CHAPTER VII
"ISN'T THIS BASIL SANTOINE?"
The surgeon, having finished loosening the pajamas, pulled open andcarefully removed the jacket part, leaving the upper part of the bodyof the man in the berth exposed. Conductor Connery turned to Avery.
"You have no objection to my taking a list of the articles in theberth?"
Avery seemed to oppose; then, apparently, he recognized that this wasan obvious part of the conductor's duty. "None at all," he replied.
Connery gathered up the clothing, the glasses, the watch and purse, andlaid them on the seat across the aisle. Sitting down, then, oppositethem, he examined them and, taking everything from the pockets of theclothes, he began to catalogue them before Avery. In the coat he foundonly the card-case, which he noted without examining its contents, andin the trousers a pocket-knife and bunch of keys. He counted over thegold and banknotes in the purse and entered the amount upon his list.
"You know about what he had with him?" he asked.
"Very closely. That is correct. Nothing is missing," Avery answered.
The conductor opened the watch. "The crystal is missing."
Avery nodded. "Yes; it always--that is, it was missing yesterday."
Connery looked up at him, as though slightly puzzled by the manner ofthe reply; then, having finished his list, he rejoined the surgeon.
Sinclair was still bending over the naked torso. With Eaton's help, hehad turned the body upon its back in order to look at its right side,which before had been hidden. It had been a strong, healthy body;Sinclair guessed its age at fifty. As a boy, the man might have beenan athlete,--a college track-runner or oarsman,--and he had kepthimself in condition through middle age. There was no mark or bruiseupon the body, except that on the right side and just below the ribsthere now showed a scar about an inch and a half long and of peculiarcrescent shape. It was evidently a surgical scar and had completelyhealed.
Sinclair scrutinized this carefully and then looked up to Avery. "Hewas operated on recently?"
"About two years ago."
"For what?"
"It was some operation on the gall-bladder."
"Performed by Kuno Garrt?"
Avery hesitated. "I believe so."
He watched Sinclair more closely as he continued his examination; thesurgeon had glanced quickly at the face on the pillow and seemed aboutto question Avery again; but instead he laid the pajama jacket over thebody and drew up the sheet and blanket. Connery touched the surgeon onthe arm. "What must be done, Doctor? And where and when do you wantto do it?"
Sinclair, however, it appeared, had not yet finished his examination."Will you pull down the window-curtains?" he directed.
As Connery, reaching across the body, complied, the surgeon took amatchbox from his pocket, and glancing about at the three others asthough to select from them the one most likely to be an efficient aid,he handed it to Eaton. "Will you help me, please?"
"What is it you want done?"
"Strike a light and hold it as I direct--then draw it away slowly."
He lifted the partly closed eyelid from one of the eyes of theunconscious man and nodded to Eaton: "Hold the light in front of thepupil."
Eaton obeyed, drawing the light slowly away as Sinclair had directed,and the surgeon dropped the eyelid and exposed the other pupil.
"What's that for?" Avery now asked.
"I was trying to determine the seriousness of the injury to the brain.I was looking to see whether light could cause the pupil to contract."
"Could it?" Connery asked.
"No; there was no reaction."
Avery started to speak, checked himself--and then he said: "There couldbe no reaction, I believe, Dr. Sinclair."
"What do you mean?"
"His optic nerve is destroyed."
"Ah! He was blind?"
"Yes, he was blind," Avery admitted.
"Blind!" Sinclair ejaculated. "Blind, and operated upon within twoyears by Kuno Garrt!" Kuno Garrt operated only upon the all-rich and-powerful or upon the completely powerless and poor; the unconsciousman in the berth could belong only to the first class of Garrt'sclientele. The surgeon's gaze again searched the features in theberth; then it shifted to the men gathered about him in the aisle.
"Who did you say this was?" he demanded of Avery.
"I said his name was Nathan Dorne," Avery evaded.
"No, no!" Sinclair jerked out impatiently. "Isn't this--" Hehesitated, and finished in a voice suddenly lowered: "Isn't this BasilSantoine?"
Avery, if he still wished to do so, found it impossible to deny.
"Basil Santoine!" Connery breathed.
To the conductor alone, among the four men standing by the berth, thename seemed to have come with the sharp shock of a surprise; with ithad come an added sense of responsibility and horror over what hadhappened to the passenger who had been confided to his care, which madehim whiten as he once more repeated the name to himself and stared downat the man in the berth.
Conductor Connery knew Basil Santoine only in the way that Santoine wasknown to great numbers of other people--that is, by name but not bysight. There was, however, a reason why the circumstances ofSantoine's life had remained in the conductor's mind while he forgot orhad not heeded the same sort of facts in regard to men who traveledmuch more often on trans-continental trains. Thus Connery, staringwhitely at the form in the berth, recalled for instance Santoine's age;Santoine was fifty-one.
Basil Santoine at twenty-two had been graduated from Harvard, thoughblind. His connections,--the family was of well-to-do Southernstock,--his possession of enough money for his own support, made itpossible for him to live idly if he wished; but Santoine had not chosento make his blindness an excuse for doing this. He had disregarded toothe thought of foreign travel as being useless for a man who had noeyes; and he had at once settled himself to his chosen profession,which was law. He had not found it easy to get a start in this;lawyers had shown no willingness to take into their offices a blind boyto whom the surroundings were unfamiliar and to whom everything must beread; and he had succeeded only after great effort in getting a placewith a small and unimportant firm. Within a short time, well withintwo years, men had begun to recognize that in this struggling law-firmthere was a powerful, clear, compelling mind. Santoine, a youth livingin darkness, unable to see the men with whom he talked or the documentsand books which must be read to him, was beginning to put the stamp ofhis personality on the firm's affairs. A year later, his name appearedwith others of the firm; at twenty-eight, his was the leading name. Hehad begun to specialize long before that time, in corporation law; hemarried shortly after this. At thirty, the firm name represented tothose who knew its particulars only one personality, the personality ofSantoine; and at thirty-five--though his indifference to money wasproverbial--he was many times a millionaire. But except among thesmall and powerful group of men who had learned to consult him,Santoine himself at that time was utterly unknown.
There are many such men in all countries,--more, perhaps, in Americathan anywhere else,--and in their anonymity they are like minds withoutphysical personality; they advise only, and so they remain out ofpublic view, behind the scenes. Now and then one receives publicityand reward by being sent to the Senate by the powers that move behindthe screen, or being called to the President's cabinet. More often,the public knows little of them until they die and men are astonishedby the size of the fortunes or of the seemingly baseless reputationswhich they leave. So Santoine--consulted continually by men concernedin great projects, immersed day and night in vast affairs, capable ofliving completely as he wished--had been, at the age of forty-six,great but not famous, powerful but not publicly known. At that time anevent had occurred which had forced the blind man out unwillingly fromhis obscurity.
This event had been the murder of the great Western financier MatthewLatron. There had been nothing in this affair which had in any wayshadowed dishonor upon Santoine. So much
as in his role of a mindwithout personality Santoine ever fought, he had fought against Latron;but his fight had been not against the man but against methods. Therehad come then a time of uncertainty and unrest; public consciousnesswas in the process of awakening to the knowledge that strange things,approaching close to the likeness of what men call crime, had beenbeing done under the unassuming name of business. Governmentinvestigation threatened many men, Latron among others; no precedenthad yet been set for what this might mean; no one could foresee theend. Scandal--financial scandal--breathed more strongly against Latronthan perhaps against any of the other Western men. He had been amongtheir biggest; he had his enemies, of whom impersonally Santoine mighthave been counted one, and he had his friends, both in high places; hewas a world figure. Then, all of a sudden, the man had been struckdown--killed, because of some private quarrel, men whispered, by anobscure and till then unheard-of man.
The trembling wires and cables, which should have carried to thewaiting world the expected news of Latron's conviction, carried insteadthe news of Latron's death; and disorder followed. The first publicconcern had been, of course, for the stocks and bonds of the greatLatron properties; and Latron's bigness had seemed only furtherevidenced by the stanchness with which the Latron banks, the Latronrailroads and mines and public utilities stood firm even against theshock of their builder's death. Assured of this, public interest hadshifted to the trial, conviction and sentence of Latron's murderer; andit was during this trial that Santoine's name had become more publiclyknown. Not that the blind man was suspected of any knowledge--muchless of any complicity--in the crime; the murder had been because of apurely private matter; but in the eager questioning into Latron'scircumstances and surroundings previous to the crime, Santoine wassummoned into court as a witness.
The drama of Santoine's examination had been of the sort thepublic--and therefore the newspapers--love. The blind man, led intothe court, sitting sightless in the witness chair, revealing himself byhis spoken, and even more by his withheld, replies as one of theunknown guiders of the destiny of the Continent and as counselor to themost powerful,--himself till then hardly heard of but plainly one ofthe nation's "uncrowned rulers,"--had caught the public sense. Thefate of the murderer, the crime, even Latron himself, lost temporarilytheir interest in the public curiosity over the personality ofSantoine. So, ever since, Santoine had been a man marked out; hisgoings and comings, beside what they might actually reveal ofdisagreements or settlements among the great, were the object ofunfounded and often disturbing guesses and speculations; andparticularly at this time when the circumstances of Warden's death hadproclaimed dissensions among the powerful which they had hastened todeny, it was natural that Santoine's comings and goings should be asinconspicuous as possible.
It had been reported for some days that Santoine had come to Seattledirectly after Warden's death; but when this was admitted, hisassociates had always been careful to add that Santoine, having been aclose personal friend of Gabriel Warden, had come purely in a personalcapacity, and the impression was given that Santoine had returnedquietly some days before. The mere prolonging of his stay in the Westwas more than suggestive that affairs among the powerful were truly insuch state as Warden had proclaimed; this attack upon Santoine, sosimilar to that which had slain Warden, and delivered within elevendays of Warden's death, must be of the gravest significance.
Connery stood overwhelmed for the moment with this fuller recognitionof the seriousness of the disaster which had come upon this manentrusted to his charge; then he turned to the surgeon.
"Can you do anything for him here, Doctor?" he asked.
The surgeon glanced down the car. "That stateroom--is it occupied?"
"It's occupied by his daughter."
"We'll take him in there, then. Is the berth made?"
The conductor went to the rear of the car and brought the porter whohad been stationed there, with the brakeman. He set the negro tomaking up the berth; and when it was finished, the four men lifted theinert figure of Basil Santoine, carried it into the drawing-room andlaid it on its back upon the bed.
"I have my instruments," Sinclair said. "I'll get them; but before Idecide to do anything, I ought to see his daughter. Since she is here,her consent is necessary before any operation on him."
The surgeon spoke to Avery. Eaton saw by Avery's start of recollectionthat Harriet Dorne's--or Harriet Santoine's--friend could not have beenthinking of her at all during the recent moments. The chances of lifeor death of Basil Santoine evidently so greatly and directly affectedDonald Avery that he had been absorbed in them to the point offorgetting all other interests than his own. Eaton's own thought hadgone often to her. Had Connery in his directions said anything to thetrainmen guarding the door or to the passengers on the platforms, thathad frightened her with suspicions of what had happened here? When thefirst sense of something wrong spread back to the observation car, whatword had reached her? Did she connect it with her father? Wasshe--the one most closely concerned--among those who had been on therear platform seeking admittance? Was she standing there in the aisleof the next car waiting for confirmation of her dread? Or had no wordreached her, and must the news of the attack upon her father come toher with all the shock of suddenness?
Eaton had been about to leave the car, where he now was plainly of nouse, but these doubts checked him.
"Miss Santoine is in the observation car," Avery said. "I'll get her."
The tone was in some way false--Eaton could not tell exactly how.Avery started down the aisle.
"One moment, please, Mr. Avery!" said the conductor. "I'll ask you notto tell Miss Santoine before any other passengers that there has beenan attack upon her father. Wait until you get her inside the door ofthis car."
"You yourself said nothing, then, that can have made her suspect it?"Eaton asked.
Connery shook his head; the conductor, in doubt and anxiety overexactly what action the situation called for,--unable, too, tocommunicate any hint of it to his superiors to the West because of thewires being down,--clearly had resolved to keep the attack uponSantoine secret for the time. "I said nothing definite even to thetrainmen," he replied; "and I want you gentlemen to promise me beforeyou leave this car that you will say nothing until I give you leave."
His eyes shifted from the face of one to another, until he had assuredhimself that all agreed. As Avery left the car, Eaton found a seat inone of the end sections near the drawing-room. Sinclair and theconductor had returned to Santoine. The porter was unmaking the berthin the next section which Santoine had occupied, having been told to doso by Connery; the negro bundled together the linen and carried it tothe cupboard at the further end of the car; he folded the blankets andput them in the upper berth; he took out the partitions and laid themon top of the blankets. Eaton stared out the window at the bank ofsnow. He did not know whether to ask to leave the car, or whether heought to remain; and he would have gone except for recollection ofHarriet Santoine. He had heard the rear door of the car open and closesome moments before, so he knew that she must be in the car and that,in the passage at that end, Avery must be telling her about her father.Then the curtain at the end of the car was pushed further aside, andHarriet Santoine came in.
She was very pale, but quite controlled, as Eaton knew she would be.She looked at Eaton, but did not speak as she passed; she went directlyto the door of the drawing-room, opened it and went in, followed byAvery. The door closed, and for a moment Eaton could hear voicesinside the room--Harriet Santoine's, Sinclair's, Connery's. Theconductor then came to the door of the drawing-room and sent the porterfor water and clean linen; Eaton heard the rip of linen being torn, andthe car became filled with the smell of antiseptics.
Donald Avery came out of the drawing-room and dropped into the seatacross from Eaton. He seemed deeply thoughtful--so deeply, indeed, asto be almost unaware of Eaton's presence. And Eaton, observing him,again had the sense that Avery's absorption was completely inconsequen
ces to himself of what was going on behind the door--in howBasil Santoine's death or continued existence would affect the fortunesof Donald Avery.
"Is he going to operate?" Eaton asked.
"Operate? Yes; he's doing it," Avery replied shortly.
"And Miss Santoine?"
"She's helping--handing instruments and so on."
Avery could not have replied, as he did, if the strain this period mustimpose upon Harriet Santoine had been much in his mind. Eaton turnedfrom him and asked nothing more. A long time passed--how long, Eatoncould not have told; he noted only that during it the shadows on thesnowbank outside the window appreciably changed their position. Onceduring this time, the door of the drawing-room was briefly opened,while Connery handed something out to the porter, and the smell of theantiseptics grew suddenly stronger; and Eaton could see behind Connerythe surgeon, coatless and with shirt-sleeves rolled up, bending overthe figure on the bed. Finally the door opened again, and HarrietSantoine came out, paler than before, and now not quite so steady.
Eaton rose as she approached them; and Avery leaped up, all concern andsympathy for her immediately she appeared. He met her in the aisle andtook her hand.
"Was it successful, dear?" Avery asked.
She shut her eyes before she answered, and stood holding to the back ofa seat; then she opened her eyes, saw Eaton and recognized him and satdown in the seat where Avery had been sitting.
"Dr. Sinclair says we will know in four or five days," she replied toAvery; she turned then directly to Eaton. "He thought there probablywas a clot under the skull, and he operated to find it and relieve it.There was one, and we have done all we can; now we may only wait. Dr.Sinclair has appointed himself nurse; he says I can help him, but notjust yet. I thought you would like to know."
"Thank you; I did want to know," Eaton acknowledged. He moved awayfrom them, and sat down in one of the seats further down the car.Connery came out from the drawing-room, went first to one end of thecar, then to the other; and returning with the Pullman conductor, beganto oversee the transfer of the baggage of all other passengers than theSantoine party to vacant sections in the forward sleepers. Peoplebegan to pass through the aisle; evidently the car doors had beenunlocked. Eaton got up and left the car, finding at the door a porterfrom one of the other cars stationed to warn people not to linger orspeak or make other noises in going through the car where Santoine was.
As the door was closing behind Eaton, a sound came to his ears from thecar he just had left--a young girl suddenly crying in abandon. HarrietSantoine, he understood, must have broken down for the moment, afterthe strain of the operation; and Eaton halted as though to turn back,feeling the blood drive suddenly upon his heart. Then, recollectingthat he had no right to go to her, he went on.