CHAPTER VIII
SUSPICION FASTENS ON EATON
As he entered his own car, Eaton halted; that part of the train hadtaken on its usual look and manner, or as near so, it seemed, as thestoppage in the snow left possible. Knowing what he did, Eaton staredat first with astonishment; and the irrational thought came to him thatthe people before him were acting. Then he realized that they werealmost as usual because they did not know what had happened; the factthat Basil Santoine had been attacked--or that he was on thetrain--still had been carefully kept secret by the spreading of someother explanation of the trouble in the car behind. So now, in theirsection, Amy and Constance were reading and knitting; their parents hadimmersed themselves in double solitaire; the Englishman looked out thewindow at the snow with no different expression than that with which hewould have surveyed a landscape they might have been passing.Sinclair's section, of course, remained empty; and a porter came andtransferred the surgeon's handbag and overcoat to the car behind inwhich he was caring for Santoine.
Eaton found his car better filled than it had been before, for thepeople shifted from the car behind had been scattered through thetrain. He felt a hand on his arm as he started to go to his seat, andturned and faced Connery.
"If you must say anything, say it was appendicitis," the conductorwarned when he had brought Eaton back to the vestibule. "Mr. Dorne--ifa name is given, it is that--was suddenly seized with a recurrence ofan attack of appendicitis from which he had been suffering. Animmediate operation was required to save him; that was what Dr.Sinclair did."
Eaton reaffirmed his agreement to give no information. He learned bythe conversation of the passengers that Connery's version of what hadhappened had been easily received; some one, they said, had been takensuddenly and seriously ill upon the train. Their speculation, aftersome argument, had pitched on the right person; it was the tall,distinguished-looking man in the last car who wore glasses. At noon,food was carried into the Santoine car.
Keeping himself to his section, Eaton watched the car and outside thewindow for signs of what investigation Connery and Avery were making.What already was known had made it perfectly clear that whoever hadattacked Santoine must still be upon the train; for no one could haveescaped through the snow. No one could now escape. Avery and Conneryand whoever else was making investigation with them evidently were notletting any one know that an investigation was being made. A number oftimes Eaton saw Connery and the Pullman conductor pass through theaisles. Eaton went to lunch; on his way back from the diner, he sawthe conductors with papers in their hands questioning a passenger.They evidently were starting systematically through the cars, examiningeach person; they were making the plea of necessity of a report to therailroad offices of names and addresses of all held up by the stoppageof the train. As Eaton halted at his section, the two conductorsfinished with the man from the rear who had been installed in SectionOne, and they crossed to the Englishman opposite. Eaton heard themexplain the need of making a report and heard the Englishman's answer,with his name, his address and particulars as to who he was, where hewas coming from and whither he was going.
Eaton started on toward the rear of the train.
"A moment, sir!" Connery called.
Eaton halted. The conductors confronted him.
"Your name, sir?" Connery asked.
"Philip D. Eaton."
Connery wrote down the answer. "Your address?"
"I--have no address."
"You mean you don't want to give it?"
"No, I have none. I was going to a hotel in Chicago--which one Ihadn't decided yet."
"Where are you coming from?"
"From Asia."
"That's hardly an address, Mr. Eaton!"
"I can give you no address abroad. I had no fixed address there. Iwas traveling most of the time. You could not reach me or place me bymeans of any city or hotel there. I arrived in Seattle by the Asiaticsteamer and took this train."
"Ah! you came on the _Tamba Maru_."
Connery made note of this, as he had made note of all the otherquestions and answers. Then he said something to the Pullmanconductor, who replied in the same low tone; what they said was notaudible to Eaton.
"You can tell us at least where your family is, Mr. Eaton," Connerysuggested.
"I have no family."
"Friends, then?"
"I--I have no friends."
"What?"
"I say that I can refer you to no friends."
"Nowhere?"
"Nowhere."
Connery pondered for several moments. "The Mr. Hillward--LawrenceHillward, to whom the telegram was addressed which you claimed thismorning, your associate who was to have taken this train with you--willyou give me his address?"
"I thought you had decided the telegram was not meant for me."
"I am asking you a question, Mr. Eaton--not making explanations. Itisn't impossible there should be two Lawrence Hillwards."
"I don't know Hillward's address."
"Give me the address, then, of the man who sent the telegram."
"I am unable to do that, either."
Connery spoke again to the Pullman conductor, and they conversedinaudibly for a minute. "That is all, then," Connery said finally.
He signed his name to the sheet on which he had written Eaton'sanswers, and handed it to the Pullman conductor, who also signed it andreturned it to him; then they went on to the passenger now occupyingSection Four, without making any further comment.
Eaton abandoned his idea of going to the rear of the train; he satdown, picked up his magazine and tried to read; but after an instant,he leaned forward and looked at himself in the little mirror betweenthe windows. It reassured him to find that he looked entirely normal;he had been afraid that during the questioning he might have turnedpale, and his paleness--taken in connection with his inability toanswer the questions--might have seriously directed the suspicions ofthe conductors toward him. The others in the car, who might haveoverheard his refusal to reply to the questions, would be regarding himonly curiously, since they did not know the real reasons for theexamination. But the conductors--what did they think?
Already, Eaton reflected, before the finding of the senseless form ofBasil Santoine, there had occurred the disagreeable incident of thetelegram to attract unfavorable attention to him. On the other hand,might not the questioning of him have been purely formal? Connerycertainly had treated him, at the time of the discovery of Santoine, asone not of the class to be suspected of being the assailant ofSantoine. Avery, to be sure, had been uglier, more excited andhostile; but Harriet Santoine again had treated him trustfully andfrankly as one with whom thought of connection with the attack upon herfather was impossible. Eaton told himself that there should be nodanger to himself from this inquiry, directed against no one, butincluding comprehensively every one on the train.
As Eaton pretended to read, he could hear behind him the low voices ofthe conductors, which grew fainter and fainter as they moved furtheraway, section by section, down the car. Finally, when the conductorshad left the car, he put his magazine away and went into the men'scompartment to smoke and calm his nerves. His return to America hadpassed the bounds of recklessness; and what a situation he would now bein if his actions brought even serious suspicions against him! Hefinished his first cigar and was debating whether to light another,when he heard voices outside the car, and opening the window andlooking out, he saw Connery and the brakeman struggling through thesnow and making, apparently, some search. They had come from the frontof the train and had passed under his window only an instant before,scrutinizing the snowbank beside the car carefully and looking underthe car--the brakeman even had crawled under it; now they went on.Eaton closed the window and lighted his second cigar. PresentlyConnery passed the door of the compartment carrying something looselywrapped in a newspaper in his hands. Eaton finished his cigar and wentback to his seat in the car.
As he glanced at the seat whe
re he had left the magazine and his lockedtraveling-bag, he saw that the bag was no longer there. It stood nowbetween the two seats on the floor, and picking it up and looking atit, he found it unfastened and with marks about the lock which toldplainly that it had been forced.
His quick glance around at the other passengers, which showed him thathis discovery of this had not been noticed, showed also that they hadnot seen the bag opened. They would have been watching him if theyhad; clearly the bag had been carried out of the car during hisabsence, and later had been brought back. He set it on the floorbetween his knees and checked over its contents. Nothing had beentaken, so far as he could tell; for the bag had contained onlyclothing, the Chinese dictionary and the box of cigars, and these allapparently were still there. He had laid out the things on the seatacross from him while checking them up, and now he began to put themback in the bag. Suddenly he noticed that one of his socks wasmissing; what had been eleven pairs was now only ten pairs and one oddsock.
The disappearance of a single sock was so strange, so bizarre, soperplexing that--unless it was accidental--he could not account for itat all. No one opens a man's bag and steals one sock, and he was quitesure there had been eleven complete pairs there earlier in the day.Certainly then, it had been accidental: the bag had been opened, itscontents taken out and examined, and in putting them back, one sock hadbeen dropped unnoticed. The absence of the sock, then, meant no morethan that the contents of the bag had been thoroughly investigated. Bywhom? By the man against whom the telegram directed to LawrenceHillward had warned Eaton?
Ever since his receipt of the telegram, Eaton--as he passed through thetrain in going to and from the diner or for other reasons--had beentrying covertly to determine which, if any one, among the passengerswas the "one" who, the telegram had warned him, was "following" him.For at first he had interpreted it to mean that one of "them" whom hehad to fear must be on the train. Later he had felt certain that thiscould not be the case, for otherwise any one of "them" who knew himwould have spoken by this time. He had watched particularly for a timethe man who had claimed the telegram and given the name of Hillward;but the only conclusion he had been able to reach was that the man'sname might be Hillward, and that coincidence--strange as such a thingseemed--might have put aboard the train a person by this name. Now hissuspicions that one of "them" must be aboard the train returned.
The bag certainly had not been carried out the forward door of the car,or he would have seen it from the compartment at that end of the carwhere he had sat smoking. As he tried to recall who had passed thedoor of the compartment, he remembered no one except trainmen. Thebag, therefore, had been carried out the rear door, and the man who hadopened it, if a passenger, must still be in the rear part of the train.
Eaton, refilling his cigar-case to give his action a look ofcasualness, got up and went toward the rear of the train. A porter wasstill posted at the door of the Santoine car, who warned him to bequiet in passing through. The car, he found, was entirely empty; thedoor to the drawing-room where Santoine lay was closed. Two berthsnear the farther end of the car had been made up, no doubt for thesurgeon and Harriet Santoine to rest there during the intervals oftheir watching; but the curtains of these berths were folded back,showing both of them to be empty, though one apparently had beenoccupied. Was Harriet Santoine with her father?
He went on into the observation-car. The card-room was filled withplayers, and he stood an instant at the door looking them over, but"Hillward" was not among them, and he saw no one whom he felt couldpossibly be one of "them." In the observation-room, the case was thesame; a few men and women passengers here were reading or talking.Glancing on past them through the glass door at the end of the car, hesaw Harriet Santoine standing alone on the observation platform. Thegirl did not see him; her back was toward the car. As he went out ontothe platform and the sound of the closing door came to her, she turnedto meet him.
She looked white and tired, and faint gray shadows underneath her eyesshowed where dark circles were beginning to form.
"I am supposed to be resting," she explained quietly, accepting him asone who had the right to ask.
"Have you been watching all day?"
"With Dr. Sinclair, yes. Dr. Sinclair is going to take half the nightwatch, and I am going to take the other half. That is why I amsupposed to be lying down now to get ready for it; but I could notsleep."
"How is your father?"
"Just the same; there may be no change, Dr. Sinclair says, for days.It seems all so sudden and so--terrible, Mr. Eaton. You can hardlyappreciate how we feel about it without knowing Father. He was sogood, so strong, so brave, so independent! And at the same time so--sodependent upon those around him, because of his blindness! He startedout so handicapped, and he has accomplished so much, and--and it is sounjust that there should have been such an attack upon him."
Eaton, leaning against the rail beside her and glancing at her, sawthat her lashes were wet, and his eyes dropped as they caught hers.
"They have been investigating the attack?"
"Yes; Donald--Mr. Avery, you know--and the conductor have been workingon it all day."
"What have they learned?"
"Not much, I think; at least not much that they have told me. Theyhave been questioning the porter."
"The porter?"
"Oh, I don't mean that they think the porter had anything to do withit; but the bell rang, you know."
"The bell?"
"The bell from Father's berth. I thought you knew. It rang some timebefore Father was found--some few minutes before; the porter did nothear it, but the pointer was turned down. They have tested it, and itcannot be jarred down or turned in any way except by means of the bell."
Eaton looked away from her, then back again rather strangely.
"I would not attach too much importance to the bell," he said.
"Father could not have rung it; Dr. Sinclair says that is impossible.So its being rung shows that some one was at the berth, some one musthave seen Father lying there and--and rung the bell, but did not tellany one about Father. That could hardly have been an innocent person,Mr. Eaton."
"Or a guilty one, Miss Santoine, or he would not have rung the bell atall."
"I don't know--I don't understand all it might mean. I have tried notto think about anything but Father."
"Is that all they have learned?"
"No; they have found the weapon."
"The weapon with which your father was struck?"
"Yes; the man who did it seems not to have realized that the train wasstopped--or at least that it would be stopped for so long--and he threwit off the train, thinking, I suppose, we should be miles away fromthere by morning. But the train didn't move, and the snow didn't coverit up, and it was found lying against the snowbank this afternoon. Itcorresponds, Dr. Sinclair says, with Father's injuries."
"What was it?"
"It seems to have been a bar of metal--of steel, they said, I think,Mr. Eaton--wrapped in a man's black sock."
"A sock!" Eaton's voice sounded strange to himself; he felt that theblood had left his cheeks, leaving him pale, and that the girl mustnotice it. "A man's sock!"
Then he saw that she had not noticed, for she had not been looking athim.
"It could be carried in that way through the sleepers, you know,without attracting attention," she observed.
Eaton had controlled himself. "A sock!" he said again, reflectively.
He felt suddenly a rough tap upon his shoulder, and turning, he sawthat Donald Avery had come out upon the platform and was standingbeside him; and behind Avery, he saw Conductor Connery. There was noone else on the platform.
"Will you tell me, Mr. Eaton--or whatever else your name may be--whatit is that you have been asking Miss Santoine?" Avery demanded harshly.
Eaton felt his blood surge at the tone. Harriet Santoine had turned,and sensing the strangeness of Avery's manner, she whitened. "What isit, Don?" she cried. "Wh
at is the matter? Is something wrong withFather?"
"No, dear; no! Harry, what has this man been saying to you?"
"Mr. Eaton?" Her gaze went wonderingly from Avery to Eaton and backagain. "Why--why, Don! He has only been asking me what we had foundout about the attack on Father!"
"And you told him?" Avery swung toward Eaton. "You dog!" he mouthed."Harriet, he asked you that because he needed to know--he had to know!He had to know how much we had found out, how near we were getting tohim! Harry, this is the man that did it!"
Eaton's fists clenched; but suddenly, recollecting, he checked himself.Harriet, not yet comprehending, stood staring at the two; then Eatonsaw the blood rush to her face and dye forehead and cheek and neck asshe understood.
"Not here, Mr. Avery; not here!" Conductor Connery had steppedforward, glancing back into the car to assure himself the disturbanceon the platform had not attracted the attention of the passengers inthe observation-room. He put his hand on Eaton's arm. "Come with me,sir," he commanded.
Eaton thought anxiously for a moment. He looked to Harriet Santoine asthough about to say something to her, but he did not speak; instead, hequietly followed the conductor. As they passed through theobservation-car into the car ahead, he heard the footsteps of HarrietSantoine and Avery close behind them.