CHAPTER XX
WAITING
Harriet went into the house and toward her own rooms; a maid met andstopped her on the stairs.
"Mr. Santoine sent word that he wishes to see you as soon as you camein, Miss Santoine."
Harriet went on toward her father's room, without stopping at herown--wet with the drive through the damp night and shivering now withits chill. Her father's voice answered her knock with a summons tocome in. As she obeyed, pushing the doors open, he dismissed thenurse; the girl, passing Harriet as she went out, returned Harriet'squestioning look with a reassuring nod; Basil Santoine had endured theshock and excitement of the night better than could have been expected;he was quite himself.
As Harriet went toward the bed, her father's blind eyes turned towardher; he put out his hand and touched her, seeming startled to find herstill in the robe she had worn an hour before and to feel that the robewas wet.
"Where have you been, Daughter?" he asked.
She hesitated, drawing the robe out of his hand. "I--I have beendriving Mr. Eaton in a motor," she said.
"Helping him to escape?" A spasm crossed the blind man's face.
"He said not; he--he was following the men who shot Cousin Wallace."
The blind man lay for an instant still. "Tell me," he commandedfinally.
She told him, beginning with her discovery of Eaton in the garage andending with his leaving her and with Donald Avery's finding her in themotor; and now she held back one word only--his name which he had toldher, Hugh. Her father listened intently; when she had finished, hemade no move, no comment, no reproach. She had seated herself on thechair beside his bed; she looked away, then back to him.
"That is not all," she said; and she told him of her expedition withEaton to the ravine before the attack in the house.
Again she waited.
"You and Mr. Eaton appear to have become rather well acquainted,Harriet," he said. "Has he told you nothing about himself which youhave not told me? You have seen nothing concerning him, which you havenot told?"
Her mind went quickly back to the polo game; she felt a flush, whichhis blind eyes could not see, dyeing her cheeks and forehead.
"No," she answered. She was aware that he did not accept the denial,that he knew she was concealing something.
"Nothing?" he asked again.
She put her hands to her face; then she drew them quickly away."Nothing," she said steadily.
The blind man waited for a moment; he put out his hand and pressed thebell which called the steward. Neither spoke until the steward hadcome.
"Fairley," Santoine said then, quietly, "Miss Santoine and I have justagreed that for the present all reports regarding the pursuit of themen who entered the study last night are to be made direct to me, notthrough Miss Santoine or Mr. Avery."
"Very well, sir."
She still sat silent after the steward had gone; she thought for aninstant her father had forgotten her presence; then he moved slightly.
"That is all, dear," he said quietly.
She got up and left him, and went to her own rooms; she did not pretendto herself that she could rest. She bathed and dressed and wentdownstairs. The library had windows facing to the west; she went inthere and stood looking out. Somewhere to the west was Eaton, alone,wounded; she knew she need not think of him yet as actively hunted,only watched; with daylight the hunt would begin. Would he be able toavoid the watchers and escape before the actual hunt for him began?
She went out into the hall to the telephone. She could not get the useof the 'phone at once; the steward was posted there; the calls upon the'phone were continual--from neighbors who, awakened to learn the newsof Blatchford's death and the hunt for his murderer, called to offerwhat help they could, and from the newspapers, which somehow had beennotified. The telephones in the bedrooms all were on this wire. Therewas a private telephone in the library; somehow she could not bringherself to enter that room, closed and to be left with everything inits disorder until the arrival of the police. The only other telephonewas in her father's bedroom.
She took advantage of a momentary interruption in the calls to call upthe local police station. Hearing her name, the man at the other endbecame deferential at once; he told her what was being done, confirmingwhat she already knew; the roads were being watched and men had beenposted at all near-by railway stations and at the stopping points ofthe interurban line to prevent Eaton from escaping that way. The manspoke only of Eaton; he showed the conviction--gathered, she felt sure,by telephone conversation with Donald Avery--that Eaton was themurderer.
"He ain't likely to get away, Miss Santoine," he assured her. "He'sgot no shoes, I understand, and he has one or maybe two shots throughhim."
She shrunk back and nearly dropped the 'phone at the vision which hiswords called up; yet there was nothing new to her in that vision--itwas continually before her eyes; it was the only thing of which shecould think.
"You'll call me as soon as you know anything more," she requested;"will you call me every hour?"
She hung up, on receiving assurance of this.
A servant brought a written paper. She took it before she recognizedthat it was not for her but for the steward. It was a short statementof the obvious physical circumstances of the murder, evidently dictatedby her father and intended for the newspapers. She gave it to Fairley,who began reading it over the telephone to the newspapers. Shewandered again to the west windows. She was not consciously listeningto the telephone conversation in the hall; yet enough reached her tomake her know that reporters were rushing from the city by train andautomobile. The last city editions of the morning papers would have atleast the fact of the murder; there would be later extras; theafternoon papers would have it all. There was a long list of relativesand friends to whom it was due that telegraphic announcement of WallaceBlatchford's death reach them before they read it as a sensationpublicly printed. Recollection of these people at least gave hersomething to do.
She went up to her own room, listed the names and prepared thetelegrams for them; she came down again and gave the telegrams toFairley to transmit by telephone. As she descended the stairs, thegreat clock in the lower hall struck once; it was a quarter past three.
There was a stir in these lower rooms now; the officers of the localpolice had arrived. She went with them to the study, where theyassumed charge nervously and uncertainly. She could not bear to be inthat room; nevertheless she remained and answered their questions. Shetook them to Eaton's rooms on the floor above, where they searchedthrough and took charge of all his things. She left them and came downagain and went out to the front of the house.
The night was sharp with the chill preceding the day; it had cleared;the stars were shining. As she stood looking to the west, the lightsof a motor turned into the grounds. She ran toward it, thinking itmust be bringing word of some sort; but the men who leaped from it werestrangers to her--they were the first of the reporters to arrive. Theytried to question her, but she ran from them into the house. Shewatched from the windows and saw other reporters arriving. To Harrietthere seemed to be scores of them. Every morning paper in Chicago,immediately upon receipt of the first flash, had sent at least threemen; every evening paper seemed to have aroused half its staff fromtheir beds and sent them racing to the blind millionaire's home on thenorth shore. Even men from Milwaukee papers arrived at four o'clock.Forbidden the house, they surrounded it and captured servants. Theytook flashlights till, driven from the lawn, they went away--many ofthem--to see and take part in the search through the woods forBlatchford's murderer. The murder of Santoine's cousin--the man,moreover, who had blinded Santoine--in the presence of the blind manwas enough of itself to furnish a newspaper sensation; but, followingso closely Santoine's visit to the Coast because of the murder ofGabriel Warden, the newspaper men sensed instantly in it thepossibility of some greater sensation not yet bared.
Harriet was again summoned. A man--a stranger--was awaiti
ng her in thehall; he was the precursor of those who would sit that day upon WallaceBlatchford's death and try to determine, formally, whose was the handthat had done it--the coroner's man. He too, she saw, was alreadyconvinced what hand it had been--Eaton's. She took him to the study,then to the room above where Wallace Blatchford lay dead. She stood bywhile he made his brief, conventional examination. She looked down atthe dead man's face. Poor Cousin Wallace! he had destroyed his ownlife long before, when he had destroyed her father's sight; from thattime on he had lived only to recompense her father for his blindness.Cousin Wallace's life had been a pitiable, hopeless, lovingperpetuation of his penance; he had let himself hold nothing of his ownin life; he had died, as she knew he would have wished to die, givinghis life in service to his cousin; she was not unduly grieving over him.
She answered the man's questions, calmly and collectedly; but her mindwas not upon what she was saying. Her mind was upon only onething--even of that she could not think connectedly. Some years ago,something--she did not know what--had happened to Hugh; to-night, insome strange way unknown to her, it had culminated in her father'sstudy. He had fought some one; he had rushed away to follow some one.Whom? Had he heard that some one in the study and gone down? Had hebeen fighting their battle--her father's and hers? She knew that wasnot so. Hugh had been fully dressed. What did it mean that he hadsaid to her that these events would either destroy him or would sendhim back to her as--as something different? Her thought supplied noanswer.
But whatever he had done, whatever he might be, she knew his fate washers now; for she had given herself to him utterly. She had told thatto herself as she fled and pursued with him that night; she had told itto him; she later had told it--though she had not meant to yet--to herfather. She could only pray now that out of the events of this nightmight not come a grief to her too great for her to bear.
She went to the rooms that had been Eaton's. The police, in strippingthem of his possessions, had overlooked his cap; she found the bit ofgray cloth and hugged it to her. She whispered his name toherself--Hugh--that secret of his name which she had kept; she gloriedthat she had that secret with him which she could keep from them all.What wouldn't they give just to share that with her--his name, Hugh!
She started suddenly, looking through the window. The east, above thelake, was beginning to grow gray. The dawn was coming! It wasbeginning to be day!
She hurried to the other side of the house, looking toward the west.How could she have left him, hurt and bleeding and alone in the night!She could not have done that but that his asking her to go had toldthat it was for his safety as well as hers; she could not help him anymore then; she would only have been in the way. But now-- She startedto rush out, but controlled herself; she had to stay in the house; thatwas where the first word would come if they caught him; and then hewould need her, how much more! The reporters on the lawn below her,seeing her at the window, called up to her to know further particularsof what had happened and what the murder meant; she could see themplainly in the increasing light. She could see the lawn and the roadbefore the house.
Day had come.
And with the coming of day, the uncertainty and disorder within andabout the house seemed to increase.... But in the south wing, with itssound-proof doors and its windows closed against the noises from thelawn, there was silence; and in this silence, an exact, compelling,methodic machine was working; the mind of Basil Santoine was striving,vainly as yet, but with growing chances of success, to fit togetherinto the order in which they belonged and make clear the events of thenight and all that had gone before--arranging, ordering, testing,discarding, picking up again and reordering all that had happened sincethat other murder, of Gabriel Warden.