmers Warriner. And the explanation was so absurdly simple--the secret engagement between Warriner and Hilda Powers. Of course, Betty had been Hilda's confidante and could not betray her even to re-establish a foolish husband's peace of mind. The ridiculous side of the affair lay in the fact that there had been no particular reason for keeping the engagement under cover, outside of Hilda's whim to have the announcement delayed until after the marriage of her elder sister Eva. Anyhow it _had_ been a secret and Betty had kept it loyally, even to her own hurt. Moreover, she may have detected other traces of the green-eyed monster in my make-up, and had decided that I needed a salutary lesson. Let it go at that.

Of course, the mere statement of fact was enough to untangle the whole coil; explained at once was the confidential understanding which certainly had existed between my wife and my friend; also Warriner's appearance at Stockbridge (where Hilda was already Betty's guest), and all the other straws that seemed to show which way the wind blew, and yet were nothing but straws, hopelessly light-minded and wholly irresponsible. I made my amends humbly enough, and they were generously accepted; we will say no more about it.

Dinner was over, and we were taking our coffee on the front portico. It was a perfect June night, the heavens a sable pall studded with innumerable star-clusters, the little vagrant breezes redolent of new mown hay, a nightingale singing in a nearby boscage. An atmosphere of heavenly peace and quiet that I must needs disturb with the blunt question:

"And now what was it that killed John Thaneford?"

Chalmers Warriner threw away the butt of his cigar. "What was it that killed all the Hildebrands throughout two generations?" he retorted. "Yardley and Randall and Horace and Richard, and Francis Graeme? The answer to the one question is the answer to them all. And, finally, there was Eunice Trevor, who went voluntarily to meet the invisible angel of death--a brave woman if there ever was one! Of course you remember the unfinished letter which she left behind her. There was a particular paragraph in it that impressed me, and I copied it down in my note-book." He pulled out the little volume and began to read:

... moreover, I believe that the heart of the Terror beats in this very place--the library of "Hildebrand Hundred." Something is in this room, something eternally menacing and eternally patient. It may be in one year or it may be in three and fifty years, but in the end it will surely claim its own. Yes, something is here, the something for which I myself am waiting; but, search as you will, you shall not find the Terror; you must await its coming. At least you may be certain that it will not fail to keep tryst.

"It must be evident," continued Chalmers, "that Eunice Trevor was aware of the very real danger attendant upon the occupation of the room we call the library at 'Hildebrand Hundred.' But she did not know what was the nature of that danger; in the same breath she speaks of the peril as being eternally menacing and eternally patient--a contradiction in terms. How could the Terror be always ready to strike, and yet, in one case at least, wait half a century for the opportunity? This discrepancy bothered me from the very first; but let me explain myself more exactly; I made some other notes at the time."

Warriner ruffled the leaves of his note-book, and began again:

"Eunice Trevor gives a list of the owners of the 'Hundred,' together with the dates of their succession and death, running back to 1860, when Yardley Hildebrand succeeded his father, Oliver; Yardley himself dying a year later under mysterious circumstances. At least I assume that they were mysterious, for Effingham has assured me that he died alone and while engaged in looking over some papers in the then newly completed library. The list continues with Randall and Horace and Richard Hildebrand, and ends with Francis Graeme. Now for Miss Trevor's comments:

"As we analyze these dates and periods we come upon some curious coincidences, and also upon some marked discrepancies. Yardley Hildebrand reigned for one brief year, and the same is true of Randall Hildebrand and of Francis Graeme. But Horace Hildebrand enjoyed three full years of sovereignty, while Richard was Hildebrand of the "Hundred" for no less a period than fifty-three years. Yet all five went to their death along an unfrequented road, and no man can say of a certainty what was the essential damnation of their taking-off. They died, and they died alone--here in this very room where I sit waiting, waiting."

Warriner lit a fresh cigar.

"Making due allowance for feminine hyperbole," he said judicially, "and for the writer's excited state of mind, we arrive at certain definite facts. Here are six deaths--seven if we include that of John Thaneford--and all of them happening under apparently natural but really abnormal conditions. The constant factors in the series of equations are the _locale_ and the general circumstances--an unattended death and no visible cause for dissolution. The period is a variable quantity--from one to over fifty years. We therefore may conclude justifiably that Miss Trevor was wrong in her assertion about something deadly and menacing being always in the room, ready to spring upon its prey. Under that hypothesis the apartment would quickly have become impossible for human occupancy. The alternative theory is that, granting certain conditions, the lethal agent might enter the room and accomplish its deadly purpose, and then immediately withdraw. Finally, this agency might be human or purely mechanical in character. You see what I'm driving at. From the first, I believed that the attack was delivered from without, while Betty and Eunice held that it was what the police call an inside job."

"And neither theory was wholly right nor wholly wrong," observed Betty.

"Perfectly," rejoined Warriner. "As usual, the truth lay in the middle distance. Now you go on, Betty; this is your part of the story."

"My part of the story!" echoed Betty deprecatingly. "I'm not an author; I'm merely the amanuensis, the typist, if you please."

"Mock modesty," proclaimed Warriner. "Even now we would still be standing before a closed door were it not for Betty and her master-key."

"Yes, my master-key," scoffed Betty. "Only it doesn't seem very clever of me to have carried it all these months without ever thinking to use it."

"Perhaps you couldn't find your pocket," suggested Chalmers.

"Enough of this bush-beating and persiflage," I commanded severely. "Will you go on and tell me, Betty?"

"Well," began my wife obediently, "we had been warned away from the 'Hundred,' but you were obstinate and wouldn't budge; you had to be saved in spite of yourself.

"Of course I was right in going North immediately after the Midsummer Night's ball at 'Powersthorp.' Little Hugh really needed the change, and I wanted to be able to call at will on Chalmers for assistance in working out my problem. I couldn't do so if I stayed on at the 'Hundred,' even by means of correspondence. I don't suppose, Hugh, that I need to particularize any further in this direction?"

I mumbled something unintelligible, and, to add to my discomfiture, Warriner actually laughed. Never mind; I deserved it all.

"I could feel reasonably easy in my mind," went on Betty, "since I knew that the library had been dismantled and locked up. Besides, I had your solemn promise that you would not attempt to enter it for any purpose."

"I forgot," I murmured.

"That sounds like honest penitence, and I can forgive you--now. But I shall never be able to forget the afternoon your letter came with its calm announcement that you had been in the room to see about the damaged window; yes, and would probably have to go again.

"That letter reached Stockbridge at ten o'clock in the morning of Thursday, the twenty-first. Fifteen minutes later an express train left for New York, and Chalmers and I were the passengers on it, leaving Hilda to follow with the nurse and the baby. At the first opportunity I sent you a telegram. Did you receive it?"

My thoughts went back to the yellow telegraphic sheet clutched in John Thaneford's black-knuckled hands, and held up before my helpless eyes. "Yes, it came," I answered slowly, "but too late to be of any use."

"I was afraid of that," said Betty, "but we were leaving no stone unturned. We were missing connections all the way down, and I knew that the trap was ready for springing. And someone else knew it, too--John Thaneford."

"But," I objected, "Eunice expressly says that John Thaneford did not know the secret; except perhaps in part."

"What did he mean then by stupefying you with whiskey, and placing you, bound and helpless, in the big swivel-chair?" put in Warriner.

I was silent.

"Finally," continued Warriner, "it seemed certain that something had gone wrong with the working of the machinery, whatever it was. Whereupon he started for you--you remember--with bare hands."

Ah, yes, I remembered.

"Unquestionably, Thaneford was carrying out a perfectly definite plan of procedure. He knew what ought to have happened."

"But it didn't happen," I protested. "I'm here and very much alive."

"It did, and it didn't," retorted Warriner. "John Thaneford is dead."

"You mean--you mean----" I boggled.

"Yes, the Terror had entered the room; don't you recall how close I kept to the wall when I was trying to reach you? But it had become a blind Terror, and John Thaneford got in its way."

"But how and why?" I asked helplessly.

"Betty, it's your turn again," said Warriner, settling back in his chair.