The Blind Man's Eyes

  CHAPTER XV

  DONALD AVERY IS MOODY

  Harriet went down the stair into the study; she passed through thestudy into the main part of the house and found Donald and sent him toher father; then she returned to the study. She closed and fastenedthe doors, and after glancing about the room, she removed the books infront of the wall-safe to the right of the door, slid back the movablepanel, opened the safe and took out a bundle of correspondence. Sheclosed safe and panel and put back the books; and carrying thecorrespondence to her father's desk, she began to look over it.

  This correspondence--a considerable bundle of letters held togetherwith wire clips and the two envelopes bound with tape which she had putinto the safe the day before--made up the papers of which her fatherhad spoken to her. These letters represented the contentions ofwillful, powerful and sometimes ruthless and violent men. Ruin of oneman by another--ruin financial, social or moral, or all threetogether--was the intention of the principals concerned in thiscorrespondence; too often, she knew, one man or one group had carriedout a fierce intent upon another; and sometimes, she was aware, thesebitter feuds had carried certain of her father's clients further eventhan personal or family ruin: fraud, violence and--twice now--evenmurder were represented by this correspondence; for the papers relatingto the Warden and the Latron murders were here. There were in thisconnection the documents concerning the Warden and the Latronproperties which her father had brought back with him from the Coast;there were letters, now more than five years old, which concerned theGovernment's promised prosecution of Latron; and, lastly, there werethe two envelopes which had just been sent to her father concerning thepresent organization of the Latron properties.

  She glanced through these and the others with them. She had feltalways the horror of this violent and ruthless side of the men withwhom her father dealt; but now she knew that actual appreciation of thecrimes that passed as business had been far from her. And, strangely,she now realized that it was not the attacks on Mr. Warden and herfather--overwhelming with horror as these had been--which were bringingthat appreciation home to her. It was her understanding now that theattack was not meant for her father but for Eaton.

  For when she had believed that some one had meant to murder her father,as Mr. Warden had been murdered, the deed had come within the class ofcrimes comprehensible to her. She was accustomed to recognize that, atcertain times and under special circumstances, her father might be anobstacle to some one who would become desperate enough to attack; butshe had supposed that, if such an attack were delivered, it must bemade by a man roused to hate his victim, and the deed would bepalliated, as far as such a crime could be, by an overwhelming impulseof terror or antipathy at the moment of striking the blow. But she hadnever contemplated a condition in which a man might murder--or attemptto murder--without hate of his victim. Yet now her father had made itclear that this was such a case. Some one on that train inMontana--acting for himself or for another--had found this stranger,Eaton, an obstacle in his way. And merely as removing an obstacle,that man had tried to murder Eaton. And when, instead, he had injuredBasil Santoine, apparently fatally, he had been satisfied so that hisanimus against Eaton had lapsed until the injured man began to recover;and then, when Eaton was out on the open road beside her, thatpitiless, passionless enemy had tried again to kill. She had seen theface of the man who drove the motor down upon Eaton, and it had beenonly calm, determined, businesslike--though the business with which theman had been engaged was murder.

  Though Harriet had never believed that Eaton had been concerned in theattack upon her father, her denial of it had been checked and stilledbecause he would not even defend himself. She had not known what tothink; she had seemed to herself to be waiting with her thoughts inabeyance; until he should be cleared, she had tried not to let herselfthink more about Eaton than was necessary. Now that her father himselfhad cleared Eaton of that suspicion, her feelings had altered from meredisbelief that he had injured her father to recollection that Mr.Warden had spoken of him only as one who himself had been greatlyinjured. Eaton was involved with her father in some way; she refusedto believe he was against her father, but clearly he was not with him.How could he be involved, then, unless the injury he had suffered wassome such act of man against man as these letters and statementsrepresented? She looked carefully through all the contents of theenvelopes, but she could not find anything which helped her.

  She pushed the letters away, then, and sat thinking. Mr. Warden, whoappeared to have known more about Eaton than any one else, had takenEaton's side; it was because he had been going to help Eaton that Mr.Warden had been killed. Would not her father be ready to help Eaton,then, if he knew as much about him as Mr. Warden had known? But Mr.Warden, apparently, had kept what he knew even from his own wife; andEaton was now keeping it from every one--her father included. She feltthat her father had understood and appreciated all this long beforeherself--that it was the reason for his attitude toward Eaton on thetrain and, in part, the cause of his considerate treatment of him allthrough. She sensed for the first time how great her father'sperplexity must be; but she felt, too, how terrible the injustice musthave been that Eaton had suffered, since he himself did not dare totell it even to her father and since, to hide it, other men did notstop short of double murder.

  So, instead of being estranged by Eaton's manner to her father, shefelt an impulse of feeling toward him flooding her, a feeling which shetried to explain to herself as sympathy. But it was not just sympathy;she would not say even to herself what it was.

  She got up suddenly and went to the door and looked into the hall; aservant came to her.

  "Is Mr. Avery still with Mr. Santoine?" she asked.

  "No, Miss Santoine; he has gone out."

  "How long ago?"

  "About ten minutes."

  "Thank you."

  She went back, and bundling the correspondence together as it had beenbefore, she removed the books from a shelf to the left of the door,slid back another panel and revealed the second wall-safe correspondingto the one to the right of the door from which she had taken thepapers. The combination of this second safe was known only to herfather and herself. She put the envelopes into it, closed it, andreplaced the books. Then she went to her father's desk, took from adrawer a long typewritten report of which he had asked her to prepare adigest, and read it through; consciously concentrating, she began herwork. The servant came at one to tell her luncheon was served,but--immersed now--she ordered her luncheon brought to the study. Atthree she heard Avery's motor, and went to the study door and lookedout as he entered the hall.

  "What have you found out, Don?" she inquired.

  "Nothing yet, Harry."

  "You got no trace of them?"

  "No; too many motors pass on that road for the car to be recalledparticularly. I've started what inquiries are possible and arranged tohave the road watched in case they come back this way."

  He went past her and up to her father. She returned to the study andput away her work; she called the stables on the house telephone andordered her saddle-horse; and going to her rooms and changing to herriding-habit, she rode till five. Returning, she dressed for dinner,and going down at seven, she found Eaton, Avery and Blatchford awaitingher.

  The meal was served in the great Jacobean dining room, with wallspaneled to the high ceiling, logs blazing in the big stone fireplace.As they seated themselves, she noted that Avery seemed moody anduncommunicative; something, clearly, had irritated and disturbed him;and as the meal progressed, he vented his irritation upon Eaton byaffronting him more openly by word and look than he had ever donebefore in her presence. She was the more surprised at his doing thisnow, because she knew that Donald must have received from her fatherthe same instructions as had been given herself to learn whatever waspossible of Eaton's former position in life. Eaton, with his customaryself-control, met Avery's offensiveness with an equability which almostdisarmed it. Instinctively she tried to help h
im in this. But now shefound that he met and put aside her assistance in the same way.

  The change in his attitude toward her which she had noted first duringtheir walk that morning had not diminished since his talk with herfather but, plainly, had increased. He was almost openly now includingher among those who opposed him. As that feeling which she calledsympathy had come to her when she realized that what he himself hadsuffered must be the reason for his attitude toward her father, so nowit only came more strongly when she saw him take the same attitudetoward herself; and as she felt it, she found she was feeling more andmore away from Donald Avery. Donald's manner toward Eaton was forcingher to invoice exactly the materials of her companionship with Donald.

  Before Eaton's entrance into her life she had supposed that some time,as a matter of course, she was going to marry Donald. In spite ofthis, she had never thought of herself as apart from her father; whenshe thought of marrying, it had been always with the idea that her dutyto her husband must be secondary to that to her father; she knew nowthat she had accepted Donald Avery not because he had become necessaryto her but because he had seemed essential to her father and hermarrying Donald would permit her life to go on much as it was. Tillrecently, Avery's complaisance, his certainty that it must be only amatter of time before he would win her, had been the mostdefinite--almost the only definable--fault she had found with herfather's confidential agent; now her sense of many other faults in himonly marked the distance she had drawn away from him. If HarrietSantoine could define her own present estimate of Avery, it was that hedid not differ in any essential particular from those men whosecorrespondence had so horrified her that afternoon.

  Donald had social position and a certain amount of wealth and power;now suddenly she was feeling that he had nothing but those things, thathis own unconscious admission was that to be worth while he must havethem, that to retain and increase them was his only object in life.She had the feeling that these were the only things he would fight for;but that for these he would fight--fairly, perhaps, if he could--but,if he must, unfairly, despicably.

  She had finished dinner, but she hesitated to rise and leave the menalone; after-dinner cigars and the fiction of a masculine conversationabout the table were insisted on by Blatchford. As she delayed,looking across the table at Eaton, his eyes met hers; reassured, sherose at once; the three rose with her and stood while she went out.She went upstairs and looked in upon her father; he wanted nothing, andafter a conversation with him as short as she could make it, she camedown again. No further disagreement between the two men, apparently,had happened after she left the table. Avery now was not visible.Eaton and Blatchford were in the music-room; as she went to them, shesaw that Eaton had some sheets of music in his hand. So now, with arepugnance against her father's orders which she had never felt before,she began to carry out the instructions her father had given her.

  "You play, Mr. Eaton?" she asked.

  "I'm afraid not," he smiled.

  "Really don't you?"

  "Only drum a little sometimes, Miss Santoine. Won't you play? Pleasedo."

  She saw that they were songs which he had been examining. "Oh, yousing!"

  He could not effectively deny it. She sat down at her piano and ranover the songs and selections from the new opera. He followed her withthe delight of a music-lover long away from an instrument. He sangwith her a couple of the songs; he had a good, unassuming tone. And asshe went through the music, she noticed that he was familiar withalmost everything she had liked which had been written or was currentup to five years before; all later music was strange to him. To thisextent he had been of her world, plainly, up to five years before; thenhe had gone out of it.

  She realized this only as something which she was to report to herfather; yet she felt a keener, more personal interest in it than that.Harriet Santoine knew enough of the world to know that few men breakcompletely all social connections without some link of either fact ormemory still holding them, and that this link most often is a woman.So now, instinctively, she found, she was selecting among the music onthe racks arias of lost, disappointed or unhappy love. But she sawthat Eaton's interest in these songs appeared no different from hisinterest in others; it was, so far as she could tell, for their musiche cared for them--not because they recalled to him any personalrecollection. So far as her music could assure her, then, therewas--and had been--no woman in Eaton's life whose memory made poignanthis break with his world.

  Presently she desisted and turned to other sorts of music. Toward teno'clock, after she had stopped playing, he excused himself and went tohis rooms. She sat for a time, idly talking with Blatchford; then, asa servant passed through the hall and she mistook momentarily hisfootsteps for those of Avery, she got up suddenly and went upstairs.It was only after reaching her own rooms that she appreciated that themeaning of this action was that she shrank from seeing Avery again thatnight. But she had been in her rooms only a few minutes when her housetelephone buzzed, and answering it, she found that it was Donaldspeaking to her.

  "Will you come down for a few minutes, please, Harry?"

  She withheld her answer momentarily. Before Eaton had come into herlife, Donald sometimes had called her like this,--especially on thosenights when he had worked late with her father,--and she had gone downto visit with him for a few minutes as an ending for the day. She hadnever allowed these meetings to pass beyond mere companionship; butto-night she thought of that companionship without pleasure.

  "Please, Harry!" he repeated.

  Some strangeness in his tone perplexed her.

  "Where are you?" she asked.

  "In the study."

  She went down at once. As he came to the study door to meet her, shesaw that what had perplexed her in his tone was apparently only theremnant of that irritation he had showed at dinner. He took her handand drew her into the study. The lights in the room turned full on andthe opaque curtains drawn closely over the windows told that he hadbeen working,--or that he wished to appear to have been working,--andpapers scattered on one of the desks, and the wall safe to the right ofthe door standing open, confirmed this. But now he led her to the bigchair, and guided her as she seated herself; then he lounged on theflat-topped desk in front of and close to her and bending over her.

  "You don't mind my calling you down, Harry; it is so long since we hadeven a few minutes alone together," he pleaded.

  "What is it you want, Don?" she asked.

  "Only to see you, dea--Harry." He took her hand again; she resistedand withdrew it. "I can't do any more work to-night, Harry. I findthe correspondence I expected to go over this evening isn't here; yourfather has it, I suppose."

  "No; I have it, Don."

  "You?"

  "Yes; Father didn't want you bothered by that work just now. Didn't hetell you?"

  "He told me that, of course, Harry, and that he had asked you torelieve me as much as you could; he didn't say he had told you to takecharge of the papers. Did he do that?"

  "I thought that was implied. If you need them, I'll get them for you,Don. Do you want them?"

  She got up and went toward the safe where she had put them; suddenlyshe stopped. What it was that she had felt under his tone and manner,she could not tell; it was probably only irritation at having importantwork taken out of his hands. But whatever it was, he was not openlyexpressing it--he was even being careful that it should not beexpressed. And now suddenly, as he followed and came close behind herand her mind went swiftly to her father lying helpless upstairs, andher father's trust in her, she halted.

  "We must ask Father first," she said.

  "Ask him!" he ejaculated. "Why?"

  She faced him uncertainly, not answering.

  "That's rather ridiculous, Harry, especially as it is too late to askhim to-night." His voice was suddenly rough in his irritation. "Ihave had charge of those very things for years; they concern thematters in which your father particularly confides in me. It isimpossible that
he meant you to take them out of my hands like this.He must have meant only that you were to give me what help you couldwith them!"

  She could not refute what he said; still, she hesitated.

  "When did you find out those matters weren't in your safe, Don?" sheasked.

  "Just now."

  "Didn't you find out this afternoon--before dinner?"

  "That's what I said--just now this afternoon, when I came back to thehouse before dinner, as you say." Suddenly he seized both her hands,drawing her to him and holding her in front of him. "Harry, don't yousee that you are putting me in a false position--wronging me? You areacting as though you did not trust me!"

  She drew away her hands. "I do trust you, Don; at least I have noreason to distrust you. I only say we must ask Father."

  "They're in your little safe?"

  She nodded. "Yes."

  "And you'll not give them to me?"

  "No."

  He stared angrily; then he shrugged and laughed and went back to hisdesk and began gathering up his scattered papers. She stoodindecisively watching him. Suddenly he looked up, and she saw that hehad quite conquered his irritation, or at least had concealed it; hisconcern now seemed to be only over his relations with herself.

  "We've not quarreled, Harry?" he asked.

  "Quarreled? Not at all, Don," she replied.

  She moved toward the door; he followed and let her out, and she wentback to her own rooms.