by R. R. Ryan
She began to pour out words; the verbal flood fell from her lips like a fall fed by rain. Let him return Faith. Just say where she was. Assure Mary the girl was safe . . .
But her pleadings faltered . . . for he began to draw off his glove . . . The claws glistened in the moonlight. As Mary Queen of Scots must have gazed fascinated upon the instrument of her doom when they led her to the scaffold, so this Mary could not drag her gaze from those shining claws.
And then—he uncovered his fateful eyes. Staring into them, Mary surrendered her will, her identity, as Faith had done . . . and sank to her knees, pulling open her pyjama coat the better for his intention . . .
But, as abruptly as she had succumbed, she recovered, was aware of her supplicatory attitude, of her bared chest and rose, hurriedly buttoning up the undone jacket—as Vin, coming from Govina’s room, stood beside his son, back to Mary . . .
From Govina’s room . . . Then what was that lying in the made-up bed? The corpse-like shell. The . . . How could Vin have come through Govina’s door . . . Unless from somewhere he had procured a ladder and burgled his son’s window? And why should he do that when he’d only to descend a few ordinary, shallow stairs? Besides, when she had looked in Govina’s room, it had been empty and the shutters fast.
It seemed as if her heart were forcing its way out of her breast . . .
And now Vin turned round, was his ordinary self—except that his smile seemed profoundly sweet.
“Did you not understand, Mary, that in trusting yourself to this son of ours you were trusting yourself to the instincts of a beast.”
“I want Faith back,” she said wildly.
“But you’ve gone the wrong way to obtain her. If you sacrifice yourself, you sacrifice her. Sacrifice yourself by all means—but see he does not betray you; and how are you going to make sure of that? Beasts have no sense of honour.”
She looked from father to son . . . Astounding above all else was her discovery that, now Vin had come, the ungoggled, flaming eyes had no power to influence her, had indeed no more than a pale amber glow.
She faced Vin, looking very straight and young in her infinite eagerness.
“Faith must come back. If he harms her, it will punish me beyond my desserts . . . I don’t want to die; I dread dying in his way; but I’d rather die a thousand awful deaths than that Faith should suffer for my idle words, spoken in a fit of fury for which you alone were responsible.”
He stared at her gravely.
“Very well. We will arrange it like that. But nothing can be done to-night. Come.”
Two things astounded Mary: the authoritative nature of Vin’s tone and the instant obedience it commanded in her own mind; the utter lack of protest from Govina, who indeed turned deliberately and vanished into his bedroom.
She followed out the man to whom for years she, if in a very gentle way, had dictated.
“I can’t go back to bed until I am reassured about Faith,” she said urgently, plucking at his silk gown.
He stopped, looked almost unseeingly down at her and opened the door of his own room. She followed him in, but did not close the door. Once more she sat facing him on a wooden chair. Her quick glance round showed her a little stone jar added to the altar’s contents. On it was painted a curious symbol.
“I thought you loved Faith!” she said stormily.
He was some time in answering; then he said:
“I love Faith, but I don’t love you.”
“I did not expect that you did. I don’t ask help for myself; but I do for Faith. If you really love her, won’t you help her?”
“I have not the power to compel our son to release his sister.”
“Then you’re going to let her die?” She sprang up. “I’m a fool to discuss the matter with either of you. Both are mad.” She paused, looked again at Vin and said, “But of course you’re mad. The two of you. I must be mad myself. I’m going to phone to the police station.”
“Mary!”
Against her will she stopped to listen.
“You have been talking very nobly, according to your lights, about saving Faith—even at the cost of your own life.”
“Well?”
“And now you’re purposing to destroy her.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean that you cannot more certainly condemn Faith to death than by phoning the police station. He has her in his power in a way that is beyond police jurisdiction. You yourself have experienced the power of his eyes. If you phoned the station and if they found Faith, they could not restore her mind, nor compel him to restore her mind. He alone, of his own free wish, can do that. And remember, we do not know where he has her hidden. Be quite certain of this, before your routine-loving police had found where she is, she would be dead.”
His quiet reasoning convinced her. She came back to her wooden chair.
“Then what can be done?”
“I thought you had solved that riddle?”
Her cheeks grew ashen. Human to the last beat of her heart, Mary did not wish to die more than any other of her kind; and now there was so much to live for. In one second she saw her whole life in retrospect, saw her possible future and present problem.
“Do you mean, seriously and sensibly, that is the only way?” she asked hoarsely.
“I’m afraid it is.”
There was a tremendous long and tremendously significant silence.
“Can you guarantee that he’ll release Faith, both mentally and physically?”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“ . . . Very well. Make that arrangement.”
She nearly added “And break Faith’s heart. How d’you think she’s going to live without me, whom she adores? And will she love you when she finds that indirectly you are my murderer?” But she choked back the words. Definitely she could not now afford to antagonize Vin.
“I will see our son and tell you to-morrow what arrangements I’ve made. In the meantime, get what rest you can.”
She laughed.
“Does rest matter any more?”
Vin shrugged.
“Even condemned prisoners sleep soundly, I understand.”
He escorted Mary to her room and, with a smile, heard her relock the intervening door.
Then he returned, very slowly, to Govina’s rooms.
CHAPTER VII
As he quietly entered by the passage door, Govina entered from the bedroom. He was without both goggles and fall and his face wore an exceedingly malicious expression.
“Your mother,” Vin said politely, “consents.”
A vivid contortion twisted Govina’s face and his animal jaw smiled in a way that sat grotesquely on such a visage.
“She quite understands?” he asked in his grating voice.
“Oh, fully. She quite understands, too, that you alone can break the control which no doubt you’ve imposed upon your sister.”
The long, lean jaws grunted.
“And she also understands, Mr. Govina, that neither you nor I can betray each other, since we have each too many uncommon resources.”
“If my sister were in this house,” Govina said slowly, “she’d be my prisoner as completely . . .”
“As if confined in a dungeon thousands of miles away.”
“It is not a matter whether or not she consents, it’s whether you consent. We understand that.”
“Quite.”
“And you do?”
“I want Faith.”
“Well?”
“Where is my daughter?”
Govina—so far as his peculiar appearance permitted—indulged a grin.
“In the cellar next door.”
“Oh—indeed! I like your sense of humour. That certainly simplifies matters. I will bring your mother to the house at midnight to-morrow—though, of course, it is to-morrow now. She will be under my protection until Faith is not only released from your thrall, but safely back in her own home. The
n and then only will I deliver my wife into your keeping.”
Govina rose with a curious gesture that said most effectively: “I accept your conditions and the interview is ended.”
At the door Vin turned.
“At twelve precisely, midnight, I shall cross the threshold of next door with my wife. Not less than ten minutes later Faith must be back, normal and safe in this house. Treachery will mean extermination of your immortality.”
Despite his gruesome face and menacing manner, Govina’s terribleness faded to insignificance before that which quite suddenly flamed in Vin’s—to fade at once.
He went out into the passage, leaving a curiously cowed Govina eyeing the door with flaming eyes.
Approaching Mary’s sitting-room, he heard a quiet voice say “Father.”
Looking back, he saw it was Don—and laughed.
How completely he and Mary had forgotten this young man!
“Hello, Don! Just come in?”
“Yes. Anything the matter?”
“No. Why should there be?”
“Oh . . . I don’t know. Only . . . things seem queer lately—since this lodger’s come.”
“There’s nothing of consequence the matter. Your mother and Anne had wind-up about the murder of that old man. You’ve heard of it?” Don nodded. “Well, I’ve been having a look round to reassure her. Good night.”
Don had always been baffled by Vin’s aloof jocularity, and, having experienced nothing but kindly consideration at his hands, found it hard to resent a distinct lack of the sympathy which, however, was, he noticed accorded generously to Faith. He set off disgruntled for his room.
So passed the night.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And, strangely enough, Mary did sleep. The fact astounded her. More, it rather disgusted her. To sleep in such circumstances was not worthy of the dignity of tragedy; nor worthy of her concern for Faith. Nor was it suitable to a woman condemned to die—die a foul and horrible death. Waking to a bright day, she shuddered as memory played its little tricks upon her . . . Sudden nausea troubled her stomach . . . She hid her face in the pillows and shed tears of pity for her suddenly young life . . . Tears for her lost Terry, who could not even say good-bye.
Yet it was with a calm face and air that she descended to preside over a breakfast terribly distasteful to her. Don, she noticed, was present and eyed her curiously. But she avoided his gaze and watched his departure with relief.
Vin, too, rose.
“I shall not be going to business in the circumstances,” he said softly.
“When . . . what . . . have you arranged?”
“I shall take you to our son at midnight . . . your eyes will be bandaged . . .”
“And Faith?”
“Faith will be restored as you wish. You shall see her departure before I leave you with him.”
A sob stuck in her throat.
“Thank you,” she muttered. “I’m going to tell Anne she’s to sleep alone to-night and that I’m returning to bed now . . . Will you see she does not disturb me, the whole day?”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
“I want to write to Faith . . . Don and . . . Terry. My will—you’ll find it in the little desk in my sitting-room.”
“Very well.”
Her mouth opened and shut several times as if she wanted to ask his help . . . But she said nothing and went quietly out.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“God knows what’s coming to this house!” Anne told the kitchen dresser during the morning. “I’m not to sleep with her ladyship to-night, if you please,” she confided to the kettle. “No food! Did you ever hear the like . . . And her door locked . . . Thinks I can’t hear her crying,” she added mopping her own streaming eyes. “Me who’s been her friend . . . not just her servant . . . And that man wandering about the house all day like a lost dog. And he wants no dinner, neither, mind you!” She turned away, with an angry glance at her own untasted dinner on the kitchen table.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At fifteen minutes to twelve that night the house seemed composed in perfect order. Don slept unsuspiciously and heavily. Anne, in her strange bed, found complete and unexpected rest. Mr. Govina had gone out late and not returned. Mary, her door still locked, was quiet in her room. Only Vin was up and about, wandering, as Anne had said, like a lost dog, into this room, into that. His face might have been carved from flint. Thus it had been all day, except for a short while when he had gone out for not more than twenty minutes.
But as the silver-voiced clock in Mary’s hall, by striking a quarter to twelve, midnight, told him the hour for his nocturnal expedition with Mary was near he became calm in gait as well as in manner; and did a strange thing; for he mounted softly to the door of Mary’s sitting-room and locked it on the outside.
He stood an instant looking at the turned key and smiled. Then with a little gay gesture of farewell turned away . . . with the key in his pocket.
But his face was not gay when he entered his own sitting-room and moved swiftly from it into the bedroom beyond.
Here he crossed to the little black altar and laid his hand gently on the small stone jar that had attracted Mary’s notice. For a while he stood silent; but presently, raising his head, looked at the wall, as if seeing through it into the past, maybe into the future.
Suddenly he turned away from the little altar, moved to his mirror and gazed at his reflection inscrutably; first full face, then profile. Satisfied, he returned to the altar and took the small stone jar in his hands, murmuring several curious words.
He opened the jar, but this was a complicated task that involved twisting the top this way and that. When it was open, he laughed and stared at the contents, which, presently, he drank. A voltaic shock all but lifted him from the floor and for a while he was in the grip of an extraordinary spasm.
It ceased . . . Border crossed again to his mirror, staring in.
He saw nothing—but the reflected room in which was no human being.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Without his goggles and fall, Govina, as if Vin’s abandoned restlessness had fallen upon him, paced the hall of Terry’s house. His eyes gleamed. His mouth hung open. The long, thin tongue lolled out. His loping gait seemed more than usually pronounced; for he moved ceaselessly and very fast—to the limits of his run, turning violently and away to the new far end.
On and on.
Suddenly he paused. The wind (west) had carried a sound to his ears. Twelve chimes from the Town Hall clock.
A raucous shrilling far behind him rent the stillness. Someone had rung the back door bell.
He paused. Then ran wolflike. But, the door reached, Govina paused, becoming both rigid and still.
He opened the door.
On the threshold he saw—Vin and Mary, whose eyes were bandaged.
All three stood quite still staring at one another. Then Govina moved from the door, Vin and Mary following.
In the hall, Vin spoke.
“Faith must not see her mother.”
Trembling, Govina nodded. He seemed hungry with impatience.
“I will take your mother upstairs. Come with us.”
All three ascended, Govina leading. Mary, blindfolded, following and Vin coming last.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Presently the two men came down.
“That was the strong room,” Vin explained pleasantly as they descended. “In the old days, Lawyer Cliffe had his office here. You are satisfied that your mother cannot escape?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. You may be sure I can play you no tricks. I’ll come with you to the cellars, too; so you will have your eye on me continuously until the girl leaves. Keep your spell on Faith until we’re back in the hall.”
There was the same uncertain light in the foul cellar. Rats fled at their entry and peeped bright-eyed from various holes.
The girl lay prone, breathing heavily. At a word from Govina she rose, wearing a contented smile, but ignoring Vin as if they two had
never met before.
Another procession of three.
In the hall, Vin said softly:
“Take her near the front door.”
Govina obeyed.
“Now open the door. Thank you . . . Well, my son, release her.”
Govina turned his flaming gaze upon the girl and stared into her vacant eyes.
As suddenly as light, come at the pressing of a switch, her expression changed from its pleased vacancy to alert intelligence. She stared in consternation at Vin; at the averted form of Govina. It was evident she remembered nothing of what had befallen her.
“Do you know where you are, Faith?” Vin asked.
She stared round.
“Next door?” she asked, astounded.
“Yes. Do you know how you came here.”
“No . . . Have I walked in my sleep again?”
“I’m afraid so. You must go home at once. You understand?”
“Yes, Father.”
Vin drew from his pocket a little silver whistle and handed it to Faith.
“Go straight in. Before you close the front door, blow this whistle. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Very well, go.”
“But aren’t you coming?”
“All in good time. We think someone’s got in here and we’re going over the house. Be off with you.”
She gave a puzzled glance at Govina’s back and ran out.
The two men sustained their postures exactly until the sharp-shrill blast reached their ears. Then Vin turned abruptly to his son and said curtly:
“You wait here an instant. Then we’ll go up.”
The other swung round, met his father’s steady gaze and mumbled an uncertain affirmative.
Vin moved swiftly down the small passage leading to the kitchen quarters; but had hardly been gone a minute before he came back.
“Now, my son,” he said smoothly, “we’ll go up.” As they began to mount he said: “This, then, is the first time you’ve ever seen a combination lock? You can’t work it unless you know the key-word. Our friend, Terry, confided it to me long ago, before you were thought of . . . Well, here we are.”
