Kitabı oku: «The Millionaire Baby», sayfa 10
XVIII
"YOU LOOK AS IF – AS IF – "
I had studiously avoided looking at her while these last few words passed between us, but as the silence which followed this final outburst continued, I felt forced to glance her way if only to see what my next move should be. I found her gazing straight at me with a bright spot on either cheek, looking as if seared there by a red-hot iron.
"You are a detective," she said, as our regards met. "You have known this shameful secret always, yet have met my husband constantly and have never told."
"No, I saw no reason."
"Did you never, when you saw how completely my husband was deceived, how fortunes were bequeathed to Gwendolen, gifts lavished on her, her small self made almost an idol of, because all our friends, all our relatives saw in her a true Ocumpaugh, think it wicked to hold your peace and let this all go on as if she were the actual offspring of my husband and myself?"
"No; I may have wondered at your happiness; I may have thought of the consequences if ever he found out, but – "
I dared not go on; the quick, the agonizing nerve of her grief and suffering had been touched and I myself quailed at the result. Stammering some excuse, I waited for her soundless anguish to subside; then, when I thought she could listen, completed my sentence by saying:
"I did not allow my thoughts to stray quite so far, Mrs. Ocumpaugh. Not till my knowledge of your secret promised to be of use did I let it rise to any proportion in my mind. I had too much sympathy for your difficulties; I have to-day."
This hint of comfort, perhaps from the only source which could afford her any, seemed to move her.
"Do you mean that you are my friend?" she cried. "That you would help me, if any help were possible, to keep my secret and – my husband's love?"
I did not know how to dash the first spark of hope I had seen in her from the beginning of this more than painful interview. To avoid it, I temporized a trifle and answered with ready earnestness:
"I would do much, Mrs. Ocumpaugh, to make the consequences of your act as ineffective as possible and still be true to the interests of Mr. Ocumpaugh. If the child can be found – you wish that? You loved her?"
"O yes, I loved her." There was no mistaking the wistfulness of her tone. "Too well, far too well; only my husband more."
"If you can find her – that is the first thing, isn't it?"
"Yes."
It was a faint rejoinder. I looked at her again.
"You do not wish her found," I suddenly declared.
She started, rose to her feet, then suddenly sat again as if she felt that she could not stand.
"What makes you say that? How dare you? how can you say that? My husband loves her, I love her – she is our own child, if not by birth, by every tie which endears a child to a parent. Has that wicked man – "
"Doctor Pool!" I put in, for she stopped, gasping.
"Yes; Doctor Pool, whom I wish to God I had never seen – has he told you any such lies as that? the man who swore – "
I put out my hand to calm her. I feared for her reason if not for her life.
"Be careful," I enjoined. "Your walls are thick but tones like yours are penetrating." Then as I saw she would be answered, I replied to the question still alive in her face: "No; Doctor Pool has not talked of you. I saw it in your own manner, madam; it or something else. Perhaps it was something else – another secret which I have not shared."
She moistened her lips and, placing her two hands on the knobs of the chair in which she sat, leaned passionately forward. Who could say she was cold now? Who could see anything but a feeling heart in this woman, beautiful beyond all precedent in her passion and her woe?
"It is – it was – a secret. I have to confess to the abnormal. The child did not love me; has never loved me. Lavish as I have been in my affection and caresses, she has never done aught but endure them. Though she believes me her own mother, she has shrunk from me with all the might of her nature from the very first. It was God's punishment for the lie by which I strove to make my husband believe himself the father which in God's providence he was not. I have borne it; but my life has been a living hell. It was that you saw in my face – nothing else."
I was bound to believe her. The child had made her suffer, but she was bent upon recovering her – of course. I dared not contemplate any other alternative. Her love for her husband precluded any other desire on her part. And so I admitted, when after a momentary survey of the task yet before me, I ventured to remark:
"Then we find ourselves once more at the point from which we started. Where shall we look for his child? Mrs. Ocumpaugh, perhaps it would aid us in deciding this question if you told me, sincerely told me, why you had such strong belief in Gwendolen's having been drowned in the river. You did believe this – I saw you at the window. You are not an actress like your friend – you expected to see her body drawn from those waters. For twenty-four hours you expected it, though every one told you it was impossible. Why?"
She crept a step nearer to me, her tones growing low and husky.
"Don't you see? I – I – thought that to escape me, she might have leaped into the water. She was capable of it. Gwendolen had a strong nature. The struggle between duty and repulsion made havoc even in her infantile breast. Besides, we had had a scene that morning – a secret scene in which she showed absolute terror of me. It broke my heart, and when she disappeared in that mysterious way – and – and – one of her shoes was found on the slope, what was I to think but that she had chosen to end her misery – this child! this babe I had loved as my own flesh and blood! – in the river where she had been forbidden to go?"
"Suicide by a child of six! You gave another reason for your persistent belief, at the time, Mrs. Ocumpaugh."
"Was I to give this one?"
"No; no one could expect you to do that, even if there had been no secret to preserve and the child had been your own. But the child did not go to the river. You are convinced of that now, are you not?"
"Yes."
"Where then did she go? Or rather, to what place was she taken? Somewhere near; somewhere within easy reach, for the alarm soon rose and then she could not be found. Mrs. Ocumpaugh, I am going to ask you an apparently trivial and inconsequent question. Was Gwendolen very fond of sweets?"
"Yes."
She was sitting upright now, staring me in the face in unconcealed astonishment and a little fear.
"What sort of candy – pardon me if I seem impertinent – had you in your house on the Wednesday the child disappeared? Any which she could have got at or the nurse given her?"
"There were the confections brought by the caterer; none other that I know of; I did not indulge her much in sweets."
"Was there anything peculiar about these confections either in taste or appearance?"
"I didn't taste them. In appearance they were mostly round and red, with a brandied cherry inside. Why, sir, why do you ask? What have these miserable lumps of sugar to do with Gwendolen?"
"Madam, do you recognize this?"
I took from my pocket the crushed mass of colored sugar and fruit I had picked up from the musty cushions of the old sofa in the walled-up room of the bungalow.
She took it and looked up, staring.
"It is one of them," she cried. "Where did you get it? You look as if – as if – "
"I had come upon a clue to Gwendolen? Madam, I believe I have. This candy has been held in a hot little hand. Miss Graham or one of the girls must have given it to her as she ran through the dining-room or across the side veranda on her way to the bungalow. She did not eat it offhand; she evidently fell asleep before eating it, but she clutched it very tight, only dropping it, I judge, when her muscles were quite relaxed by sleep; and then not far; the folds of her dress caught it, for – "
"What are you telling me?" The interruption was sudden, imperative. "I saw Gwendolen asleep; she held a string in her hand but no candy, and if she did – "
"Did you examine both hands, madam? Think! Great issues hang on a right settlement of this fact. Can you declare that she did not have this candy in one of her little hands?"
"No, I can not declare that."
"Then I shall always believe she did, and this same sweetmeat, this morsel from the table set for your guests on the afternoon of the sixteenth of this month, I found last night in the disused portion of the bungalow walled up by Mr. Ocumpaugh's father, but made accessible since by an opening let into the floor from the cellar. This latter I was enabled to reach by means of a trap-door concealed under the rug in the open part of this same building."
"I – I am all confused. Say that again," she pleaded, starting once more to her feet, but this time without meeting my eyes. "In the disused part of the bungalow? How came you there? No one ever goes there – it is a forbidden place."
"The child has been there – and lately."
"Oh!" her fingers began to tremble and twist themselves together. "You have something more than this to tell me. Gwendolen has been found and – " her looks became uncertain and wandered, as I thought, toward the river.
"She has not been found, but the woman who carried her into that place will soon be discovered."
"How? Why?"
I had risen by this time and could answer her on a level and face to face.
"Because the trail of her steps leads straight along the cellar floor. We have but to measure these footprints."
"And what? – what?"
"We find the abductor."
A silence, during which one long breath issued from her lips.
"Was it a man's or woman's steps?" she finally asked.
"A woman's, daintily shod; a woman of about the size of – "
"Who? Why do you play with my anguish?"
"Because I hate to mention the name of a friend."
"Ah! What do you know of my friends?"
"Not much. I happened to meet one of them, and as she is a very fine woman with exquisitely shod feet, I naturally think of her."
"What do you mean?" Her hand was on my arm, her face close to mine. "Speak! speak! the name!"
"Mrs. Carew."
I had purposely refrained up to this moment from bringing this lady, even by a hint, into the conversation. I did it now under an inner protest. But I had not dared to leave it out. The footprints I alluded to were startlingly like those left by her in other parts of the cellar floor; besides, I felt it my duty to see how Mrs. Ocumpaugh bore this name, notwithstanding my almost completely restored confidence in its owner.
She did not bear it well. She flushed and turned quickly from my side, walking away to the window, where she again took up her stand.
"You would have shown better taste by not following your first impulse," she remarked. "Mrs. Carew's footsteps in that old cellar! You presume, sir, and make me lose confidence in your judgment."
"Not at all. Mrs. Carew's feet have been all over that cellar floor. She accompanied me through it last night, at the time I found this crushed bonbon."
I could see that Mrs. Ocumpaugh was amazed, well-nigh confounded, but her manner altered from that moment.
"Tell me about it."
And I did. I related the doubts I had felt concerning the completeness of the police investigation as regarded the bungalow; my visit there at night with Mrs. Carew, and the discoveries we had made. Then I alluded again to the footprints and the important clue they offered.
"But the child?" she interrupted "Where is the child? If taken there, why wasn't she found there? Don't you see that your conclusions are all wild – incredible? A dream? An impossibility?"
"I go by the signs," I replied. "There seems to be nothing else to go by."
"And you want – you intend, to measure those steps?"
"That is why I am here, Mrs. Ocumpaugh. To request permission to continue this investigation and to ask for the key to the bungalow. Mrs. Carew's is no longer available; or rather, I should prefer to proceed without it."
With sudden impulse she advanced rapidly toward me.
"What is Mrs. Carew doing this morning?" she asked.
"Preparing for departure. She is quite resolved to sail to-day. Do you wish to see her? Do you wish her confirmation of my story? I think she will come, if you send for her."
"There is no need." This after an instant's hesitation. "I have perfect confidence in Mrs. Carew; and in you too," she added, with what she meant for a kind look. She was by nature without coquetry, and this attempt to please, in the midst of an overwhelming distress absorbing all her faculties, struck me as the most pitiful effort I had ever seen. My feeling for her made it very hard for me to proceed.
"Then I may go on?" I said.
"Of course, of course. I don't know where the key is; I shall have to give orders. You will wait a few minutes, somewhere in one of the adjoining rooms, while I look up Mr. Atwater?"
"Certainly."
She was trembling, feverish, impatient.
"Shall I not look up Mr. Atwater for you?" I asked.
"No. I am feeling better. I can go myself."
In another moment she had left the room, having forgotten her own suggestion that I should await her return in some adjoining apartment.
XIX
FRENZY
Five minutes – ten minutes – elapsed and I became greatly impatient. I walked the floor; I stared from the window; I did everything I could think of to pass away these unendurable moments of suspense with creditable self-possession. But I failed utterly.
As the clock ticked off the quarter hour, and then the half, I grew not only impatient but seriously alarmed, and flinging down the book I had taken up as a last resort, stepped from the room, in the hope of coming across some one in the hall whom I could interrogate.
But the house seemed strangely quiet, and when I had walked the full length of the hall without encountering either maid or mistress, I summoned up courage to return to the room I had left and ring the bell.
No answer, though I waited long for it.
Thinking that I had not pressed the button hard enough, I made a second attempt, but again there was no answer.
Was anything amiss? Had she —
My thought did not complete itself. In sudden apprehension of I knew not what, I dashed from the room and made my way down stairs without further ceremony.
The unnatural stillness which had attracted my attention above was repeated on the floor below. No one in the rooms, no one in the passages.
Disturbed as I had not been yet by anything which had occurred in connection with this harrowing affair, I leaped to the nearest door and stepped out on the lawn.
My first glance was toward the river. All was as usual there. With my worst fears dispelled, but still a prey to doubts for which as yet I had no name, I moved toward the kitchen windows, expecting of course to find some one there who would explain the situation to me. But not a head appeared at my call. The kitchen, too, was deserted.
"This is not chance," I involuntarily exclaimed, and was turning toward the stables when I perceived a child, the son of one of the gardeners, crossing the lawn at a run, and hailing him, asked where everybody had gone that the house seemed deserted.
He looked back but kept on running, shouting as he did so:
"I guess they're all down at the bungalow! I'm going there. Men are digging up the cellar. Mrs. Ocumpaugh says she's afraid Miss Gwendolen's body is buried there."
Aghast and perhaps a trifle conscience-stricken, I stood stock-still in the sunshine. So this was what I had done! Driven her to frenzy; roused her imagination to such a point that she saw her darling – always her darling even if another woman's child – lying under the clay across which I had attempted simply to prove that she had been carried. Or – no! I would not think that! A detective of my experience outwitted by this stricken, half-dead woman whom I had trembled to see try to stand upon her feet? Impossible! Yet the thought brought the blood to my cheek.
Digging up the bungalow cellar! That meant destroying those footprints before I had secured a single impression of the same. I should have roused her curiosity only, not her terror.
Now all might be lost unless I could arrive in time to – do what? Order the work stopped? With what face could I do that with her standing by in all the authority of motherhood – frenzied motherhood – seeking the possible body of her child! My affair certainly looked dubious. Yet I started for the bungalow like the rest, and on a run, too. Perhaps Providence would favor me and some expedient suggest itself by which I might still save the clue upon which so many hopes hung.
The excitement which had now drawn every person on the place in the one direction, was at its height as I burst through the thicket into the path running immediately about the bungalow. Those who could get in at the door had done so, filling the room whence Gwendolen had disappeared, with awe-struck men and chattering women. Some had been allowed to descend through the yawning trap-door, down which all were endeavoring to peer, and, fortified by this fact, I armed myself with an appearance of authority despite my sense of presumption, and pushed and worked my own way to these steps, saying that I had come to aid Mrs. Ocumpaugh, whose attention I declared I had been the first to direct to this place.
Struck with my manner if not with my argument, they yielded to my importunity and allowed me to pass down. The stroke of the spade and the harsh voice of the man directing the work greeted my disquieted ears. With a bound I cleared the last half-dozen steps and, alighting on the cellar bottom, was soon able, in spite of the semi-darkness, to look about me and get some notion of the scene.
A dozen men were working – the full corps of gardeners without doubt – and a single glance sufficed to show me that such of the surface as had not been upturned by their spades had been harried by their footsteps. Useless now to promulgate my carefully formed theory, with any hope of proof to substantiate it. The crushed bonbon, the piled-up boxes and the freshly sawed hole were enough without doubt to establish the fact that the child had been carried into the walled-up room above, but the link which would have fixed the identity of the person so carrying her was gone from my chain of evidence for ever. She who should have had the greatest interest in establishing this evidence was leaning on the arm of Miss Porter and directing, with wavering finger and a wild air, the movements of the men, who, in a frenzy caught from her own, dug here and dug there as that inexorable finger pointed.
Sobs choked Miss Porter; but Mrs. Ocumpaugh was beyond all such signs of grief. Her eyes moved; her breast heaved; now and then a confused command left her lips, but that was all. Yet to me she was absolutely terrifying, and it took all the courage left from my disappointment for me to move so as to attract her attention. When I saw that I had succeeded in doing this, I regretted the impulse which had led me to break into her mood. The change which my sudden appearance caused in her was too abrupt; too startling. I feared the effects, and put up my hand in silent deprecation as her lips essayed to move in what might be some very disturbing command. If she heeded it I can not say. What she said was this:
"It's the child – I'm looking for the child! She was brought here. You proved that she was brought here. Then why don't we find her, or – or her little innocent body?"
I did not attempt an answer; I dared not – I merely turned away into a corner, where I should be out of the way of the men. A thought was rising in my mind; a thought which might have led to some definite action if her voice had not risen shrilly and with a despairing utterance in these words:
"Useless! It is not here she will be found. I was mad to think it. Pull up your spades and go."
A murmur of relief from one end of the cellar to the other, and every spade was drawn out of the ground.
"I could have told you," ventured one more hardy than the rest, "that there was no use disturbing this old clay for any such purpose. Any one could see that no spade has been at work here before in years."
"I said that I was mad," she repeated, and waved the men away.
Slowly they retreated with clattering spades and a heavy tread. The murmur which greeted them above slowly died out, and the bungalow was deserted by all but our three selves. When quite sure of this, I turned, and Miss Porter's eyes met mine with a reproachful glance easy enough for me to understand.
"I will go, too," whispered Mrs. Ocumpaugh. "Oh! this has been like losing my darling for the second time!"
Real grief is unmistakable. Recognizing the heartfelt tone in which these words were uttered, I recurred to the idea of frenzy with all the sympathy her situation called for. Yet I felt that I could not let her leave before we had come to some understanding. But how express myself? How say here and now in the presence of a sympathetic but unenlightened third party what it would certainly be difficult enough for me to utter to herself in the privacy of that secluded apartment in which we had met and talked before our confidence was broken into by this impetuous act of hers.
Not seeing at the moment any natural way out of my difficulties, I stood in painful confusion, conscious of Miss Porter's eyes and also conscious that unless some miracle came to my assistance I must henceforth play but a sorry figure in this affair, when my eyes, which had fallen to the ground, chanced upon a morsel of paper so insignificant in size and of such doubtful appearance that the two ladies must have wondered to see me stoop and with ill-concealed avidity pick it up and place it in my pocket.
Mrs. Ocumpaugh, whose false strength was fast leaving her, now muttered some words which were quite unintelligible to me, though they caused Miss Porter to make me a motion very expressive of a dismissal. I did not accept it as such, however, without making one effort to regain my advantage. At the foot of the steps I paused and glanced back at Mrs. Ocumpaugh. She was still looking my way, but her chin had fallen on her breast, and she seemed to sustain herself erect only by a powerful effort. Again her pitiable and humiliating position appealed to me, and it was with some indication of feeling that I finally said:
"Am I not to have an opportunity of finishing the conversation so unhappily interrupted, Mrs. Ocumpaugh? I am not satisfied, and I do not believe you can be, with the partial disclosures I then made. Afford me, I pray, a continuation of that interview, if only to make plain to me your wishes. Otherwise I may fall into some mistake – say or do something which I might regret – for matters can not stand where they are. You know that, do you not, madam?"
"Adèle! go! go!" This to Miss Porter. "I must have a few words more with Mr. Trevitt. I had forgotten what I owe him in the frenzy which possessed me."
"Do you wish to talk to him here?" asked that lady, with very marked anxiety.
"No, no; it is too cold, too dark. I think I can walk to Mrs. Carew's. Will you join me there, Mr. Trevitt?"
I bowed; but as she passed near me in going out, I whispered in her ear:
"I should suggest that we hold our talk anywhere but at Mrs. Carew's house, since she is liable to be the chief subject of our conversation."
"Now?"
"Now, more than ever. Her share in the child's disappearance was not eliminated or affected in any way by the destruction of her footprints."
"I will go back to the house; I will see him in my own room," Mrs. Ocumpaugh suddenly announced to her greatly disturbed companion. "Mr. Trevitt will follow in a few minutes. I must have time to think – to compose myself – to decide – "
She was evidently thinking aloud. Anxious to save her from any self-betrayal, I hastily interrupted her, saying quietly:
"I will be at your boudoir door in a half-hour from now. I myself have something to think of in the interim."
"Be careful!" It was Miss Porter who stopped to utter this word in my ear. "Be very careful, I entreat. Her heart-strings are strained almost to breaking."
I answered with a look. She could not be more conscious of this than I was.
