“We’ll both go,” Carmody declared. “My car can do eighty miles an hour. Oh, where are those keys?”
He fumbled frantically in his pockets, and at length he pulled out a key container. Hurriedly, Harrington took it from him.
“You stay here, Carmody. There’s nothing you can do. I’ll go it alone.”
He pushed the fear-stricken man into a chair, but Carmody sprang up again.
“I—I must go!” he stammered. “Can’t you see? She is my—my daughter.”
“Your—“ Harrington stared at him in utter astonishment. His brain made a few swift revolutions, and then he shoved the older man back into the chair. He saw it was necessary to be brutal now. “No, you stay here, Carmody. You would be worse than useless. You want me to bring her back alive, don’t you? Well, then don’t interfere.”
He sprang quickly from the room and out into the open. The drizzle had ceased; the sky had turned from black to gray. Across the lawn, behind a fringe of trees, he saw a squatty building which he thought must be the garage. He rushed over and tried the keys in the lock.
An undersized figure slunk out of the dusk and approached.
“In a hurry, eh? Know where you’re going?”
The first key failed to work. Harrington tried another. He cast a look of loathing on the ubiquitous blackmailer.
“Get away, you rat!”
Tarkin giggled. The second key turned in the lock, and Harrington slid the immense door open.
“There are three roads leading away from hoe,” the blackmailer explained. “Suppose you took the wrong one? Not so good, eh?”
Harrington wanted to kick him, but a sudden thought restrained him. He grabbed the man by the collar.
“Did you see which way that car went?”
“Well, I’ve got eyes, and sometimes it pays me to use them.”
Harrington dragged him inside the car, lifted him squealing from the floor, and flung him into the front seat, to the right of the driver’s place. Then he jumped inside and started the engine. It was only about a hundred feet to where the private driveway emerged into the crossways. He scanned the landscape in all directions, but there was no sign of another car.
“Which way, Tarkin?” he asked sharply.
“Well, I’m not so sure now. It was a kind of dark and—”
“You could see the head lights.”
“Well, maybe. How much—”
“Not a cent.” Applying the emergency brake, Harrington turned to him threateningly. “Will you tell, or will you take the beating oi your life? Decide quickly.”
Tarkin saw something in the dark, determined face that frightened him.
“Straight ahead,” he said sullenly.
For a moment Harrington searched his unwholesome face, and then the car plunged forward with a suddenness that flung Tarkin back against the cushion. Harder and harder Harrington bore down on the accelerator. There was a roar of wind in his ears. The landscape, hazy and unreal in the gray dawn, flew past the windows in blurred zigzagging lines.
“Better go easy,” Tarkin advised. “We turn soon.”
Harrington flung him a sharp suspicious glance. How could Tarkin know? Through the windshield he looked out into the gray morning dusk. His eyes narrowed. The landscape looked vaguely familiar.
He was rushing down a hill now, and he released the accelerator and gently applied the foot brake. He remembered the locality now. At the bottom of the hill, he knew, was a narrow and rutty road swerving off to the left and climbing up the hill to the old abandoned hotel.
“That’s right,” said Tarkin as he swung sharply into the hilltop road. “You seem to know. Why did you want me along?”
Harrington sent the car rushing up the hill. Familiar sensations thronged his mind. It seemed as if he would only have to look into the mirror to see Marsh sitting back there in the dusk, a wicked and crafty smile wreathing his broad face.
The hill grew steeper, the engine began to labor, and he shifted into second. Tarkin sat sullenly beside him, only grunting now and then. Soon, in the gray light of advancing day, he caught a glimpse of the old hotel. At the first opportunity he swung off the road and drove the car into a small clearing sheltered by surrounding trees. He shut off the engine and cast a doubtful look on the blackmailer. What should he do with Tarkin?
“Better hurry,” said the blackmailer surlily, easing himself deeper into the cushions. “If you don’t, there’ll be a murder. Not so good, eh?”
A trace of perplexity crept into Harrington’s searching gaze. There was something curious about Tarkin. With a shrug he removed the ignition key and put it in his pocket, then hurried away. It was necessary to move cautiously now, for someone might see him from the windows of the old hotel, and that would jeopardize his mission.
Visions of the white face and soft voice of Roscoe Carstairs pursued him as he darted in and out among the trees and bushes alongside the road. The fear-stricken countenance of Carmody haunted him, too. Theresa’s father! He wondered to what extent the relationship explained her entanglement in the affair. And then, as he came out in the open, he slapped his hip pocket to make certain that the pistol was there. He might need it soon.
Now the grounds of the old hotel stretched before him. There was only a thin sprinkling of trees, and while running from one to another he was exposed to the gaze of any chance observer. But he gained the long, sagging piazza without interference, and now he stole quickly to the main door. He turned the knob, held the door open a crack, and listened. In a moment he stepped inside. He was in the lobby of the old hotel, almost denuded of furniture. The lazy morning wind was whistling through cracks in the window-panes. Though it was fairly light outside, it was still dusk within. His eyes fixed on the stairway and the door under it. It was behind that door he had lain hidden while he witnessed the stormy scene between Theresa and the dark and dapper Harry Stoddard.
Where was Theresa now? Her father had seemed to fear that she had been dragged off to some horrible fate. Doubtless Carmody had ample reason for his apprehensions. With a recurring vision of a white and evilly smiling face, Harrington looked up the stairway. It was quiet up there. As far as eyes and ears could tell, he was alone in the house.
He started up, silently cursing the steps that creaked under his weight. At the upper landing, a long, dim corridor stretched out before him, with doors on each side. All his senses on the alert, he walked to the end of it, then turned back and ascended another flight. The third floor was as silent and lifeless as the one below. He dipped into a few of the rooms, all stripped of furniture and most of them having broken windows and crumbling plaster. There was no sign that any one had set foot within them since the old hotel was in its heyday.
There remained only the attic now. He had received several inklings of curious things going on up there. He ascended the last flight of stairs, and at first it seemed as if the place had been abandoned to spiders and mice, to dust and decay. Then, as he advanced a few steps, he experienced a feeling that had been absent when he roamed the lower parts—a sense of human occupancy. The air was less stale, the chill and the dampness less penetrating. Something told him that, not so long ago, human feet had moved over these dusty spaces.
The feeling made his nerves tingle. Someone might be lurking in the heavy shadows that lay on all sides, scarcely disturbed by the meager light falling through two grimy windows in the ceiling. It was possible, too, that somewhere up here he would find Theresa Lanyard.
The thought quickened his pulses and brought sharply conflicting emotions. He recalled Carmody’s ashen, fear-stricken face and the grim apprehensions he had voiced. What if he were too late? He put the nerve-shaking thought from him and hurried on. Now, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dusk, he saw a partition at the farther end of the attic. It ran the whole width of the house and was bisected by a corridor. Possibly this part had once been the servants’ quarters.
He walked toward it, cautiously drawing his pistol as he did so. With
a sharp sensation of danger he stepped softly into the corridor. There were two doors on each side, and he stopped before the nearest. Very gently he turned the knob in his hand and pushed the door open. The hinges gave a slight, warning squeak, and then a voice spoke—a softly purring voice that instinctively made him grip the pistol a little harder:
“Ah, you, Harrington. Come right in.”
CHAPTER XIV — Pharaoh’s Coffin
Roscoe Carstairs’ voice! To Harrington’s ears it was both menacing and exhilarating. His quick appraisal of the man in Carmody’s house had told him that an evil and cunning brain was at work behind that astonishingly white face. It would be a duel of wits now—and life and death would be the stakes.
Unlike the other rooms he had seen, this one was furnished. A light fell from a small window in the sloping roof, and directly beneath it Carstairs was sitting at perfect ease in an armchair. Just now, with the misty morning light falling upon it, his face seemed gray rather than white.
Harrington entered, closed the door behind him, and advanced, pistol in hand. Carstairs looked him over coolly. He saw the pistol, and his lips took on the curious smile Harrington had already seen—the smile that lay like a shadow against his skin.
“Sit down, Harrington.” With a slight motion of his white hand he indicated a chair. “By the way, do you always carry firearms when you make calls?”
“It depends,” said Harrington curtly. He walked up close to the man in the chair and held the pistol leveled at Carstairs’ broad chest. “Carstairs, what did you do with Miss Lanyard?”
“Oh,” carelessly, “she is somewhere around the house. Do you wish to see her?”
“I do,” said Harrington, rather taken aback by the casual reply.
“Well, I expect her in here any moment. If you are not in too great a hurry, sit down and wait. She won’t be long.”
Harrington stared at him, bewildered by his calm manner. It seemed impossible this could be the same man who, a short time ago, had abducted Theresa in such roughshod fashion.
“I don’t believe you,” he declared.
“No matter. Miss Lanyard herself will bring the proof of what I say. When you see her, then you will believe me. In the meantime, you might as well be comfortable.”
Harrington’s bewilderment grew. It was either superb acting, or else entire candor. Which of the two? “You are not denying you kidnapped her?”
“Why, no. You saw me, so why should I deny it? Anyway, the word is subject to definition. It would be more correct to say that I rescued her.”
“Oh,” sarcastically, “you call it a rescue. A rescue from what?”
“Death.”
The startling little word fell casually from Carstairs’ lips. Harrington searched his face. It seemed to grow whiter with the brightening of the light falling from the overhead window.
“Look here, Harrington.” Carstairs spoke in a slightly altered tone. “If you came here with the idea of taking Miss Lanyard back to Carmody’s house, you might as well go back now. I don’t know how you stand in this matter, but I’m rather sorry I had to twist your arm so unmercifully. Anyway, as long as I can help it, Miss Lanyard is not going to be exposed to further danger.”
“Danger?” said Harrington lamely. His brain was a whirl of contradictions, and the most astonishing contradiction was Carstairs himself. “The way you acted, I thought you were dragging her off to her death. Her father thought so, too.”
“Her—what?” The soft tone bespoke acute puzzlement.
“Her father—Mr. Carmody.”
Carstairs turned his white face upward and gave him a long stare. The muscles of his mouth twitched.
“Did Martin Carmody tell you that he is Miss Lanyard’s father?”
“Isn’t he?”
Carstairs looked as if he wanted to laugh outright.
“Ask her when she comes in,” he suggested. “In the meantime I don’t hesitate to tell you that I took Miss Lanyard away because I had good reason to believe that Carmody would have murdered her.”
Harrington gaped at him. His brain felt as if it had been turned Inside out. Mechanically he lowered the pistol and sat down.
“But she went voluntarily to Carmody’s house,” he pointed out.
“Voluntarily? Well, perhaps. That’s another word that requires definition. It would be more correct to say that she was enticed there.”
There was no direct connection, but for an instant Harrington’s thoughts went back to Samuel Tarkin.
“But don’t take my word for it,” Carstairs hastened to say. “Let Miss Lanyard tell you all about it. Ask her what she thinks of Martin Carmody as a father.” Again his lips twitched humorously. “Father, indeed! “ he said under his breath.
Harrington regarded him narrowly. His imagination conjured up a vision of the fear-stricken old man he had left a while ago. Had Carmody worked a hoax on him? Or was Carstairs working a hoax on him now? Well, he would reserve judgment for a while.
He looked about him. The room was poorly furnished, and the roof overhead had an ominous sag. Carstairs, with his white face and his shadowy smile, seemed to dominate the scene.
“Live here?” Harrington inquired.
“Oh, no, I just come here occasionally for a change of scenery.”
“It seems several other persons have acquired the same habit.”
Carstairs nodded thoughtfully. “Did you know,” he asked, “that old David Mooreland was the owner of this hotel?”
Harrington started. The question was accompanied by a sharp but furtive glance. In the stress of recent events, he had almost forgotten David Mooreland and his tragic death. Yet it was his determination to find Mooreland’s murderer that had drawn him into all these complications.
“Did you?” Carstairs prompted.
“No,” said Harrington. For a moment, in imagination, he had been poking into the ash heap in Marsh’s cellar.
“But you knew Mooreland?” The other gave him a quick, searching glance as he asked the question.
“Only slightly,” Harrington prevaricated.
“Curious old fellow,” said Carstairs musingly. “He spent a great deal of time here shortly before his—er—disappearance. The hotel had then been closed for some years, and he stayed here all alone except for a trusted servant I suppose you know that?”
“No. It’s news to me.”
Evidently Carstairs was in a communicative mood.
“Some people think he came here to hide,” he went on. “It seems he spent his last years in fear of death. Somehow he had got the idea that one or more persons were after his life. It might have been nothing but a feeble old man’s delusion.”
“Yet it appears his fears were well founded. Somebody murdered him.”
“Oh, you think so? Well, you may be right. Have you any idea who killed him?”
Harrington hesitated. He wished he had not spoken so frankly.
“I see you have,” the other added. “Well, so has Whittaker. And, to be candid with you, so have I.”
Harrington looked up quickly. The smile on Carstairs’ white face seemed even more shadowy than usual.
“Who?” he asked.
“Well, if you ask Whittaker, and if he is frank with you, he will tell you that Martin Carmody is the man.”
“Carmody?” said Harrington thoughtfully. This was an entirely new slant on the Mooreland affair.
“Yes, but no arrest has been made, because Whittaker lacks the necessary evidence. And just now, of course, he is deep in quite another mystery—the Marsh murder. Queer case that, Harrington. Why on earth did you give such an incredible account of it?”
“It was the truth.”
“Was it?” asked Carstairs slowly. “Well, perhaps, but people don’t want the truth when it is hard to accept. Now, nobody is going to believe that, under the circumstances as you stated them, Marsh got into the car without your knowing it It will be supposed that you picked him up somewhere with the deliberate intention o
f murdering him. Then you got flustered and confused and told an impossible cock-and-bull story. That’s what they will think.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Harrington glanced back over his shoulder. “Miss Lanyard—”
“Oh, she will be here directly. Don’t get impatient yet. By the way, are you very anxious to see her?”
“Very,” said Harrington firmly, a little of his original distrust reawakening.
“Was that your only purpose in coming here this morning?”
“Of course. What else would I be doing here?”
“Well, I was wondering—“ Carstairs leaned back in his chair and regarded him with his shadowy smile. His eyes were keen and shrewd. “Are you sure you didn’t come to look for a coffin?”
“A—what?” Harrington stared at him, but there was no sign of jocosity in his broad, white face. “What sort of coffin?”
“Pharaoh’s coffin. A rather small coffin, I should say. Possibly it was intended for a baby Pharaoh.”
Harrington glanced impatiently at the door. He felt certain now that Carstairs, despite his serious expression, was indulging in a grotesque joke.
“No,” he declared, “I’m not interested in coffins as yet.”
“I can see you are not.” A moment longer Carstairs continued his scrutiny. “And I hope it may be a long time—Come in.”
A knock had just sounded on the door. Harrington was about to turn his head to see who was entering, but he caught a most curious expression on Carstairs’ face just then. Mechanically he tightened his hold on the pistol he had been holding all the time.
“Oh, Stoddard,” said Carstairs, addressing the newcomer, “seen Miss Lanyard lately?”
Harrington turned, and in the same instant a dark object described an arc above his head and descended with savage force. The room heaved. The light filtering through the little window in the roof was blotted out. Everything was dark now, but there was laughter in the darkness. Carstairs was laughing.
CHAPTER XV — The Two Voices
With difficulty Harrington turned over on his back. There were sounds in the air—sharp, piercing sounds that transported him from a state of semi-stupor to a complete awakening. Though they seemed to come from a near-by source, they meant absolutely nothing. There was a dull pain in his head that made it impossible for him to comprehend the meaning of things.
The Back-seat Murder Page 10
