Part 14 (1/2)
She did not mean to seek escape to-night, but an irresistible impulse, which quite robbed her of her judgment, drove her to take a look into the yard and make sure for herself that the bridge was still there and everything as she had last seen it.
But when with the help of the wind she pulled open the heavy door and stood, throbbing under the force of the gale, on the shallow step outside, she found herself confronted by a darkness so hollow and so absolute that she felt as though she had stumbled into a pit. But instead of retreating, if only to procure a lantern, she took the one step down to the narrow walk which led through gra.s.s and flowers to the edge of the plateau from which the bridge extended. Would she be satisfied now? No, she must see the bridge, or if she could not see it, must feel it with her foot or touch it with her hand. Once sure of its presence there, she would return, take off her clothing and seek refreshment.
But how was she to find her way in such absolute darkness? Alone with the dying tempest, now moaning in fitful gusts, now shrieking a last protest in her ear, she stood peering helplessly before her. Already her arms had gone out like those of a blind person loosed upon an unknown road. She was conscious of a great fear. All the solitude of her position had rushed upon her. She felt herself lost, forsaken; yet she had no idea of turning back. If she could but find some support--something upon which to lay her fingers. She thought of the fence, and her courage revived. If she could but reach and follow that!
There were obstacles in her way. She was sure of this, for she remembered some of them, and Elvira no more changed her garden than her house. But with care she succeeded in getting around these, and soon she knew by the lessened force of the wind that she was near, if not directly under, the high fence upon which she depended for guidance. A few bushes--another unexpected obstacle, followed by a bad stumble--separated her from the contact for which she had reached; then by a final effort her fingers found the boards and she went eagerly on, dragging herself through the wet without knowing it, and only stopping with a sense of shock, when her hand, sliding from the boards, fell groping about in midair with nothing to grasp at. She had come to the end of the fence and was within a foot of the bridge--if the bridge was still there.
But her fears on this score were few, and she felt about with hand and foot till the former struck the rail at her side, and the latter the narrow planking spanning the gorge.
She hesitated now. Who would not? But the impulse which had led her thus far continued to urge her on. She stepped upon the bridge and proceeded to cross it, clinging to the rail with a feverish clutch, and feeling every board with her foot before venturing to trust her full weight upon it. She found them seemingly firm, and when about halfway across she stopped to listen for the roar of the mountain stream which she knew to be rus.h.i.+ng over its rocky bed some forty awesome feet below her.
She heard it, but the swish of the trees lining the gorge was in her straining ears and half drowned its sullen sound. With feelings impossible to describe, she tossed up her arms to the skies, where a single brilliant star was looking through the ma.s.s of quickly flying, quickly disintegrating clouds. Then she sought again the safety of the guiding rail, and clinging desperately to it, took one more step and stopped with a smothered shriek. The rail had snapped under her hand and had gone tumbling down into the abyss. She heard it as it struck, or thought she did, and for a moment stood breathless and fearing to move, the world and all it held vanis.h.i.+ng in semi-unconsciousness from heart and mind. What was she but a trembling atom floating in an unknown void on the fathomless sea of eternity! Then, as her mind steadied, she began to feel once more the boards under her feet, and to hear the smiting together of the great limbs wrestling in the depths of the forest. She even caught such a homely sound as the violent slamming of the door she had left unlatched behind her; and summoning up all her courage, which was not small when she was released from her first surprise, she stepped firmly backward till she felt the rail strong again under her clutch. Then she turned resolutely and retraced her steps along the bridge and so across the plateau to the house whose light had acted as a beacon to her whenever the door blew wide enough to let the one inner beam be seen.
When she was inside again, she lingered for a long time in the darkening hall, her slight form and whitened head leaning against the wall in a desolation such as few hearts know. Then something within the woman flared up in a rekindled flame, and she pa.s.sed quickly into the room where she had left her lamp burning; and blowing it out, she threw herself down on a couch and tried to sleep.
An hour later the moon shone in upon her pale features and wild, staring eyes upturned to meet it. Then it vanished, and she and the whole house were given up again to darkness.
She had forgotten to eat, though the cupboards, in this well-stored house, were quite full.
XXVI.
THE FACE IN THE WINDOW.
”Is this the place?”
”According to our instructions, yes. The first house after the first turn to the right. We took the first turn, and this is the first house. Romantic situation, eh? But a bit lonesome for a city chap? Shall I help you down?”
While talking, Sweet.w.a.ter, who was already in the road, held up his elbow to Mr. Gryce, who slowly descended. It was early morning, and the glory of suns.h.i.+ne was everywhere misleading the eye from the ravages of the night before; yet neither of these two men wore an air in keeping with the freshness of renewed life and the joyous aspect of exultant nature. There seemed to be an oppression upon them both--a hesitation not common to either, and to all appearance without cause.
To end what he probably considered a weakness, Sweet.w.a.ter approached the door staring somewhat blankly from the flat front of the primitive old house whose privacy they were about to invade, and rapped on its weather-beaten panels, first gently and then with quick insistence.
There was no response from within; no sound of movement; no token that he had been so much as heard. Sweet.w.a.ter turned and consulted his companion before making another attempt.
”It's early. Perhaps she's not up yet,” rejoined the old detective as he painfully advanced. The storm of the preceding night had got into his bones.
”I don't know. There's something uncanny about this silence. She ought to be here; but I'm afraid she isn't.” Sweet.w.a.ter rapped again, this time with decided vehemence.
Suddenly in one of the uncurtained windows a face appeared. They saw it, and both drew a deep breath. The eyes were looking their way, but they were like ghost's eyes. Without sight or speculation in them, they simply looked; then the face slowly withdrew, growing ghastlier every minute, and the window stared on, but the woman was gone. Yet the door did not open.
”I hate to use force,” objected Sweet.w.a.ter.
Before answering, Mr. Gryce stepped to one side and cast a glance around the corner of the house in the direction of the gorge opening in the rear.
”There is something like a yard at the back,” he announced, ”but the fence which shut it in is so high and so protected by means of p.r.i.c.kly underbrush that you would have difficulty in climbing it.”
”Just so at this end,” called out Sweet.w.a.ter after a short run to the left. ”If we get in at all,” he remarked on coming back, ”it will have to be by the window you see there with one pane knocked out.”
”I don't like that; I don't like any of it. But we can't stay out here any longer. The looks of the woman herself forbid it. We sha'n't forget that hollow stare.”
”They said the woman who lived here was dead.”
”Yes. It's a bad business, Sweet.w.a.ter. Rap once more, and then if she doesn't come, throw up the window and climb in.”
Sweet.w.a.ter did as he was bid, and meeting with no more response than before, thrust his hand through the hole made by the broken pane; and finding the window had been left unlocked, he pushed it up and entered. In another moment he appeared at the front door, where Mr. Gryce joined him, and together they took their first look at the small but surprisingly well-furnished interior.
The hall in which they stood was without staircase and had many of the appointments of a room. Doors opened here and there along its length, and in the rear they saw a closed one evidently leading into the yard. There was no one within sight. One would have said that with the death and carrying out of the owner of this little dwelling, all life had departed from it. Yet these two men knew that life was there; and raising his voice, Mr. Gryce called out in the least alarming way possible: ”Madame Duclos!” following this utterance of her name with an apology for the intrusion and a prayer for one minute's interview.
Silence was his answer--no stir anywhere.
Apprehensive of they knew not what, the two detectives started simultaneously, one for the door on their right, the other for that on the left. When they met again in the ill-lighted hall, Mr. Gryce was shaking his head, but Sweet.w.a.ter had lifted a beckoning finger. Unconsciously moderating his step, Mr. Gryce followed him through one room to the door of another which he saw standing partly open.
Through the crack thus made between the hinges, they could get a very fair glimpse of what was going on inside. They saw a bed, and a woman kneeling beside this bed, her eyes upraised in prayer. The look which had awed them at the window was gone, and in its place was one so high and so full of religious faith that for an instant they were conscious of the reversal of all their ideas.
But only for an instant; for while they waited, hesitating to break in upon her evidently sincere devotions, she started to her feet and with a half-insane look about her, disappeared from their view in the direction of the hall.
Sweet.w.a.ter was after her in a twinkling; but by the time he and Mr. Gryce, each going his separate way, had themselves reached the hall, it was to see the end door--the one giving upon the plateau--closing behind her.
”Madame!” called out Sweet.w.a.ter, bounding briskly in her wake.
Mr. Gryce said nothing but approached with hastening steps the door which Sweet.w.a.ter had left open behind him, and took a quick survey of the fenced-in plateau, the bridge and the towering trees beyond, toward which she seemed to be making.
”She cannot escape,” was his ready conclusion; and he shouted to Sweet.w.a.ter to go easy.
Sweet.w.a.ter, who was in the act of setting foot upon the bridge down which she was running, slacked up at this command and presently stopped, for she had stopped herself and was looking back from a spot about halfway across, with the air of one willing, at last, to hear what they had to say.
”Who are you?” she cried. ”And what do you want of me?”
”Are you not Madame Duclos?”
”Yes, I am Antoinette Duclos.”
”Then you must know why you are wanted by the police authorities of New York. Your daughter--”
Her hand went up.
”I've nothing to say--nothing. Will you take that for your answer and let me go?”
”Alas, madam, we cannot!” spoke up Mr. Gryce in his calm, benevolent way. ”Miss Duclos' death was of a nature demanding an inquest. Your testimony, hard as it may be for you to give it, is necessary for a righteous verdict. That is all we want--”
”It is too much!” she cried. And with a quick glance upward she took another step or two along the bridge till she had reached the broken rail; and before Sweet.w.a.ter in his dismay could more than give a horrified bound in her direction, she had made the fatal leap and was gone from their sight into the gorge below.