Chapter V

Sydney Thames paced the library floor impatiently. Where was Thornley Colton? For three hours he had asked himself that question. The blind problemist had spent fully half an hour in the closed telephone booth at the drug-store after he had purchased two morphia powders and half a dozen strong rubber bands. Then, when Michael had driven them home, Sydney had been curtly ordered from the machine, and the eager-eyed Shrimp had taken his place as guide.

As he walked he tried to piece together the events of the day; to discover some loose end in the snarl of circumstances. But his mind refused to find logic in the tangle of statements, of events that apparently led nowhere. Donald Wreye was a villain. He had driven his wife to suicide after squandering her fortune. That was certain. But what part had he in the life of Dorothy Raelton? Why had Jimmy Raelton secretly sent him ten thousand dollars after openly refusing it? Why had Raelton pretended such bitterness against his brother-in-law that morning? Why had Colton made the astounding statement that Dorothy Raelton had never smoked opium, and then sought a physician’s advice for a possible cure? Why had the blind man remarked the similarity of Donald Wreye’s voice to that of Doctor Henry? These, and a hundred more, raced back and forth through his brain like a flying shuttle. He took out his watch for the fiftieth time; then turned eagerly as the blind man hurried into the room.

With a sigh of weariness Thornley Colton dropped into a chair and lighted a cigarette; when he spoke there was weariness in his voice.

“A strange case, Sydney,” he said slowly, as though he had accepted this first quiet opportunity for retrospection. “The strangest I have ever known. A crime so damnably ingenious that even I--who have made a study of crime and criminals for years--did not recognize it. A crime so infernally clever that even the victim refuses to believe that it is a crime. A criminal who could confess this minute, and be laughed to scorn by any jury in the land. It is a crime unique in the annals of crime.”

He took a telegram from his pocket. “Here is the answer to a query I sent regarding the lock-box in Philadelphia.”

Sydney took it and read:

“Lock-box 117 one of six rented to Philadelphia Insurance Co.
for past five years.”

“That means an accomplice there!” ejaculated Sydney.

“It proves my former statement that the blackmailer never allowed the money to get to that box. And there could be only one method of interception in this case. It was never mailed!”

“But Mrs. Raelton said----” began Sydney dazedly.

“She also said she was an opium fiend,” interrupted Colton brusquely. Again his hand went to his pocket; on his palm as he extended it were two white, folded papers. “These are the powders Shrimp brought. The papers have been changed by me, but these powders have been used to mask the weapon of a fiend. Get me a glass of water.”

Mechanically Sydney obeyed. He returned in a moment with the water and a question.

“But Mrs. Raelton declared that Doctor Grayton had given her those powders?” he objected.

“Yes.” Thornley Colton carefully unfolded one. “And Doctor Grayton has been dead two years.” He held the paper, opened, between his thumb and forefinger. “These powders were used to cause the suicide of Marjorie Wreye and make Dorothy Raelton, to all intents and purposes, an opium fiend!” He raised the powder to his lips, dropped it on his tongue. Sydney could not repress a gasp of horror. The blind man took a sip of the water, and stood up, fingers feeling the crystalless watch in his pocket. “It is seven o’clock, Sydney, time we were starting for the Raelton home. The machine is waiting.”

Thames licked his dry lips. “My God, Thorn!” he choked. “It isn’t--poison?”

“No.” The blind man’s smile held no humour. “These powders are perfectly harmless. Doctor Grayton was a careful practitioner, and his prescriptions have helped my headaches before.”

“But what--how----” gulped Sydney, amazed into incoherence by this new convolution.

“I’ll tell you later,” promised Thornley Colton. “I can’t now. There is too much at stake to spoil with premature explanations.”

He took his hat and coat from the tree, and hurried down the stairs, Sydney following. In the automobile the blind man lay back in the deep seat, only rousing when the machine came to a stop before the Raelton home. The awning canopy was gone now; there was no waiting crowd. Another machine came to a stop behind them; where it had come from Sydney did not know. Then came a feminine greeting; the blind man lifted his hat, and hurried to the other car unerringly.

“How are you, Mrs. Neilton, and you, Mrs. Bracken, also your husbands?” The assumed cheeriness in the voice seemed perfect to the listening Sydney Thames. As the blind man assisted the women to alight, Thames was surprised to note that they were all strangers to him. As Colton’s constant companion and guide he knew most of the blind man’s friends, though his memory of faces was not to be compared with the blind problemist’s wonderful memory of voices.

Sydney was introduced to the men and women as Thornley Colton’s secretary; they were presented to him as friends of the Jimmy Raeltons, who had come to see them on the eve of the departure for the South Pacific.

Together they mounted the steps. Thornley Colton rang the bell. And the door was opened by the red-haired Shrimp!

“The servants is all gone,” explained the boy, as he closed the door after them. “All but Mrs. Raelton’s maid. Mr. Raelton’s in the Moorish room.”

But at the first sound of their voices Jimmy Raelton had hurried out to meet them; his face was still haggard, and in the eyes was a piteous expression of pleading.

“Where is Mrs. Raelton?” asked Thornley Colton quietly.

“She is lying down. I’ll call her.” Raelton had not even nodded to the two men and the women who were quietly watching.

“Wait!” Thornley Colton grasped his arm. Some one was coming up the steps outside. The door-bell rang. Shrimp opened it, and into the hall stumbled Donald Wreye! His bloodshot eyes blinked in the bright light as he glared at them, his hands twitched at his sides. He hunched his great shoulders, and clenched his fists to get a grip on himself.

“Where’s----” he began, in the deep, hoarse voice so like that of the physician.

From above them came a frightened scream--a woman’s scream.

“Mr. Raelton! Mr. Raelton!” It was the maid.

He bounded toward the stairs, the others at his heels. At the top was the maid, weeping and wringing her hands.

“She told me to get myself something to eat, and I wasn’t downstairs twenty minutes,” she cried hysterically. “And I found her----”

Jimmy Raelton dashed past her. Sydney felt Colton brush past him, and realized that somehow he had gotten behind the others when they started.

At the door of the room where they had stopped the night before they halted again. The door was not even closed this time, and once more their eyes took in the same scene. But the electrics were out now, only the flickering rays of the sweet-oil lamp shone on the sleeping woman and the opium-pipe at her side.

“My God! Again!” The words came in sobs from Jimmy Raelton.

He tried to leap forward, but the outstretched hand of Thornley Colton stopped him. Then the others saw the blind man dart across the room to the bed without a false move; saw him pick up a white, dangling arm, brush his fingers up the whole length of it, under the flowing sleeve of the loose kimono, then stop at the wrist. They were all around him now. He straightened up to face them.

“It’s something more, this time,” he said huskily. “Mrs. Raelton is dead!”

“Dead!” the terror-stricken word came from the maid. The others seemed suddenly turned to stone.

Silently Colton held the arm for her to feel the pulse. Her fingers found the artery, her face went dead white. They could hear the fluttering gasp of her breath as she dropped the arm.

Raelton brushed past her; his trembling fingers searched for a single faint heart-beat. A cry of agony burst from him. Colton gently drew him away.

“Phone Doctor Henry, Dora!” he ordered sharply. Then he seemed to sense that the maid was staring at Donald Wreye, who stood in the centre of the room, swaying back and forth, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“_You_, Wreye!”

The blind man’s voice seemed to galvanize Donald Wreye into action. He whipped a revolver from his pocket.

“Like Marjorie, eh?” His laugh seemed insane. “Get out of here, all of you!”

He stood beside the door-way, the revolver threateningly sweeping the silent men and women. Jimmy Raelton tensed his body for a spring, but Thornley Colton’s hand viced his arm.

“We can do nothing,” he whispered.

Like sheep they filed past the menacing pistol, the two men and women who had met them outside going first. In the hall-way they stopped.

“Straight ahead!” ordered Wreye. He spoke over his shoulder to the maid. “Call Doctor Henry,” he sneered. “Go downstairs and call him.”

The girl’s limbs seemed hardly able to support her as she walked past him to the head of the stairs. He turned his attention again to the driven men and women. Sydney’s eyes caught a glimpse of a portiered door-way at their left, but Colton’s grip on his arm held him. Down the hall they went. A door was open at the extreme end, the key in the outside of the lock.

“In there, all of you!” ordered Wreye.

The women stumbled in. The men followed. The door slammed behind them. The key turned. Outside they heard running footsteps.

“He’s gone down the backstairs,” muttered one of the men.

The dot of light at the keyhole disappeared.

“He’s put out the lights,” hoarsely whispered the other.

Thornley Colton took something from his pocket. He inserted it in the keyhole; they heard the bolt slip back.

“He’ll return,” he whispered. “You four stay here and kick at the door. The darkness means nothing to me. I’m going to take Sydney and Raelton outside to watch. Give us a minute, and then begin your noise.”

He opened the door without a sound. His hands on the two men’s arms drew them out. The blackness of the unlighted hall was impenetrable, but the blind man pulled them forward almost on a run. Sydney’s feet mechanically obeyed the pulling arm; Raelton, still in a daze, was merely an automaton obeying the will of a master. The blind man thrust them through the portieres Sydney had noticed before.

“Not a sound!” he warned, as he dragged them down to the floor, his fingers biting deep into their arms.

The house echoed with the blows of feet and fists on the door of the room they had just left. A door slammed downstairs. They heard the voice of The Fee, shrill with fright.

“Dere all locked in back!”

Hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs. They heard a woman’s voice whisper; a man’s deep, hoarse voice in answer. Sydney’s muscles grew tense. It was the heavy voice of Donald Wreye!

“She’s dead, I tell you!” trembled the maid. They were passing the door now.

The man’s answering whisper sounded like the growling of an animal. “You little fool!” he hissed. “You let the other get away from us, and this one was worth a million----”

The words ended in a woman’s scream. They heard the sound of a falling body. A man’s curse. A short struggle. Then the dull impact of fist against flesh. Thornley Colton’s gripping hands relaxed. He jumped through the sheltering portieres. His voice cut the darkness:

“Stop, Wreye, stop! Doctor Henry is unconscious! Shrimp!”

The incandescents leaped to light.

On the floor was the maid, senseless. Near her was Doctor Henry, limp, torn, his face bruised and beaten. Standing over him was Donald Wreye, panting, trembling.

The two men who had stayed in the locked room came running forward, shining handcuffs in their hands.

“Handcuff Mrs. Henry,” ordered Colton. “She has only fainted.” He turned to face the still-dazed Jimmy Raelton and Sydney. “There is the atavistic vampire!” He touched the limp body of the physician as though it was a snake. “God knows how many lives he has ruined with his devilish schemes. He blackmailed Marjorie Wreye out of a hundred thousand dollars, and murdered her as surely as though his finger had pulled the trigger that sent the bullet crashing into her brain. He made Donald Wreye a pariah. And he almost succeeded in ruining the lives of you and Dorothy.”

The name aroused Jimmy Raelton.

“Dorothy!” he cried brokenly. “He killed Dorothy!”

The blind man’s hand fell gently on his shoulder. “It was necessary that she should sleep through it all,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think she could stand another dose of the doctor’s morphia, so the powder she took was trional powder. She will wake in an hour, suffering no ill effects. If you’ll remove the tight rubber band I put on her arm under the kimono sleeve the blood will flow back through the pulse.”