CHAPTER X

SHOWS HOW MRS. KRETZ SPOKE HER MIND

Bat Scanlon stood for a space under the neighbourly tree; he could hear the drawn man coughing away into the gloom at the foot of the hill.

“Now,” observed he, “am I indeed over my head. Not only have we one man in this little matter who is so far through that he must be shoved along in a chair, but here comes another who goes wheezing around on one lung and throwing hints of a threatening nature.”

He slipped an automatic pistol from his hip pocket--a black, bulky, deadly thing; and he smoothed it with a feeling of satisfaction.

“Hints are all very well,” he went on; “but they never did any harm, and they never got anybody anything. Doing’s what counts; and all I’ve got to say is, let somebody start doing something I don’t like.”

Thinking it just as well to move from the spot he then occupied, Bat, pistol in hand, made his way along the crest of the hill and struck into a path which was to some extent shaded from the moon’s rays. He had a very clear recollection of the brisk rattle of shots in the vaults on the day before, and he had no desire to court another such.

But he picked his way along through the rising ground without mischance; the river gleamed coldly and smoothly; the walls and towers of Schwartzberg looked darker at close hand, and lost the ghostly, transparent quality which they had taken from the distance. Bat was somewhat disappointed.

“Here I take a gentleman’s promise--for that’s what it really was--of some entertainment. I even think enough of it to draw a gun, and pick the covered spots. And now there’s nothing doing. What the dickens is the world coming to when a fellow can’t----”

There was a loud splash from the river close by; looking quickly in that direction Bat saw a bulky form stumbling about in the shallows under a bank. Two other forms instantly appeared and steadied the burly one; then all disappeared like a flash.

“The curtain,” observed Bat, grimly, “is a little late in rising; but it seems we’re going to have a show after all.”

Holding to the shadow thrown by the high wall, he made his way cautiously toward the spot. On the edge of the shadow he paused, but there was no sound; so, with his automatic held ready, he stepped out into the light and advanced toward the bank. A broken place was plain; but no one was in sight.

“The big fellow stood too close to the edge; then the thing caved in and let him down into the water,” reasoned Bat. “But,” and his gaze went about, “what’s become of him and the parties who offered the helping hand in his time of need?”

The river bank was clear of all obstructions for some distance above and below Schwartzberg; the moonlight flooded it; there was no place where any one could hide.

“That being the case, and the prowling parties not being in sight, I think I’ll step back where I can’t be so readily seen,” said the big man.

He had turned about and was moving away from the river when a rifle sounded; clear against the moonlit sky he made out Kretz upon the wall.

“Hello!” said Scanlon, his hands at his mouth like a megaphone. “That’ll be about all of that.”

The sergeant-major lowered his gun, and stood looking down; and within a few minutes the big man was at the gate and hammering to be let in.

Kretz admitted him, sullen-faced and silent.

“Suppose you always take a look,” spoke Scanlon, after the gate had been closed and fastened, “a good look, mind you, before you cut loose with that gun of yours. And let this be especially the case when I’m known to be outside.”

“Twice to-night have I seen people near the river before I saw you. Each time I called, but they said nothing. The third time I fired.”

“And _I_ just happened along in time to be the goat,” grumbled Bat. Then, with a sharp side glance at the sergeant-major’s grim face, he added mentally, as he turned away, “That is, if you _didn’t know_ who it was.”

Inside he found the room where he usually spent the evenings with Campe deserted. But from another apartment the voice of Miss Knowles was heard laughing, and that of Campe answered with much animation.

“Oh, come now,” said Mr. Scanlon, “if it was somebody other than that blonde girl who was with him I’d say that this wasn’t half bad.”

An atmosphere of change was about the rooms which had been so gloomy; for the first time since he had been there, fear was sharing the centre of the stage with something else.

“If I’d only thought of Ashton-Kirk sooner,” said Bat, “the whole thing might have been straightened out by now. His just coming here for an hour, and Campe not even knowing who he was, has put a new face on things.”

He wandered about among the lower rooms for a time, and finally began to run through the books in the library.

But none of them pleased him, for it seemed a time for action; so shutting the bookcase door, he turned away; and then he saw Kretz’s daughter beckoning to him.

“Eh?” said he, staring.

“My mother,” said the girl, stolidly. “She is in the kitchen. She wants you.”

Then she vanished. For a few moments Mr. Scanlon continued his stare--but now at the empty doorway. Then with the little twist at the corner of his mouth, and with something like interest in his eyes, he made his way toward the kitchen.

The lamps, hanging from the beamed ceiling, threw but a dim light about the huge room; a sullen fire burned in the fireplace; the copper vessels gleamed dully. Upon a rush-bottomed chair near the blaze sat Mrs. Kretz. In her strong hands were some long steel needles, and she was knitting a stocking of blue wool. She nodded to Scanlon as he entered.

“Lena,” she said to the girl, “get a chair.”

A second rush-bottomed chair was brought forward by the girl, who then retired to a little distance and also took up the knitting of a stocking of blue yarn--evidently the fellow to the one her mother was engaged upon.

“My husband,” spoke Mrs. Kretz, “is outside. He is watching. He will not be in for some time.”

Bat nodded.

“And,” continued the woman, “while he is not here, I will have some talk with you.”

“Right,” said Mr. Scanlon.

“In this house I have been since spring,” said Mrs. Kretz. “Was it in April, Lena?”

“It was in April,” agreed Lena.

“Since spring,” said Mrs. Kretz. “And I am afraid.”

The interest in Mr. Scanlon’s eyes deepened.

“Of what?” he asked.

But the woman gazed at him with an expression even more wooden than her daughter.

“I don’t know.” She laid the knitting on the hearth beside her and folded her hands in her lap. “My husband knows. But my husband never speaks of things to me. He does not trust women,” simply. “But I am afraid. And Lena is afraid.”

Mr. Scanlon leaned forward.

“It isn’t only that something is going on which you don’t understand that makes you afraid.”

The woman considered this word by word and then shook her head.

“No,” she said, “there is more.”

“Something has happened--you’ve seen it--maybe more than once,” suggested Bat.

The big man had a pretty clear belief that for a guest to endeavour to worm things out of his host’s servants was not altogether decent; but in the present case he felt that the attempt was justified.

“There have been many things happened,” spoke the woman. “They began when we first came, and they have never stopped.”

She sat looking at Bat for a moment, then she proceeded:

“Do you know why you are here?”

Bat nodded.

“I never been told, but I’ve kind of guessed my way through it.”

“They are afraid to tell,” said Mrs. Kretz. “They fear those outside there; and they also fear the police.”

“Huh!” said Mr. Scanlon.

There was a long period of silence, for he felt that it were best to let her go her own way.

“For the people outside they watch,” said Mrs. Kretz, at length. “Always outside. But,” and the strong hands knotted together suddenly and her voice sank to a whisper, “who watches inside?”

“Inside?” said Bat quietly. “Do we need a watch inside? Are we not all friends in Schwartzberg?”

Here the girl laughed, though she did not look up from her work. And the laugh was one not pleasant to hear.

“You do not know,” said Mrs. Kretz, and she shook her head. “You do not see. One night since you came,” and here her voice was lowered once more, “a woman screamed. And a shot was fired. Do you remember?”

“I heard both,” said Bat. “But I don’t know the reason for either.”

“Lena was sick--with her tooth,” said Mrs. Kretz. “I went to speak to my husband. I saw the door of the vault standing open. And beside it was Miss Knowles, the key in her hand. I knew something was about to happen; I ran to the door to close it. Then the shot came--from below; she screamed; I closed and made fast the door.”

“Well?”

“She is of the family,” said Mrs. Kretz, “and so I never knew how she lied herself out of it.”

“You feel sure she opened the door, eh?” The woman nodded. “What for, do you suppose?”

“To allow some one below to come up. But that thing is not all. Why does she walk about in the corridors at night? What does she do outside when all should be asleep but the dogs?”

“You saw her one night,” said Lena, speaking suddenly. “The night Mr. Campe was hurt.”

“Yes,” said Bat.

“On that same night,” spoke Mrs. Kretz, “I was arranging something in the large room where the pictures are. There was only one small light burning. I finished my work, and stood by a window, looking out. There are long curtains at the window, and these hid me. I felt them stir, as if in a draught; and I knew the door of the room had opened. I turned and looked. Miss Knowles had come in. She crossed the floor very softly and carefully, and stooped quite near to me where the great sword hangs between the windows. She stood looking at this strangely; then she reached up and took it down. And with it hidden as much as her wraps would hide it, she went away.”

“Well?” asked Bat, quietly. But there was eagerness in his eyes.

“It was some hours after that when the great light flashed and we saw you come staggering along with Mr. Campe on your back.” There was a pause and the woman’s head rocked from side to side. “When he lay wounded out there in the darkness, she stood beside him. Didn’t you find them so?”

“Yes.”

“I saw the wound. It was I that washed and dressed it. A great long one, not deep, but fearful when you thought what it might have been.” Again she paused, and looked steadily at Scanlon. “It was just such a cut as one could make with a very long and very heavy weapon,” she said. “A weapon like the sword which hangs between the windows.”

Bat caught his breath.

“No!” said he, appalled. “No!”

“You think a woman couldn’t do it? Well, don’t forget that this one is tall and strong.”

Bat gestured the idea away. He, himself, had spoken of Miss Knowles and her doings suspiciously. But now that these suspicions were voiced by another, and raised to a pitch of unthought horror, he almost sickened at them.

“Why,” said he, the recollection of many little glances and accents rushing to his mind, “she might even be in love with him.”

“He is with her,” corrected the woman. “And that, you know, is different.”

She once more took up the blue stocking and began to move the needles in and out among the loops. Lena was stolidly engaged in a like manner, never having lifted her head since she began, not even when she herself had spoken.

“Neither of them has any great width between the hair line and the eyebrows,” said Bat mentally, as he looked from one to the other. “It’s the sort of calm that passes all understanding; and those persons gifted with it usually live blameless lives.”

The kitchen clock tick-tocked away in its long, wooden case, as drowsily as need be; the wooden kitchen things which were in view looked heavy and commonplace.

“But, for all they don’t seem very ready to grab a thing,” said Bat, to himself, “these women have realized something. And that’s promising. Things have happened here, and that’s the surest sign that things will continue to happen. And this pair may turn out to be of use--if I don’t expect too much of them.”

The great fireplace faced the open door of the kitchen; they all sat facing the fire, and so with their backs to the door. Bat, with a tight, strained feeling in his brain, clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

“To you, who are a stranger, I say all these things,” said Mrs. Kretz, busy with her needles. “And it is for this: You have been told nothing--because they are afraid. You are Mr. Campe’s friend, and went to help him. But how can you give help where you do not understand?”

But agreed with this.

“But,” said he, his eyes upon a great copper vessel which stood shining dully from the chimney piece, “I could have wished you’d have some other sort of information for me. For this puts me up against something that’ll be pretty hard to do.”

The kitchen doorway was reflected in the sheen of the copper vessel; and, framed in this, his brooding eyes saw a man. It was a soft, bulky figure, with white, fat hands and a round face with small light-coloured eyes. And while he looked, it moved softly past the doorway and was gone.