"Do you realize what it will mean if they get to Theodore? He is the only barrier between me and--and them. While he lives and while they stick to this dreadful sequence, I can have some faint hope of peace for myself. But if Theodore should die, then they would be upon me with their poison, their electric wires, their choking mist, their ghastly little messages of death."
Melicent never felt more clearly than she did at that moment what it was to be in Miss Cornwall's place with death moving irrevocably and yet mysteriously always closer to her. She was about to speak a few words to try to calm the old lady, when Donald said abruptly, "I think now we should get the police."
Melicent was astonished at the tone in which Hannah Cornwall answered.
"Never!"
"But, Aunt Hannah--we have lots to go on now--three messages--three deaths--"
"Never!" She was standing. "I would rather run any risk, I would rather die myself than to have to take the prying world into the troubles of my family. If one of us is a, traitor to the others, we--those of us who are left when we find out--we will know; but the world, never! Perhaps I never loved my family as other people love theirs, but no one can ever question my loyalty to them; it is unswerving. We will do what we can. We know little about the circumstances surrounding these deaths. Perhaps, after all, they were accidental--"
"You know that is not true," Donald said calmly.
"Very well, but if the Cornwalls are doomed, then they shall die without public scandal, without seeing their names dragged through the mire of notoriety, without their fates being made a matter of amusement."
Melicent was not given time to consider what Miss Cornwall said. It was not the first occasion at which the old lady had railed against public protection or public investigation. Her words always had rung with deadly conviction and yet, for a fleeting instant, Melicent wondered if they were wholly sincere. The possibility that Hannah Cornwall was involved with the plot against her brothers and sisters had occurred to Melicent in the past; and now there was added the inexplicable fact that when the death mist fell upon the Domrey River valley, Hannah Cornwall already had escaped. If any of the brothers and sisters were traitor to the others, could it be she? If not, did she have, of herself, knowledge which she might be keeping to herself and which dictated this policy of secrecy? Melicent's brain whirled. Her nerves grew as taut as piano wires, and she was still so weak from her sickness that she had little energy on which to draw.
Donald lit a cigarette. "What are we going to do then?"
Miss Cornwall answered after a pause. "There is only one thing to do. We must go back to America. We must go to Theodore. My brother Theodore has been the most careful of all of us in the matter of his own life. He lives in his apartment in New York surrounded by servants whom he trusts. His life itself has been exemplary--although he has crowded it with superstition. He's a vegetarian. A half-dozen doctors call on him every week. I think Father's fortune has been more of an incentive to him to live than it has to any of the others. We must go to him and explain all that has happened. He must never get the death message. He must never die. Before any attempt can be made on him, we must be at his side and he must be forewarned."
Donald nodded slowly. "After all, Aunt Hannah, we have no guarantee that whoever is doing this will stick to the T--H order."
"Except that so far they have adhered to it."
The red-headed young man looked at Melicent. "What do you think?"
"Do you want me to tell you honestly?"
"Of course."
"I think we ought to get the police."
"No!" Hannah Cornwall's eyes blazed. "Not now and never! Not if Theodore dies.
Not if I find myself with death upon me, and not afterward. I have seen our names across the daily papers and sickened at the sight so often that never again will the name of Cornwall be scornfully mentioned. Never again will an impudent, stupid, public employee enter my house. That's final."
Donald crossed the room to his aunt's side and patted her shoulder. "I think I understand, Aunt Hannah, and I will do what I can to keep any such trespass from taking place. We will go to America right after the funeral."
"Right after," Miss Cornwall repeated dully.
There was a long silence. Donald recovered from his aunt the message which he had brought and he reexamined it. Melicent reached for it when he returned it and in her turn looked at it for a long time. The words burned into her brain. There was no sense in them, no relation between them. She thought of the other messages:
"Doubtless Even A Tulip Hopes," "Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes," as she looked at the words before her eyes, "Days Ended, Arrested, Time Hesitates." Would there be another such message in Theodore Cornwall's hands? Still another in Hannah's? A message to send them quivering, perhaps shrieking, toward destruction?
Hannah Cornwall broke the silence by speaking in a tone that intimated she wished to say no more about the messages at that time. "Lydia's coming for the funeral."
"Your other sister," Melicent said.
"I've told you about her," Donald observed to Melicent. "Aunt Lydia is the one who married Grand Duke Strang. She lives in Egypt now because they have been exiled.
She doesn't see much of the Grand Duke. He is an old man but he's still trying to bring back the return of the monarchy to Bortvia."
"I remember," Melicent said. "She's coming here?"
"Day after to-morrow."
That ended the discussion. Miss Cornwall repossessed herself of the message and put it in her handbag. A nurse knocked on the door and informed Donald that he was wanted downstairs.
He left the room. Hannah let him out the door and after she secured it again, she said to Melicent. "I am returning to the home which was my sister's. I am assured there is now no danger there. But who knows? Who dreamed of what happened last night? But it may be true that there is no more danger for me there than elsewhere. Of course, convention requires my presence there. Will you return there to me, when you are able?"
"Yes," said Melicent. "And I feel able now."
"I am very glad. It seems that recovery from this strange seizure--when recovery occurs--is rapid and complete. I am very glad indeed; you can understand how I depend upon you. I will go now, with Donald; follow when you can."
She left the room and Melicent reflected that the finding of the third message would undoubtedly make her employer more of a recluse than ever. She would spend not only her nights behind locked doors but also her days.
When the nurse returned, Milicent asked for the doctor and, an hour later, she was allowed to dress and depart. She found that arrangements had been made for a car to drive her to the Domrey and before leaving the hospital, she tried to see Lester Wilbur but was told that he was asleep, so she went on.
Arriving at the mansion, she found a wreath on the door, and about the place a lugubrious silence. Miss Cornwall and Mr. Cornwall, she was told, had returned some time before but had been driven to town together on some errands.
Melicent walked to the river. Tall trees grew along its edge and she sat down beneath them. The sky was bright blue. The sun shone, and although it was cold enough so that an overcoat was necessary, it was still pleasant. During the night a fringe of ice had formed along the edges of the river and she tossed stones out on the crust. Some of them slid until they splashed into the water. Others made holes in the ice and fell through.
She was engaged in this idle enterprise when she heard someone approach her. She turned and was surprised to see Granger walking from the direction of the house. He came up to her, sat down on the root, kicked a large stone loose from the partly frozen ground, and shattered a long stretch of the thin ice with it.
"You all right now?" he asked her.
"Yes."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
"I'm glad," he said, with feeling. "God, if that had got you."
She made no comment and he proceeded. "I seemed to startle you just now."
"I gu
ess I thought you were away, driving Miss Cornwall and Mr. Cornwall."
"You call him Donald, don't you?" demanded Granger jealously.
"Sometimes."
"But not to me. I see." He dropped that tack. "No; I didn't drive them to-day. I drove in the night--to get her away before the mist, and him, too. But I didn't drive them to-day. What's going on, up at the house?"
"Nothing; but I really don't know. I hardly went in."
"Who's coming for the funeral; anybody?"
"Yes; the other sister, Lydia."
"I supposed so; but she is coming, is she? They told you?"
"Yes; she arrives day after to-morrow."
He nodded absently, his eyes traveling over her. They took in her smart shoes, her silk-clad legs, her heavy coat and the great fur collar which was turned up around the back of her head and hid half of her amber-colored hair.
"How do you like your job now?" he demanded.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, how do you like it?"
Melicent looked at him with direct eyes. "It's all right."
He laughed at her. "What would have to happen to phase you? Didn't you mind being nearly killed in the fog the other night?"
"I minded it," Melicent answered simply.
"I was crazy when I thought of you in it."
She made no response to that except to throw another stone which skipped over the ice and disappeared in the water.
Granger sighed. "Don't you like me?"
"Of course I like you. You've always been nice to me, polite, friendly; and we're on the same job. Why do you ask me?"
He sat around a little in order to face her. "You don't love me, though?"
"No," she answered as calmly as she could. "I don't. Do you expect me to love you?"
There was an undercurrent beneath what he was saying which she could feel but which she could not comprehend. It was the undercurrent of his words that startled her more than the surprising direction which they had taken. She reflected that she did like Granger and she was not afraid of him. He was the one person in the whole Cornwall ménage about whom she had no cause for ulterior suspicions.
He answered her questions almost lightly and after a pause. "Oh, I don't know exactly why I asked. It's rude, I know, but I couldn't help it. I haven't seen much of you but I think you're a wonderful girl. I am pretty crazy about you."
The last thing on earth for which Melicent was emotionally prepared at that time was love-making, even verbal love-making. She tried to turn aside whatever words he contemplated saying. "If you're trying to make me interested in you--to which I don't object--then for Heaven's sakes be reasonable about the way you do it. Right now I'm still half-sick and Miss Cornwall is nearly crazy and so am I. There's going to be a funeral day after to-morrow and if I ever get to be a human being again, after all I've been through, why perhaps we could become friends. It's mean of me to talk like that but my nerves are just about broken."
"I see. I'm sorry." He looked about and behind him and then continued. "But I had to say it. I can't always stand aside and say nothing and do nothing while he's making the most of the inside track he's got."
"He," said Melicent, becoming excited. "Who?"
"You know who. Mr. Cornwall to me--Don to you. I tell you I can't stand it." He glanced about and behind him again. Evidently he saw no one for he returned to her; but Melicent arose.
He grabbed her hand. "No; wait here."
"Why?"
"I've started; I might as well say it through. I'll not give you up to anybody--
anybody, do you hear? Listen to me!"
She was trying to tear her hand away but he clung to it and pulled her closer. For a moment she fought him but could not get free; on the contrary, he got her within his arms and clasped her close to him and kissed her.
She kept her lips from him but he kissed her face while she struggled. He heard a cry behind her; it was a woman's voice; Miss Cornwall's voice.
They were in sight of the house, and while she struggled, she realized that Miss Cornwall must have returned. Where was Donald, then? Was he with her?
Suddenly Granger let her go and she slipped on a patch of ice and went down to one knee. Granger helped her up, his hands suddenly robbed of their violence. He was very gentle with her and ashamed.
"My God," he whispered. "Now she'll fire me; she'll send me away; and you'll stay--you'll stay."
Melicent at last could look about and she saw Miss Cornwall, but much nearer, Donald. His aunt had shouted but he had run ahead of her. Now, since her struggle with Granger was over, Donald stopped and waited for his aunt. He had no taste, as Melicent well knew, for a scene and now, if it were not for his aunt, he would have gone away; but she came up and drew him on with her. "Granger!" Miss Cornwall accused. "What does this mean?"
He faced her but had nothing to say. "I dispense with your services. You are dismissed from this moment. If you have not apologized to Miss Waring, you may do so; then leave. Pack up your things and come to the house. Your pay will be given you."
Don Cornwall stood breathing rather rapidly but he said not a word; in fact, at this moment, he looked away.
Granger gazed at Miss Cornwall and then at Melicent, to whom he bowed, whispering something she could not hear. He straightened, glanced at Donald and turned on his heel and walked off.
Donald, at the same moment, moved away; and there seemed to Melicent something slightly chivalric in it. With Granger dismissed, he would not stay to make it harder for the man who had been in his aunt's pay.
Melicent's eyes followed Granger's straight figure, and as she stood there with the old lady, the sun seemed less bright and the day colder. The man in whom Mr. Reese had said she could have implicit confidence, if everyone else failed, was being sent away not to return, except for his final pay. And she had liked him.
Miss Cornwall seemed to sense her feeling. "I am sorry, Miss Waring. He might swear never to trouble you again but such a man is not to be trusted. I could never trust him again. I must have complete loyalty to me; and love for one person and loyalty to another are not compatible. There was nothing else to do." Suddenly her sternness broke to anxiety. "But I can count on you, can't I? You won't leave me? You won't go away--or find other interests?" The nervous tension in her voice increased. "You have meant everything to me through this, the most dreadful period of my life. I don't know what I'd have done without you. I'd do anything reasonable to keep you. If you want more money-
-"
"I'm not staying for money, Miss Cornwall."
"I know. I know," Miss Cornwall emitted a tremulous sigh. "You stay out of complete loyalty to me. You are a fine girl, Miss Waring. A splendid girl, and brave.
There isn't much sentiment left in me and I suppose I'm a hard old lady, but as much as I can be of anyone, I am fond of you. I rely on you implicitly."
Melicent said, "Thank you."
That rare instant of human emotion departed as quickly as it had appeared. Miss Cornwall fastened her mind immediately on facts and present problems. "He's gone and that's that. We can get along with some one in his place until we get back to America."
They went to the house together and Miss Cornwall immediately sought her room; Melicent remained downstairs and was at a window when a car drove up to the house and Lester climbed out. He came in the door, nodded to her and helped himself immediately to a drink; at the same time he greeted her. Most of the manner she had first found in him had left him.
"Hello, hello," he said. "They pronounced me cured and told me I could go home."
"How do you feel?"
"I feel terrible." He swallowed his drink. "If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to my aunt about Aunt Lydia." "Your aunt is upstairs in her room." He left her and she sat down by a window that over-looked the slow, cold river and the spot where Granger had given way to his emotions. As she had felt at the time that there was an under-current to his words when he began to speak to her, she felt now that the w
hole episode had a significance and a purpose beyond what it seemed. Deliberately Granger had done what he had; not impulsively. He had feigned impulse.
He had liked her, she knew; and she liked him. She could believe, without over-flattering herself, that he might have fallen in love with her; but the Granger whom she knew would not have lost control of himself as he had, except for some planned reason.
What reason?
She was still puzzling over it when Donald Cornwall entered the room, seeking her. He did not refer in any way to the episode with Granger; nor did she.
Later in the day, she learned that Granger had obtained his pay and was gone; but she did not see him. She was alone now, absolutely alone with the Cornwalls and their mounting fates.
On the second day at noon Lydia Cornwall arrived. Her husband did not accompany her, but with her came her maid and Ahdi Vado, the Hindu mystic, to whom she had been devoted for many years. Hannah Cornwall did not go to meet them. The discovery of the fatal message among Alice's papers had shattered Hannah's last remnant of independence, so that she scarcely dared to leave her room even in broad daylight. It was Donald who went to town and Donald who brought back his Aunt Lydia.
When they arrived Melicent was engrossed in reading a long account of the death mist in the English paper printed in Paris. The account offered several explanations then current for the mist, among them the theory that it was merely a very heavy fog which had affected the respiratory systems of the old and the feeble; or that it was an ordinary fog which had held to earth the gaseous waste products of the factories in the district. She had reached the point which described the effect of the lethal miasma and which recounted the death of Alice Cornwall, when Donald appeared with his aunt.
Lydia Cornwall was brought into the house in a wheelchair with something of a flourish. She was a huge, unhealthy woman, with a puffy face, grotesquely diminutive hands and feet, and a deep, wheezy voice. The Hindu rolled her into the living room.
Melicent had a chance to look at him before any introductions were made. Ahdi Vado was not much over five feet in height. His skin was very dark and his profile aquiline. He had black, intent eyes and coal black hair, of which only the edges were visible because his head was swathed in a bright green turban.
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