Chapter 8

A miscalculation on the part of the marauder alone saved him. The black-jack (or whatever the weapon was) missing his head by the narrowest shave, descended upon his left shoulder with numbing force. Notwithstanding his pain and surprise, Whitaker rallied and grappled, thus escaping a second and possibly more deadly blow.

But his shoulder was almost useless, and the pain of it began to sicken him, while the man in his grip fought like a devil unchained. He found himself wedged back into a corner, brutal fingers digging deep into the flesh round his windpipe. He fought desperately to escape strangulation. Eventually he struggled out of the corner and gave ground through the doorway into his sitting-room.

For some minutes the night in that quiet room, high above the city, was rendered wild and violent with the crashes of overthrown furniture and the thud and thump of struggling bodies. Then by some accident little short of miraculous, Whitaker broke free and plunged across the room in what he imagined to be the direction of a dresser in which he kept a revolver. His foot slipped on the hardwood floor, the ankle twisted, and he fell awkwardly, striking his head against a table-leg with such force that he lay half-stunned. An instant later his assailant emptied five chambers of a revolver into the darkness about him, and then, alarmed by a racket of pounding on the hall door, fled successfully by way of the fire-escape to adjoining roofs and neighbouring back-yards.

By the time Whitaker was able to pull himself together and hobble to the door, a brace of intelligent policemen who had been summoned by the hall-boy were threatening to break it down. Admitted, they took his safety into their care and, simultaneously, the revolver which he incautiously admitted possessing. Later they departed, obviously disgruntled by the unprofessional conduct of the "crook" who had left no "clues," with a warning to the house-holder that he might expect to be summoned to court, as soon as he was able to move, to answer for the crime of keeping a weapon of defence.

Whitaker took to his bed in company with a black temper and the aroma of arnica.

He entertained, the next day, several persons: reporters; a physician; a futile, superfluous, unornamental creature misleadingly designated a plain-clothes man; finally his friend (by now their acquaintance had warmed to real friendship) Ember.

The retired investigator found Whitaker getting into his clothes: a ceremony distinguished by some profanity and numerous grunts.

"Afternoon," he said, taking a chair and surveying the sufferer with slightly masked amusement. "Having a good time?"

"You go to thunder!" said Whitaker in disgust.

"Glad to see you're not hurt much," pursued the other, unabashed.

Whitaker withered him with a glare. "I suppose it's nothing to have a shoulder and arm black-and-blue to the elbow! a bump on the side of my head as big as a hard-boiled egg! a bruised throat and an ankle next door to sprained! Oh, no--I'm not much hurt!"

"You're lucky to be alive," observed Ember, exasperatingly philosophic.

"A lot you know about it!"

"I'm a canny little guesser," Ember admitted modestly.

"Where'd you get your information, then?"

Ember waved a non-committal hand. "I hear things...."

"Oh, yes--you know a lot. I suppose you could lay this thug by the heels in a brace of shakes?"

"Just about," Ember admitted placidly. "I wouldn't mind trying."

"Then why don't you?" Whitaker demanded heatedly.

"I had a notion you wouldn't want me to."

Whitaker stared aggressively. "You mean ... Drummond?"

The answer was a nod.

"I don't believe it."

"You'll at all events do me the credit to recall that I warned you two months ago."

"All the same, I don't believe it was Drummond."

"You haven't missed any property, I believe?"

"No."

"So presumably the fellow had some motive other than a desire to thieve. Besides, if he'd been on the loot he might much more easily have tried one of the lower floors--and more sensibly."

"It would seem so," Whitaker admitted sulkily.

"And that missing switch-button--"

"What do _you_ know about that?"

"My sources of information.... It strikes me that a man who took that much trouble to prevent your turning on the light must have been rather anxious to avoid recognition. I shed the inference for its intrinsic worth, merely."

"Well...." Whitaker temporized.

"And I'd like to know what you mean to do."

"About what?"

"With the understanding that you're content to leave the case of burglary and assault to the mercies of the police: what do you mean to do with yourself?"

"I don't know--hadn't thought."

"Unless you're hell-bent on sticking around here to get your head bashed in--I venture respectfully to suggest that you consign yourself to my competent care."

"Meaning--?"

"I've got a bungalow down on Long Island--a one-horse sort of a bachelor affair--and I'm going to run down there this evening and stay awhile. There's quiet, no society and good swimming. Will you come along and be my guest until you grow tired of it?"

Whitaker looked his prospective host over with a calculating, suspicious eye.

"I ought to be able to take care of myself," he grumbled childishly.

"Granted."

"But I've a great mind to take you up."

"Sensibly spoken. Can you be ready by three? I'll call with the car then, if you can."

"Done with you!" declared Whitaker with a strong sense of relief.

As a matter of fact, he was far less incredulous of Ember's theory than he chose to admit.

X

THE WINDOW

Though they left New York not long after three in the afternoon, twilight was fast ebbing into night when the motor-car--the owner driving, Whitaker invalided to the lonely grandeur of the tonneau--swept up from a long waste of semi-wooded countryside, sparsely populated, bumped over railroad tracks, purred softly at sedate pace through the single street of a drowsy village, and then struck away from the main country road.

Once clear of the village bounds, as if assured of an unobstructed way, Ember gave the motor its head; with a long, keen whine of delight it took the bit between its teeth and flung away like a thoroughbred romping down the home-stretch. Its headlights clove a path through darkness, like a splendid sword; a pale shining ribbon of road seemed to run to the wheels as if eager to be devoured; on either hand woodlands and desolate clearings blurred into dark and rushing walls; the wind buffeted the faces of the travellers like a soft and tender hand, seeking vainly if with all its strength to withstand their impetus: only the wonderful wilderness of stars remained imperturbable.

Whitaker, braced against the jolting, snatched begrudged mouthfuls of air strong of the sea. From time to time he caught fugitive glimpses of what seemed to be water, far in the distances to the right. He had no very definite idea of their whereabouts, having neglected through sheer indifference to question Ember, but he knew that they were drawing minute by minute closer to the Atlantic. And the knowledge was soothing to the unquiet of his soul, who loved the sea. He dreamed vaguely, with yearning, of wave-swept shores and their sonorous silences.

After some time the car slowed to a palpitant pause at a spot where the road was bordered on one hand by a woods, on the other by meadow-lands running down to an arm of a bay, on whose gently undulant surface the flame-tipped finger of a distant lighthouse drew an undulant path of radiance.

Ember jumped out to open a barred gate, then returning swung the car into a clear but narrow woodland road. "Mine own domain," he informed Whitaker with a laugh, as he stopped a second time to go back and close the gate. "Now we're shut of the world, entirely."

The car crawled cautiously on, following a path that, in the searching glare of headlights, showed as two parallel tracks of white set apart by a strip of livid green and walled in by a dense tangle of scrub-oak and pine and second growth. Underbrush rasped and rattled against the guards. Outside the lighted way arose strange sounds audible above even the purring of the motor--vast mysterious whisperings and rustlings: stealthy and murmurous protests against this startling trespass.

Whitaker bent forward, inquiring: "Where are we?"

"Almost there. Patience."

Whitaker sat back again, content to await enlightenment at the pleasure of his host. Really, he didn't much care where they were: the sense of isolation, strong upon his spirit, numbed all his curiosity.

He reckoned idly that they must have threaded a good two miles of woodland, when at length the car emerged upon a clearing and immediately turned aside to the open doorway of a miniature garage.

For the first time in five hours he was aware of the hush of Nature; the motor's song was ended for the night.

The clearing seemed no more than a fair two acres in extent; the forest hemmed it in on three sides; on the fourth lay water. Nor was it an unqualified clearing; a hundred yards distant the lighted windows of a one-story structure shone pleasantly through a scattering plantation of pine.

Linking arms the better to guide his guest, Ember drew him toward the lights.

"Bungalow," he explained, sententious, flourishing his free hand: "hermitage--retreat."

"Paradise," Whitaker summed up, in the same humour.

"Still-water swimming at the front door; surf bathing on the beach across the bay; sailing, if you care for it; fishing, if you don't care what you say; all sorts of civilized loafing and no society except our own."

"No women?"

"Not a petticoat."

"No neighbours?"

"Oh"--Ember motioned to his left as they faced the water--"there's a married establishment over there somewhere, but we don't bother one another. Fellow by the name of Fiske. I understand the place is shut up--Fiske not coming down this year."

"So much the better. I've been wanting just this all summer, without realizing it."

"Welcome, then, to Half-a-loaf Lodge!"

Skirting the edges of the plantation, they had come round to the front of the house. An open door, warm with light, welcomed them. They entered a long and deep living-room with walls of peeled logs and, at one end, a stone fireplace wherein a wood fire blazed heartily. Two score candles in sconces furnished an illumination mellow and benign. At a comfortable distance from the hearth stood a table bright with linen, silver and crystal--covers for two. The rear wall was broken by three doors, in one of which a rotund Chinaman beamed oleaginously. Ember hailed him by the title of Sum Fat, explaining that it wasn't his name, but claiming for it the virtue of exquisite felicity.

"My servant in town, here man-of-all-work; I've had him for years; faithful and indispensable...."

Toward the end of an excellent dinner, Whitaker caught himself nodding and blinking with drowsiness. The fatigue of their long ride, added to the nervous strain and excitement of the previous night, was proving more than he had strength to struggle against. Ember took laughing compassion upon him and led him forthwith to a bedroom furnished with the rigid simplicity of a summer camp. Once abed he lay awake only long enough to recognize, in the pulsating quiet, the restless thunder of surf on the beach across the bay. Then he slept round the clock.

He recovered consciousness to lie luxuriating in the sensation of delicious and complete repose, and to listen lazily to the drum of raindrops on the low roof--too lazy, indeed, to turn his head and consult his watch. Yet he knew it must be late in the morning, for the light was broad, if gray.

The shrill, imperative rattle of a telephone bell roused him more thoroughly. Lifting on his elbow, he eyed his watch, then hastily swung his legs out of bed; for it was nearly ten o'clock.

As he dressed he could hear the voice of Ember in the living-room talking over the telephone. Presently there came a tap at his door, and his host entered.

"Up, eh?" he said cheerfully. "I was afraid I'd have to wake you. You're surely a sincere young sleeper.... I say!" His smile vanished beneath the clouds of an impatient frown. "This is the devil of a note: I've got to leave you."

"What's the trouble?"

"That's what I'm called upon to find out. A friend of mine's in a tight place, and I've got to go and help pull him through. He just called me up--and I can't refuse. D'you mind being left alone for a day or so?"

"Certainly not--only I'm sorry."

"No more than I. But I'll try to get back to-morrow. If I don't, the next day--or as soon as I possibly can. Meanwhile, please consider yourself lord and master here. Sum Fat will take good care of you. Anything you want, just ask him. Now I've got to get into waterproofs: it's raining like all get-out, but I can't wait for a let-up."

By the time Whitaker was ready for breakfast, his host had splashed off to his motor car.

Later, while Sum Fat crooned to himself over the dish-pan in the kitchen, Whitaker explored his quarters; to begin with, not in the least disconsolate to be left alone. The place had for his imagination the zest of novelty and isolation. He rather enjoyed the sensation of complete dissociation from the rest of the world, of freedom to humour his idlest whim without reference to the prejudices of any neighbour.

Within-doors there was every comfort conceivably to be desired by any other than a sybarite; without--viewed from the shelter of a wide veranda--a vague world of sweeping mist and driving rain; pine trees Japanesque against the mist, as if etched in bronze-green on frosted silver; a breadth of rough, hummocky ground sloping down to the water's edge, with a private landing-stage and, farther out, a courtesying cat-boat barely discernible.

The wind, freshening and driving very respectable if miniature rollers against the beach, came in heavy gusts, alternating with periods of steady, strong blowing. At times the shining lances of the rain seemed to drive almost horizontally. Whitaker shivered a little, not unpleasantly, and went indoors.

He poked his head into the kitchen. In that immaculate place, from which every hint of breakfast had disappeared as if by magic, Sum Fat was religiously cleaning his teeth--for the third time that morning, to Whitaker's certain knowledge.

When he had finished, Whitaker put a question:

"Sum Fat, which way does the wind blow--do you know?"

Sum Fat flashed him a dazzling smile.

"East'ly," he said in a cheerful, clucking voice. "I think very fine damn three-day blow."

"At least," said Whitaker, "you're a high-spirited prophet of evil. I thank you."

He selected a book from several shelves stocked with a discriminating taste, and settled himself before the fire.

The day wore out before his patience did, and with every indication of fulfilling the prognosis of Sum Fat; by nightfall the wind had developed into an enthusiastic gale, driving before it sheeted rain and great ragged wastes of mist. Whitaker absolutely enjoyed the sensation of renewed intimacy with the weather, from which his life in New York had of late divorced him so completely. He read, dozed, did full justice to the admirable cuisine of Sum Fat, and between whiles considered the state of his soul, the cycle of the suns, his personal marital entanglement, and the further preservation, intact, of his bruised mortal body.

The ceaseless pattering on the shingled roof reminded him very strongly of that dark hour, long gone, when he had made up his mind to wed a strange woman. He marvelled at that madness with an inexhaustible wonder and with an equally vast, desolate, poignant regret.

He considered faithfully what he had gained by reasserting his identity, and found it an empty thing. He had been happier when a Wilful Missing, unmissed, unmourned. It seemed as if it might be best to go away again, to eliminate Hugh Whitaker from the coil his reappearance had created. Then his wife could gain her freedom--and incidentally free him--and marry as she willed. And Drummond would be free to come to life--with hands unstained, his honour besmirched only in the knowledge of a few who would not tell.

Did he remain, Drummond, he feared, would prove a troublesome problem. Whitaker was, in the light of sober after-thought, more than half convinced that Ember had guessed cunningly at the identity of his assailant. The thing was conceivable, at least, of Drummond: the hedonist and egoist seeking to regain his forfeited world in one murderous cast. And it was hardly conceivable that he would hesitate to make a second attempt whenever opportunity offered. New York, Whitaker saw clearly, was far too small to contain them both while Drummond remained at liberty. By attempting to stay there he would simply invite a second attempt upon his life, merely strengthen Drummond's temptation.

He thought it very curious that he had heard nothing more of the proposed action for divorce. It might be well to communicate again with his wife's attorneys.

He went to bed with a mind unsettled, still curious, speculative, unable to fix upon any definite course of conduct.

And the second day was like unto the first: a day of rain and wind and fog periodically punctuated by black squalls that tore shrieking across the bay with the blind fury of spirits of destruction gone stark, raving mad.

The third day broke full of the spirit of the second; but toward noon the rain ceased, and by mid-afternoon the violence of the wind had moderated perceptibly to a stiffish but failing breeze beneath a breaking cloud-rack. With the disappearance of fog, for the first time since Whitaker's arrival the neighbourhood discovered perspectives. By evening, when the wind went down with the sun, leaving absolute calm, the barrier beach far across the quiet waters of the shallow, landlocked bay shone like a bar of ruddy gold against a horizon of melting mauve.

In the evening, too, a telegram from Ember was transmitted by telephone to the bungalow, advising Whitaker of his host's intention to return by the following night at the latest.

This communication worked with the turn of the weather to effect a change in the temper of Whitaker, who by this time had managed to fret himself to the verge of incontinent departure for Australia _via_ New York. He decided, however, to wait and thank Ember for his hospitality, and thought seriously of consulting him as to the wisest and fairest course to pursue.

None the less, the restlessness and impatience bred of nearly three days of enforced inaction possessed him like a devil. After another of Sum Fat's admirable dinners, his craving for open air and exercise drove him out, despite the failing light, to explore the clearing rather thoroughly, and to some extent the surrounding woodlands. At one time, indeed, he caught sight, through thinning trees, of a summer home somewhat more pretentious than Half-a-loaf Lodge--evidently the property termed by Ember "the Fiske place." But it was then so nearly dark that he didn't pause to investigate an impression that the place was tenanted, contradictory to his host's casual statement; and he was back on the bungalow porch in time to see the moon lift up like a great shield of brass through the haze beyond the barrier beach.

Sounds of splashings and of song drew him down to the water's edge, to find that Sum Fat had rowed out to the anchored cat-boat and, almost as naked as industrious, was bailing it clear of the three days' accumulation of rain-water. He came in, presently, and having performed what was probably at least the eighth cleaning of his teeth since morning, went to bed.

Wearying at length of the lunar spectacle, and quite as weary of the sedulous attentions of a cloud of famished mosquitoes, Whitaker lounged disconsolately indoors to a pipe and a book by candle-light. But the one needed cleaning, and the other was out of tune with his temper, and the flame of the candle excited the amorous interest of a great fluttering fool of a moth until Whitaker blew it out and sat on in darkness, not tired enough to go to bed, too tired to bestir himself and seek distraction from a tormenting train of thought.

A pool of limpid moonlight lay like milk upon the floor beneath a window and held his dreaming gaze while memory marshalled for his delectation a pageant of wasted years, infinitely desolate and dreary in his vision. A life without profit, as he saw it: an existence rendered meaningless by a nameless want--a lack he had not wit to name.... The romance of his life enchanted him, its futility furnished him a vast and profound perplexity. To what end?--this was the haunting burden of his complaint....

How long he sat unstirring, preoccupied with fruitless inquiry, he did not guess. But later he reckoned it could not have been long after ten o'clock when he was disturbed. The sound of a footfall, hushed and stealthy on the veranda, roused him with a start, and almost at the same instant he became aware of a shadow that troubled the pool of moonlight, the foreshortened shadow of a man's head and shoulders. He sat up, tense, rigid with surprise and wonder, and stared at the silhouetted body at pause just outside the window. The fellow was stooping to peer in. Whether he could distinguish Whitaker in the shadows was debatable, but he remained motionless through a long minute, as if fascinated by the undeviating regard returned by Whitaker. Then the latter broke the spell with a hasty movement. Through the feeling of surprised resentment there had filtered a gnawing suspicion that he was acquainted with the pose of that head and the set of those shoulders. Had Drummond hunted him down to this isolate hiding-place? On the thought he leaped up, in two strides slammed out through the door.

"I say!" he cried loudly. But he cried, apparently, to empty air. The man was gone--vanished as strangely and as quietly as he had appeared.

Whitaker shut teeth on an oath and, jumping down from the veranda, cast wildly about the bungalow without uncovering a single sign of the trespasser. In transit from his chair to the door, he had lost sight of the fellow for no more, certainly, than half a second; and yet, in that absurdly scanty space of time, the trespasser had managed to effect an absolute disappearance. No conjuring trick was ever turned more neatly. There one instant, gone the next!--the mystery of it irritated and perplexed more than did the question of identity. It was all very plausible to suspect Drummond--but whither could Drummond have juggled himself in the twinkling of an eyelash? That it was no trick of an idle imagination, Whitaker was prepared to swear: he was positive he had seen what he had seen. And yet.... It was, on the other hand, impossible to say where in the plantation of pines the man might not then be skulking. Whitaker instituted a narrow search, but fruitless.

Eventually pausing and glaring round the clearing in complete bewilderment, he detected or else fancied a slight movement in the shadows on the edge of the encompassing woodland. Instantly, heedless of the risk he ran if the man were indeed Drummond and if Drummond were indeed guilty of the assault now four nights old, Whitaker broke for the spot. It proved to be the entrance to one of the woodland paths, and naturally--whether or no his imagination were in fault--there was nobody waiting there to be caught.

But if any one had been there, he had unquestionably fled along the trail. Whitaker in a rage set himself to follow, sticking to the path partly through instinct, mainly thanks to a spectral twilight manufactured in the forest by moon-beams filtered thin through innumerable leaves and branches. Once or twice he paused to listen, then again plunged on: misled perhaps by the mysterious but inevitable noises of the nocturnal woodland. Before he realized he could have covered half the distance, he emerged abruptly into the clearing of the Fiske place.