The Professor's Mystery Part 3

She greeted me graciously, turning to introduce me to her husband, who had followed her more slowly. He was a florid man and rather tall, his gray eyes being level with my own.

When places had been made for us at the table, and we were gathered in the close radius of the table lights, I found myself surprised that the daughter looked so little like either. Her mother was much smaller than she, one of those women who never grow thin or fat, but whose age comes upon them only as sort of dimming of color and outline. And indeed, in the more intimate light I found her looking more her years, pretty and soft and doll-like, but too delicate a vessel for any great strength of spirit, a sweet little woman, affectionate and inconsequent. Her words came quickly and with a certain merry insistence, but with little nervous pauses that were almost sad in their intensity; and once when a bicycle sounded faintly from the street she stopped altogether, her hand at her heart, her head turned and listening, until her husband's quick laugh brought her blue eyes questioningly to him. Then we all plunged into conversation at once as if ashamed of the sudden pause it had given us.

Miss Tabor and I were made to give an account of our accident, or rather she gave it, and a very nicely tempered account it was, too. I was kept busy devising plausible confirmation of surprising understatements. She seemed for some reason very anxious to hide a possible seriousness in the matter, and her first brief, pleading glance bound me to her, freely accepting the judgment of her conscience for my own. Under these circ.u.mstances I expected no mention of the loss and finding of the ring and there was none.

Both mother and father called Miss Tabor "Lady"; so, I remembered, had all her intimates at the Christmas house party. Yet her bag had been initialed "M. B. T." I thought the nickname a gracious one and well suited to all the manner of her bearing. I wondered idly as they talked what the M. stood for, sure in my heart that it, too, was graceful and fitting. And as "Lady" told of the beauty of the meadow where we had been delayed "almost two hours by an old flat wheel, or something like that--isn't that the term, Mr. Crosby?" I decided that if the rest of my three months were spent in the most humdrum of ways, my vacation as a whole would not have been a barren one.

There was little conversation after we had left the table. Miss Tabor said that she was too sleepy to sit up--and, indeed, the strain that she had been under was already beginning to show through even the vivacity of her acting. For my part, I had no inclination to sit in the family circle that she left. I, too, was tired, and I had many things to think and little to say. So that as she got up I, too, pleaded fatigue, and my need of finding my room at the inn.

"The inn! Indeed you will do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Tabor.

"There is a bed just waiting for tired young men here." She glanced for confirmation at her daughter.

Miss Tabor said nothing but looked across to her father. He paused an uncomfortable second, then turned to me with a smile.

"Of course you are to stay here," he said.

His pause had troubled me, and I hesitated, but Mrs. Tabor would hear no arguments or excuses, and overwhelmed my stammering in a rippling torrent of proof that I was a very silly young man, and that she would not hear another word about any such an absurdity as my going; and as I stood embarra.s.sed, Mr. Tabor, with another glance at his daughter, took my bag himself, and, his hand upon my shoulder, fairly bore me off to my room. I was too comfortably tired to lie long awake, even with so eventful a day to turn over in retrospect. As I floated downward into the dark through a flood of incongruous images, green meadows and roaring trains, clamorous streets and calm rooms, delicate with white and silver, I distinctly heard a step upon the porch, the click and closure of the front door, and the deep voice of the man we had met at the gate. But even my angry interest in him was weaker than the waves of drowsiness.

I roused into that dubious half-consciousness which is the territory of the powers of darkness; in which the senses are vaguely alive, while no judgment restrains or questions the vagaries of imagination; the place of evil memories and needless fears, of sweeping reforms whose vanity appears with the new light, and of remembered dreams whose beauty faints upon the threshold of the day. It was still so dark that before I could place myself amid my unfamiliar surroundings, I was aware of smothered commotion. People were awake and in trouble; the house was full of swis.h.i.+ng garments and the hurry of uncomfortable feet. Some one pa.s.sed my door swiftly, carrying a light, whose rays swept through the cracks and swung uncannily across the ceiling. Another door opened somewhere, letting out a blur of voices, among which I seemed to distinguish the ba.s.s growl of the man at the gate. My first thought was of fire; and with the shock of that I sprang up and across the room, groping for the handle of the door. It would not open. I pulled and tugged at it, feeling above and below for a bolt. There was none, nor was any key in the keyhole. After some stumbling, I found the switch of the electric light, and in the sudden radiance explored the floor for the fallen key.

It was not there; and a hurried examination of the crack showed me that the lock had been turned from the outside.

I sat down on the bed and tried to gather my common sense. I remembered perfectly having left the door unlocked and the key in its place within.

By what conceivable design or accident had I been made a prisoner? The melodramatic suggestions born of the hour and my excited fancy were simply absurd in such a place. I was in a Connecticut suburb, a home of lawn parties and electric lights, and this was the Twentieth Century; yet I could find no explanation more reasonable. Fire was by this time out of the question; and an accident or practical joke would have been evident by now. Meanwhile, the m.u.f.fled turmoil of the house continued. A man's voice and a woman's broke into inarticulate altercation, and presently I thought I heard a cry and a sound like the fall of something soft and heavy. I sprang to the door again and shook it with all my strength, but it was so solidly fitted that it did not even rattle. Then some one ran softly down-stairs; the front door banged sharply; and, looking out, I saw the figure of a man, his shoulders raised and his elbows bent with haste, run swiftly across the bar of light that streamed from my window and disappear in the dark. Could he have broken into the house, locking the bedrooms against interruption, and fled upon being discovered? I was opening my window to shout for help when I was arrested by a voice that there was no mistaking.

"I can't! We mustn't!" she wailed. "What will he think of us?"

An angry whisper answered, and of the rest I could distinguish only the tone. The whisper grew more volubly urgent, while her replies hesitated.

At last she came quietly down the hall and knocked at my door.

"Mr. Crosby--are you awake?"

"I should think so," I answered. "What has happened? I'm locked in."

"Nothing. It's all right--really. Will you come down-stairs as soon as you can, very quietly?"

"Certainly. Half a minute. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she said. "Hurry!" The key turned in the lock and she was gone. I dressed with a haste that made my fingers clumsy, and ran down-stairs. The bustle in the house had quieted into an irregular murmur.

Miss Tabor was waiting for me in the hall below. The lights were not on, and I could see only that she was wrapped in something long and dark, her hair gathered into a loose knot above her head. Perhaps only the dim light made me imagine traces of tears.

"Thank you for being so ready," she began in a quick undertone. "Now, listen! you must--"

"Tell me what's the trouble," I broke in. "Is it burglary, or is somebody taken suddenly ill?"

"There isn't any trouble," she repeated. "You must believe that, and you must do as I tell you. I'm terribly sorry, but it's impossible for you to remain here any longer. You must go away--now, at once, and without knowing or asking anything. Of course there's a good reason, and of course you can be trusted not to talk or inquire. That's all. It's perfectly simple; there's nothing really surprising about it."

"You mean I'm to leave this minute--in the middle of the night?"

"Yes; now. Don't wonder or worry. Think as well of us as you can--don't think about us at all! There's nothing the matter. I ought to have known. Accept my apologies for all of us, and--good-by." She held out her hand.

"That's all very well," I said. "Of course I'll go if you wish it, and ask no questions. Only tell me when I can see you again, and if there's anything in the world I can do for you. I'll be staying at the inn."

A latch-key clicked behind us, and the man I had seen at the gate tiptoed in. "All right?" he whispered.

"I think so; hurry," she replied, and he pa.s.sed swiftly and quietly up-stairs. She turned to me a drawn face, speaking in strained monotone.

"You must never see me again. You mustn't stay in town, nor try to do anything. Oh, can't you understand? The only help you can give is to go--go away utterly and forget all about it as if you had never met me.

Honestly I'm grateful, and I think everything good of you, but--oh, go away!"

"As you please," I said. "What about my things?"

"Wait a minute." She ran lightly up to the landing and returned with my suit-case, closed and strapped. I took my hat from the table by the door.

"Good-by," she said. "Promise me not to try to come back."

What is there in darkness and the sense of night to make even the plainest woman so lovely? She was close before me as I turned, the mysterious oval of her face wavering upward as though rising through dim water; her hair a heavier shadow against the gloom, her lips a living blossom, and her eyes luminous out of undiscoverable depths. The dark wrap she wore lost itself downward in long, fading lines; and all the hidden form and the nameless fragrance of her were wonderfully the same, one with midnight and midsummer. As I took her hand, I do not know what agony of restraint held my arms from around her; only I kept repeating over and over to myself, "I have no right--I have no right"--and because of that I could not for a moment answer her in words. Suddenly from above came a sharp shock and the metallic splash of broken gla.s.s. The voices broke out in a quick murmur, and she shrank and shook as if cringing away from a blow.

"Oh, go quickly!" she cried. "They need me!"

I opened the door. "Good-by," I said weakly, "and--G.o.d bless you!" And even as I turned on the threshold to lift my hat the latch clicked behind me.

CHAPTER IV

AN INSULT IN THE MORNING

I paused at the gate and looked back. In the upper windows lights were showing behind the shades, and now and then a swift shadow pa.s.sed across the pane. Yet the house was altogether quiet, free within and without from any evidence of the unusual. A waning moon glowed large and distorted through the shrubbery, and from all about rose the sweet breath and innumerable tiny voices of the night, comfortable chirps and rustlings, the creak of frogs and the rasp of an occasional katydid; accentuating by their multiety and smallness the sense of overwhelming peace. As I went on, a quick movement at my feet made me start; then I smiled to recognize the clumsy hurry of a toad; and the incident seemed to point the contrast between the human tension of the last half-hour and the huge normality of the outer world. With every step it grew more difficult for me to believe in the turmoil from which I had come; the strain and secrecy, the troubled voices and the moving lights became fict.i.tious; as the scenes of a sensational story, plausible in the reading, turn to pasteboard and tinsel when we have closed the book.

Only the quiet gloom was real, the hush and fresh aroma of ordinary night.

I had antic.i.p.ated some difficulty in gaining admission to a country inn at such an hour, but as I climbed the hill I was surprised to see it still open and alight; and a glance at my watch deepened my surprise into astonishment. It was not yet midnight, and I had felt that it was at least two or three in the morning. So here was another contrast to add to the sense of unreality; and I entered the low-ceiled and dingy little office feeling like Tennyson's Prince returning from a fight with shadows.

My room was cool and pleasant enough, but sleep and excitement had evaporated my drowsiness and I lay thinking in reminiscent circles, trying in vain to puzzle out some theory that would fit the circ.u.mstances of the night. The more I reviewed details, the more they seemed to fly apart from any reasonable a.s.sociation, charged as they were with one mysterious electricity. If some accident or sudden trouble had befallen the house, the nocturnal alarm would be motivated; but what motive would that furnish for driving out the guest? Some unwitting provocation of my own (though I could imagine nothing of the sort) might have made my further presence unbearable; but what of the anxious bustle, the hasty conferences, the errands of the man we had met at the gate? And who was he, by the way, that he should have a latch-key and the airs of intimacy, without being, from what I had observed, an inmate of the house? The fear of infectious disease was the only thing that I could imagine that would explain the immediacy of my expulsion. But if I was the bearer of a plague, why had Lady been allowed to talk with me in the hall? Or if one of themselves had been stricken, why had she denied me for all time, or indeed made any mystery of the matter? Then I remembered her silences during the day, the ring, hidden in her breast, and her hesitation and doubt over asking me to stay the night. Whatever the trouble was, it had cast its shadow before: and I could not rid my mind of the conviction that all these matters must be fitted in, that they must all ultimately find their places in the explanation. At any rate, an explanation was due me, and I meant to have it. Either there had been some foolish mistake or I had been treated outrageously. It was not curiosity, I told myself; the sorrows or the skeletons of this family were no business of mine; but I would know by what right they had ejected me.

Over the telephone next morning, Mr. Tabor was ominously agreeable.

"Certainly," he said. "You have a perfect right to the reason. When you have it, I think you will agree that you have no more cause for complaint than you have for remaining in the neighborhood. I will be down at once."

Half an hour later he was seated in my room, polished, choleric, aquiline, a man to be a fierce friend or a difficult enemy. He wasted no time in approaches.

"You ask why you were sent from the house last night. Well, here it is: You have arranged to go to Europe, and are actually on your way there.

You see my daughter on a train. You force yourself into her company, presuming upon a very slight acquaintance, and follow her home. You come upon us in such a way that we can hardly avoid receiving you as a guest.

Then it develops that you spent two or three hours between here and the station instead of coming straight over; and you arrive after dark. Now, in any case--"

"That's distorted and unjust," I interrupted, "I haven't forced myself upon anybody. Besides, we came home as quickly as possible. The trolley--"