Chapter VIII: Book II: The Isle of Prey (4)

He looked up and down the now moon-flecked verandah--and began to try the French windows that opened upon it from the front rooms of the house. The first two were locked as he had expected. It was only a chance, but he might as well begin here as anywhere else. He tried the third one almost perfunctorily. It opened at a touch.

"I'm in luck!" Locke muttered, and stepped inside.

He turned the knob to lock the French window behind him, and found the bolt already thrown. Queer! He stood frowning for an instant, then stooped and felt along the inside edge of the threshold. The socket that ordinarily housed the bolt-bar was gone. The same condition therefore obviously existed at the top, as the long bar had a double throw.

He straightened up, a curious smile twitching at his lips now, and, making his way silently to the stairs, he reached the upper hall, stole along it to the door of his own room, and entered. Here, from one of his bags, he procured a revolver; and a moment later, his ear to the panel, listening, he stood outside Captain Francis Newcombe's door.

There was no sound from within. Softly he began to turn the door handle--the door would hardly be locked; that would be a misplay; one didn't lock one's bedroom door when a guest in a private house. No; it was not locked. He had the door ajar now. Again he listened. There was still no sound from within. Was the man back yet, or not? The absence of any sound meant nothing, save that Newcombe was probably not in the sitting room of his suite--he might easily, however, be in either the bathroom or the bedroom beyond.

Locke swung the door a little wider open, stepped through, and closed it noiselessly behind him. Again he stood still, his revolver now outthrust a little before him. The moonlight played across the floor. It disclosed an open door beyond. Still no sound.

Locked moved forward. He could see into the bedroom now. The bed was not only empty, but had not been slept in. He turned quickly and opened the bathroom door. The bathroom, too, was empty.

Captain Francis Newcombe had not, then, as yet returned. With a grim smile Locke thrust his revolver into his pocket. It was perhaps just as well--the time while he waited might possibly be used to very good advantage! Captain Francis Newcombe's baggage was invitingly at one's disposal--the _Talofa_, with its confined quarters, and where, on the little vessel, it was always _crowded_, as it were, had offered no such opportunity!

Locke opened one of the bags. His smile now had changed to one of irony. Barring any other justification, turn about was no more than fair play, was it? He possessed a moral certainty, if he lacked the actual proof, that Captain Francis Newcombe had not hesitated to invade his, Locke's, cabin on the liner and go through his, Locke's, effects.

He laughed a little now in low, grim mirth. He wondered which of the two, Newcombe or himself, would be the better rewarded for his efforts?

There was little light, but Locke worked swiftly by the sense of touch, with fingers that ignored the general contents, and that sought dexterously for _hidden_ things. His fingers traversed every inch of the lining of the bag, top, bottom and sides. He disturbed nothing.

Presently he laid the bag aside, and started on another--and suddenly he nodded his head sharply in satisfaction. This one was what was generally known as a Gladstone bag, and under the lining at one side his fingers felt what seemed like a folded paper that moved under his touch. The lining was intact, of course, but there must be some way of getting in underneath it--yes, here it was! Rather clever! And ordinarily quite safe--unless one were actually looking for something of the sort! There was a flap, or pocket, at the side of the bag, the ordinary sort of thing, and at the bottom of the flap Locke's fingers, working deftly, found that the edges of the lining, while apparently fastened together, were made, in reality, into a double fold--the lining being stiff enough, even when the edges were displaced, to fall back of its own accord into place again.

He separated the edges now, worked his fingers into the opening, and drew out an envelope. It had been torn open at one end, and there was a superscription of some sort on it in faded writing which, in the semi-darkness, he could not make out. He stood up, and went quickly to the window to obtain the full benefit of the moonlight. He could just decipher the writing now:

"Polly's papers which is God's truth,
Mrs. Wickes X her mark."

For a moment he stood there motionless--but his eyes had lifted from the envelope now and were fixed on the lawn below. The window here gave on the side of the lawn with the trees at the rear of the house in view. A man had just stepped out from the shadow of the trees and was coming toward the house.

Locke stared, even the envelope in his hand temporarily forgotten, as a frown of perplexity that deepened into amazed chagrin gathered on his forehead. The figure was quite recognisable, even minutely so. It was Captain Francis Newcombe. It accounted for the missing sockets on that French window perhaps--but the man was as perfectly and immaculately dressed as he had been that night at dinner. There was no torn coat--on missing coat sleeve. The man he had fought with, the man in the mask, had not been Captain Francis Newcombe.

He laughed now--not pleasantly. He had obviously been waiting here for the wrong man. There was no need of waiting any longer--unless he desired to be caught himself! Queer! Strange! But there was the envelope. Polly's papers! What was it that was "God's truth"? At least, he would find that out!

He thrust the envelope into his pocket, closed the bag, and returned to his own room. He switched on the light, hurriedly took the envelope from his pocket again, and from it drew out two documents. He studied them while minute after minute passed, then dropping them on the table before him, he stood with drawn face and clenched fists staring across the room. Polly's birth certificate! The marriage certificate of her parents! He saw again the agony in the dark eyes, he heard again the agony in the voice that had proclaimed a parentage outside the pale. And a great oath came now from Locke's white lips.

He flung himself into a chair beside the table. He fought for cool, contained reasoning. These papers--Newcombe! Did it change anything, place Newcombe in any better light, because it was some other man who had worn that mask to-night? He shook his head in quick, emphatic dissent. It did not! He was sure, certain of that. The trail led too far back, was too well defined, too conclusive. And even to-night! What was Newcombe doing out of the house at three o'clock in the morning? Ah, yes--he had it! The old maniac's words came back with sudden and sure significance: "Digging--digging--digging.... The wrong scent.... The hut in the woods at the rear of the house."

Locke gnawed savagely at his lips. That was where Newcombe had come from--the woods at the rear of the house. It meant that Newcombe was the one who had been tricked by the old madman's cunning, which could never have happened if Newcombe had not been stealthily trying to find the hidden money; it simply meant that Newcombe was the one who had been on the wrong scent--and that some one else had been on the right one!

His face was set in lines like chiselled marble now. Who was this "some one else"? Was the question very hard to answer? The field was very limited--_significantly_ limited now! He wasn't wrong, was he? He couldn't be wrong! And there was always the torn sleeve!

Locke's eyes fixed upon the two documents on the table again. Captain Francis Newcombe! No; it did not make Newcombe any the less a guilty man because it was not he who had worn the mask to-night. Newcombe stood out sharply defined against the light of evidence which, if only circumstantial, was strong enough to damn the man a thousand times over for what he was. And here, adding to that evidence, was the proof that Polly's identity had been, and was being, deliberately concealed from her. It opened a vista to uglier and still more evil things--things that only a soul dead to decency, black as the pit of hell, could have conceived and patiently put into execution. A child--a gutter-snipe, Polly had called herself--_rescued_ from naked poverty and the slums of Whitechapel by a man such as Newcombe, whose only promptings were the promptings of a fiend! Why? Was there room to question further why Captain Francis Newcombe had years ago adopted such a ward--when now before one's eyes those years were bearing their poison fruit? Polly's introduction into this family here was even at this moment being traded upon to effect the theft of half a million dollars. That was too obvious now to permit denial. Newcombe was making of a girl, high-minded, pure-souled, a hideous cat's-paw. Yes, yes! All that was clear enough! But why should Polly have been deprived of her rightful name, her claim to honest parentage? Was it to weld a stronger bond of gratitude--or make her the more helpless, and therefore the more dependent upon her guardian? Where were these parents? Dead or living? There was Mrs. Wickes--Mrs. Wickes, who had posed as the mother! Well, there were certain quarters in London where those who strayed outside the law could be made to talk. Mrs. Wickes should be able to furnish very interesting information. It was not far to Whitechapel and London--by cable.

His mind, his brain, worked on--but now suddenly in turmoil and misery despite all effort of his to hold himself in check.

Polly! Polly _Gray_!

She loved this monster--that she thought a man, and called her guardian. Not the love of a maid for lover; but with the love, the honour, the respect and gratitude that she would give a cherished father.

The truth would break her heart. The love her friends had given her, turned to their own undoing! The shame would be torture; the self-degradation, the abasement that she would know, would be beyond the bearing. Her faith would be a shattered thing!

Locke's clenched hands lay outspread across the table. He drew them suddenly together and dropped his head upon them.

"And you love her," he whispered to himself. "Do you know what that is going to mean? You did not count on that, did you? Do you know where that will lead? Do you know the consequences?"

He answered his own questions.

"No," he said numbly; "I don't know what it is going to mean. I know I love her."

--VIII--

THE MESSAGE

Polly Wickes, from her pillow, stared into the darkness. There had been no thought of sleep; it did not seem as though there ever could be again. She had undressed and gone to bed--but she had done this mechanically, because at night one went to bed, because she had always gone to bed.

Not to sleep!

The tears blinding her eyes, she had groped her way up the stairs from the living room where she had left Howard Locke, and somehow she had reached her room. That was hours and hours ago. Surely the daylight would come soon now; surely it would soon be morning. She wanted the daylight, she wanted the morning, because the darkness and the stillness seemed to accentuate a terrible and merciless sense of isolation that had come so swiftly, so suddenly into her life--to overturn, to dominate, to stupefy, to cast contemptuously aside the dreams and thoughts and hopes of happiness and contentment. And yet, though she yearned for the morning, she even dreaded it more. How could she meet Howard Locke--at breakfast? She couldn't. She wouldn't go down to breakfast.

The small hands came from under the coverings, and clasped themselves tightly about the aching head--and she turned and buried her face in the pillow. She might easily, very easily evade breakfast--and postpone the inevitable for a few minutes, even a few hours. Why did she grasp at pitiful subterfuges such as that?

_She was nameless_.

That phrase had come hours ago. It had scorched itself upon her brain--as a branding iron at white heat sears its imprint upon quivering flesh, never to be effaced, always to endure. She was nameless. It wasn't that she had not always known it--she always had. But it meant now what it had never meant before. Until now it had been as something that, since it must be borne, she had striven to bear with what courage was hers, and, denying its right to embitter life, had sought to imprison it in the dim recesses of her mind--but now in an instant it had broken its bonds to stand forth exposed in all its ugliness; no longer captive, but a vengeful captor, claiming its miserable right from now on to control and dominate her life.

She had thought of love--it would have been unnatural if she had not. But she had never loved, and therefore she had thought of it only in an abstract way. Dream love--fancies. But she loved now--she loved this man who had so suddenly come into her life--she loved Howard Locke. And happinesss, greater than she had realised happiness could ever be, had unfolded itself to her gaze, and, love had become a vibrant, personal thing, so wonderful, so tender and so glad a thing, that beside it all the world was little and insignificant and empty; but even as the glory of it, and the joy of it had burst upon her, she had been obliged to turn away from it--not very bravely, for the tears had scalded her as she had run from the living room--because there was no other thing to do, because it was something that was not hers to have.

She could never be the wife of any man.

She was nameless.

Why had she ever found it out! It might so easily have been that she would have never known. That--that no one need ever have known! She was sure that even her guardian did not know.

She smothered her face deeper in the pillow as she cried out in anguish. She could have had happiness then--and--and it would have been honourable for her to have taken it, wouldn't it?

She lay quiet for a little while. No; that was cowardly, selfish. If she really loved this man, she should be glad for his sake that she knew the truth, glad now of the day when she had found it out. She remembered that day. It seemed to live more vividly before her now than it ever had before. Mrs. Wickes--her mother--had--had been drinking. The words had been a slip of the tongue; a slip that her mother, owing to her condition at the time, had not even been conscious of. Mrs. Wickes had been garrulously recounting some sordid crime that had remained famous even amongst its many fellows in Whitechapel, and, in placing the date, had stated it was two years after Mr. Wickes had died. Later on, in the same garrulous account, she had again referred to the date, but had placed it this time by saying that she, Polly, was a baby not more than a month old when it had happened.

And on that day when she had listened to her mother's tale she had still been but a child--in years. She could not have been more than twelve--but she was very old for twelve. The slums of London had seen to that. And so, the next day, when her mother had been more herself, she had asked Mrs. Wickes, more out of a precocious curiosity perhaps than anything else, for an explanation. Mrs. Wickes had flown into a furious rage.

"Mind yer own business!" Mrs. Wickes had screamed at her. "The likes of you a-slingin' mud at yer mother! Wot you got to complain of? Ain't I takin' care of you? If ever you says another word I'll break yer back!"

She had never said another word. In one sense she had not been different from any other child of twelve then, and it had not naturally caused any change in her feelings toward her mother; nor in the after years, with their fuller light of understanding, had it ever changed or abated her love for the mother with whom she had shared hardship and distress and want. She thanked God for that now. Her mother might have been one to inspire little love and little of respect in others; but to her, Polly, when she had parted from her mother to come here to America, she had parted from the only human being in all the world she had ever loved, or who, in turn, had ever showed affection for her. She had never ceased to love her mother; instead, she had perhaps been the better able to understand, and even to add sympathy to love and to know a great pity, where bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness might otherwise have been, because she, too, had lived in those drab places where the urge of self-preservation alone was the standard that measured ethics, where one fought and snatched at anything, no matter from where or by what means it came, that kept soul and body together--because she could look out on that life, not as one apart, but with the eyes of one who once had been a--a guttersnipe.

And now?

Now that this crisis in her life had come--what now? She did not know. She had been trying to think calmly, but her brain would not obey her--it was crushed, stunned. It ached even in a physical way, frightfully, and--

She raised her head suddenly from the pillow in a sort of incredulous amazement--and immediately afterward sat bolt upright in bed. The telephone here in her room was ringing. At this hour! Her heart suddenly seemed to stop beating. Something--something must be wrong--something must have happened--Dora--Mr. Marlin!

It was still ringing--ringing insistently.

She sprang from the bed, and, running to the 'phone, snatched the receiver from its hook.

"Yes, yes?" she answered breathlessly. "What is it?"

A voice came over the wire; a man's voice, rising and falling creepily in a sing-song, mocking sort of way:

"Is that you, Polly--Polly Wickes--Polly Wickes--Polly Wickes--Wickes--Wickes--P-o-l-l-y W-i-c-k-e-s?"

It frightened her. She felt the blood ebb from her cheeks. There was something horribly familiar in the voice--but she could not place it. Her hand reached out to the wall for support.

"Yes"--she tried to hold her voice in control, to answer steadily--"yes; I am Polly Wickes. Who are you? What do you want?"

She heard the sound as of a gust of wind from a door that was suddenly blown open, the beat of the sea, then the slam of a door--and then the voice again:

"Polly--Polly Wickes." The words seemed to be choked now with malicious laughter. "Why don't you dress in black, Polly Wickes--Polly Wickes--for your mother, Polly Wickes?"

"What do you mean?" she cried frantically. "Who are you? Who are you? What do you mean?"

There was no answer.

She kept calling into the 'phone.

Nothing! No reply! The voice was gone.

She stood there staring wildly through the darkness. Black ... for her mother ... dead! No, no ... it couldn't be true! That voice ... yes, it was like the horrible voice that had called out the other night ... she knew now why it was familiar....

Terror-stricken, the receiver dropped from her hand.

Dead! Her mother dead! It couldn't be true! She began to grope around her. The chair--her dressing gown. Her hands felt the garment. She snatched it up, flung it around her, and stumbled to the door and along the hall to Captain Francis Newcombe's room. And here she knocked mechanically, but, without listening for response, opened the door, and, stumbling still in a blind way, crossed the threshold.

"Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!" she sobbed out.

Captain Francis Newcombe was not asleep. Quite apart from the fact that he had only got to bed but a very short while before, the cards that night had gone too badly against him, and there was a savage sense of fury upon him that would not quiet down. And now, as he heard his door open and heard Polly call, he was out of bed and into a dressing gown in an instant. Polly out there in his sitting room--at half-past four in the morning! And she was sobbing. She sobbed now as he heard her call again:

"Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!"

This was queer--damned queer! His face was suddenly set in the darkness as he crossed the bedroom floor--but his voice was quiet, cool, reassuring, as he answered her: "Right-o, Polly! I'm coming!"

He switched on the light as he entered the sitting room. It brought a quick, startled cry over the sobs.

"Oh, please, guardy!" she faltered out. "I--I--_please_ turn off the light."

"Of course!" he said quietly--and it was dark in the room again.

He had caught a glimpse of a little figure crouching just inside the door--a little figure with white, strained face, with great, wondrous masses of hair tumbling about her shoulders, with hands that clasped some filmy drapery tightly across her bosom, and small, dainty feet that were bare of covering. And as he moved toward her now across the room, another mood took precedence over the savagery he had just been nursing--a mood no holier. It might be queer, this visit of hers; but that glimpse of her, alluring, intimate, of a moment gone, had set his blood afire again--and far more violently than it had on that first occasion when he had seen her here on the island two nights ago. It brought again to the fore the question that, through a cursed nightmare of happenings, had almost since that time lain dormant. Was he going to let Locke have her--or was he going to keep her for himself? How far had she gone with Locke? They had been a lot together. Well, that mattered little--if he wanted her for himself he would _make_ the way to get her, Locke and hell combined to the contrary! The woman--against her potential value as somebody else's wife! Damn it, that was the wonder of her--that she could even hold her own when weighed on such scales. There were lots of women.

He had reached her now, and touched her, found her hand and taken it in his own. "What is it, Polly?" he asked gently. "What's the matter?"

"It's--it's mother," she whispered brokenly. "The telephone in my room rang a few minutes ago, and some one--a man--and, oh, guardy, I'm sure it was the same voice that we heard when we were in the woods the night before last--asked me why I didn't wear black for my mother. It--it couldn't mean anything else but--but that mother is dead. Oh, guardy, guardy! How could he know, guardy? How could he know?"

Captain Francis Newcombe made no movement, save to place his arm around the thinly clad shoulders, and draw the little figure closer to him. It was dark here, she could not have seen his face anyway, but it was composed, calm, tranquil. Perhaps the lips straightened a little at the corners--nothing more. But the brain of the man was working at lightning speed. Here was disaster, ruin, exposure if he made the slightest slip. Again, eh? This was the fourth time this devil from the pit had shown his hand! The reckoning would be adequate! But how was he to answer Polly? Quick! She must not notice any hesitation. Tell her that Mrs. Wickes was dead? He had a ready explanation on his tongue, formulated days ago, to account for having withheld that information. Seize this opportunity to tell her that Mrs. Wickes was not her mother? No! Impossible! He had meant to use all this to his advantage, and in his own good time. It was too late now. He was left holding the bag! If he admitted that Mrs. Wickes was dead, he admitted that there was some one on this island whose mysterious presence, whose mysterious knowledge, must cause a furor, a search, with possible results that at any hazard he dared not risk. Polly would tell Locke--Dora--everybody. It was impossible! But against this, sooner or later, Polly must know of Mrs. Wickes' death, and-- Bah! Was he become a child, the old cunning gone? He would keep her for a while from England--travel--anything--and, months on, the word would come that Mrs. Wickes was dead, and found in the old hag's effects would be Polly's papers. The one safe play, the _only_ play, was not alone to reassure the girl now, but to keep her mouth shut. Above all to keep her mouth shut! But--how? How? Yes! He had it now! His soul began to laugh in unholy glee. His voice was grave, earnest, tender, sympathetic.

"He couldn't have known, Polly," he said. "That is at once evident on the face of it. How could any one on this little out-of-the-way island possibly know a thing like that when I, who am the only one who _could_ know, and who have just come direct from England, know it to be untrue. Don't you see, Polly?"

He had drawn her head against his shoulder, stroking back the hair from her forehead. She raised it now quickly.

"Yes, guardy!" she said eagerly. "I--I see; and I'm so glad I came to you at once. But--but it is so strange, and--and it still frightens me terribly. I don't understand. I--I can't understand. Why should any one ring the telephone in my room at this hour, and--and tell me a thing like that if it were not true?"

"Or even if it were true--at such an hour, or in such a manner," he injected quietly. "Tell me exactly what happened, Polly."

"I think I've told you everything," she said. "I don't think there was anything else. When I answered the 'phone, the voice asked if I were Polly Wickes, and kept on repeating my name over and over again in a horrible, crazy, sing-songy way, and then I heard a sound as though a door had been blown open by the wind, and I could hear the waves pounding, and then the door was evidently slammed shut again, and the voice said what I--I have told you about wearing black for my mother. And then I couldn't hear anything more, and I couldn't get any answer, though I called again and again into the 'phone. Oh, guardy, I can't understand! I--I'm sure it was the same voice as that other night. What does it mean? Guardy, what should we do? Who could it be?"

A door blown open by the wind! The pound of the waves! Where was there a telephone that would measure up to those requirements? Not in the house! Captain Francis Newcombe smiled grimly in the darkness. The private installation was restricted to the house and its immediate surroundings. Therefore the boathouse! The boathouse had a 'phone connection. And there was still an hour or more to daybreak! But first to shut Polly's mouth.

"Polly," he said gravely, measuring his words, "I haven't the slightest doubt but that it was the same voice we heard in the woods; in fact, I'm quite sure of it. And I'm equally sure now that I know who it is."

She drew back from him in a quick, startled way.

"But, guardy, you said it was only some one catcalling to--"

"Yes; I know," he interrupted seriously. "But I did not tell you what I was really suspicious of all along. With what I had to go on then, it did not seem that I had any right to do so. It's quite a different matter now, however, after what has happened to-night."

"Yes?" she prompted anxiously.

"There can be only two possible explanations," he said. "Either some one is playing a cruel hoax; or it is the work of an unhinged mind, an irrational act, a phase of insanity that--"

"Guardy!" she cried out sharply. "You mean--"

"Yes," he said steadily; "I do, Polly. And there can really be no question about it at all. Can you imagine any one doing such a thing merely from a perverted sense of humour?--any one of us here?--for it must have been some one of us who is connected with the household in order to have had access to a telephone. It is unthinkable, absurd, isn't it? On the other hand, the hour, the irresponsible words, their 'crazy' mode of expression, as you yourself said, the motiveless declaration of a palpable untruth, all stamp it as the work of one who is not accountable for his actions--of one who is literally insane. And then the fact that you recognised the voice as the one we heard two nights ago is additional proof, if such were needed, which it very obviously is not. You remember that we had seen Mr. Marlin in his dressing gown disappear under the verandah a few minutes before we heard the calls and cries and wild, insane laughter. My first thought then was that it was Mr. Marlin, and I was afraid that either harm had, or might, come to him. I sent you at once back to the house, and I ran into the woods to look for him. I did not find him; and, therefore, as there was always the possibility then that I had been mistaken, I felt that I should not alarm any of you here, and particularly Miss Marlin, by suggesting that Mr. Marlin's condition was decidedly worse than even it was supposed to be. Is it quite plain, Polly? I do not think we have very far to look for the one who telephoned you to-night."

He could just see her in the darkness, a little white, shadowy form, as she stood slightly away from him now. One of her hands was pressed in an agitated way to her face and eyes; the other still held tightly to the throat of her dressing gown.

"Oh, yes, it's plain, guardy," she whispered miserably. "It's--it's too plain. Poor, poor Mr. Marlin! What are we to do? It would hurt Dora terribly if she knew her father had done this. I--I can't tell her."

"Of course, you can't," said Captain Francis Newcombe gravely. "Your position is even more delicate than mine was the other night. I do not see that you can do anything--except to say nothing about it to any one for the present."

"Yes," she agreed numbly.

She began to move toward the door.

"It's not likely to happen again," said Captain Francis Newcombe reassuringly; "and, anyway, you can make sure it won't by just leaving the receiver off the hook. Do that, Polly." And then, solicitously: "But you're not frightened any more now, are you, Polly? A mystery explained loses its terror, doesn't it? And, besides, the main thing was to know that your mother was all right."

"My mother--"

He thought he heard her catch her breath in a quick, sudden half sob.

"It's all right, Polly," he said hastily. "Don't think of that part of it any more. Everything's all right."

"Yes; I--I know." Her voice was very low. "It's--all right. I--good-night, guardy."

She had opened the door.

"I'll see you to your room," he said.

"No," she answered; "I'm not frightened any more. Good--good-night, guardy."

"Good-night, Polly," he said.

The door closed.

Captain Francis Newcombe stood in the darkness. And for a moment he did not move--but the mask was gone now, and the laughter that came low from his lips was a mirthless sound, and the working face was black with fury. And then he turned, and with a bound was back in the bedroom, and snatching at his clothes began to dress.

There was still an hour to daybreak.