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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1926-11-3, Page 7e THE BRUSSELS POST ,411.,to The Red L (Copyright) by MARY ROBERTS RINEHART Halliday's plan was as follows: in case Gordon took the ear, I was to follow it on foot et a safe distance as hu went along the lane, whit' 1111i- dny himself an for my car. Ile would meet me at the fork of the road, and I would be able to tell him which of the two roads Gordon had taken. We el ood together, well aidden in the shruhbery, for some time A 'Alight wind had come up, and we could hear stnall waves laelflnia egainst, the piles of the pier, and the monotonous wail of the whistling buoy beyond Robinson's Point; al- ways an eerie soiled, Halliday, who has not bad much sleep for a night or two, fell to yawning, ‘ind I was not much better ofia.when I heard some sort of stealthy movement in the woodland to our left. I touched Halliday on the arm, to find him rig- id and bending forward, daring to- ward the house. "He's corning," he said "Quiet!" The boy was raisilg his window screen, wfth all possible caution. Even when it was accomplished he stood so long, probably listening and watching, that I began to think lie had changed his mind and gone back to bed, but as events showed, he had done nothing of the sort.- • Up to this moment I had not sus- pected the use of the rope, although I believe Halliday had. I know my gaze was fixed on the kitchen door, with now and then a glance at the windows of the laundry and gun room; or rather, in their direction. The darkness was extreme. Buz now I heard a faint scraping aga'ner the wall of the house itself and realized that he was corning down by means of the rope. His corning was as stealthy as the preliminaries had been. He was pro- bably half way down, coming hand over hand, before I had interpreted the sound. I was not even aware that he had reached the ground, when I saw him, a blacker shadow among other shad- ows, near at hand. But he did not come directly toward the garage; he walked along under the walls of the west wing to the gun room window and stood there. Then, with extreme caution he raised it an inch or two, as if to reassure himself that it had been unlocked from within, and clos- ed it again. From there, with somewhat less caution, he moved to the corner of the house and seemed to be survey- ing the water front and the boat- house. We had our only real view of him than, as he stood silhoutte0 on the top of the rise. (Note: The main house stands, as I think I have already recorded, rather higher than the remainder of the property.r But suddenly something alarmed him. Neither Halliday nor I saw or heaed 4nything, but evidently he did, and realized too, his exposed eosition. He dropped to the ground. So un- expected was his sudden disappear - since, that I gasped; it was not un- til I heard him creeping along the ground that I understood his man - Oeuvre. He lost no time in his re- treat, nor. did he attempt to use the rope again. He raised the unlocked window, crept over the sill, and clos- ed it again, all with surprising rap- ; idity and silence, and 000110r than we could have expected we heard him drawing up the rope from his room overhead No interpretation of this is poesi- ble without taking into consideration the really horrible stealth of the boy's manner.He was tuigaged On ammo nefarious business of his own, whether we can connect that with the crimes or not. As to the extremely dramatic manner in which he chose to escape from the house, when he had already enlocked the gun room window, Hal- liday is divided between two them!- ' Letterheads Envelopes Billheads And all kinds of Business Stationery printed at The Post Publishing House. Wo will do a job 'that will do credit to your business, Look over your stock of Office Stationery and if it requires replenishing tall ne by telephone $1. The Post Publishing louse lee, of which he himself favors the second, ' "He may be merely dramatteieg himeelf; you'll find a certain type oi degenerate mind which is always act- , ing for its own benefit. Or ---and this is more likely—our old friend Bethel is suspicious and is watching Mem The old man's door commands his. He locks his door from the in- sidtr„ uses his rope, and is tree to go where he pleases." "But," he added, after a pause, "be. Unlocks the gun ram window, too, so he can beat a retreat lb he has to; ; That's the best I can do, and if it isn't correct it ought to he!" To -day I am convinced beyond doubt that Gordon is; our criminal, and I think even Halliday is shaken. I am no detective, but it stems to me that the boy, cdlning here cluring the height of the excitement about the sheep-lciller and young Carroway, found the way already paved for a career of secret crime, and aiopting 'the methods and the symbol of some still undiscovered religious maniec, has carried on, one may say, under hie- banner. My psychiatric friends have discus- sed with me the neurotic aftermath of war; the search for the sensation- al, the wooing of fugitive and -sec- ret pleasures, often brutal and viol ent; and the apotheosis of tin crim- inal. They quote, too, von Krafft- Ebing's theory that the instinct to kill is purely a legacy from the past, atavistic and more or less non -delib- erate. In other words, that killing is inherent in all of us, and that to the ill -balanced the destruction of the artificial inhibition, from are cause, turns them loose on the world, hereditary slayers and doers of viol- ence. It would, accepting that, be possi- ble to see in young Gordon the heir, not only to his own past, but to the crimes which preceded his arrival here; to see also that gradual proc- ess of identification by which he as- sumed his predecessor's attributes and even the symbol by which he signed his deeds. I believe that In such cases the mental degeneration some- times continues to the point of com- plete loss of personality; in that case, acceping this theory, it may even be that the boy' now believes that he killed Carroway, and takes a secret and gloating pleasure in tt. A theory which I shall be happy to place at Greenough's disposal, if the opportunity arrives. It should be one after his own heart. Certainly one, fact at least sup- ports the idea. Halliday may be right, and the attackeon him not have been made by Gordon. But there seems no reason to doubt that, sorne time on the day before we got back, he crept intco my garage and put the infernal symbol where we. found it. We have discussed to -day at some length the desirability of notifying the police once more. But our reeen± experience with them is not reassur- ing. On the other hand, Iefeel strong- ly that Mr. Bethel should be warned. But Halliday argues against it. "He knows something already," he says, "He is on guard and the boy knows it. Then you have to remem- ber that the game, so fa,, has been to Strike in the dark, and run. That is, if you are correct, Skippereand it is a game, without motive." Probably he is right. There would be little chance for him if he attack- ed the old man; he is too will known to be on bad terms with him. Such a warning, also, might alarm Mr. Bethel to the' point of getting rid of -him, and after all the only chance we have is to let him go a certain length, and then, with our proofs, call in the police. But I am very uneasy to -night as I make this entry, I have not Hal- liday's easy optimism that hs "won't get away with 'anything without our knowing it." August lith. To -day is bright and sunny, and am in a better mood. Edith cams dowe this morning to an enormous stack of mail, and stared at it in- credulously. - "Gnat heavens," she said, "not bills!" As it turned out, however, they' were not bills. Her article has brought out a curious fact; almeet everybody; has a ghost -story, and is anxious to thll it -to somebody 'else; even the most incredulous of us, ap- parently, has some incident stored in his memory not capahlp of explana- tion. And a visible percentage of these vietims of thrills end shivers have written to her about the ghost In the light tower. She and Halliday aro reading them on the verandah at e this moment, Each 'has a limb of them, and such bits es this are to be heard: "Here's a wonder," says Halliday, 6 I ;1,,essascii,111 itlosyyohuat;(1,Tsisi,,,oint't,,, ;4;ooturt,„, woh1,1,1( ,1, ly thing touching my neck at Jai . mom eat." "It's a spider," say e Edith. (•ool'y 0 WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3, 1020, s+44.441444.404.4.444+4+4+4+.÷ to Ell , "You can wait, Listen to thi.,r And so on, . Which reminds me that I had a visit last night from "Cuckoo" Hadly, our village Don Juan, who veils hard- ware over his counter to pretty vil- lage matrons, and who was dubbed "Cuckoo" some years ago by a sum- mer visitor who saw a ressmblenee 1..) Byron in him, and evidently knew the quotation. (Note: "The cuckoo 'shows melan- cholia, not madness. Like Byron, ho gON1 fsbout wailing his sad lot; and eow anil then dropping an egg into someone else's nest.") Hadly was slightly sheepth. He knows'and he knows.I know, that his road itome at night lies nowhere near the cemetery. At the same ;time, ho ;had something to tell me, arid was de - ermined IQ go through with it. "I guess you've 'heard the story, Mr. Porter," he said. "I don't sup- pose I'll ever hear the last of it. But there's a mistake being made, and I thought if Miss Edith was going to write it up, we'd better have it straight." . It appears, then, that it was not near Carroway'S grave that Redly saw the figure, but in the old part of the cemetery and that there are some facto which he has not given out. The cemetery is surgountled by/ft :white fence, and inside it is shrtib- bery, Hadly, it seems, was not el - one, but was standing in the road, "talking to a friend." If, es I im- agine, the friend was a woman, 11 was surely a safe place for a renclee- vous! "It was the "friend" who saw the light, and who accounts for the sup- pression of this part of the story. It shone through the thrubbery, a small blue -white light about two feet: ?rem the ground, and dir,...ctly isi front of the headstone of one Maltese Pierce, who died in the late seven- teen hundreds. Hadly did notsee the light, but the "friend" persisting., he crept through the shrubbery to take a look around. It was then that he saw the figure,. moving slowly and deliberately to- ward the trees. He seems to have no doubt that he saw an apparition, or that, the in- formation belongs to me, the reason he gives for the latter being that George Pierce is the gentlemaa who was, according to local tradition, shot and killed while attempting to escape the Excise in the old farm house which is now a part of Twin Hol- lows. e I have entered this here, because the day seems 'given over to the supernatural. We have breakfasted with the spirit world, and seem about to lunch with it. Everything continues quiet at the other house Jane and I to -day returned the Livingstones' call. Although it seems absurd, I have never quite ahlandon- ed the hope of finding, in Uncle Horace's unfinished letter, a clue to the present mystery. I therefore took it with me hoping for an opportunity to show it to Mrs. Livingstone. But none same. Dr. Hayward was there when we arrived and remained after we left. Per- haps, because my own -world is awry, I think the universe is so. But it seemed to inc that we were shown into what amounted to a situ- ation; that Livingstone, usually dap- per and calm, was flushed, and that Mrs. Livingstone was on the verge of tears. The doctor, standing by the window, hardly acknowledged our en- trance, and remained standing, glow- ering and biting hie fingers, until we lszf 1.• He is, I understand, seen to leave for a Aliday. August 12th, (No entry.) August lath. (No entry.) August 1411t. To -morrow Hayward says I shall he able 10 see Greenough; the first intimation I have had that he is back in the neighborhood. But I feel that my eonsciousness of my own innocence will be as net:fang against Grenough's sheer determine - tion to prove Isle guilty. And yet, guilty of what? '0:1 a bullet buried in the floor of my own house, and a broken evindowl We have bad no blether crime, Nothing le altered, save my own feeling that a' net Is closing around me, and that some malignant fate is sitting spider fash- ion in .the center of it, waiting to 'pounce on me and destroy me. Yesterday, being alloevech, to lend, I found that with the single excep- tion of the red Iight,°my experience is fairly true to type in such mat- ters; thousands of people have ap- parently gone through the same sort of thing, and have been neither the better nor the worse for it after- wards, ' t They saw, they believed, and then dismissed it, to be dug up out of theis Ineinoeles later to assist aemehorly to write a hook, or to entertain a din - • • t t+ • WANTED • 44. 4,4. .....—..— + 't Highest market prices : : paid. • ..t. : • u See te or Nines! Ne 2x, 13rule. : + • eels, and f will eall end get 4. + , : 3 ou . He tvi. te M., Yolliek I .e.r-e-r sot et •rer,tre>vea..evielecevitetrar+0+44-t ,..........,..............,...............................................................w,,.... ner table. But in my case, what? My only hope, apparently, is to convince Greenough that I sew this thing; to show him the steps hy which ' I was led to fire the shot; to put him, 'if I can, in my place for an hour or two. Suppose, like a lawyer nreparing a brief, I make my statement here, 'and to -morrow read it to him? At least I can make this entry full and explicit. It passes the time, and he may be willing to listen. . . . This is the 141h. It was, than, the early evening of the llth, when An- nie Cochran stopped at the Lodge on her way home and asked to e see me at the kitchen door. . "I'm leaving, Mr. Porter," she said. "I don't like to make trouble for you, but I can't stand that secre- tary." "What has he done, Annie?" "Done!" she said, and sniffed. "He's watching me for one thing. I never go upstairs but he's at my heels. But that's not all. He'i go- ing to make trouble for Mr. Bethel. you mark my words. And Mr. Bethel knows it; he's scared to -night." There had been a quarrel, she Raid, at dinner, carefully camouflaged while she was in the room, but break- ing out again the moment she left le So far as she could make out, it had to do with the saeretary o leavieg the house at night, and his insistence that he go out when and how he liked. But there was something beneath that, she thought. "That wasn't enough for the fuss they wera mak- ing," she said. "There Was murder in that boy's face, Mr. Porter." Mr. Bethel, she thought, was try- ing to quiet him, but he refused to be quieted. Finally Gordon got up and flung open the pantry door, find- ing her inside it, and he said, accord- ing to her: "Listening, are you? Well, you'd better watch out, or you'll get something you don't expect." Than he went into the hall, got his hat and slannned out of the house, leaving the paralytic sunk in his chair. "He's gone? Where " "He didn't say. He just took the car and went." She was uneasy; she had construed what he said as a threat against her of a serious sort, and I drove her into Oakville myself. _On the way I tried to persuade her to return to her employment for a time at leaet, on the ground that we might need her, and she finally agreed. It was perhaps nine o'clock when l' returned, to find the rector and his wife calling, and to sic ;through an hour and a half of gentle unctuous conversation, while my uneasiness constantly increased, and my sense of guilt and responsibility. If we had warned the old man he would have been at least prepared to take care of himself in an emeregncy, but vee had foolishly kept our knowledge to our- selves, and even allowing for exag- geration on Annie Cochran's part, there seemed no doubt that such an emergency might be at hand. At 10.30 our visitors took their de- parture, and leaving Jane prepared to retire and Edith to answer some of her letters, I wandered with apparent aimlessness down to the boat -house, ;Halliday was not there, and as the dory vas neisieng I knew he was somewhere out on . the water. Af ter waiting until eleven, my restlessness was ektrenie and I walled up and around .the main house, to find the garage doom open and the car still out. . Had there been :my indication of light in the building, 1 think I would have wakened Mr. Bethel and warned him; stayed with him; perhape, until that murderous young devil wae sefe- ly settled for the night. But his room was dark and his windows cloged, so •Ithought better of it. But 1 did.,- east/tin that the gun room windows were locked, and that if the bay ef- fected an entrance at all, it would be yy same less surreptitious method. Thus measured, I went back to the boat -house, and soon after Hallelay roWed quietly in and tied the dory. He had rowed up, he said, to see if the boat was still there. It hadanot been disturbed, so fax as he could tell. I told him my stbry, but he Was less anxious than I had expected. "It's n the gae,7' he said, "If t m Gerdon i the killer, we've got to consider hat he doesn't kill out o/ anger. fhat's different. Hs's cool mid del' erate; he. plans 1110 stuff ahead id goes through with it, • I don't even think he gets any thrill out of the crime itself; the real sec- ret joy is in baffling discovery, And he knows this; after the quarrel to- night, if old Bethel fell downstairs and broke his neck, he would be blamed for it." But he thrust his army automatic in his pocket neverthelese, and we started toward the house, with no particular plan in mind, but a axed determination to protect 31 r. Bethel "in sac of trouble, ' cs Halliday put it, We had almost reached the end of the walk over tha marsh when he halted 'suddenly and stared to the right. "There was a light over there," he said. "In the woods, Wait a minute; maybe it will show again." It (lid show, abova,. the head of Robinson's Point apparently, in that lonely strip of woodland wliith leads to the hiding place of the boas. (Note: In explanation of our con- clusion that we had seen one of the lights of the car as Gordon dreve through the trees, I can only give again the difficulty of distinguishing at night a small light comparatively close at hand from a large one some distance away.) Halliday watched it, and then pass- ed his revolver to me, first taking off the safety catch. "Don't fell over anyth'rrg," he warned me. "And don't shoot until you see the whites of his eyes! I'm going over there, Skipper." He set off on a steady lope, head- ing for the light but obliged to meke a long detour around the marsh, myself, holding the revolver gingerly, started on to the house. was feeling; comparatively speaking, relaxed. I felt, as did Hal- liday, that Gordon was near Rob'n- son's Point; my duty, as I saw it, was simply to stand guard until Hal- liday, returned and we could make some plan; in case of trouble later to sit iete the house, if 00t:1111.. This thought, that we might want to get into the house, bothered me. My keys were at the Lodge, and I could hardly hope to secure them without disturbing Jane. I made, as a result, another round of the win- dows, and was brought ap'short by the fact that one of the gun room windows, certainly closed and locked before, now stood open. It was the more startling, because I had but that moment ascertained that the garage doors still ;goo1 wide, and that the car was still missing, 1 daresay every rnan has occasional doubts of his .physical eourage; I know that, after the sinking of: the Titanic, I was obseesed with the fear that I might have fought like a dem- on to get into a life boat. But I daresay too that every man has a sort of spare reservoir of courage, on whieli he can draw in the emer- gency, when it comes. Yet 1 shall not pretend, even to myself, that I pulled up my shouders, exumined my weapon, and then boldly entered 'Vert window. I crawled in, with knees that shook under me and a definite naueea in the pit of my stomaela And to make matters worse there was a Slaw foot- step eomewhere near, which I eves a second or so as identifying as a drip from the old shower next door. I had no doubt whatever that Gor- don had returned, and the very fact that he had come without the car made that return sinister. I groped for door into the passage end stood there listening, ; but there was no sound whatever, save the leak of the Lap; I remember that as I passed the open door of the shower room I leek - ed in, end a gleaming eye nearly lost me my equilibrium, until I eememher- ed Edith's piece of phospnoreseent wood. All this, it must be noted, was in complete darkness. I reached the dining room without incident, and there a new thought struck me. Annie Cochran had re- presented the old gentleman as dis- tinctly alarmed, and I myself had seen him some time before, more oe less on guard, with a revolver. Sup- pose he saw a strange figure emerge from his dining room and start up the staircase? It seemed to me that he would have every right to shoot me first and investigate me after- wards. it ,vas while I hesitated there, near the sideboard, that I was first con- scious of a cold air blowing around me. So distinct was it that my first thought was that some stealthy move- ment had opened the door to the pas- sage behind me. Almost immediately on that there was a tremendous crash as though some heavy object had struck the dining room table, and following that the door into the hall burst open, slamming back againfie the wall outside. This was followed by complete silence. (To Be (Jontinuo). BUSINESS CARUS ilrHE Industrial Morvgag0 and m Raving s Company, of Sarnia Ontario, are prepared to advance moneY Or Mortgages on gond lands. Parties destring money on farm mortgages will ph age apply to Jitrukv, t'os an, 1,,e0i co lb, who will tor nish rates ono Muer r ticithire. Tho Industrixal Mortgage and savInge Company C. C. RAMAGE, D.D.S., L.D.S. BRUSSELS, ONT. Graduate Royal College of Dental Surgeons and Honor Graduate Uni- versity of Toronto. Dentistry in all its branches. Office Over Standard Bank, Phone 200 d'Aziax kaotemr AGENT FOR Fire Automobile an Wind Ins, COMPANIES For Brussels and vicinity Phone,647 (JAMES 11/1' PADZEAN Agent Hoick Mutual fire Insurance Company Also Hartford Windstorm and Tornado Insurance Phone 92 Box 1 Turidievy Street 13russei JNO. SUTHERLAND & SON LIMITED 1 tifeSrfliaXeR GeOZPlif 0.407.0.41 0 kuvrav0;10:BM. ZOerTdreT Arms I PRICES MODERATE Forlferegutl15any persilogsalesziaveNi:5.Aou2o T. T. M'RAE M. S., M. C. P., 41 S. 0. M. 0. H., Village of Brussels. Physician, Surgeon, Accoucheur Office at residence. opposite Melville Church, William street. &NOS:UR BARRISTER, SOLICITOR, CONVEYANCER. NOTARY PUBLIC LECKIE BLOCK - BRUSSELS DR. WARDLAW Honor graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College. DAT and night calls. Oftloe opposite Flour Mill, Ethel. ,01•••••••••••••••• , Worth Selling is Worth Telling Advertise Advertise what you are doing. Advertise what you expect to do. Advertise your old goods and move them. Advertise your new goods.and sell them before they get old. Advertise to hold oldftrade. Advertise to get new trade, Advertise when btisiness is good to make it better. Advertise when business is poor to keep it from getting worse, Advertising is not a "cure-all." Advertising is a preventative. Advertising does not push, it pulls. Advertising to pay must be consistnt and persistent. erre THE BRUSSELS POST 7,4nim.,11141, ..3.54NWA.ca. -0.01C)sily siedletsa