CHAPTER X
A WALK BESIDE THE LAKE
"The name seems like Sherrill," the interne agreed. "He said it beforewhen we had him on the table up-stairs; and he has said it now twicedistinctly--Sherrill."
"His name, do you think?"
"I shouldn't say so; he seems trying to speak to some one namedSherrill."
The nurse waited a few minutes. "Yes; that's how it seems to me, sir.He said something that sounded like 'Connie' a while ago, and once hesaid 'Jim.' There are only four Sherrills in the telephone book, twoof them in Evanston and one way out in Minoota."
"The other?"
"They're only about six blocks from where he was picked up; but they'reon the Drive--the Lawrence Sherrills."
The interne whistled softly and looked more interestedly at hispatient's features. He glanced at his watch, which showed the hour ofthe morning to be half-past four. "You'd better make a note of it," hesaid. "He's not a Chicagoan; his clothes were made somewhere inKansas. He'll be conscious some time during the day; there's only aslight fracture, and-- Perhaps you'd better call the Sherrill house,anyway. If he's not known there, no harm done; and if he's one oftheir friends and he should..."
The nurse nodded and moved off.
Thus it was that at a quarter to five Constance Sherrill was awakenedby the knocking of one of the servants at her father's door. Herfather went down-stairs to the telephone instrument where he mightreply without disturbing Mrs. Sherrill. Constance, kimona over hershoulders, stood at the top of the stairs and waited. It became plainto her at once that whatever had happened had been to Alan Conrad.
"Yes.... Yes.... You are giving him every possible care? ... At once."
She ran part way down the stairs and met her father as he came up. Hetold her of the situation briefly.
"He was attacked on the street late last night; he was unconscious whenthey found him and took him to the hospital, and has been unconsciousever since. They say it was an ordinary street attack for robbery. Ishall go at once, of course; but you can do nothing. He would not knowyou if you came; and of course he is in competent hands. No; no onecan say yet how seriously he is injured."
She waited in the hall while her father dressed, after calling thegarage on the house telephone for him and ordering the motor. When hehad gone, she returned anxiously to her own rooms; he had promised tocall her after reaching the hospital and as soon as he had learned theparticulars of Alan's condition. It was ridiculous, of course, toattach any responsibility to her father or herself for what hadhappened to Alan--a street attack such as might have happened to anyone--yet she felt that they were in part responsible. Alan Conrad hadcome to Chicago, not by their direction, but by Benjamin Corvet's; butUncle Benny being gone, they had been the ones who met him, they hadreceived him into their own house; but they had not thought to warn himof the dangers of the city and, afterward, they had let him go to livealone in the house in Astor Street with no better adviser thanWassaquam. Now, and perhaps because they had not warned him, he hadmet injury and, it might be, more than mere injury; he might be dying.
She walked anxiously up and down her room, clutching her kimona abouther; it would be some time yet before she could hear from her father.She went to the telephone on the stand beside her bed and called HenrySpearman at his apartments. His servant answered; and, after aninterval, Henry's voice came to her. She told him all that she knew ofwhat had occurred.
"Do you want me to go over to the hospital?" he asked at once.
"No; father has gone. There is nothing any one can do. I'll call youagain as soon as I hear from father."
He seemed to appreciate from her tone the anxiety she felt; for he sethimself to soothe and encourage her. She listened, answered, and thenhung up the receiver, anxious not to interfere with the expected callfrom her father. She moved about the room again, oppressed by the longwait, until the 'phone rang, and she sprang to it; it was her fathercalling from the hospital. Alan had had a few moments' consciousness,but Sherrill had not been allowed to see him; now, by the report of thenurse, Alan was sleeping, and both nurse and internes assured Sherrillthat, this being the case, there was no reason for anxiety concerninghim; but Sherrill would wait at the hospital a little longer to makesure. Constance's breath caught as she answered him, and her eyesfilled with tears of relief. She called Henry again, and he evidentlyhad been waiting, for he answered at once; he listened without commentto her repetition of her father's report.
"All right," he said, when she had finished. "I'm coming over, Connie."
"Now?"
"Yes; right away."
"You must give me time to dress!" His assumption of right to come toher at this early hour recalled to her forcibly the closer relationwhich Henry now assumed as existing between them; indeed, as more thanexisting, as progressing. And had not she admitted that relation bytelephoning to him during her anxiety? She had not thought how thatmust appear to him; she had not thought about it at all; she had justdone it.
She had been one of those who think of betrothal in terms of questionand answer, of a moment when decision is formulated and spoken; she hadsupposed that, by withholding reply to Henry's question put even beforeUncle Benny went away, she was thereby maintaining the same relationbetween Henry and herself. But now she was discovering that this wasnot so; she was realizing that Henry had not required formal answer tohim because he considered that such answer had become superfluous; heryes, if she accepted him now, would not establish a new bond, it wouldmerely acknowledge what was already understood. She had acceptedthat--had she not--when, in the rush of her feeling, she had thrust herhand into his the day before; she had accepted it, even moreundeniably, when he had seized her and kissed her.
Not that she had sought or even consciously permitted, that; it had,indeed, surprised her. While they were alone together, and he wastelling her things about himself, somewhat as he had at the table atField's, Alan Conrad was announced, and she had risen to go. Henry hadtried to detain her; then, as he looked down at her, hot impulse hadseemed to conquer him; he caught her, irresistibly; amazed, bewildered,she looked up at him, and he bent and kissed her. The power of hisarms about her--she could feel them yet, sometimes--half frightened,half enthralled her. But his lips against her cheek--she had turnedher lips away so that his pressed her cheek! She had been quite unableto know how she had felt then, because at that instant she had realizedthat she was seen. So she had disengaged herself as quickly aspossible and, after Alan was gone, she had fled to her room withoutgoing back to Henry at all.
How could she have expected Henry to have interpreted that flight fromhim as disapproval when she had not meant it as that; when, indeed, shedid not know herself what was stirring in her that instinct to go awayalone? She had not by that disowned the new relation which he hadaccepted as established between them. And did she wish to disown itnow? What had happened had come sooner and with less of her willactive in it than she had expected; but she knew it was only what shehad expected to come. The pride she had felt in being with him was,she realized, only anticipatory of the pride she would experience ashis wife. When she considered the feeling of her family and herfriends, she knew that, though some would go through the formaldeploring that Henry had not better birth, all would be satisfied andmore than satisfied; they would even boast about Henry a little, andentertain him in her honor, and show him off. There was no one--nowthat poor Uncle Benny was gone--who would seriously deplore it at all.
Constance had recognized no relic of uneasiness from Uncle Benny's lastappeal to her; she understood that thoroughly. Or, at least, she _had_understood that; now was there a change in the circumstances of thatunderstanding, because of what had happened to Alan, that she foundherself re-defining to herself her relation with Henry? No; it hadnothing to do with Henry, of course; it referred only to BenjaminCorvet. Uncle Benny had "gone away" from his house on Astor Street,leaving his place there to his son, Alan Conrad. Something which hadd
isturbed and excited Alan had happened to him on the first night hehad passed in that house; and now, it appeared, he had been preventedfrom passing a second night there. What had prevented him had been anattempted robbery upon the street, her father had said. But suppose ithad been something else than robbery.
She could not formulate more definitely this thought, but it persisted;she could not deny it entirely and shake it off.
To Alan Conrad, in the late afternoon of that day, this same thoughtwas coming far more definitely and far more persistently. He had beenawake and sane since shortly after noonday. The pain of a head whichached throbbingly and of a body bruised and sore was beginning to giveplace to a feeling merely of lassitude--a languor which revisitedincoherence upon him when he tried to think. He shifted himself uponhis bed and called the nurse.
"How long am I likely to have to stay here?" he asked her.
"The doctors think not less than two weeks, Mr. Conrad."
He realized, as he again lay silent, that he must put out of his headnow all expectation of ever finding in Corvet's house any such recordas he had been looking for. If there had been a record, itunquestionably would be gone before he could get about again to seekit; and he could not guard against its being taken from the house; for,if he had been hopeless of receiving credence for any accusation hemight make against Spearman while he was in health, how much morehopeless was it now, when everything he would say could be put to thecredit of his injury and to his delirium! He could not even giveorders for the safeguarding of the house and its contents--his ownproperty--with assurance that they would be carried out.
The police and hospital attendants, he had learned, had no suspicion ofanything but that he had been the victim of one of the footpads who,during that month, had been attacking and robbing nightly. Sherrill,who had visited him about two o'clock, had showed that he suspected noother possibility. Alan could not prove otherwise; he had not seen hisassailant's face; it was most probable that if he had seen it, he wouldnot have recognized it. But the man who had assailed him had meant tokill; he had not been any ordinary robber. That purpose, blindlyrecognized and fought against by Alan in their struggle, had beenunmistakable. Only the chance presence of passers-by, who had heardAlan's shouts and responded to them, had prevented the execution of hispurpose, and had driven the man to swift flight for his own safety.
Alan had believed, in his struggle with Spearman in Corvet's library,that Spearman might have killed rather than have been discovered there.Were there others to whom Alan's presence had become a threat soserious that they would proceed even to the length of calculatedmurder? He could not know that. The only safe plan was to assume thatpersons, in number unknown, had definite, vital interest in his"removal" by violence or otherwise, and that, among them, he mustreckon Henry Spearman; and he must fight them alone. For Sherrill'sliking for him, even Constance Sherrill's interest and sympathy werenullified in practical intent by their admiration for and theircomplete confidence in Spearman. It did not matter that Alan mightbelieve that, in fighting Spearman, he was fighting not only forhimself but for her; he knew now certainly that he must count her asSpearman's; her! Things swam before him again dizzily as he thought ofher; and he sank back and closed his eyes.
A little before six Constance Sherrill and Spearman called to inquireafter him and were admitted for a few moments to his room. She came tohim, bent over him, while she spoke the few words of sympathy the nurseallowed to her; she stood back then while Spearman spoke to him. Inthe succeeding days, he saw her nearly every day, accompanied always byher father or Spearman; it was the full two weeks the nurse hadallotted for his remaining in the hospital before he saw her alone.
They had brought him home, the day before--she and her father, in themotor--to the house on Astor Street. He had insisted on returningthere, refusing the room in their house which they had offered; but thedoctor had enjoined outdoors and moderate exercise for him, and she hadmade him promise to come and walk with her. He went to the Sherrillhouse about ten o'clock, and they walked northward toward the park.
It was a mild, sunny morning with warm wind from the south, whichsucked up the last patches of snow from the lawns and dried the tinytrickles of water across the walks. Looking to the land, one might saythat spring soon would be on the way; but, looking to the lake,midwinter held. The counterscrap of concrete, beyond the withered sodthat edged the Drive, was sheathed in ice; the frozen spray-hummocksbeyond steamed in the sun; and out as far as one could see, floesfloated close together, exposing only here and there a bit of blue.Wind, cold and chilling, wafted off this ice field, taking the warmsouth breeze upon its flanks.
Glancing up at her companion from time to time, Constance saw the colorcoming to his face, and he strode beside her quite steadily. Whateverwas his inheritance, his certainly were stamina and vitality; a littleless--or a little dissipation of them--and he might not have recoveredat all, much less have leaped back to strength as he had done. Forsince yesterday, the languor which had held him was gone.
They halted a minute near the south entrance of the park at the St.Gaudens' "Lincoln," which he had not previously seen. The gaunt, sadfigure of the "rail-splitter" in his ill-fitting clothes, seemed torecall something to him; for he glanced swiftly at her as they turnedaway.
"Miss Sherrill," he asked, "have you ever stayed out in the country?"
"I go to northern Michigan, up by the straits, almost every summer forpart of the time, at least; and once in a while we open the house inwinter too for a week or so. It's quite wild--trees and sand and shoreand the water. I've had some of my best times up there."
"You've never been out on the plains?"
"Just to pass over them on the train on the way to the coast."
"That would be in winter or in spring; I was thinking about the plainsin late summer, when we--Jim and Betty, the children of the people Iwas with in Kansas--"
"I remember them."
"When we used to play at being pioneers in our sunflower shacks."
"Sunflower shacks?" she questioned.
"I was dreaming we were building them again when I was delirious justafter I was hurt, it seems. I thought that I was back in Kansas andwas little again. The prairie was all brown as it is in late summer,brown billows of dried grass which let you see the chips of limestoneand flint scattered on the ground beneath; and in the hollows therewere acres and acres of sunflowers, three times as tall as either Jimor I, and with stalks as thick as a man's wrist, where Jim and Bettyand I ... and you, Miss Sherrill, were playing."
"I?"
"We cut paths through the sunflowers with a corn knife," Alancontinued, not looking at her, "and built houses in them by twining thecut stalks in and out among those still standing. I'd wondered, yousee, what you must have been like when you were a little girl, so, Isuppose, when I was delirious, I saw you that way."
She had looked up at him a little apprehensively, afraid that he wasgoing to say something more; but his look reassured her.
"Then that," she hazarded, "must have been how the hospital peoplelearned our name. I'd wondered about that; they said you wereunconscious first, and then delirious and when you spoke you said,among other names, mine--Connie and Sherrill."
He colored and glanced away. "I thought they might have told you that,so I wanted you to know. They say that in a dream, or in delirium,after your brain establishes the first absurdity--like your playing outamong the sunflowers with me when we were little--everything else isconsistent. I wouldn't call a little girl 'Miss Sherrill,' of course.Ever since I've known you, I couldn't help thinking a great deal aboutyou; you're not like any one else I've ever known. But I didn't wantyou to think I thought of you--familiarly."
"I speak of you always as Alan to father," she said.
He was silent for a moment. "They lasted hardly for a day--thosesunflower houses, Miss Sherrill," he said quietly. "They witheredalmost as soon as they were made. Castles in Kansas, one might say!No one could
live in them."
Apprehensive again, she colored. He had recalled to her, withoutmeaning to do so, she thought, that he had seen her in Spearman's arms;she was quite sure that recollection of this was in his mind. But inspite of this--or rather, exactly because of it--she understood that hehad formed his own impression of the relation between Henry and herselfand that, consequently, he was not likely to say anything more likethis.
They had walked east, across the damp, dead turf to where the Driveleaves the shore and is built out into the lake; as they crossed to iton the smooth ice of the lagoon between, he took her arm to steady her.
"There is something I have been wanting to ask you," she said.
"Yes."
"That night when you were hurt--it was for robbery, they said. What doyou think about it?" She watched him as he looked at her and thenaway; but his face was completely expressionless.
"The proceedings were a little too rapid for me to judge, MissSherrill."
"But there was no demand upon you to give over your money before youwere attacked?"
"No."
She breathed a little more quickly. "It must be a strange sensation,"she observed, "to know that some one has tried to kill you."
"It must, indeed."
"You mean you don't think that he tried to kill you?"
"The police captain thinks not; he says it was the work of a man new tothe blackjack, and he hit harder and oftener than he needed. He saysthat sort are the dangerous ones--that one's quite safe in the hands ofan experienced slugger, as you would be with the skilful man in anyline. I never thought of it that way before. He almost made it intoan argument for leaving the trained artists loose on the streets, forthe safety of the public, instead of turning the business over to boysonly half educated."
"What do you think about the man yourself?" Constance persisted.
"The apprentice who practiced on me?"
She waited, watching his eyes. "I was hardly in a condition, MissSherrill, to appreciate anything about the man at all. Why do you ask?"
"Because--" She hesitated an instant, "if you were attacked to bekilled, it meant that you must have been attacked as the son of--Mr.Corvet. Then that meant--at least it implied, that Mr. Corvet waskilled, that he did not go away. You see that, of course."
"Were you the only one who thought that? Or did some one speak to youabout it?"
"No one did; I spoke to father. He thought--"
"Yes."
"Well, if Mr. Corvet was murdered--I'm following what father thought,you understand--it involved something a good deal worse perhaps thananything that could have been involved if he had only gone away. Thefacts we had made it certain that--if what had happened to him wasdeath at the hands of another--he must have foreseen that death and,seeking no protection for himself ... it implied, that he preferred todie rather than to ask protection--that there was something whoseconcealment he thought mattered even more to him than life. It--itmight have meant that he considered his life was ... due to whomevertook it." Her voice, which had become very low, now ceased. She wasspeaking to Alan of his father--a father whom he had never known, andwhom he could not have recognized by sight until she showed him thepicture a few weeks before; but she was speaking of his father.
"Mr. Sherrill didn't feel that it was necessary for him to do anything,even though he thought that?"
"If Mr. Corvet was dead, we could do him no good, surely, by tellingthis to the police; if the police succeeded in finding out all thefacts, we would be doing only what Uncle Benny did not wish--what hepreferred death to. We could not tell the police about it withouttelling them all about Mr. Corvet too. So father would not let himselfbelieve that you had been attacked to be killed. He had to believe thepolice theory was sufficient."
Alan made no comment at once. "Wassaquam believes Mr. Corvet is dead,"he said finally. "He told me so. Does your father believe that?"
"I think he is beginning to believe it."
They had reached the little bridge that breaks the Drive and spans thechannel through which the motor boats reach harbor in the lagoon; herested his arms upon the rail of the bridge and looked down into thechannel, now frozen. He seemed to her to consider and to decide uponsomething.
"I've not told any one," he said, now watching her, "how I happened tobe out of the house that night. I followed a man who came there to thehouse. Wassaquam did not know his name. He did not know Mr. Corvetwas gone; for he came there to see Mr. Corvet. He was not an ordinaryfriend of Mr. Corvet's; but he had come there often; Wassaquam did notknow why. Wassaquam had sent the man away, and I ran out after him;but I could not find him."
He stopped an instant, studying her. "That was not the first man whocame to the house," he went on quickly, as she was about to speak. "Ifound a man in Mr. Corvet's house the first night that I spent there.Wassaquam was away, you remember, and I was alone in the house."
"A man there in the house?" she repeated.
"He wasn't there when I entered the house--at least I don't think hewas. I heard him below, after I had gone up-stairs. I came down thenand saw him. He was going through Mr. Corvet's things--not the silverand all that, but through his desks and files and cases. He waslooking for something--something which he seemed to want very much;when I interfered, it greatly excited him."
They had turned back from the bridge and were returning along the waythat they had come; but now she stopped and looked up at him.
"What happened when you 'interfered'?"
"A queer thing."
"What?"
"I frightened him."
"Frightened him?" She had appreciated in his tone more significancethan the casual meaning of the words.
"He thought I was a ghost."
"A ghost. Whose ghost?"
He shrugged. "I don't know; some one whom he seemed to have knownpretty well--and whom Mr. Corvet knew, he thought."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?"
"At least--I am telling you now, Miss Sherrill. I frightened him, andhe got away. But I had seen him plainly. I can describe him....You've talked with your father of the possibility that something might'happen' to me such as, perhaps, happened to Mr. Corvet. If anythingdoes happen to me, a description of the man may ... prove useful."
He saw the color leave her face, and her eyes brighten; he acceptedthis for agreement on her part. Then clearly and definitely as hecould, he described Spearman to her. She did not recognize thedescription; he had known she would not. Had not Spearman been inDuluth? Beyond that, was not connection of Spearman with the prowlerin Corvet's house the one connection of all most difficult for her tomake? But he saw her fixing and recording the description in her mind.
They were silent as they went on toward her home. He had said all hecould, or dared to say; to tell her that the man had been Spearmanwould not merely have awakened her incredulity; it would have destroyedcredence utterly. A definite change in their relation to one anotherhad taken place during their walk. The fullness, the frankness of thesympathy there had been between them almost from their first meeting,had gone; she was quite aware, he saw, that he had not frankly answeredher questions; she was aware that in some way he had drawn back fromher and shut her out from his thoughts about his own position here.But he had known that this must be so; it had been his first definiterealization after his return to consciousness in the hospital when,knowing now her relation to Spearman, he had found all questions whichconcerned his relations with the people here made immeasurably moreacute by the attack upon him.
She asked him to come in and stay for luncheon, as they reached herhome, but she asked it without urging; at his refusal she moved slowlyup the steps; but she halted when she saw that he did not go on.
"Miss Sherrill," he said, looking up at her, "how much money is therein your house?"
She smiled, amused and a little perplexed; then sobered as she saw hisintentness on her answer.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean--how much is ordinarily kept there?"
"Why, very little in actual cash. We pay everything bycheck--tradesmen and servants; and even if we happen not to have acharge account where we make a purchase, they know who we are and arealways willing to charge it to us."
"Thank you. It would be rather unusual then for you--or yourneighbors--to have currency at hand exceeding the hundreds?"
"Exceeding the hundreds? That means in the thousands--or at least onethousand; yes, for us, it would be quite unusual."
She waited for him to explain why he had asked; it was not, she feltsure, for any reason which could readily suggest itself to her. But heonly thanked her again and lifted his hat and moved away. Lookingafter him from the window after she had entered the house, she saw himturn the corner in the direction of Astor Street.