CHAPTER IX
VIOLENCE
At half-past three, Alan left the office. Sherrill had told him anhour earlier that Spearman had telephoned he would not be able to getback for a conference that afternoon; and Alan was certain now that inSpearman's absence Sherrill would do nothing further with respect tohis affairs.
He halted on the ground floor of the office building and bought copiesof each of the afternoon papers. A line completely across the pinkpage of one announced "Millionaire Ship Owner Missing!" The otherthree papers, printed at the same hour, did not display the storyprominently; and even the one which did failed to make it the mostconspicuous sensation. A line of larger and blacker type told of achange in the battle line on the west front and, where the margin mighthave been, was the bulletin of some sensation in a local divorce suit.Alan was some time in finding the small print which went with themillionaire ship owner heading; and when he found it, he discoveredthat most of the space was devoted to the description of Corvet's sharein the development of shipping on the lakes and the peculiarity of hispast life instead of any definite announcement concerning his fate.
The other papers printed almost identical items under small head-typeat the bottom of their first pages; these items stated that BenjaminCorvet, the senior but inactive partner of the great shipping firm ofCorvet, Sherrill, and Spearman, whose "disappearance" had been made thesubject of sensational rumor, "is believed by his partner, Mr. HenrySpearman, to have simply gone away for a rest," and that no anxiety wasfelt concerning him. Alan found no mention of himself nor any of thecircumstances connected with Corvet's disappearance of which Sherrillhad told him.
Alan threw the papers away. There was a car line two blocks west,Sherrill had said, which would take him within a short distance of thehouse on Astor Street; but that neighborhood of fashion where theSherrills--and now Alan himself--lived was less than a half hour's walkfrom the down-town district and, in the present turmoil of histhoughts, he wanted to be moving.
Spearman, he reflected as he walked north along the avenue, plainly haddictated the paragraphs he just had read in the papers. Sherrill, Alanknew, had desired to keep the circumstances regarding Corvet frombecoming public; and without Sherrill's agreement concealment wouldhave been impossible, but it was Spearman who had checked thesuspicions of outsiders and determined what they must believe; and, byso doing, he had made it impossible for Alan to enroll aid from thenewspapers or the police. Alan did not know whether he might havefound it expedient to seek publicity; but now he had not a single proofof anything he could tell. For Sherrill, naturally, had retained thepapers Corvet had left. Alan could not hope to obtain credence fromSherrill and, without Sherrill's aid, he could not obtain credence fromany one else.
Was there, then, no one whom Alan could tell of his encounter withSpearman in Corvet's house, with probability of receiving belief? Alanhad not been thinking directly of Constance Sherrill, as he walkedswiftly north to the Drive; but she was, in a way, present in all histhoughts. She had shown interest in him, or at least in the positionhe was in, and sympathy; he had even begun to tell her about thesethings when he had spoken to her of some event in Corvet's house whichhad given him the name "_Miwaka_," and he had asked her if it was aship. And there could be no possible consequent peril to her intelling her; the peril, if there was any, would be only to himself.
His step quickened. As he approached the Sherrill house, he sawstanding at the curb an open roadster with a liveried chauffeur; he hadseen that roadster, he recognized with a little start, in front of theoffice building that morning when Constance had taken him down-town.He turned into the walk and rang the bell.
The servant who opened the door knew him and seemed to accept his rightof entry to the house, for he drew back for Alan to enter. Alan wentinto the hall and waited for the servant to follow. "Is Miss Sherrillin?" he asked.
"I'll see, sir." The man disappeared. Alan, waiting, did not hearConstance's voice in reply to the announcement of the servant, butSpearman's vigorous tones. The servant returned. "Miss Sherrill willsee you in a minute, sir."
Through the wide doorway to the drawing-room, Alan could see thesmaller, portiered entrance to the room beyond--Sherrill's study. Thecurtains parted, and Constance and Spearman came into this innerdoorway; they stood an instant there in talk. As Constance startedaway, Spearman suddenly drew her back to him and kissed her. Alan'sshoulders spontaneously jerked back, and his hands clenched; he did notlook away and, as she approached, she became aware that he had seen.
She came to him, very quiet and very flushed; then she was quite paleas she asked him, "You wanted me?"
He was white as she, and could not speak at once. "You told me lastnight, Miss Sherrill," he said, "that the last thing that Mr. Corvetdid--the last that you know of--was to warn you against one of yourfriends. Who was that?"
She flushed uneasily. "You mustn't attach any importance to that; Ididn't mean you to. There was no reason for what Mr. Corvet said,except in Mr. Corvet's own mind. He had a quite unreasonableanimosity--"
"Against Mr. Spearman, you mean."
She did not answer.
"His animosity was against Mr. Spearman, Miss Sherrill, wasn't it?That is the only animosity of Mr. Corvet's that any one has told meabout."
"Yes."
"It was against Mr. Spearman that he warned you, then?"
"Yes."
"Thank you." He turned and, not waiting for the man, let himself out.He should have known it when he had seen that Spearman, afterannouncing himself as unable to get back to the office, was withConstance.
He went swiftly around the block to his own house and let himself in atthe front door with his key. The house was warm; a shaded lamp on thetable in the larger library was lighted, a fire was burning in the opengrate, and the rooms had been swept and dusted. The Indian came intothe hall to take his coat and hat.
"Dinner is at seven," Wassaquam announced. "You want some change aboutthat?"
"No; seven is all right."
Alan went up-stairs to the room next to Corvet's which he hadappropriated for his own use the night before, and found it nowprepared for his occupancy. His suitcase, unpacked, had been put awayin the closet; the clothing it had contained had been put in thedresser drawers, and the toilet articles arranged upon the top of thedresser and in the cabinet of the little connecting bath. So, clearly,Wassaquam had accepted him as an occupant of the house, though uponwhat status Alan could not guess. He had spoken of Wassaquam toConstance as his servant; but Wassaquam was not that; he was Corvet'sservant--faithful and devoted to Corvet, Constance had said--and Alancould not think of Wassaquam as the sort of servant that "went with thehouse." The Indian's manner toward himself had been noncommittal, evenstolid.
When Alan came down again to the first floor, Wassaquam was nowhereabout, but he heard sounds in the service rooms on the basement floor.He went part way down the service stairs and saw the Indian in thekitchen, preparing dinner. Wassaquam had not heard his approach, andAlan stood an instant watching the Indian's tall, thin figure and thequick movements of his disproportionately small, well-shaped hands,almost like a woman's; then he scuffed his foot upon the stair, andWassaquam turned swiftly about.
"Anybody been here to-day, Judah?" Alan asked.
"No, Alan. I called tradesmen; they came. There were young men fromthe newspapers."
"They came here, did they? Then why did you say no one came?"
"I did not let them in."
"What did you tell them?"
"Nothing."
"Why not?"
"Henry telephoned I was to tell them nothing."
"You mean Henry Spearman?"
"Yes."
"Do you take orders from him, Judah?"
"I took that order, Alan."
Alan hesitated. "You've been here in the house all day?"
"Yes, Alan."
Alan went back to the first floor and into the smaller library. Theroom was dark w
ith the early winter dusk, and he switched on the light;then he knelt and pulled out one of the drawers he had seen Spearmansearching through the night before, and carefully examined the papersin it one by one, but found them only ordinary papers. He pulled thedrawer completely out and sounded the wall behind it and the partitionson both sides but they appeared solid. He put the drawer back in andwent on to examine the next one, and, after that, the others. Theclocks in the house had been wound, for presently the clock in thelibrary struck six, and another in the hall chimed slowly. An hourlater, when the clocks chimed again, Alan looked up and saw Wassaquam'ssmall black eyes, deep set in their large eye sockets, fixed on himintently through the door. How long the Indian had been there, Alancould not guess; he had not heard his step.
"What are you looking for, Alan?" the Indian asked.
Alan reflected a moment. "Mr. Sherrill thought that Mr. Corvet mighthave left a record of some sort here for me, Judah. Do you know ofanything like that?"
"No. That is what you are looking for?"
"Yes. Do you know of any place where Mr. Corvet would have been likelyto put away anything like that?"
"Ben put papers in all these drawers; he put them up-stairs, too--whereyou have seen."
"Nowhere else, Judah?"
"If he put things anywhere else, Alan, I have not seen. Dinner isserved, Alan."
Alan went to the lavatory on the first floor and washed the dust fromhis hands and face; then he went into the dining-room. A place hadbeen set at the dining table around the corner from the place where, asthe worn rug showed, the lonely occupant of the house had beenaccustomed to sit. Benjamin Corvet's armchair, with its worn leatherback, had been left against the wall; so had another unworn armchairwhich Alan understood must have been Mrs. Corvet's; and an armlesschair had been set for Alan between their places. Wassaquam, havingserved the dinner, took his place behind Alan's chair, ready to passhim what he needed; but the Indian's silent, watchful presence therebehind him where he could not see his face, disturbed Alan, and hetwisted himself about to look at him.
"Would you mind, Judah," he inquired, "if I asked you to stand overthere instead of where you are?"
The Indian, without answering, moved around to the other side of thetable, where he stood facing Alan.
"You're a Chippewa, aren't you, Judah?" Alan asked.
"Yes."
"Your people live at the other end of the lake, don't they?"
"Yes, Alan."
"Have you ever heard of the Indian Drum they talk about up there, thatthey say sounds when a ship goes down on the lake?"
The Indian's eyes sparkled excitedly. "Yes," he said.
"Do you believe in it?"
"Not just believe; I know. That is old Indian country up there,Alan--L'arbre Croche--Cross Village--Middle Village. A big town ofOttawas was there in old days; Pottawatomies too, and Chippewas.Indians now are all Christians, Catholics, and Methodists who hold campmeetings and speak beautifully. But some things of the old days areleft. The Drum is like that. Everybody knows that it sounds for thosewho die on the lake."
"How do they know, Judah? How do you yourself know?"
"I have heard it. It sounded for my father."
"How was that?"
"Like this. My father sold some bullocks to a man on Beaver Island.The man kept store on Beaver Island, Alan. No Indian liked him. Hewould not hand anything to an Indian or wrap anything in paper for anIndian. Say it was like this: An Indian comes in to buy salt pork.First the man would get the money. Then, Alan, he would take his hookand pull the pork up out of the barrel and throw it on the dirty floorfor the Indian to pick up. He said Indians must take their food off ofthe floor--like dogs.
"My father had to take the bullocks to the man, across to BeaverIsland. He had a Mackinaw boat, very little, with a sail made brown byboiling it with tan bark, so that it would not wear out. At first theIndians did not know who the bullocks were for, so they helped him. Hetied the legs of the bullocks, the front legs and the back legs, thenall four legs together, and the Indians helped him put them in theboat. When they found out the bullocks were for the man on BeaverIsland, the Indians would not help him any longer. He had to take themacross alone. Besides, it was bad weather, the beginning of a storm.
"He went away, and my mother went to pick berries--I was small then.Pretty soon I saw my mother coming back. She had no berries, and herhair was hanging down, and she was wailing. She took me in her armsand said my father was dead. Other Indians came around and asked herhow she knew, and she said she had heard the Drum. The Indians wentout to listen."
"Did you go?"
"Yes; I went."
"How old were you, Judah?"
"Five years."
"That was the time you heard it?"
"Yes; it would beat once, then there would be silence; then it wouldbeat again. It frightened us to hear it. The Indians would scream andbeat their bodies with their hands when the sound came. We listeneduntil night; there was a storm all the time growing greater in thedark, but no rain. The Drum would beat once; then nothing; then itwould beat again once--never two or more times. So we knew it was formy father. It is supposed the feet of the bullocks came untied, andthe bullocks tipped the boat over. They found near the island the bodyof one of the bullocks floating in the water, and its feet were untied.My father's body was on the beach near there."
"Did you ever hear of a ship called the _Miwaka_, Judah?"
"That was long ago," the Indian answered.
"They say that the Drum beat wrong when the _Miwaka_ went down--that itwas one beat short of the right number."
"That was long ago," Wassaquam merely repeated.
"Did Mr. Corvet ever speak to you about the _Miwaka_?"
"No; he asked me once if I had ever heard the Drum. I told him."
Wassaquam removed the dinner and brought Alan a dessert. He returnedto stand in the place across the table that Alan had assigned to him,and stood looking down at Alan, steadily and thoughtfully.
"Do I look like any one you ever saw before, Judah?" Alan inquired ofhim.
"No."
"Is that what you were thinking?"
"That is what I was thinking. Will coffee be served in the library,Alan?"
Alan crossed to the library and seated himself in the chair where hisfather had been accustomed to sit. Wassaquam brought him the singlesmall cup of coffee, lit the spirit lamp on the smoking stand, andmoved that over; then he went away. When he had finished his coffee,Alan went into the smaller connecting room and recommenced hisexamination of the drawers under the bookshelves. He could hear theIndian moving about his tasks, and twice Wassaquam came to the door ofthe room and looked in on him; but he did not offer to say anything,and Alan did not speak to him. At ten o'clock, Alan stopped his searchand went back to the chair in the library. He dozed; for he awoke witha start and a feeling that some one had been bending over him, andgazed up into Wassaquam's face. The Indian had been scrutinizing himwith intent, anxious inquiry. He moved away, but Alan called him back.
"When Mr. Corvet disappeared, Judah, you went to look for him up atManistique, where he was born--at least Mr. Sherrill said that waswhere you went. Why did you think you might find him there?" Alanasked.
"In the end, I think, a man maybe goes back to the place where hebegan. That's all, Alan."
"In the end! What do you mean by that? What do you think has becomeof Mr. Corvet?"
"I think now--Ben's dead."
"What makes you think that?"
"Nothing makes me think; I think it myself."
"I see. You mean you have no reason more than others for thinking it;but that is what you believe."
"Yes." Wassaquam went away, and Alan heard him on the back stairs,ascending to his room.
When Alan went up to his own room, after making the rounds to see thatthe house was locked, a droning chant came to him from the third floor.He paused in the hall and listened, then went on up
to the floor above.A flickering light came to him through the half-open door of a room atthe front of the house; he went a little way toward it and looked in.Two thick candles were burning before a crucifix, below which theIndian knelt, prayer book in hand and rocking to and fro as he dronedhis supplications.
A word or two came to Alan, but without them Wassaquam's occupation wasplain; he was praying for the repose of the dead--the Catholic chanttaught to him, as it had been taught undoubtedly to his fathers, by theFrench Jesuits of the lakes. The intoned chant for Corvet's soul, bythe man who had heard the Drum, followed and still came to Alan, as hereturned to the second floor.
He had not been able to determine, during the evening, Wassaquam'sattitude toward him. Having no one else to trust, Alan had beenobliged to put a certain amount of trust in the Indian; so as he hadexplained to Wassaquam that morning that the desk and the drawers inthe little room off Corvet's had been forced, and had warned him to seethat no one, who had not proper business there, entered the house.Wassaquam had appeared to accept this order; but now Wassaquam hadimplied that it was not because of Alan's order that he had refusedreporters admission to the house. The developments of the day hadtremendously altered things in one respect; for Alan, the night before,had not thought of the intruder into the house as one who could claiman ordinary right of entrance there; but now he knew him to be the onewho--except for Sherrill--might most naturally come to the house; one,too, for whom Wassaquam appeared to grant a certain right of directionof affairs there. So, at this thought, Alan moved angrily; the housewas his--Alan's. He had noted particularly, when Sherrill had showedhim the list of properties whose transfer to him Corvet had left atSherrill's discretion, that the house was not among them; and he hadunderstood that this was because Corvet had left Sherrill no discretionas to the house. Corvet's direct, unconditional gift of the house bydeed to Alan had been one of Sherrill's reasons for believing that ifCorvet had left anything which could explain his disappearance, itwould be found in the house.
Unless Spearman had visited the house during the day and had obtainedwhat he had been searching for the night before--and Alan believed hehad not done that--it was still in the house. Alan's hands clenched;he would not give Spearman such a chance as that again; and he himselfwould continue his search of the house--exhaustively, room by room,article of furniture by article of furniture.
Alan started and went quickly to the open door of his room, as he heardvoices now somewhere within the house. One of the voices he recognizedas Wassaquam's; the other indistinct, thick, accusing--was unknown tohim; it certainly was not Spearman's. He had not heard Wassaquam godown-stairs, and he had not heard the doorbell, so he ran first to thethird floor; but the room where he had seen Wassaquam was empty. Hedescended again swiftly to the first floor, and found Wassaquamstanding in the front hall, alone.
"Who was here, Judah?" Alan demanded.
"A man," the Indian answered stolidly. "He was drunk; I put him out."
"What did he come for?"
"He came to see Ben. I put him out; he is gone, Alan."
Alan flung open the front door and looked out, but he saw no one.
"What did he want of Mr. Corvet, Judah?"
"I do not know. I told him Ben was not here; he was angry, but he wentaway."
"Has he ever come here before?"
"Yes; he comes twice."
"He has been here twice?"
"More than that; every year he comes twice, Alan. Once he cameoftener."
"How long has he been doing that?"
"Since I can remember."
"Is he a friend of Mr. Corvet?"
"No friend--no!"
"But Mr. Corvet saw him when he came here?"
"Always, Alan."
"And you don't know at all what he came about?"
"How should I know? No; I do not."
Alan got his coat and hat. The sudden disappearance of the man mightmean only that he had hurried away, but it might mean too that he wasstill lurking near the house. Alan had decided to make the circuit ofthe house and determine that. But as he came out on to the porch, afigure more than a block away to the south strode with uncertain stepout into the light of a street lamp, halted and faced about, and shookhis fist back at the house. Alan dragged the Indian out on to theporch.
"Is that the man, Judah?" he demanded.
"Yes, Alan."
Alan ran down the steps and at full speed after the man. The other hadturned west at the corner where Alan had seen him; but even though Alanslipped as he tried to run upon the snowy walks, he must be gainingfast upon him. He saw him again, when he had reached the corner wherethe man had turned, traveling westward with that quick uncertain steptoward Clark Street; at that corner the man turned south. But whenAlan reached the corner, he was nowhere in sight. To the south, ClarkStreet reached away, garish with electric signs and with a half dozensaloons to every block. That the man was drunk made it probable he hadturned into one of these places. Alan went into every one of them forfully a half mile and looked about, but he found no one even resemblingthe man he had been following. He retraced his steps for severalblocks, still looking; then he gave it up and returned eastward towardthe Drive.
The side street leading to the Drive was less well lighted; dark entryways and alleys opened on it; but the night was clear. The stars, withthe shining sword of Orion almost overhead, gleamed with midwinterbrightness, and to the west the crescent of the moon was hanging andthrowing faint shadows over the snow. Alan could see at the end of thestreet, beyond the yellow glow of the distant boulevard lights, thesmooth, chill surface of the lake. A white light rode above it; now,below the white light, he saw a red speck--the masthead and portlanterns of a steamer northward bound. Farther out a second white glowappeared from behind the obscuration of the buildings and below it agreen speck--a starboard light. The information he had gained that dayenabled him to recognize in these lights two steamers passing oneanother at the harbor mouth.
"Red to red," Alan murmured to himself. "Green to green--Red to red,perfect safety, go ahead!" he repeated.
It brought him, with marvelous vividness, back to Constance Sherrill.Events since he had talked with her that morning had put them far apartonce more; but, in another way, they were being drawn closer together.For he knew now that she was caught as well as he in the mesh ofconsequences of acts not their own. Benjamin Corvet, in the anguish ofthe last hours before fear of those consequences had driven him away,had given her a warning against Spearman so wild that it defeateditself; for Alan merely to repeat that warning, with no more than heyet knew, would be equally futile. But into the contest betweenSpearman and himself--that contest, he was beginning to feel, whichmust threaten destruction either to Spearman or to him--she hadentered. Her happiness, her future, were at stake; her fate, he wascertain now, depended upon discovery of those events tied tight in themystery of Alan's own identity which Spearman knew, and the threat ofwhich at moments appalled him. Alan winced as there came before him inthe darkness of the street the vision of Constance in Spearman's armsand of the kiss that he had seen that afternoon.
He staggered, slipped, fell suddenly forward upon his knees under astunning, crushing blow upon his head from behind. Thought,consciousness almost lost, he struggled, twisting himself about tograsp at his assailant. He caught the man's clothing, trying to draghimself up; fighting blindly, dazedly, unable to see or think, heshouted aloud and then again, aloud. He seemed in the distance to hearanswering cries; but the weight and strength of the other was bearinghim down again to his knees; he tried to slip aside from it, to rise.Then another blow, crushing and sickening, descended on his head; evenhearing left him and, unconscious, he fell forward on to the snow andlay still.