Chapter 11

"On the contrary, I firmly believe him responsible for that attack on you the other night. The man's a dangerous monomaniac; brooding over his self-wrought wrongs has made him such."

"You persuade yourself too much, old man. You set up an inference and idolize it as an immortal truth. Why, you had me going for a while. Only last night there was a fellow skulking round here, and I was just dippy enough, thanks to your influence, to think he resembled Drummond. But this morning I got a good look at him, and he's no more Drummond than you are."

"The hell you say!" Ember sat up, eyes snapping. "Who was he then?"

"Simply a good-for-nothing vagabond--tramp."

"What'd he want?"

"Search me."

"But why the devil didn't you tell me this before?"

"You don't mean to say you attach any importance to the mere fact that an ordinary tramp--"

"I attach importance to many things that other people overlook. That's my artfulness. I don't suppose it has occurred to you that tramps follow the railroads, and that Long Island is free of the vermin for the simple reason that the Long Island Railroad doesn't lead anywhere any self-respecting tramp would care to go?"

"It's true--I hadn't thought of that. So that makes the appearance of a tramp in these parts a cir-spicious sus-cumstance?"

"It does. Now tell me about him--everything."

So the truth would out, after all. Whitaker resignedly delivered himself of the tale of the mare's-nest--as he still regarded it. When he had come to the lame conclusion thereof, Ember yawned and rose.

"What are you going to do about it?" Whitaker inquired with irony.

"Wash and make myself fit to eat food," was the response. "I may possibly think a little. It's an exhilarating exercise which I don't hesitate to recommend to your distinguished consideration."

He was out of earshot, within the bungalow, before Whitaker could think up an adequately insolent retort. He could, however, do no less than smile incredulously at the beautiful world: so much, at least, he owed his self-respect.

He lolled comfortably, dreaming, forgetful of his cold-storage foot, serene in the assurance that Ember was an alarmist, Drummond (if alive) to a degree hand-bound by his own misconduct, a wretched creature self-doomed to haunt the under-world, little potent either for good or for evil; while it was a certainty, Whitaker believed, that to-morrow's sun would find him able to be up and about--able to hobble, even if with difficulty, at least as much as the eighth of a mile.

Long shadows darkened athwart the clearing. The bay was quick with moving water, its wonderful deep blue shading to violet in the distant reaches. Beyond the golden arm of the barrier beach drifted the lazy purple sails of coastwise schooners. Gradually these blushed red, the golden arm took on a ruddy tinge, the bosom of the waters a translucent pink, mirroring the vast conflagration in the western skies.

Somewhere--not far away--a whippoorwill whistled with plaintive insistence.

In the deepening twilight a mental shadow came to cloud the brightness of Whitaker's confident contentment. He sat brooding and mumbling curses on the ache in his frost-bitten foot, and was more than slightly relieved when Sum Fat lighted the candles in the living-room and summoned Ember to help the invalid indoors.

Neither good food nor good company seemed able to mitigate this sudden seizure of despondency. He sat glooming over his plate and glass, the burden of his conversation _yea, yea_ and _nay, nay_; nor was anything of Ember's intermittent banter apparently able to educe the spirited retorts ordinarily to be expected of him.

His host diagnosed his complaint from beneath shrewd eyebrows.

"Whitaker," he said at length, "a pessimist has been defined as a dog that won't scratch."

"Well?" said the other sourly.

"Come on. Be a sport. Have a good scratch on me."

Whitaker grinned reluctantly and briefly.

"Where's my wife?" he demanded abruptly.

"How in blazes--!"

"There you are!" Whitaker complained. "You make great pretensions, and yet you fall down flat on your foolish face three times in less than as many hours. You don't know who the Fiskes are, you've lost track of your pet myth, Drummond, and you don't know where I can find my wife. And yet I'm expected to stand round with my mouth open, playing Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes. I could go to that telephone and consult 'Information' to better advantage!"

"What you need," retorted the other, unmoved, "is a clairvoyant, not a detective. If you can't keep track of your trial marriages yourself...!"

He shrugged.

"Then you don't know--haven't the least idea where she is?"

"My dear man, I myself am beginning to doubt her existence."

"I don't see why the dickens she doesn't go ahead with those divorce proceedings!" Whitaker remarked morosely.

"I've met few men so eager for full membership in the Alimony Club. What's your hurry?"

"Oh, I don't know." Which was largely truth unveneered. "I'd like to get it over and done with."

"You might advertise--offer a suitable reward for information concerning the whereabouts of one docile and dormant divorce suit--"

"I might, but you'd never earn it."

"Doubtless. I've long since learned never to expect any reward commensurate with my merits."

Ember pushed back his chair and, rising, strolled to the door. "Moonrise and a fine, clear night," he said, staring through the wire mesh of the screen. "Wish you were well enough to go riding with me. However, you won't be laid up long, I fancy. And I'll be back day after to-morrow. Now I must cut along."

And within ten minutes Whitaker heard the motor-car rumble off on the woodland road.

He wasn't altogether sorry to be left to his own society. He was, in fact, rather sharp-set for the freedom of solitude, that he might pursue one or two self-appointed tasks without interruption.

For one of these Sum Fat, not without wonder, furnished him materials: canvas, stout thread, scissors, a heavy needle, a bit of beeswax: with which Whitaker purposed manufacturing an emergency ankle-strap. And at this task he laboured diligently and patiently for the better part of two hours, with a result less creditable to his workmanship than to a nature integrally sunny and prone to see the bright side of things. Whitaker himself, examining the finished product with a prejudiced eye, was fain to concede its crudity. It was not pretty, but he believed fatuously in its efficiency.

His other task was purely one of self-examination. Since afternoon he had found reason gravely to doubt the stability of his emotional poise. He had of late been in the habit of regarding himself as one whose mind retained no illusions; a bit prematurely aged, perhaps, but wise with a wisdom beyond his years; no misogynist, but comfortably woman-proof; a settled body and a sedate, contemplating with an indulgent smile the futile antics of a mad, mad world. But now he was being reminded that no man is older than his heart, and that the heart is a headstrong member, apt to mutiny without warning and proclaim a youth quite inconsistent with the years and the mentality of its possessor. In fine, he could not be blind to the fact that he was in grave danger of making an ass of himself if he failed to guide himself with unwonted circumspection.

And all because he had an eye and a weakness for fair women, a lonely path to tread through life, and a gregarious tendency, a humorous faculty and a keen appreciation of a mind responsive to it....

And all in the face of the fact that he was not at liberty to make love....

And all this problem the result of a single day of propinquity!

He went to bed, finally, far less content with himself than with the crazy issue of his handicraft. The latter might possibly serve its purpose; but Hugh Whitaker seemed a hopeless sort of a proposition, not in the least amenable to the admonitions of common sense. If he were, indeed, he would have already been planning an abrupt escape to Town. As matters stood with him, he knew he had not the least intention of doing anything one-half so sensible.

But in spite of his half-hearted perturbation and dissatisfaction, the weariness of a long, full day was so heavy upon him that he went to sleep almost before Sum Fat had finished making him comfortable.

Extinguishing the candle, the Chinaman, moving with the silent assurance of a cat in the dark, closed and latched the shutters, then sat down just outside the living-room door, to wait and watch, sleeplessly alert.

An hour passed in silence, and another, and yet another: Sum Fat sat moveless in the shadow, which blended so perfectly with his dark blue-silk garments as to render him almost indistinguishable: a figure as patient and imperturbable as any bland, stout, graven god of his religion. Slowly the moonlight shifted over the floor, lengthened until it almost touched the toe of one of his felt-soled shoes, and imperceptibly withdrew. The wind had fallen, and the night was very quiet; few sounds disturbed the stillness, and those inconsiderable: the steady respiration of the sleeping man; such faint, stealthy creakings as seemingly infest every human habitation through the night; the dull lisp and murmur of the tide groping its way along the shore; the muted grumble of the distant surf; hushed whisperings of leaves disturbed by wandering airs.

Sum Fat heard all and held impassive. But in time there fell upon his ears another sound, to which he stirred, if imperceptibly--drawing himself together, tensing and flexing his tired muscles while his eyes shifted quickly from one quarter to another of the darkened living-room and the still more dark bedchamber.

And yet, apparently all that had aroused him was the drowsy whistle of a whippoorwill.

Then, with no other presage, a shadow flitted past one of the side windows, and in another reappeared more substantially on the veranda. Sum Fat grew altogether tense, his gaze fixed and exclusively focussed upon that apparition.

Cautiously, noiselessly, edging inch by inch across the veranda, the man approached the door. It was open, hooked back against the wall; only the wire screen was in his way. Against this he flattened his face; and a full, long minute elapsed while he carefully surveyed what was visible of the interior. Even Sum Fat held his breath throughout that interminable reconnoissance.

At length, reassured, the man laid hold of the screen and drew it open. It complained a little, and he started violently and waited another minute for the alarm which did not ensue. Then abruptly he slipped into the room and slowly drew the screen shut behind him. Another minute: no sound detectable more untoward than that of steady respiration in the bedroom; with a movement as swift and sinister as the swoop of a vulture the man sprang toward the bedroom door.

Leaping from a sitting position, with a bound that was little less than a flight through the air, the Chinaman caught him halfway. There followed a shriek, a heavy fall that shook the bungalow, the report of a revolver, sounds of scuffling....

Whitaker, half dazed, found himself standing in the doorway, regardless of his injury.

He saw, as one who dreams and yet is conscious that he does but dream, Ember lighting candles--calmly applying the flame of a taper to one after another as he made a round of the sconces. The moonlight paled and the windows turned black as the mellow radiance brightened.

Then a slight movement in the shadow of the table drew his attention to the floor. Sum Fat was kneeling there, on all fours, above something that breathed heavily and struggled without avail.

Whitaker's sleep-numbed faculties cleared.

"Ember!" he cried. "What in the name of all things strange--!"

Ember threw him a flickering smile. "Oh, there you are?" he said cheerfully. "I've got something interesting to show you. Sum Fat"--he stooped and picked up a revolver--"you may let him up, now, if you think he's safe."

"Safe enough." Sum Fat rose, grinning. "Had damn plenty."

He mounted guard beside the door.

For an instant his captive seemed reluctant to rise; free, he lay without moving, getting his breath in great heaving sobs; only his gaze ranged ceaselessly from Ember's face to Whitaker's and back again, and his hands opened and closed convulsively.

Ember moved to his side and stood over him, balancing the revolver in his palm.

"Come," he said impatiently. "Up with you!"

The man sat up as if galvanized by fear, got more slowly to his knees, then, grasping the edge of the table, dragged himself laboriously to a standing position. He passed a hand uncertainly across his mouth, brushed the hair out of his eyes and tried to steady himself, attempting to infuse defiance into his air, even though cornered, beaten and helpless.

Whitaker's jaw dropped and his eyes widened with wonder and pity. He couldn't deny the man, yet he found it hard to believe that this quivering, shaken creature, with his lean and pasty face and desperate, glaring eyes, this man in rough, stained, soiled and shapeless garments, could be identical with the well set-up, prosperous and confident man of affairs he remembered as Drummond. And yet they were one. Appalling to contemplate the swift devastating course of moral degeneration, that had spread like gangrene through all the man's physical and mental fibre....

"Take a good look," Ember advised grimly. "How about that pet myth thing, now? What price the astute sleuth--eh? Perhaps you'd like to take a few more funny cracks at my simple faith in hallucinations."

"Good God!" said Whitaker in a low voice, unable to remove his gaze from Drummond.

"I had a notion he'd be hanging round," Ember went on; "I thought I saw somebody hiding in the woods this afternoon; and then I was sure I saw him skulking round the edges of the clearing, after dinner. So I set Sum Fat to watch, drove back to the village to mislead him, left my car there and walked back. And sure enough--!"

Without comment, Whitaker, unable to stand any longer without discomfort, hobbled to a chair and sat down.

"Well?" Drummond demanded harshly in a quavering snarl. "Now that you've got me, what're you going to do with me?"

There was a high, hysterical accent in his voice that struck unpleasantly on Ember's ear. He cocked his head to one side, studying the man intently.

Drummond flung himself a step away from the table, paused, and again faced his captors with bravado.

"Well?" he cried again. "Well?"

Ember nodded toward Whitaker. "Ask him," he said briefly.

Whitaker shook his head. It was difficult to think how to deal with this trapped animal, so wildly different from the cultivated gentleman he always had in mind when he thought of Drummond. The futility of attempting to deal with him according to any code recognized by men of honour was wretchedly apparent.

"Drummond," he said slowly, "I wish to God you hadn't done this thing."

Drummond laughed discordantly. "Keep your mealy-mouthed compassion for yourself," he retorted, sneering. "I'm no worse than you, only I got caught." He added in a low tone, quivering with uncontrollable hatred: "Damn you!"

Whitaker gave a gesture of despair. "If you'd only been content to keep out of the way...! If only you'd let me alone--"

"Then _you_ let Sara Law alone, d'you hear?"

Surprised, Whitaker paused before replying. "Please understand," he said quietly, "that Mrs. Whitaker is seeking a divorce from me. After that, if she has any use for you, I have no objection to her marrying you. And as for the money you stole, I have said nothing about that--intend to say nothing. If you'd had the sense to explain things to me--if I could count on you to leave me alone and not try again to murder me--"

"Oh, go to hell!"

The interruption was little short of a shriek. Ember motioned to Sum Fat, who quietly drew nearer.

"I swear I don't know what to do or say--"

"Then shut up--"

"That'll be about all," Ember interposed quietly. At a glance from him, Sum Fat closed in swiftly and caught and pinioned Drummond's arms from behind.

A disgusting change took place in Drummond. In an instant he was struggling, screaming, slavering: his face congested, eyes starting, features working wildly as he turned and twisted in his efforts to free himself.

Sum Fat held him as he would have held an unruly child. Whitaker looked away, feeling faint and sick. Ember looked on with shrewd and penetrating interest, biding the time when a break in Drummond's ravings would let him be heard. When it came at length, together with a gradual weakening of the man's struggles, the detective turned to Whitaker.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't dare take any further chances. He'd've been at your throat in another minute. I could see him working himself up to a frenzy. If Sum Fat hadn't grabbed him in time, there's no telling what might not have happened."

Whitaker nodded.

"It isn't as if we had simply an everyday crook to deal with," Ember went on, approaching the man. "He's not to be trusted or reasoned with. He's just short of a raving morphomaniac, or I miss my guess."

With a quick movement he caught Drummond's left arm, pulled the sleeve of his coat back to the elbow, unbuttoned and turned back his cuff. "_Hmm_--yes," he continued bending over to inspect the exposed forearm, in spite of Drummond's efforts to twist away. "Deadly work of the busy little needle. Good Lord, he's fairly riddled with punctures!"

"That explains...." Whitaker muttered, sickened.

"It explains a lot." Ember readjusted the sleeve and turned away. "And it shows us our path of duty, clear," he continued, despite interruptions from the maddened drug fiend. "I think a nice little sojourn in a sanatorium--what?"

"Right," Whitaker agreed, relieved.

"We'll see what a cure does for him before we indulge in criminal proceedings--shall we?"

"By all means."

"Good." Ember glanced at his watch. "I'll have to hurry along now--must be in town not later than nine o'clock this morning. I'll take him with me. No, don't worry--I can handle him easily. It's a bit of a walk to the village, but that will only help to quiet him down. I'll be back to-morrow; meanwhile you'll be able to sleep soundly unless--"

He checked, frowning thoughtfully.

"Unless what?"

Ember jerked his head to indicate the prisoner. "Of course, this isn't by any chance the fellow you mixed it up with over on the beach--and so forth?"

"Nothing like him."

"Queer. I can't find any trace of him--the other one--nor can I account for him. He doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. However"--his expression lightened--"I daresay you were right; he's probably only some idle, light-fingered prowler. I'd keep my eyes open for him, but I don't really believe you need worry much."

Within ten minutes he was off on his lonely tramp through two miles of woodland and as many more of little travelled country road, at dead of night, with a madman in handcuffs for sole company.

XIII

OFFSHORE

"You ask me, I think very excellent damn quick cure."

Sum Fat having for the third time since morning anointed with liniment and massaged Whitaker's ankle, tenderly adjusted and laced the makeshift canvas brace, drew a sock over it, and then with infinite care inserted the foot in a high-cut canvas tennis shoe.

He stood up, beaming.

Whitaker extended his leg and cast a critical eye over the heavily bandaged ankle.

"Anyway," he observed, "the effect is arresting. I look like a half Clydesdale."

Sum Fat's eyes clouded, then again gleamed with benevolent interest. "You take it easy one day or two--no walk much--just loaf--no go see pretty ladies--"

"Go 'way, you heathen--go clean your teeth!" cried Whitaker, indignantly.

"--and I think be all well and sound," concluded Sum Fat.

He waddled away, chuckling.

Waiting till he was well out of sight, Whitaker got up, and with the aid of a cane made a number of tentative experiments in the gentle art of short-distance pedestrianism. The results were highly satisfactory: he felt little or no pain, thanks to Sum Fat's ice-packs and assiduous attentions in general; and was hampered in free movement solely by the stiff brace and high-laced shoe.

On the other hand, he felt that the advice to which he had just listened was sound; it would be unwise to attempt a neighbourly call within at least another twenty-four hours.

He resumed his chair on the veranda, and sighed. It was late afternoon, and he was lonely. After the interest and excitement of the preceding day and night, to-day seemed very dull and uneventful; it had been, in truth, nothing less than stupid--a mere routine of meals and pipes interrupted by no communication from the outer world more blood-stirring than the daily calls of the village grocer and butcher. Ember had not telephoned, as Whitaker had hoped he would; and the chatelaine of the neighbouring cottage had not manifested any interest whatever in the well-being of the damaged amateur squire of dames.

Whitaker felt himself neglected and abused. He inclined to sulks. The loveliness of a day of unbroken calm offered him no consolation. Solitude in a lonely lodge is all very well, if one cares for that sort of thing; but it takes two properly to appreciate the beauties of the wilderness.

The trouble with him was (he began to realize) that he had lived too long a hermit. For six years he had been practically isolated and cut off from the better half of existence; femininity had formed no factor in his cosmos. Even since his return to America his associations had been almost exclusively confined to the wives and daughters of old friends, the former favouring him only with a calm maternal patronage, the daughters obviously regarding him as a sort of human curio old enough to be entitled to a certain amount of respectful consideration, but not to be taken seriously--"like a mummy," Whitaker told himself, not without sympathy for the view-point of the younger generation.

But now, of a sudden, he had been granted a flash of insight into the true significance of companionship between a man and a woman who had something in common aside from community in their generation. Not two hours altogether of such intercourse had been his, but it had been enough to infuse all his consciousness with a vague but irking discontent. He wanted more, and wanted it ardently; and what Whitaker desired he generally set himself to gain with a single-hearted earnestness of purpose calculated to compass the end in view with the least possible waste of time.

In this instance, however, he was handicapped to exasperation by that confounded ankle!

Besides, he couldn't in decency pursue the woman; she was entitled to a certain amount of privacy, of freedom from his attentions.

Furthermore, he had no right as yet to offer her attentions. It seemed necessary frequently to remind himself of that fact, in spite of the vile humour such reminders as a rule aroused.

He passed into one such now, scowling darkly in the face of an exquisite, flawless day.

One thing was settled, he assured himself: as soon as he was able to get about with comfort, he would lose no time in hunting up his wife's attorneys and finding out why they were slow about prosecuting her case. Failing satisfaction in that quarter--well, he would find some way to make things move. It wasn't fair to him to keep him bound to the vows of a farcical union. He was not prepared to submit to such injustice. He would, if needs must, hire detectives to find him his wife, that he might see and in person urge upon her his equal right to release from an unnatural bondage!

He had lashed himself into a very respectable transport of resentful rage before he realized what way his thoughts were leading him; but he calmed down as quickly when, chancing to lift his eyes from their absorbed study of the planks composing the veranda floor, he discovered a motor-boat drawing in toward the landing-stage.