Part 30 (1/2)
Hayden made no reply. No one stirred for a minute, and then Quimby moved away, and went out through the dining-room door.
CHAPTER XV
TABLE TALK
The seventh key! Mr. Magee thrilled at the mention of it. So Elijah Quimby knew the ident.i.ty and the mission of the man who hid in the annex. Did any one else? Magee looked at the broad acreage of the mayor's face, at the ancient lemon of Max's, at Bland's, frightened and thoughtful, at Hayden's, concerned but smiling. Did any one else know?
Ah, yes, of course. Down the stairs the professor of Comparative Literature felt his way to food.
”Is dinner ready?” he asked, peering about.
The candles flickered weakly as they fought the stronger shadows; winter roared at the windows; somewhere above a door crashed shut. Close to its final scene drew the drama at Baldpate Inn. Mr. Magee knew it, he could not have told why. The others seemed to know it, too. In silence they waited while the hermit scurried along his dim way preparing the meal.
In silence they sat while Miss Norton and her mother descended. Once there was a little flurry of interest when Miss Thornhill and Hayden met at the foot of the stairs.
”Myra!” Hayden cried. ”In heaven's name--what does this mean?”
”Unfortunately,” said the girl, ”I know--all it means.”
And Hayden fell back into the shadows.
Finally the att.i.tude of the hermit suggested that the dinner was ready.
”I guess you might as well sit down,” he remarked. ”It's all fixed, what there is to fix. This place don't need a cook, it needs a commissary department.”
”Peters,” reproved Magee. ”That's hardly courteous to our guests.”
”Living alone on the mountain,” replied the hermit from the dining-room door, ”you get to have such a high regard for the truth you can't put courtesy first. You want to, but you haven't the heart.”
The winter guests took their places at the table, and the second December dinner at Baldpate Inn got under way. But not so genially as on the previous night did it progress. On the faces of those about him Mr.
Magee noted worry and suspicion; now and again menacing cold eyes were turned upon him; evidently first in the thoughts of those at table was a little package rich in treasure; and evidently first in the thoughts of most of them, as the probable holder of that package, was Mr. Magee himself. Several times he looked up to find Max's cat-like eyes upon him, sinister and cruel behind the incongruous gold-rimmed gla.s.ses; several times he saw Hayden's eyes, hostile and angry, seek his face.
They were desperate; they would stop at nothing; Mr. Magee felt that as the drama drew to its close they saw him and him alone between them and their golden desires.
”Before I came up here to be a hermit,” remarked Cargan contemporaneously with the removal of the soup, ”which I may say in pa.s.sing I ain't been able to be with any success owing to the popularity of the sport on Baldpate Mountain, there was never any candles on the table where I et. No, sir. I left them to the people up on the avenue--to Mr. Hayden and his kind that like to work in dim surroundings--I was always strong for a bright light on my food. What I'm afraid of is that I'll get the habit up here, and will be wanting Charlie to set out a silver candelabrum with my lager. Candles'd be quite an innovation at Charlie's, wouldn't they, Lou?”
”Too swell for Charlie's,” commented Mr. Max. ”Except after closing hours. I've seen 'em in use there then, but the idea wasn't glory and decoration.”
”I hope you don't dislike the candles, Mr. Cargan,” remarked Miss Norton. ”They add such a lot to the romance of the affair, don't you think? I'm terribly thrilled by all this. The rattling of the windows, and the flickering light--two lines of a poem keep running through my head:
”'My lord he followed after one who whispered in his ear-- The weeping of the candles and the wind is all I hear.'
I don't know who the lord was, nor what he followed--perhaps the seventh key. But the weeping candles and the wind seem so romantic--and so like Baldpate Inn to-night.”
”If I had a daughter your age,” commented Cargan, not unkindly, ”she'd be at home reading Laura Jean Libbey by the fire, and not chasing after romance on a mountain.”
”That would be best for her, I'm sure,” replied the girl sweetly. ”For then she wouldn't be likely to find out things about her father that would prove disquieting.”
”Dearie!” cried Mrs. Norton. No one else spoke, but all looked at the mayor. He was busily engaged with his food. Smiling his amus.e.m.e.nt, Mr.
Magee sought to direct the conversation into less personal channels.