The Secret of Lonesome Cove/Chapter 18

Ten o’clock of the following morning found the Harvard professor formally presenting his friend, Chester Kent, to Mrs. Wilfrid Blair, at the house of the cousin with whom she was staying.

“My dear,” said the old gentleman, “you may trust Professor Kent’s judgment and insight as implicitly as his honor. I can give no stronger recommendation, and will now take my leave.”

Kent resisted successfully a wild and fearful desire to set a restraining hold upon the disappearing coat tails, for embarrassment had again engulfed the scientist’s soul. He seized himself by the lobe of the ear with that grip which drowning men reserve for straws. And—to continue the comparison—the ear sank with him beneath the waves of confusion. Mrs. Blair’s first words did not greatly help him.

“Have you an earache, Professor Kent?” she inquired maliciously.

“Yes. No. It’s a habit,” muttered the caller, releasing his hold and immediately resuming it.

“Isn’t it very painful?”

“Of course it is,” said he testily; “when I forget to let go in time—as I frequently do.”

“As you are doing now,” she suggested.

Kent bestowed a final yank upon the dried fount of inspiration, and gave it up as hopeless.

“I don’t know exactly how to begin,” he complained.

“Then I will help you,” said she, becoming suddenly grave. “You are here to speak to me of some topic, wholly distinct from one forbidden phase.”

“Exactly. You make it difficult for me by that restriction. And I rather like difficulties—in reason. Let me see. Have you lost any jewels lately, Mrs. Blair?”

The girl-widow started. “Yes. How did you know?”

“You have made no complaint, or published no advertisements for them?”

“I have kept it absolutely secret. Father Blair insisted that I should do so.”

“They were valuable, these jewels?”

“The rings were, intrinsically, but what I most valued was the necklace of rose-topazes. They were the Grosvenor topazes.”

“A family relic?”

“Not my own family. My husband’s mother left them to me. They came down to her from her grandmother, Camilla Grosvenor.”

“You speak that name as if it should be recognizable by me.”

“Perhaps it would, if you were a New Englander. She was rather a famous person in her time. C. L. Elliott painted her—one of his finest portraits, I believe. And—and she was remarkable in other respects.”

“Would you mind being more specific? It isn’t mere curiosity on my part.”

“Why, my uncle could have told you more. He knows all about the Grosvenors. My own knowledge of Camilla Grosvenor is merely family tradition. She was a woman of great force of character, and great personal attraction, I believe, though she was not exactly beautiful. When she was still under thirty she became the leader of a band of mystics and star-worshipers. I believe that she became infatuated with one of them, a young German, and that there was an elopement by water. This I remember, at least: her body washed ashore on the coast not very far from Hedgerow House.”

“At Lonesome Cove?”

“Yes. The very name of it chills me. For my husband it had an uncanny fascination. He used to talk to me about the place. He even wanted to build there; but Mr. Alexander Blair wouldn’t listen to it.”

“Would you know the face of Camilla Grosvenor?”

“Of course. The Elliott portrait hangs in the library at Hedgerow House.”

Kent took from under his coat the drawing purchased from Elder Dennett.

“That is the same,” said Mrs. Blair unhesitatingly. “It isn’t quite the same pose as the finished portrait. And it lacks the earring which is in the portrait. But I should say it is surely Elliott’s work. Couldn’t it be a preliminary sketch for the portrait?”

“Probably that is what it is.”

“Can you tell me where it came from?”

“From between the pages of an old book. It must have been carelessly thrown aside. The book has just been sold at an auction in Martindale Center, and the drawing found by a man who didn’t appreciate what it was. I bought it from him.”

“That’s rather wonderful, isn’t it?”

“There are more wonders to come. Tell me how your necklace was lost, please.”

“I don’t know. On the afternoon of July fifth I left Hedgerow House rather hurriedly. My maid, whom I trust implicitly, was to follow with my trunks, including my jewel case. She arrived, a day later, with part of the jewels missing, and a note from Father Blair saying that there had been a robbery, but that I was to say nothing of it.”

“July fifth,” remarked Kent with his lids dropped over the keen gaze of his eyes. “It was the following morning that the unknown body was found on the beach near Mr.—near the Nook.”

Her face showed no comprehension. “I have heard nothing of any body,” she replied.

“Did none of the talk come to your ears of a strange woman found at Lonesome Cove?”

“No. Wait, though. After the funeral, one of the cousins began to speak of a mystery, and Mr. Blair shut him off.”

“Your necklace was taken from that body.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Was she the thief?” she asked eagerly.

“The person who took the necklace from the body is the one for whom I am searching. Now, Mrs. Blair, will you tell me, in a word, how your husband met his death?”

Her gaze did not falter from his, but a look of suffering came into her eyes, and the hands in her lap closed and opened, and closed again.

“Perhaps I can save you by putting it in another form. Your father-in-law gave you to understand, did he not, that Wilfrid Blair met and quarreled with—with a certain person, and was killed in the encounter which followed?”

“How shall I ever free myself from the consciousness of my own part in it?” she shuddered. “Don’t—don’t speak of it again. I can’t bear it.”

“You won’t have to, very long,” Kent assured her. “Let us get back to the jewels. You would be willing to make a considerable sacrifice to recover them?”

“Anything!”

“Perhaps you’ve heard something of this man?”

Drawing a newspaper page from his pocket, Kent indicated an advertisement outlined in blue pencil. It was elaborately “displayed,” as follows:

Mrs. Blair glanced at the announcement.

“Some of my friends have been to him,” she said. “For a time he was rather a fad.”

“But you haven’t ever consulted him, yourself?”

“No, indeed.”

“That is well. I want you to go there with me to-day.”

“To that charlatan? Why, Professor Kent, I thought you were a scientific man.”

“Translate ‘science’ down to its simplest terms in Saxon English,” said Kent.

“It would be ‘knowing’, I suppose.”

“Exactly. When I think a man knows something which I wish to know but do not know, I try to possess myself of his knowledge, whether he is microscopist, astrologer, or tinsmith. To that extent I am a scientist.”

“And you expect the stars to tell us something about my lost topazes?”

“They seem to have had some influence on the career of the original owner,” said Kent, with his half smile. “And one star has already lighted up the beginning of the trail for me.”

“I can’t understand your motives,” she said. “But I know that I can trust you. When do you wish me to go?”

“I have an appointment for us at high noon.”

As the clock struck twelve, Kent and Mrs. Blair passed from the broad noonday glare of the street into the tempered darkness of a strange apartment. It was hung about with black cloths, and lighted by the effulgence of an artificial half-moon and several planets, contrived, Kent conjectured, of isinglass set into the fabric, with arc lights behind them. A soft-footed servitor, clad throughout in black, appeared from nowhere, provided chairs, set a pitcher of water beside them, and vanished silently. A faint, heavy, but not unpleasant odor as of incense, hovered in the air. The moon waxed slowly in brightness, illumining the two figures.

“Very well fixed up,” whispered Kent to his companion. “The astrologer is now looking us over.”

In fact, at that moment, a contemplating and estimating eye was fixed upon them from a “dead” star in the farther wall. The eye beheld a girl whose delicate but vivid loveliness was undimmed by the grisly trappings of mourning which a Christian civilization has borrowed from barbarism to belie its own Christianity withal, rested a moment, and passed, with more of scrutiny, to her companion.

Preston Jax did not, as a rule, receive more than one client at a time. Police witnesses travel in pairs, and the Star-master was of a suspicious nature. Only an extraordinary fee, and the cultured languor of the voice which requested the appointment over the telephone, had induced him to relax his rule. Now, however, his uneasiness was appeased. He beheld a gentleman clad in such apparel as never police spy nor investigating agent wore; a rather puzzling “swellness” (the term is culled from Mr. Jax’s envious thoughts), since it appeared to be individual, without being in any particular conspicuous. Mr. Jax, an adept in extracting information, wondered if he could persuade the visitor to disclose his tailor to the stars; for he was, himself, in light vacational moments at Atlantic City and in the Waldorf-Astoria something of a “dresser”. One point, however, the connoisseurship of the Star-master could hardly approve: the monocle displayed in his visitor’s left eye, though it was reassuring to his professional judgment. The visitor was obviously “light”.

Quitting his peep-hole, the Star-master pressed a button. Strains of music, soft and sourceless, filled the air (from a phonograph muffled in rugs). The moon glow paled a little. There was a soft rustle and fluctuation of wall draperies in the apartment. The light waxed. The Star-master stood before his visitors.

They beheld a man of undistinguished size and form, eked out by a splendid pomposity of manner. To this his garb contributed. All the signs of the zodiac had lent magnificence to the long, black, loose robe with gaping sleeves, which he wore. Mrs. Blair noted with vague interest that it was all hand embroidered.

Pale and hard the face rose from this somber and gorgeous appareling. It was a remarkable face, small, calm, and compacted of muscles. Muscles plumped out the broad cheeks; muscles curved about the jaws; muscles worked delicately along the club of a nose. The chin was just one live, twitching muscle. Even the faint screwed lines at the eye-corners suggested muscle. And, withal, there lurked in the countenance a suggestion of ingenuousness. The man looked like a bland and formidable baby. He looked even more like a puma.

With a rhythmical motion of arms and hands he came forward, performed a spreading bow of welcome, and drew back, putting his hand to his brow, as if in concentration of thought. Marjorie Blair felt an unholy desire to laugh. She glanced at Professor Kent, and, to her surprise, found him exhibiting every evidence of discomposure. He fidgeted, fanned himself with his hat, mopped his brow and palpably flinched under the solemn regard of the mage.

“Stupid of me,” he muttered, in apology. “Gets on one’s nerves, you know. Awesome, and all that sort of thing, fussing with the stars.”

Preston Jax bestowed a patronizing smile upon his visitor. Protectiveness, benign and assured, radiated from him.

“Fear nothing,” said he. “The star forces respond to the master-will of him who comprehends them. Madam, the date, year, month and day of your birth, if you please?”

“March 15th, 1889,” replied Mrs. Blair.

Propelled by an unseen force, a celestial globe mounted on a nickeled standard, rolled forth. The Star-master spun it with a practised hand. Slowly and more slowly it turned, until, as it came to a stop, a ray of light, mysteriously appearing, focused on a constellation.

“Yonder is your star,” declared the astrologist. “See how the aural light seeks it.”

“Oh, I say!” murmured he of the monocle. “Weird, you know! Quite gets on one’s nerves. Quite!”

“Sh-h-h-h!” reproved Preston Jax. “Silence is the fitting medium of the higher stellar mysteries. Madam, your life is a pathway between happiness and grief. Loss, like a speeding comet, has crossed it here. Happiness, like the soft moon glow, has beamed upon it, and will again beam, in fuller effulgence.”

With beautifully modulated intonations he proceeded, while one of his visitors regarded him with awestruck reverence, and the other waited with patience—but unimpressed, so the orator felt, by his gifts. His voice sank, by deep-toned gradations into silence. The ray winked out. Then the woman spoke.

“Is it possible for your stars to guide me to an object which I have lost?”

“Nothing is hidden from the stars,” declared their master. “Their radiance shines not alone upon the broad expanses of existence, but also into the smallest crevices of life. You seek jewels, madam?” (Kent had let this much out, as if by accident, in the morning’s conversation.)

“Yes.”

“Your birth stone is the bloodstone. Unhappy, indeed, would be the omen if you lost one of those gems.” (He was fishing and came forward toward her, almost brushing Kent.)

“But I say,” cried Kent in apparently uncontrollable agitation; “did your stars tell you that she had lost some jewelry? Tell me, is that how you knew?”

In his eagerness he caught at the astrologer’s arm, the right one, and his long fingers, gathering in the ample folds of the gown, pressed nervously upon the wrist. Preston Jax winced away. All the excited vapidity passed from Kent’s speech at once.

“The jewels which this lady has lost,” he said very quietly, “are a set of unique rose-topazes. I thought—in fact, I felt that you could, with or without the aid of your stars, help her to recover them.”

Blackness, instant and impenetrable, was the answer to this. There was a subdued flowing sound of drapery, as if some one were brushing along the wall. Kent raised his voice the merest trifle.

“Unless you wish to be arrested, I advise you not to leave this place. Not by either exit.”

“Arrested on what charge?” came half-chokingly out of the darkness.

“Theft.”

“I didn’t take them.”

“Murder, then.”

“My God!” So abject was the terror and misery in the cry that Kent felt sorry for the wretch. Then, with a certain dogged bitterness: “I don’t care what you know; I didn’t kill her.”

“That is very likely true,” replied Kent soothingly. “But it is what I must know in detail. Find your foot lever and turn on the light.”

The two visitors could hear him grope heavily. As the light flashed on, they saw, with a shock, that he was on all fours. It was as if Kent’s word had felled him. Instantly he was up, however, and faced around upon Marjorie Blair.

“Who was she?” he demanded. “Your sister?”

Mrs. Blair was very pale, but her eyes were steady and her voice under control as she answered:

“I do not know.”

“You must know! Don’t torture me! I’m a rat in a trap.”

“I’m sorry,” she said gently, “that I can’t help you. But I do not know.”

“You, then.” The Star-master turned upon Kent. “What am I up against? How did you find me?”

Thrusting his hand in his pocket the scientist brought out a little patch of black cloth, with a single star skilfully embroidered on it.

“Wild blackberry has long thorns and sharp,” he said. “You left this tatter on Hawkill Cliffs.”

At the name, the man’s chin muscle throbbed with his effort to hold his teeth steady against chattering.

“At first I suspected an army officer. When I found that the cloth was below grade, the only other starred profession I could think of was astrology. As the highest class astrologer now advertising, you seemed likely to be the man. When I found, first, that you were out of town on July fifth, and, just now, by a somewhat rough experiment, that you had suffered a wound of the right wrist, I was certain.”

“What do you want?”

“A fair exchange. My name is Chester Kent.”

The Star-master’s chin worked convulsively. “The Kent that broke up the Coordinated Spiritism Circle?”

“Yes.”

“It’s ill bargaining with the devil,” observed Preston Jax grimly. “What’s the exchange?”

“I do not believe that you are guilty of murder. Tell me the whole story, plainly and straight, and I’ll clear you in so far as I can believe you innocent.”

For the first time the seer’s chin was at peace.

“You want me to begin with this lady’s necklace?”

“Why, yes. But after that, begin at the beginning.”

“The topazes are cached under a rock near the cliff. I couldn’t direct you, but I could show you.”

“In time you shall. One moment. As you realize, you are under presumption of murder. Do you know the identity of the victim?”

“Of Astræa? That’s all I know about her. I don’t even know her last name.”

“Why Astræa?”

“That’s the way she signed herself. She seemed to think I knew all about her, without being told.”

“And you played up to that belief?”

“Well—of course I did.”

“Yes, you naturally would. But if you had no name to write to, how could you answer the letters?”

“Through personal advertisements. She had made out a code. She was a smart one in some ways, I can tell you.”

“Have you any of the letters here?”

“Only the last one.”

“Bring it to me.”

Obediently as an intimidated child, the astrologer left the room, presently returning with a plain sheet of paper with handwriting on one side. Kent, who almost never made a mistake, had forgotten in his absorption in the matter of the document, the presence, even the existence, of Marjorie Blair. He was recalled to himself, with a shock, as he felt her shoulder touch his. Involuntarily he whirled the sheet behind him.

“Let me see the rest of it, please,” she said calmly enough.

Kent nodded. With drooping head, and chin a-twitch, the Master of Stars stood studying them, while they read the letter together. It was in two handwritings, the date, address and body of the letter being in a clear running character, while the signature, “Astræa,” was in very fine, minute, detached lettering. The note read:

“All is now ready. You have but to carry out our arrangements implicitly. The place is known to you. There can be no difficulty in your finding it. At two hours after sundown of July the fifth we shall be there. Our ship will be in waiting. All will be as before. Fail me not. Your reward shall be greater than you dream. .”

Kent looked askance at Mrs. Blair. She was very white, and her sensitive lips quivered a little, but she contrived, with an effort of courage which he marked with a flashing access of admiration, to smile reassuringly.

“Don’t fear for me,” she said. “We Dorrances are of firm fiber.”

“So I see,” he said warmly. He folded and pocketed the letter.

“Had you ever been to this place before?” Kent asked of Jax.

“No.”

“Then how did you expect to find it?”

“She sent me a map. I lost it—that night.”

“What about the ship?”

“I wish you’d tell me. There wasn’t any ship that I could see.”

“And the reference to all being as it was before?”

“You’ve got me again, there. In most every letter there was something about things I didn’t understand. She seemed to think we used to know each other. Maybe we did. Hundreds of ’em come to me. I can’t remember ’em all. Sometimes she called me Hermann. My name ain’t Hermann. Right up to the time I saw her on the Heights I was afraid she was taking me for somebody else and that the whole game would be queered as soon as we came face to face.”

“It seems quite probable,” said Kent with a faint smile, “that you were taken for some one else. Your personal appearance would hardly betray the error, however.”

“Well, if I was taken for another man,” said the puzzled astrologist, “why didn’t she say so when she saw me?”

“What did she say when she saw you?”

“Why, she seemed just as tickled to set eyes on me as if I were her Hermann twice over.”

“Exactly,” replied Kent with satisfaction.

“Well, how do you account for that?”

Passing over the query, the other proceeded: “Now, as I understand it, you put yourself in my hands unreservedly.”

“What else can I do?” cried Preston Jax.

“Nothing that would be so wise. So do not try. I shall want you to come to Martindale Center on call. Pack up and be ready.”

“But the police!” quavered Jax. “You said the place was guarded, and I’d be pinched if I tried to get out.”

“Oh, no,” retorted Kent, with a smile. “That wouldn’t have been true, and I never lie. You inferred that, and wrongly, from my little ruse to keep you from running away. That you would be arrested eventually, if you attempted escape was true. It still is true.”

“I believe it,” replied Preston Jax fervently, “with you on my trail.”

“Come, Mrs. Blair,” said Kent. “Remember, Jax: fair play, and we shall pull you through yet.”

In the taxi, Marjorie Blair turned to Kent. “You are a very wonderful person,” she said—Kent shook his head—“and, I think, a very kind one.” Kent shook his head again. “Be kind to me, and leave me to go home alone.”

Kent stopped the cab, stepped out and raised his hat. She leaned toward him.

“Just a moment,” she said. “Perhaps I ought not to ask; but it is too strong for me. Will you tell me who the woman was?”

Kent fell back a step, his eyes widening.

“You don’t see it yet?” he asked.

“Not a glimmer of light. Unless she was some—some unacknowledged member of the family.”

“No. Not that.”

“And you can’t tell me who she was?”

“Yes; but not just now. Try to be patient for a little, Mrs. Blair.”

“Very well. Your judgment is best, doubtless. Of course you know whose hand wrote the body of that letter?”

“Yes; try not to think of it,” advised Kent. “It isn’t nearly so ugly as it seems.”

She looked at him with her straight, fearless, wistful glance.

“He had left me nothing to love,” she said sadly; “but to find disgrace and shame even to the end of his life! That is hard. That it should have been my husband who gave the thing most precious to me to another woman! But why did he write the letter to Preston Jax for her to sign?”

Chester Kent shook his head.