CHAPTER XI

But if Lyon had fancied that Fate was doing nothing merely because he had run into a blind alley himself, he soon had reason to suspect that he was mistaken. The manner in which during the next few days he stumbled against some of her threads, and so became more than ever entangled in her weaving, was curiously casual,--but as a matter of fact, most of the happenings of life seem casual at the time. It is only looking back that their connection comes into view, like a path on a far mountain, only to be seen from a distance.

Lyon had allowed himself to jubilate a little over the curtain-code which he had established with Kittie. He felt that it had the justification of being important in itself for the purpose which he and Howell had at heart, but apart from that it was so charmingly personal. The messages might concern Mrs. Broughton, but Kittie would have to give them,--and that little fact was so interesting that if he had not been a young man of much steadiness of purpose, he might have let it eclipse the significance of the message. As it was, he felt it highly important that he should be able to see those windows very frequently. Suppose Kitty should pull down a curtain and he not know about it for hours! The idea was not to be entertained calmly. Would it be possible for him to get a room in the neighborhood? He had learned in his profession that the world belongs to him who asks for it, so, selecting a house whose back windows must, from their position, command an unobstructed view of Miss Elliott's School, he boldly rang the bell. He had no idea who might live there. The house was on a lot adjoining Miss Wolcott's and, like her house, it overlooked the back windows and the grounds of the School. It was in a position that suited his needs. For the rest, he trusted to the star which had more than once favored his quiet audacity.

His ring was answered by a servant of a peculiarly uncheerful cast of countenance.

"Is your mistress at home?" Lyon asked.

"There ain't no mistress," the woman protested, in an aggrieved tone.

"Well, your master, then. Will you take up my card? I want to see him on business."

She took it and departed, with that same querulous air of dissatisfaction with the world in general.

That there was no mistress in the house was very evident, even to Lyon's uninstructed masculine sense. The reception room where he waited was dusty and musty, bearing unmistakable signs of having been closed for the summer and since left untouched. There was an echoing hollowness about the halls that seemed to proclaim the house uninhabited, in spite of the servant. While Lyon was speculating upon the situation, a thin dark middle-aged man entered the room silently and yet with an alertness that was noticeable. He looked at Lyon with sharp inquiry--almost, it struck the intruder, with distrust.

"Well?" he said curtly.

"I hope it won't strike you as cheeky," said Lyon, "but I called on the bare chance of your having a spare bedroom that you could rent me for a month,--or even less. I think my references would be satisfactory. They are going to paper my rooms at the Grosvenor, and I've got to clear out while they are messing around, and I like this part of town, so I just thought I'd see what luck I had if I went around and asked. I'm not exacting--"

"We're not renting rooms."

"I know, but as a special matter--"

"Couldn't think of it."

"Do you happen to know anyone else in the neighborhood who does?"

"Don't know anyone."

"I wish you would reconsider. It would be an accommodation to me."

"Sorry, but it's impossible." The impatience of the man's tone suggested that the interview Had lasted long enough, and Lyon rose reluctantly. He hated to feel that his inspiration had failed him. At that moment, however, the portière which separated the reception room from what appeared to be an equally musty and dusty library in the rear was pushed aside, and another man entered,--a man of impressive bearing and appearance, in spite of the fact that he wore a skullcap and a long dressing gown and that a pair of large blue goggles hid his eyes. The lower part of his face was covered with a beard and yet Lyon felt at once that here was a man of powerful personality.

"I overheard your request from the next room," he said, in a courteous but positive tone, and bowing slightly to Lyon,--who could not repress a wonder whether that position in the back room had not been taken for the express purpose of overhearing him. "I'm not sure that we cannot accommodate the young gentleman, Phillips."

Phillips looked disapproval and injury in every line of his face, but he said nothing. He had at once fallen into the attitude of a subordinate.

"You are more than kind," said Lyon, eagerly. "I know it's a great deal to ask,--but it would be a great accommodation, and I'd try to make no bother."

"You will have to judge for yourself whether there is a room that you could use. I don't know much about the house. We have only just moved in ourselves. It was a furnished house, closed for the summer, and the agent let us take it for the time being. I am in town temporarily, having my eyes treated, and I wanted a place where I could be more quiet than in a hotel. My name is Olden. This is my good friend Phillips, who looks after me generally, and thinks I ought not to increase my household. I sometimes venture to differ from him, however. The servant, whom you saw at the door, has undertaken to keep us from starving, and she would undoubtedly be able to care for your room. Now you know the family. Would you care to look at the rooms?"

"Thank you, I should like to very much," cried Lyon gayly.

It was so much better than he had had any possible grounds for expecting that his faith in his star soared up again. This was what came of venturing! And in spite of the curious sensation of talking in the dark which Mr. Olden's goggles gave him, he liked the man. There was dignity and directness in his speech, and his voice was singularly magnetic.

Olden led the way upstairs, moving with the swift confidence of a man of affairs and not at all as an invalid.

"There are four bedrooms on this floor," he said. "Phillips has one of them, and I have one. This large room at the front is unoccupied."

The room was large and attractive, but Lyon was not interested in the view toward Hemlock Avenue! He barely glanced at it.

"Might I see the other room?"

Olden opened the door to a back bedroom which, though clean, was small and in no wise so desirable as the other. But it looked the right way, and on going to the window Lyon saw that Kittie's curtains were both high up.

"This will suit me exactly," he said, eagerly. "May I have this room?"

"You really haven't looked at it very carefully," said Olden, with just the barest hint of amusement in his voice.

"Oh, well,--I--I can see that it will suit me. I shan't be in it very much, you know. I'm connected with the News, as you know from my card. I'll be here only at night."

"Yes, it's a pleasant little room. And it has an open view. That large building is Miss Elliott's School, I am told."

"Yes, I know," laughed Lyon. "Fact is, I know one of the young ladies at the school."

"Indeed?" There was surprise and, if it had been possible to believe it, disappointment in Mr. Olden's voice. It was as though he had said, "Oh, is that it?" The blue goggles scrutinized Lyon for a moment before he said, "Well, shall we consider it settled?"

"If you please. When can I come in?"

"Whenever you like. I'll tell Sarah to make the room ready. And I hope, Mr. Lyon," he added, as they went back downstairs, "that you will sometimes join me in a cigar before you turn in. Shut in as I am, unable to use my eyes or to see people, you will be doing me a charity if you will come in and gossip a bit. Will you do it?"

"I'll be glad to," said Lyon, heartily.

"That will more than repay me, if there is any favor to you in our arrangement," the man said with a certain emphasis. He probably was lonely, Lyon reflected, with quick sympathy.

Lyon left the house much elated. When he reached the sidewalk he remembered that he had not asked for a latch-key, and that he was apt to return late. He hurried back to the door. The lock had not caught when he came out and the door stood just so much ajar that he saw Olden and Phillips in the hall, and heard Olden exclaim, with a ring of passion in his voice, "You would have thrown such a chance as that away?"

They both looked so startled, when he made his presence known, that he was swiftly aware that he was the subject of what seemed to have been a heated discussion. Evidently Phillips had protested against his admission to the household. At his suggestion about a latch-key. Olden answered,

"Why, I have only one, but I'll let you in myself whenever you ring. I'll be up, never fear."

Lyon had a busy afternoon,--for in spite of his mental absorption in matters relating to Lawrence, he was still reporting for the News and had to keep his assignments! He therefore had no opportunity to see Howell that day, and it was nine o'clock at night when he arrived, with his suit-case, at his new home. Olden let him in with an alacrity that suggested he had been waiting for him. This idea was also suggested by the looks of the dining room, where a tray, with bottles and glasses and a box of cigars, had been arranged alluringly within sight.

"All right, I'll be down in a minute," the new lodger said, gaily. "We'll make a night of it! Just wait till I put my suit-case in my room."

He ran upstairs to his room and looked across to Miss Elliott's School. Across the white barrenness of the snowy yard that stretched between the two houses, the light gleamed brightly from Kittie's windows. The curtain of the right window was perceptibly lower than the other. It seemed to cut off the upper third of the window. Lyon read the message with keen interest,--"Mrs. Broughton is better. She gives no signs of departure." Across the dark he blew a kiss to the unseen messenger, and hurried downstairs where his mysterious landlord was walking restlessly up and down the long dining room.

"Well, what shall we gossip about?" he asked gaily. Olden had shown no signs of physical feebleness, yet Lyon felt a hurt about him that prompted him to a show of cheerfulness beyond his habit with a stranger, and the success of his curtain code had put him into an elated mood.

"What do people generally gossip about?"

"Their friends, don't they? And their enemies; and the delinquencies of both."

"That's all right," said Olden, quickly. "Tell me about your friends and their delinquencies."

"I haven't many here. I'm a stranger myself, comparatively. The man in Waynscott I care most for, and admire most, and am sorriest for, is Arthur Lawrence."

Olden was leaning forward in an attitude of eager listening.

"That sounds like a good beginning. Will you have something--? Then have a cigar, and talk to me about Arthur Lawrence. I'm entirely a stranger in Waynscott, you know, but of course I have heard of the murder. I infer that you believe him innocent."

"Yes, I do."

"Yet I see that he was unable or unwilling to give a very clear account of his movements that evening.--Phillips read me the newspapers, and I thought it looked like a tight box for him, unless he could explain his movements somewhat."

"But he may explain them yet. Trial by newspaper is not final. There has been no chance for the real testimony, you know."

"Has gossip nothing to say on the subject?" persisted Olden. He had dropped into an arm chair and was surrounding himself with smoke, but Lyon was aware that through the smoke and the goggles which he still wore he was bending an observant eye upon his visitor.

"Gossip says many nothings. So far, nothing relevant. The murder seems to be one of these clueless mysteries which are the most difficult for the police to unravel."

"But you,--you are behind the scenes, in a fashion. Don't you know something that the public hasn't got hold of? I--I'm interested, you see."

Lyon smoked thoughtfully. The man's interest was so marked that it struck him as going beyond the bounds of ordinary curiosity. He felt that he must probe it, and so he answered with a view to keeping the subject going.

"We hear of the mysteries that are solved, but there are many more that drop from the notice of the public because they remain mysteries forever."

"Is it not possible that there may be a woman connected with the mystery?" asked Olden with a sudden hardening of his voice.

Lyon smoked deliberately a moment.

"With nothing known and everything to guess, it is difficult to say of anything that it is not possible," he answered.

"Has Lawrence's name never been connected with a woman? Is there no gossip?"

"Of the sort you suggest, nothing, I believe." Lyon's voice was calm, If his feelings were not.

"Your Mr. Lawrence is a wonder," said Olden, drily. "I hope to meet him some day. Let us drink to his release and to the confusion of the Grand Jury. A man who can keep himself free from all feminine entanglements ought to get out of a little thing like an accusation for murder without any difficulty."

"You seem to have strong feelings on the subject," said Lyon. It occurred to him that all the drawing-out need not be on Olden's side. Olden smoked a minute in silence, and then asked abruptly,

"Do you believe that women as a class have any sense of truth?"

"Oh, they must have some!"

"But do they have the same sense of honor that we have?"

"I don't know that we have enough to hurt. But you are thinking of some specific case. Suppose you give me an outline of it."

"What makes you think that?"

"Oh, we always are thinking of a woman when we generalize about women."

Olden smoked hard and in silence for a few minutes.

"I don't know whether you are right about that or not," he said finally, "but you are right in saying that I was thinking of a specific instance, and I'll be rather glad to give you an outline of it, because I should like to ask your opinion in regard to it. I think I understand men pretty well, but I never have had much to do with women. Perhaps if I had,--this is the story of a friend of mine. He told me about it just before I came on."

Lyon nodded. Possibly that might be the truth, but he would keep an open mind on the subject.

"My friend is a man past middle life,--a successful business man. He has made money and has knocked about the world a good deal, but he never fell in love until he was nearly fifty,--never had time, I suppose. Then he was hard hit. The woman was a good deal younger than he was, beautiful, and all that. He married her just as soon as he could win her consent, and was idiotically happy. For a year he thought she was happy, too. She seemed to be. Then one day she received a letter from her old home that upset her. She tried to conceal her disturbance from him, but he was too watchful of her moods to be deceived. From that moment his happiness was destroyed. His wife was concealing something from him. Other letters followed. They always had the same effect. The husband could not be blind to the fact that his wife was changed. She avoided him, withheld her confidence, and he found her more than once in tears. Perhaps it does not sound very serious, but you must remember that he was madly in love with his wife. It was serious for him."

Lyon nodded. "Did he know anything of his wife's past history,--her friends, or her--"

"Her lovers? No, he didn't. There was the sting. He simply didn't know anything. He could only see that something had come out of that unknown past to ruin his happiness."

"Why didn't he ask her, straight?"

"He did, once, and she pretended not to know what he was talking about. After that he set himself to watch. He pretended to be called away on a sudden business trip. She left, by the next train, for her old home, and went at once to the man with whom she had been corresponding."

"How did you--how did her husband know who the man was?"

"He had once found a letter, destroyed before it was finished, which enabled him to identify the man."

"Was it a love-letter?"

Olden dropped his head on his hand. "Not in terms. But it showed that this man possessed a confidence which she withheld from her husband. In it she spoke of her unhappiness in her married life as of something that he would understand,--something that they had acknowledged between them. Does that seem a little thing to you?"

"No, I can understand. Well, what did he do?"

"Nothing, yet. But I am afraid he may do something. If he should kill the man, would you say he was justified?"

"What would be the use?" asked Lyon, lightly.

"That isn't the question, when your brain is on fire. You see only one thing. The whole world is blotted out, and only that one thing burns before your eyes. I suppose that is the way one feels when going mad. Everything else blotted out, you know, except that one thing that you can't forget night or day,--awake or asleep,--" His voice was trembling with a passion that went beyond control. If Lyon had had any question that the strange man was telling his own story, he could no longer doubt it. Such sympathy is not given to the troubles of a friend.

"I understand that he has not killed the man yet?"

"No,--not yet."

"Well, then I'd advise him to wait a bit, in any event, and make sure of his facts. There's no sense in hurrying these things. Tell him to count ten. Also tell him that circumstantial evidence is the very devil. The chances are that if a thing looks so and so, that's the very reason for its turning out to be the other way. Now take this case of Lawrence's."

"Yes. What of it?" Olden had recovered himself, and he asked his question with an interest that seemed genuine, if somewhat cynical.

"The circumstantial evidence against him is pretty bad, yet you wouldn't want to have him hanged on the strength of it, would you?"

"I would not," said Olden, with a sudden laugh that sounded strange after his passion of a moment before. "I can think of nothing that I should more regret than to have your friend Lawrence hung. I drink to his speedy discharge." And he poured himself a stiff drink and drained it with a fervor that made the act seem sacrificial. Certainly there was a good deal of the original Adam in this curious stranger.

The sudden ring of the telephone in the hall cut so sharply across the silence in the house that it startled them both. Olden went to answer it, and immediately returned.

"It's someone to speak to you, Mr. Lyon,--name is Howell."

"Oh, yes. I suppose he got my new address from the Grosvenor."

He went to the phone, and this is the conversation that ensued.

Howell: "Hello, Lyon. Changed your room?"

Lyon: "Yes. I followed your suggestion."

Howell: "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm getting nervous about putting off that interview with Mrs. Broughton any longer. Barry tells me she is worse. I don't want to risk waiting until it is too late. If she should die, for instance,--"

Lyon: "Barry is bluffing, to protect his patient. She is better."

Howell: "How do you know?"

Lyon: "Miss Kittie tells me she is better."

Howell: "When was that?"

Lyon: "An hour ago."

Howell: "How did you hear from her?"

Lyon: "By heliograph. We have established a code."

Howell: "You seem to have been improving the time! You think I'm safe to wait, then, a day or two? I simply must see her before she gets away, you know."

Lyon: "No sign of departure, the code said."

Howell. "And will you know if she should suddenly show signs of departure?"

Lyon: "Yes. Her curtain will be lowered. Clear down means gone."

Howell: "That will be too late."

Lyon: "She isn't likely to bolt without warning, and no one would be in better position to take note than Miss Kittie."

Howell: "All right, I'll depend on that, then. But if Bede finds her first, I'll regret my humanity."

Lyon: "I think we're safe."

Howell: "Perhaps. But not sure." And he rang off.

When Lyon returned to the dining room, he found that the door was ajar, though he had thought that he closed it after him when going to the 'phone. If his host had been curious enough to listen to one side of the conversation, Lyon hoped that he might have found it interesting. Intelligible it could hardly have been.