Chapter IX: The House of Laughter

"Mr. Shei!"

Time and again through the night following her arrival at Azurecrest, Helen's lips soundlessly formed the name she had involuntarily spoken upon seeing the man in the doorway. She tossed restlessly on her bed, her mind in that curious state on the boundary line between slumber and wakefulness when the imagination forms shadowy images and one's thoughts reach for elusive realities.

Now and then, as a wild strain of laughter shattered the silence, she sat up and stared into the darkness. A cold tingle would trickle down her spine as the sounds rose to a hysterical crescendo, then fell to a gentle tinkle that made her flesh quiver, and finally died down to a haunting echo. Then, her sense of horror engulfed by overwhelming drowsiness, she would fall back against the pillow and drift into a state of soothing stupor.

Finally dawn broke. Flickering wisps of sunlight fell on the floor, lighting up the dark corners and dispersing the evil host with which her imagination had peopled the gloom. A fresh breeze caressed her hot forehead and cooled the fever in her blood. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Outside, the sun was glimmering on treetops and long stretches of lawn. The bright, pleasant room afforded a sharp contrast to the strident discords and monstrous visions that had distressed her throughout the night.

Her recollections were still vague. Gradually a train of memories swept upon her. It all came back to her now--her arrival at Azurecrest, her failure to find The Gray Phantom, the strange laughter and the hideous face she had seen at the window, Miss Neville's amazing story and the intercepted flight, and finally the appearance of the man at the sight of whom she had cried out the name of Mr. Shei.

Again her recollections grew dim. Things had gone dark before her eyes as soon as she had spoken the name. She had heard a jumble of voices, and she believed someone had forced a drink down her throat. A sedative, perhaps, for after that she had known nothing but the intermittent outbursts of laughter and their accompaniment of strange fancies. She shuddered as she remembered them. Several voices, she felt sure, had joined in the chorus of unnatural laughter. It could mean only one thing--that more than one inmate of the house was afflicted with the mysterious fever so vividly described by Miss Neville.

Her mind was clearing rapidly now. She realized she was surrounded by dangers which she could neither gauge nor understand. Of one thing only could she be certain. Her eyes, while resting on the man in the doorway, had pierced the veil of mystery which had concealed the identity of the mysterious Mr. Shei. The discovery, confirming a suspicion that had first come to her in the Thelma Theater, had shocked and bewildered her, and on the impulse of the moment she had heedlessly called out his name.

Now, in a calmer mood, she reproached herself for her indiscretion. She wondered whether Mr. Shei would dare let her live, now that she had penetrated his secret. If he were as ruthless and unscrupulous as she supposed him to be, he would in all likelihood seal her lips forever. She might promise not to betray him, but Mr. Shei was too shrewd and cautious to rely on promises. He would be more apt to adopt the only course consistent with his safety.

She shivered a little. Physical fear she had never known, for there was a strain of recklessness and audacity in her nature that blinded her eyes to dangers, but the thought of death gave her a chill. She did not know exactly why, but never before had life seemed as enticing as now. A determination to live spurred her mind to frantic effort. She would outwit Mr. Shei by her woman's weapons. She had done some skillful fencing with them on several occasions in the past, and she could use them again. Already she was casting about for a plan. Perhaps, by a little clever acting, she could convince Mr. Shei that her calling of his name had been nothing but a hysterical outburst and without significance. If she succeeded in this, he would have no reason for taking her life.

The thought buoyed her. She turned a smiling face to the door as it opened and admitted a woman carrying a tray. She was thin and slatternly, and she sighed repeatedly while transferring the breakfast dishes to a table which she placed beside Helen's bed.

"Eat, you poor thing," she admonished, a world of melancholy in her tones.

Helen sipped the coffee. It was strong and fragrant and gave her a needed stimulus.

"Why do you call me 'poor thing'?" she inquired.

The woman heaved another sigh. "I'm not saying. I can hold my tongue when I want to. That's how I keep my job in this place. It's a shame, though--really it is."

"What is a shame?" Helen, looking into the slattern's saturnine face, with its ludicrously doleful expression, felt an impulse to laugh in spite of her misgivings.

"You're so young and pretty. That's why I call it a shame. Oh, well, we all have to go that way sooner or later."

Helen, unpleasantly impressed by the innuendo, tasted the toast. "Which way?" she asked in casual tones.

"That would be telling." A long sigh racked the woman's scrawny chest. "I hear a lot of things around this place that I never tell. Better eat hearty, dear. It might be your last---- Gosh! I almost said something that time, didn't I?"

Helen, conquering her forebodings, ate in silence for a time. The slattern's funereal face and dismal insinuations were casting a spell of gloom over her which she found hard to shake off. Finally she tried a direct question.

"Do you mean that they are going to kill me?"

The woman clasped her hands across her chest and raised mournful eyes to the ceiling. "You mustn't ask questions, poor dear. You'll find out soon enough. Anyhow, there's a better world than this."

With this piece of doubtful consolation she gathered the dishes and, with another disconsolate sigh, walked out of the room. Helen tried to tell herself that the woman had merely been exercising her imagination and that her doleful hints had come out of thin air. The meal had refreshed her, and her spirits rose while she bathed her face in cold water and arranged her attire. Having finished, she viewed herself with satisfaction in the mirror. Her elastic health and strength had obliterated nearly every trace of her distressing night.

A knock sounded on the door, and Mr. Slade walked in. Helen instantly steeled herself for an ordeal. Slade, she had already guessed, was Mr. Shei's right-hand man. He was smiling affably, but something told her that her life depended on the outcome of the interview.

"I trust you had a restful night, Miss Hardwick?" he suavely inquired after seating himself.

"I slept like a top," Helen assured him with a smile that belied her real emotion. "You see, I was all fagged out when I retired. I have a faint recollection that I was a bit hysterical, too. I suppose it was on account of that affair at the Thelma Theater the other night. I received quite a shock."

"Naturally," assented Slade, regarding her with a mingling of admiration and doubt. "Yes, you seemed somewhat upset last night. You probably have no recollection of it, but you fainted completely away, and one of the maids put you to bed after the physician in attendance upon Miss Neville had administered a sedative. I don't suppose you remember any of that?"

"It's all news to me," declared Helen innocently. "I'm sorry to have been so much trouble."

Slade made a deprecatory gesture. He edged his chair a little closer to the small table at which Helen was seated. She felt his cold gaze searching her face, and to hide her confusion she began tracing figures in the dust that had accumulated on the surface of the table.

"Last night we were discussing The Gray Phantom," Slade remarked, and she started a trifle at the mention of the name. "I regret I can give you no inkling as to his whereabouts. I suppose you are very anxious to find him?"

"Rather."

"Isn't it strange that he did not give you his new address?"

"He may have written and the letter gone astray," suggested Helen. A flush had tinged the healthy tan of her cheeks the moment Slade introduced the subject of The Gray Phantom. Looking down at the table, she noticed confusedly that her hand had been influenced by the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind. In the thin layer of dust she had absently traced The Gray Phantom's initials. It was a habit of hers, cultivated since childhood, to sketch figures and designs on whatever surface was handy, and she had often told herself she must overcome it.

"Perhaps," was Slade's comment. He looked at her in a way that caused her to wonder whether he had noticed the pencilings in the dust, and she erased them with a quick sweep of her hand. "By the way," he went on, "our conversation last night was interrupted by a--a certain person. Remember?"

Helen knew that the critical moment had come. She made a pretense of searching her memory.

"I was very tired," she said, carefully choosing her words, "and I recall very little of what happened. I seem to remember, though, that a motor horn sounded while we were talking."

"Yes, and then?" Slade bent eagerly forward.

Helen's strained face indicated intense mental effort. "Then---- Isn't it odd that I don't seem able to remember a thing after that?"

"It is," admitted Slade, and there was a subtle change in the quality of his voice. "Perhaps I can refresh your memory. Suddenly a man's figure appeared in the doorway. You stared at him in a way signifying that you had seen him before. Then you spoke a name."

"A name?" echoed Helen. "What name?"

"A name that has been on a great many lips of late--Mr. Shei's."

"Isn't that strange?" murmured Helen. "I wonder what on earth made me mention that name. I suppose, though," she added quickly, "that it was because Mr. Shei's name had been in my mind off and on ever since that terrible occurrence in the Thelma Theater. Yes, that must be the reason."

"The _only_ reason, Miss Hardwick?"

"What other reason could there be?"

Slade smiled in a way that awoke Helen's dislike. "Well, it's conceivable that you were under the impression that the man in the doorway was Mr. Shei. That would not only have explained your excitement, but also give ample reason for uttering his name."

Helen opened her eyes wide. "But--but I don't even remember seeing the man," she protested artlessly, "so why should I suppose him to be Mr. Shei?"

"The fact remains that you spoke Mr. Shei's name just before you fainted away. Let's get at the subject from a different angle, Miss Hardwick. Do you know who Mr. Shei is?"

Helen, having a curious feeling that her life was trembling in the balance, shook her head.

"You don't know his other name--the name by which he is known to the world at large?"

Again Helen made a negative gesture, and in the same instant she became aware that Slade's frosty gaze was following the movements of her right hand. Before she realized what was happening, he had left his chair and stepped up behind her, and now he was leaning over her shoulder and looking down at the table.

"So, you lied," he muttered in tones that sent a shiver through her body, at the same time pointing to the table.

Helen looked down. She gave a violent start. While she had been fencing verbally with Slade, her hand had betrayed her. In her preoccupation she had not realized that another couplet of initials had appeared in the dust. With a sensation of defeat and despair she stared down at the telltale characters--the first letters in Mr. Shei's other name.