The Professor's Mystery

  CHAPTER III

  AN ALARM IN THE NIGHT

  There was nothing that I could ask, nothing that I could say, and asidefrom her thanks she was silent. So without a word I turned and helpedthe other woman to her feet, and still in silence the three of us walkedalong until we came to an easy rise where I helped them both to thetrack. We were just in time, for as we gained the track our trolleyrounded the curve and took us aboard.

  So for a mile or so Miss Tabor and I sat in intimate aloofness, whilethe car bore us through the beauty of the fading summer day. Everywherebirds were chanting the evening, and ever and again with growinginsistence the vivid breath of the nearing sea blew past us. All my lifethis first summer tang of salt air had never failed to stir me. It hadmeant vacation and the vague trumpet call of the unknown. But now I satunheeding, burning with an unreasoning and sullen resentment. I knewthat I was a fool. What possible difference could it make to me if theacquaintance of a merry week and a few more intimate hours chose to hidea wedding-ring in her breast. It certainly was no business of mine, norcould she owe me any explanation. Yet I wanted explanation more thananything else in the world. It certainly could not be her own andyet--whose was it, anyway? Certainly not her mother's, for her mother Iknew was alive. But then, whose could it be? And why did it matter somuch? Why should such a patent terror fill her at the thought of itsloss? Why was it again so finally and so quickly hidden away? It waseven strange, I thought, that she should let the emotion that she mustknow I had seen, pass with no effort of explanation.

  I glanced at her. She was sitting, looking wearily ahead, distress wasin her eyes, and every little line of her body spoke fatigue withouthope; only her hands, tightly clasped in her lap, showed thedetermination of some hidden thought. The blue of a little bruise hadbegun to show near her temple. A wave of tenderness swept over me, thepity of a man for a woman tired and in unvoiced distress. Who was I thatI should question her? What possible claim had I upon even the least ofher thoughts? She was pathetically weary and disturbed, and I was asullen brute.

  I spoke to her as if conversation had been unbroken. "Of course I am totake you home."

  She shook her head.

  "That's perfectly absurd," I said. "There must be some inn or other nearyou. I can put up there for the night and go on in the morning. In fact,I am pretty tired, myself; the nearest place that I can get supper and abed is the best place for me."

  She considered for a long moment. "Very well," she said at last, "I amtired and still a little dizzy; it would be nice to be taken all the wayhome. I don't generally mind the dark, but I suppose that we were a gooddeal shaken up. There is an inn, too, but it would be very silly of youto go there, unless--unless for some reason we could not put you up."

  "Oh, come," I said, "you probably have a houseful at the present moment,and you know it. Nothing is more upsetting in the world than theunexpected guest."

  "Well, we shall see," she answered. "I am pretty sure that nobody butthe family is at home, and father will want to see you and thank you.Knight-errantry appeals to him. We will leave the asking to mother. Ifshe can she will want you to stay. If she can't, well the inn is not sobad after all. There it is, by the way, on that little hill. I had noidea that we were so near home. We get off at that next electric light.Will you please signal to the conductor?"

  The car stopped and I helped her down, taking our two bags with thestrange feeling that I was suddenly coming to the end of a briefsentimental journey. Our companion in misfortune, who had chosen a seatby herself, scarcely looked up. It was no great walk to the house andpresently Miss Tabor pointed it out to me. It was large and low, setwell back upon a great lawn that a tall, dark hedge divided from theouter world.

  As we neared the pillared gate a high-shouldered man stepped outnervously from the shadow. Miss Tabor put her hand upon my arm. "Justwait here a moment, please," she said and ran forward to him.

  It had grown almost dark, but I could see that she leaned toward him,placing both hands upon his shoulders. The soft sibilance of herwhispered words and the startling rumble of his bass came to meindistinctly, merely wordless tones. I grew red in the darkness andturned my back, for I had caught myself trying to listen.

  Presently Miss Tabor came to me. "I didn't mean to keep you so long,"she apologized, "but you see--"

  "It wasn't long," I said shortly, surprised to find myself angry. So aswe climbed the steps the shadow had dropped between us again.

  For a moment I stood blinking when the door had shut behind us. Thelarge, low room in which we stood was not brilliantly lighted, but thesudden change from the soft outdoor gloom dazzled me. The room was verylarge indeed, floored with dull red tile, paneled in dark oak; a greatDutch fireplace, filled with flowers, breathed fragrance. Opening fromthe room's far end, and raised three steps above its level, was adining-room. On our entrance two chairs had been pushed back from thetable, and now a slim, pretty little woman came running down the stepsand across the big room.

  "Lady, dear," she cried, "what on earth has made you so late?" She flungherself into Miss Tabor's arms, hugging her as a child would.

  Miss Tabor kissed her gaily. "We will tell you all about it, mother,dear," she laughed. "Let me introduce Mr. Crosby, without whose help Ishould have probably been much later. And, Mr. Crosby, this is mymother."

  She greeted me graciously, turning to introduce me to her husband, whohad followed her more slowly. He was a florid man and rather tall, hisgray eyes being level with my own.

  When places had been made for us at the table, and we were gathered inthe close radius of the table lights, I found myself surprised that thedaughter looked so little like either. Her mother was much smaller thanshe, one of those women who never grow thin or fat, but whose age comesupon them only as sort of dimming of color and outline. And indeed, inthe more intimate light I found her looking more her years, pretty andsoft and doll-like, but too delicate a vessel for any great strength ofspirit, a sweet little woman, affectionate and inconsequent. Her wordscame quickly and with a certain merry insistence, but with littlenervous pauses that were almost sad in their intensity; and once when abicycle sounded faintly from the street she stopped altogether, her handat her heart, her head turned and listening, until her husband's quicklaugh brought her blue eyes questioningly to him. Then we all plungedinto conversation at once as if ashamed of the sudden pause it had givenus.

  Miss Tabor and I were made to give an account of our accident, or rathershe gave it, and a very nicely tempered account it was, too. I was keptbusy devising plausible confirmation of surprising understatements. Sheseemed for some reason very anxious to hide a possible seriousness inthe matter, and her first brief, pleading glance bound me to her, freelyaccepting the judgment of her conscience for my own. Under thesecircumstances I expected no mention of the loss and finding of the ringand there was none.

  Both mother and father called Miss Tabor "Lady"; so, I remembered, hadall her intimates at the Christmas house party. Yet her bag had beeninitialed "M. B. T." I thought the nickname a gracious one and wellsuited to all the manner of her bearing. I wondered idly as they talkedwhat the M. stood for, sure in my heart that it, too, was graceful andfitting. And as "Lady" told of the beauty of the meadow where we hadbeen delayed "almost two hours by an old flat wheel, or something likethat--isn't that the term, Mr. Crosby?" I decided that if the rest of mythree months were spent in the most humdrum of ways, my vacation as awhole would not have been a barren one.

  There was little conversation after we had left the table. Miss Taborsaid that she was too sleepy to sit up--and, indeed, the strain that shehad been under was already beginning to show through even the vivacityof her acting. For my part, I had no inclination to sit in the familycircle that she left. I, too, was tired, and I had many things to thinkand little to say. So that as she got up I, too, pleaded fatigue, and myneed of finding my room at the inn.

  "The inn! Indeed you will do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Tabor."There is a bed just waiting for t
ired young men here." She glanced forconfirmation at her daughter.

  Miss Tabor said nothing but looked across to her father. He paused anuncomfortable second, then turned to me with a smile.

  "Of course you are to stay here," he said.

  His pause had troubled me, and I hesitated, but Mrs. Tabor would hear noarguments or excuses, and overwhelmed my stammering in a ripplingtorrent of proof that I was a very silly young man, and that she wouldnot hear another word about any such an absurdity as my going; and as Istood embarrassed, Mr. Tabor, with another glance at his daughter, tookmy bag himself, and, his hand upon my shoulder, fairly bore me off to myroom. I was too comfortably tired to lie long awake, even with soeventful a day to turn over in retrospect. As I floated downward intothe dark through a flood of incongruous images, green meadows androaring trains, clamorous streets and calm rooms, delicate with whiteand silver, I distinctly heard a step upon the porch, the click andclosure of the front door, and the deep voice of the man we had met atthe gate. But even my angry interest in him was weaker than the waves ofdrowsiness.

  I roused into that dubious half-consciousness which is the territory ofthe powers of darkness; in which the senses are vaguely alive, while nojudgment restrains or questions the vagaries of imagination; the placeof evil memories and needless fears, of sweeping reforms whose vanityappears with the new light, and of remembered dreams whose beauty faintsupon the threshold of the day. It was still so dark that before I couldplace myself amid my unfamiliar surroundings, I was aware of smotheredcommotion. People were awake and in trouble; the house was full ofswishing garments and the hurry of uncomfortable feet. Some one passedmy door swiftly, carrying a light, whose rays swept through the cracksand swung uncannily across the ceiling. Another door opened somewhere,letting out a blur of voices, among which I seemed to distinguish thebass growl of the man at the gate. My first thought was of fire; andwith the shock of that I sprang up and across the room, groping for thehandle of the door. It would not open. I pulled and tugged at it,feeling above and below for a bolt. There was none, nor was any key inthe keyhole. After some stumbling, I found the switch of the electriclight, and in the sudden radiance explored the floor for the fallen key.It was not there; and a hurried examination of the crack showed me thatthe lock had been turned from the outside.

  I sat down on the bed and tried to gather my common sense. I rememberedperfectly having left the door unlocked and the key in its place within.By what conceivable design or accident had I been made a prisoner? Themelodramatic suggestions born of the hour and my excited fancy weresimply absurd in such a place. I was in a Connecticut suburb, a home oflawn parties and electric lights, and this was the Twentieth Century;yet I could find no explanation more reasonable. Fire was by this timeout of the question; and an accident or practical joke would have beenevident by now. Meanwhile, the muffled turmoil of the house continued. Aman's voice and a woman's broke into inarticulate altercation, andpresently I thought I heard a cry and a sound like the fall of somethingsoft and heavy. I sprang to the door again and shook it with all mystrength, but it was so solidly fitted that it did not even rattle. Thensome one ran softly down-stairs; the front door banged sharply; and,looking out, I saw the figure of a man, his shoulders raised and hiselbows bent with haste, run swiftly across the bar of light thatstreamed from my window and disappear in the dark. Could he have brokeninto the house, locking the bedrooms against interruption, and fled uponbeing discovered? I was opening my window to shout for help when I wasarrested by a voice that there was no mistaking.

  "I can't! We mustn't!" she wailed. "What will he think of us?"

  An angry whisper answered, and of the rest I could distinguish only thetone. The whisper grew more volubly urgent, while her replies hesitated.At last she came quietly down the hall and knocked at my door.

  "Mr. Crosby--are you awake?"

  "I should think so," I answered. "What has happened? I'm locked in."

  "Nothing. It's all right--really. Will you come down-stairs as soon asyou can, very quietly?"

  "Certainly. Half a minute. What's the matter?"

  "Nothing," she said. "Hurry!" The key turned in the lock and she wasgone. I dressed with a haste that made my fingers clumsy, and randown-stairs. The bustle in the house had quieted into an irregularmurmur.

  Miss Tabor was waiting for me in the hall below. The lights were not on,and I could see only that she was wrapped in something long and dark,her hair gathered into a loose knot above her head. Perhaps only the dimlight made me imagine traces of tears.

  "Thank you for being so ready," she began in a quick undertone. "Now,listen! you must--"

  "Tell me what's the trouble," I broke in. "Is it burglary, or issomebody taken suddenly ill?"

  "There isn't any trouble," she repeated. "You must believe that, and youmust do as I tell you. I'm terribly sorry, but it's impossible for youto remain here any longer. You must go away--now, at once, and withoutknowing or asking anything. Of course there's a good reason, and ofcourse you can be trusted not to talk or inquire. That's all. It'sperfectly simple; there's nothing really surprising about it."

  "You mean I'm to leave this minute--in the middle of the night?"

  "Yes; now. Don't wonder or worry. Think as well of us as you can--don'tthink about us at all! There's nothing the matter. I ought to haveknown. Accept my apologies for all of us, and--good-by." She held outher hand.

  "That's all very well," I said. "Of course I'll go if you wish it, andask no questions. Only tell me when I can see you again, and if there'sanything in the world I can do for you. I'll be staying at the inn."

  A latch-key clicked behind us, and the man I had seen at the gatetiptoed in. "All right?" he whispered.

  "I think so; hurry," she replied, and he passed swiftly and quietlyup-stairs. She turned to me a drawn face, speaking in strainedmonotone.

  "You must never see me again. You mustn't stay in town, nor try to doanything. Oh, can't you understand? The only help you can give is togo--go away utterly and forget all about it as if you had never met me.Honestly I'm grateful, and I think everything good of you, but--oh, goaway!"

  "As you please," I said. "What about my things?"

  "Wait a minute." She ran lightly up to the landing and returned with mysuit-case, closed and strapped. I took my hat from the table by thedoor.

  "Good-by," she said. "Promise me not to try to come back."

  What is there in darkness and the sense of night to make even theplainest woman so lovely? She was close before me as I turned, themysterious oval of her face wavering upward as though rising through dimwater; her hair a heavier shadow against the gloom, her lips a livingblossom, and her eyes luminous out of undiscoverable depths. The darkwrap she wore lost itself downward in long, fading lines; and all thehidden form and the nameless fragrance of her were wonderfully the same,one with midnight and midsummer. As I took her hand, I do not know whatagony of restraint held my arms from around her; only I kept repeatingover and over to myself, "I have no right--I have no right"--and becauseof that I could not for a moment answer her in words. Suddenly fromabove came a sharp shock and the metallic splash of broken glass. Thevoices broke out in a quick murmur, and she shrank and shook as ifcringing away from a blow.

  "Oh, go quickly!" she cried. "They need me!"

  I opened the door. "Good-by," I said weakly, "and--God bless you!" Andeven as I turned on the threshold to lift my hat the latch clickedbehind me.