The Cross-Cut Part 32

"I won't--unlock this door!"

"I can't do it--the time has n't come yet--I must n't--"

"You won't--well, there 's another way." A crash, the sudden, stumbling feet of a man, then the scratching of a match and an exclamation: "So this is your immortal, eh?"

Only a moaning answered, moaning intermingled with some vague form of a weird chant, the words of which Fairchild in the musty, dark hall below could not distinguish. At last came Squint's voice again, this time in softened tones:

"Laura--Laura, honey."

"Yes, Squint."

"Why did n't you tell your sweetheart about this?"

"I must n't--you 've spoiled it now, Roady."

"No--Honey. I can show you the way. He 's nearly gone. What were you going to do when he went--?"

"He 'd have dissolved in air, Roady--I know. The spirits have told me."

"Perhaps so." The voice of the scar-faced, mean-visaged Squint Rodaine was still honeyed, still cajoling. "Perhaps so--but not at once. Is n't there a barrel of lime in the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"Yes."

"Come downstairs with me."

They started downward then, and Fairchild, creeping as swiftly as he could, hurried under the protection of the rotten casing, where the wainscoting had dropped away with the decay of years. There he watched them pa.s.s, Rodaine in the lead, carrying a smoking lamp with its half-broken chimney careening on the base. Crazy Laura, mumbling her toothless gums, her hag-like hands extended before her, shuffling along in the rear. He heard them go far to the rear of the house, then descend more stairs. And he went flat to his stomach on the floor, with his ear against a tiny c.h.i.n.k that he might hear the better.

Squint still was talking in his loving tones.

"See, Honey," he was saying. "I 've--I 've broken the spell by going in upstairs. You should have told me. I did n't know--I just thought--well, I thought there was some one in there you liked, and I got jealous."

"Did you, Roady?" She cackled. "Did you?"

"Yes--I did n't know you had _him_ there. And you were making him immortal?"

"I found him, Roady. His eyes were shut, and he was bleeding. It was at dusk, and n.o.body saw him when I carried him in here. Then I started giving him the herbs--"

"That you 've gathered around at night?"

"Yes--where the dead sleep. I get the red berries most. That's the blood of the dead, come to life again."

The quaking, crazy voice from below caused Fairchild to s.h.i.+ver with a sudden cold that no warmth could eradicate. Still, however, he lay there listening, fearful that every move from below might bring a cessation of their conversation. But Rodaine talked on.

"Of course, I know. But I 've spoiled that now. There's another way, Laura. Get that spade. See, the dirt's soft here. Dig a hole about four feet deep and six or seven feet long. Then put half that lime from the barrel in there. Understand?"

"What for?"

"It's the only way now; we 'll have to do that. It's the other way to immortality. You 've given him the herbs?"

"Yes."

"Then this is the end. See? Now do that, won't you, Honey?"

"You'll kiss me, Roady?"

"There!" The faint sound of a kiss came from below. "And there's another one. And another!"

"Just like the night our boy was born. Don't you remember how you bent over and kissed me then and held me in your arms?"

"I 'm holding you that way now, Honey--just the same way that I held you the night our boy was born. And I 'll help you with this. You dig the hole and put half the lime in there--don't put it all. We 'll need the rest to put on top of him. You 'll have it done in about two hours. There 's something else needed--some acid that I 've got to get. It 'll make it all the quicker. I 'll be back, Honey. Kiss me."

Fairchild, seeking to still the horror-laden quiver of his body, heard the sound of a kiss and then the clatter of a man's heavy shoes on the stairs, accompanied by a slight clink from below. He knew that sound,--the sc.r.a.ping of the steel of a spade against the earth as it was dragged into use. A moment more and Rodaine, mumbling to himself, pa.s.sed out the door. But the woman did not come upstairs. Fairchild knew why: her crazed mind was following the instructions of the man who knew how to lead the lunatic intellect into the channels he desired; she was digging, digging a grave for some one, a grave to be lined with quicklime!

Now she was talking again and chanting, but Fairchild did not attempt to determine the meaning of it all. Upstairs was some one who had been found by this woman in an unconscious state and evidently kept in that condition through the potations of the ugly poison-laden drugs she brewed,--some one who now was doomed to die and to lie in a quicklime grave! Carefully Fairchild gained his feet; then, as silently as possible, he made for the rickety stairs, stopping now and again to listen for discovery from below. But it did not come; the insane woman was chanting louder than ever now. Fairchild went on.

He felt his way up the remaining stairs, a rat scampering before him; he sneaked along the wall, hands extended, groping for that broken door, finally to find it. Cautiously he peered within, striving in vain to pierce the darkness. At last, listening intently for the singing from below, he drew a match from his pocket and scratched it noiselessly on his trousers. Then, holding it high above his head, he looked toward the bed--and stared in horror!

A blood-encrusted face showed on the slipless pillow, while across the forehead was a jagged, red, untended wound. The mouth was open, the breathing was heavy and labored. The form was quite still, the eyes closed. And the face was that of Harry!

CHAPTER XXII

So this explained, after a fas.h.i.+on, Harry's disappearance. This revealed why the search through the mountains had failed. This--

But Fairchild suddenly realized that now was not a time for conjecturing upon the past. The man on the bed was unconscious, incapable of helping himself. Far below, a white-haired woman, her toothless jaws uttering one weird chant after another, was digging for him a quicklime grave, in the insane belief that she was aiding in accomplis.h.i.+ng some miracle of immortality. In time--and Fairchild did not know how long--an evil-visaged, scar-faced man would return to help her carry the inert frame of the unconscious man below and bury it.

Nor could Fairchild tell from the conversation whether he even intended to perform the merciful act of killing the poor, broken being before he covered it with acids and quick-eating lime in a grave that soon would remove all vestige of human ident.i.ty forever. Certainly now was not a time for thought; it was one for action!

And for caution. Instinct told Fairchild that for the present, at least, Rodaine must believe that Harry had escaped unaided. There were too many other things in which Robert felt sure Rodaine had played a part, too many other mysterious happenings which must be met and coped with, before the man of the blue-white scar could know that finally the underling was beginning to show fight, that at last the crushed had begun to rise. Fairchild bent and unlaced his shoes, taking off also the heavy woolen socks which protected his feet from the biting cold.

Steeling himself to the ordeal which he must undergo, he tied the laces together and slung the footgear over a shoulder. Then he went to the bed.

As carefully as possible, he wrapped Harry in the blankets, seeking to protect him in every way against the cold. With a great effort, he lifted him, the sick man's frame huddled in his arms like some gigantic baby, and started out of the eerie, darkened house.

The stairs--the landing--the hall! Then a query from below:

"Is that you, Roady?"

The breath pulled sharp into Fairchild's lungs. He answered in the best imitation he could give of the voice of Squint Rodaine:

"Yes. Go on with your digging, Honey. I 'll be there soon."

"And you'll kiss me?"

"Yes. Just like I kissed you the night our boy was born."

It was sufficient. The chanting began again, accompanied by the swish of the spade as it sank into the earth and the cludding roll of the clods as they were thrown to one side. Fairchild gained the door. A moment more and he staggered with his burden into the protecting darkness of the night.

The snow crept about his ankles, seeming to freeze them at every touch, but Fairchild did not desist. His original purpose must be carried out if Rodaine were not to know,--the appearance that Harry had aroused himself sufficiently to wrap the blankets about him and wander off by himself. And this could be accomplished only by the pain and cold and torture of a barefoot trip.