The Secret of Lonesome Cove/Chapter 19

Midnight found Kent in the throes of literary effort. He was striving to compose a letter to Sedgwick that should, in turn, compose the recipient’s perturbed feelings. It concluded, with some acerbity:

“You’ve made a pretty complete idiot of yourself once. Don’t try to eclipse your own record.”

By which he purposed to convey to the artist the fact that his presence in Boston was neither desirable nor advisable. As he was about to affix his signature, a knock brought him to the door of his hotel room.

“Letter for you,” announced the messenger boy.

Kent signed the book and received a broad thin envelope sealed in golden hued wax with the impress of a star, and addressed in typewriting to his own name.

“Confound all fools who sign their letters on the outside!” said Kent, scowling at the seal. “What has that planetary lunatic got to say that won’t keep?”

What Preston Jax had to say was, first, in the form of a very brief note; secondly, in the shape of a formidable-looking document. The note began “Esteemed sir,” concluded “Yours remorsefully,” and set forth, in somewhat exotic language, that the writer, fearing a lapse of courage that might confuse his narrative when he should come to give it, had “taken pen in hand” to commit it to writing, and would the recipient “kindly pardon haste?” Therewith, twenty-one typed pages.

“Haste!” cried Chester Kent grievously. “Why, he’s written me the story of his life!”

Indeed, at a cursory glance, it appeared so. The initial paragraph opened, “I was born of poor but honest parents.” Chester Kent groaned. A little farther down the page the phrase, “Oh, that those innocent days of my happy childhood might return!” rose and smote him in the eyes. Chester Kent snorted. A desperate leap landed him in the midst of page five, where he encountered this gem, “With these fateful words the kind old minister laid a faltering hand upon my head. But enough!”

“Quite enough!” agreed Chester Kent, and kicked the Star-master’s document into a corner.

It fell in a crumpled heap with one sheet, curving in upward protuberance, conspicuous to the eye. On this sheet there was handwriting, and the handwriting was the same as that of the note Marjorie Blair had identified. Kent retrieved the paper, laid it on his desk, selected a likely spot for one more plunge, and dived into the turbid flood of words. And behold! as he turned, so to speak, the corner of the narrative, the current became suddenly clear. The muddled eloquence fell away; and the style crystallized into the tense quick testimony of the prime actor in a drama, intensely and shudderingly felt.

The reader ran through it with increasing absorption. Then, pencil in hand, he attacked the first part of the precious screed and emerged from a scene of literary carnage with one brief paragraph in hand and the slaughtered bodies of many eloquent pages strewing the floor. That one paragraph stated that Preston Jax, whose real name was John Preston, had, after a rebellious boyhood, run away to sea, lived two years before the mast, picked up a smattering of education, been assistant and capper for a magnetic healer, and had finally formulated a system of astrological prophecy that won him a slow but increasing renown. The gist of the system was to assign some particular and often imaginary star to every subject, and, by a natural aptitude for worming out secrets from the credulous, lead them along the celestial paths of mysticism to a point where he could reach their pocketbooks. He had been specially successful with women. One bit of his philosophy Kent had preserved unaltered.

“They bite slower than men; but when they do take hold, they swallow the hook so deep that you’re lucky to get it back at all.”

An hour’s work with a pencil that should have been blue resolved the document, under Kent’s skilful and remorseless editorship, into its salient elements. Obviously it was impossible to put it into alien hands for copying. Kent ordered up a typewriter and copied it himself. The duplicate he enclosed in his letter to Sedgwick. The original he put aside to sleep upon. Thus it ran:

“This Astræa affair looked good from the first,” so began Preston Jax’s confession, as beheaded and stripped down by its editor. “It looked like one of the best. You could smell money in it with half a nose. She bit first on one of the occult ads—the number four of the old series, a double-column with display in heavy-faced italics and leaded out strong. That ad always was a good woman-fetcher. Her first letter came in on a Monday, I recollect. It was a big mail. There were a lot of Curiositys and a couple of Suspiciouses, and this was one of half a dozen in the True Believers’ pile. Irene, my assistant, had put the red pencil on it, when she sorted out the mail, to show it was something special. But don’t get her into this, Professor Kent. If you do, it’s all off, jewels and all. Irene has always been for the straight star business and forecast game, and no extras or side lines. Besides, we were married last week.

“What attracted Irene’s red pencil, and caught me right away, was the style of the thing. The handwriting was classy. The paper was elegant. There was something rich about it all. This was no Biddy, pinching out the missis’ stationery to make a play with. She quoted poetry, swell poetry. First off she signed herself ‘An Adept’. I gave her the Personal, No. 3, and followed it up with the Special Friendly, No. 5. Irene never liked that No. 5. She says it’s spoony. Just the same, it fetches them. But not this one. She began to get personal and warm-hearted, all right, and answered up with the kindred-soul racket. But come to Boston? Not a move! Said she couldn’t. There were reasons. It looked like the old game—flitter-headed wife and jealous husband. Nothing in that game, unless you go in for the straight holdup. And blackmail was always too strong for my taste. So I did the natural thing; gave her special readings and doubled on the price. She paid like a lamb.

“Then, blame if it didn’t slip out she wasn’t married at all! I lost that letter. It was kind of endearing. Irene put up a howl. It was getting too personal for her taste. I told her I would cut it out. Then I gave my swell lady another address and wrote her for a picture. Nothing doing. But she began to hint around at a meeting. One day a letter came with a hundred-dollar bill in it. Loose, too, just like you or me might send a two-cent stamp. ‘For expenses’, she wrote, and I was to come at once. Our souls had returned to recognize and join each other, she said. Here is the only part of the letter I could dig up from the waste basket:

Here the specimen of handwriting that had caught Kent’s eye was pasted upon the document.

“‘You have pointed out to me that our stars, swinging in mighty circles, are rushing on to a joint climax. Together we may force open the doors to the past, and sway the world as we sought to do in bygone days.’

“And so on and cetera,” continued the narrative. “Well, of course, she was nutty, that is, about the star business. But that don’t prove anything. The dippiest star-chaser I ever worked was the head of a department in one of the big stores, and the fiercest little business woman in business hours, you ever knew. It’s the romantic in the sex that sets them skidding when it comes to stars, and such like. And Astræa was not a patch on some of them that has been paying me good sane money for years. That was the letter she first called me Hermann in and signed Astræa to. Said there was no use pretending to conceal her identity any longer from me. Seemed to think I knew all about it. That jarred me some. And, with the change of writing in the signature, it all looked pretty queer. You remember the last letter with the copperplate-writing name at the bottom? Well, they all came that way after this; the body of the letter very bold and careless; signature written in an entirely different hand. I took it to Chorio, the character-reader, and he said so, too. What’s more, he advised me to quit the game. Said there was trouble back of that handwriting. Those character fellows ain’t such fools, either!

“But hundred-dollar bills loose in letters mean a big stake. I wrote her I would come, and I signed it ‘Hermann’, just to play up to her lead. Irene got on and threw a fit. She said her woman’s intuition told her there was danger in it. Truth is, she was stuck on me herself, and I was on her; but we did not find it out until after the crash. So I was all for prying Astræa loose from her money, if I had to marry her to do it. She wrote some slush about the one desperate plunge together and then the glory that was to be ours. That looked like marriage to me.

“You saw the last letter. It had me rattled, but not rattled enough to quit. There was a map in it of the place for the meeting. That was plain enough. But the ‘our’ and ‘we’ business in it bothered me. It looked a bit like a third person. I had not heard anything about any third person. What is more, I did not have any use for a third person in this business. The stars forbade it. I wrote and told her so, and said if there was any outsider rung in, the stellar courses would have a sudden change of heart. Then I put my best robe in a bag and bought a ticket for Carr’s Junction. You can believe that while I was going through the woods I was keeping a bright eye out for any third party. Well, he was not there; not when I arrived, anyway. Where he was all the time, I do not know. I never saw him. But I heard him later. I can hear him yet at night, God help me!

“She was leaning against a little tree at the edge of the thicket when I first saw her. There was plenty of light from the moon and it sifted down through the trees and fell across her head and neck. As neat a bit of stage-setting for my business as I could have fixed up myself; and I am some hand at that. You have seen my place, and you know. I noticed a queer circlet around her neck. The stones were like soft pink fires. I had not ever seen any like them before and I stood there trying to figure whether they were rubies and how much they might be worth. While I was wondering about it, she half turned and I got my first good look at her face.

“She was younger than I had reckoned on, and not bad to look at, but queer, queer! Something about her struck me all wrong; gave me a sort of ugly shiver. Another thing struck me all right, though. That was that she had jewels on pretty much all her fingers. In one of my letters to her I gave her a hint about that: told her that gems gave the stars a stronger hold on the wearer, and she had taken it all in. She certainly was an easy subject.

“A bundle done up in paper was on the ground near her. I ducked back, very still, and got into my robe. The arrangement in her letter was for me to whistle when I got there. I whistled. She straightened up.

“‘Come,’ she said. ‘I am waiting.’

“Her voice was rather deep and soft. But it wasn’t a pleasant softness. Some way I did not like it any better than I liked her looks. It was too late to back out, though. I stepped out into the open and gave her the grand bow.

“‘The Master of the Stars, at your command,’ I said.

“‘You are not as I expected to see you,’ she said.

“That was a sticker. It might mean most anything. I took a chance.

“‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘we all change.’

“It went. ‘We change as life changes,’ she said. ‘They never found you, did they?’

“From the way she said it I saw she expected me to say ‘No’. So I said ‘No’.

“‘That was left for me to return and do,’ she went on with a kind of queer joy that gave me the shivers again.

“‘Yes,’ I agreed, wishing I knew what she was driving at, but sticking to my text. ‘And here we are.’

“‘Together,’ says she. ‘Isn’t it wonderful! After all these years. The instant I saw your statement in the newspaper I knew it was your soul calling to mine across the ages.’

“You know, Professor Kent, I thought that was so good I made a note of it for future business use. While I was saying it over to myself she gave me a jar:

“‘Our boat is at the shore,’ she said.

“In that last letter she mentioned a ship. And, now, here was this boat business. (Afterward I looked for a sign of either, but could not find any. I thought perhaps it would explain the other part of the ‘we’ and ‘our’.) If I was going to elope by sea I wanted to know it, and I said as much.

“‘Are you steadfast?’ she asked.

“Well, there was only one answer to that. I said I was. She opened her package and took out a coil of rope. It was this gray-white rope, sort of clothes-line, and it looked strong.

“‘What now?’ I asked her.

“‘To bind us together,’ she said. ‘Close, close together, and then the plunge! This time there shall be no failure. They shall not find one of us without the other. You are not afraid?’

“Afraid! My neck was bristling. The woman was proposing, as near as I could make out, that we go out in a boat, tie ourselves together, and jump overboard. She seemed to think it was an encore to some previous performance.

“‘Go slow,’ I said, thinking mighty hard. ‘I don’t quite see the point of this.’

“‘All, all is as it is foreordained in the stars; the curve of the astral courses, the illimitable, unchangeable curve that has made us what we are, and shall draw us on and on to our mighty destiny. You, you have pointed out the way.’

“That is what she gave me, waving her arms in the air.

“Didn’t I curse myself for not remembering what I had written her? No clue, except that the poor soul was plumb dippy—too dippy for me to marry at any price. It wouldn’t have held in the courts. Yet, there might have been five thousand dollars of diamonds on her. It was a tight place. I wanted to duck the whole thing; but the rings held me. I have always been dotty about diamonds. I suppose she felt me weakening. Women are queer, that way.

“‘You dare to break our pact?’ she says in a voice like a woman on the stage. Then she changed and spoke very gently. ‘You are looking at these gewgaws,’ she said, and took a diamond circlet from her finger. ‘What do these count for?’ And she put it in my hand. Another ring dropped at my feet. Mind, she was giving them to me. I do not know if it would hold in law, she being a lunatic; but I was going to take all I could, on the chance, and watch for a getaway. The diamonds had me hypnotized.

“‘These are as nothing compared to what we shall have,’ she went on, ‘after the plunge. Wait!’

“She had dropped the rope, and now she went into her paper parcel again, kneeling at my side. I had stooped to look for the fallen ring, when I felt her hand slide up my wrist, and then a quick little snap of something cold and close. A bracelet, I thought. And it was a bracelet!

“‘Forever! Together!’ she said, and stood up beside me, chained to me by the handcuffs she had slipped on my right wrist and her left. Never you think your nerve is sound till you have felt something like that. I thought mine was—and I squalled aloud like a child at a ghost.

“‘Hush!’ she said, and her free arm pressed across my mouth.

“‘How much to let me off?’ I asked as soon as I could get breath. You see, it flashed on me that it was a trap. You can never tell, in our line, when the detectives may be after you, or what kind of a game they’ll put up. I looked around for the rest of the bunch to come and jump me, but I didn’t see a thing. Her next words put me on.

“‘The stars! The stars!’ she whispered. ‘See ours, how they light our pathway across the sea. The sea that awaits us!’

“More breath came back to me. It wasn’t a trap, then. She was only a crazy woman, that I had to get rid of. I looked down at the handcuff. It was of iron, and had dull rusted edges. A hammer would have made short work of it; but I did not have any hammer. I did not even have a stone. There would be stones in the broken land beyond the thicket. I thought I saw a way.

“‘Yes. Let’s go,’ I said.

“We set out. At the edge of the thicket was a flattish rock with small stones near it. Here I pretended to slip. I fell with my right wrist across a rock, and caught up a cobblestone with my left hand. At the first crack of the stone on the handcuff I could feel the old iron weaken. I got no chance for a second blow. Her hands were at my throat. They bit in. Then I knew it was a fight for my life.

“She was light; but she was strong like a panther. If her dress bound her, I was as bad off in my robe. At the first grip I was forced back into a bush, and sprawled there, in a tangle of branches and flying cloth. Somehow, I twisted her fingers from my throat. We struggled out into the moonlight again. I got a fair look at her face, and I guess I went mad myself, with the terror of it. The next thing I remember clearly she was quiet on the ground and I was hammering, hammering, hammering at my wrist with a blood-stained stone. I do not know if it was her blood or mine. Both, maybe, for my wrist was like pulp when the iron finally cracked open and I was free. I caught a glimpse of blood on her temple. I suppose I had hit her there with the stone. She looked dead.

“All I wanted was to think—to think—to think. How could I think with her lying there? I crept out of sight of her and kneeled down. Her star, the star I had faked for hers, was shining in my eyes like a cold glare. That very minute a wisp of cloud blew across and wiped it out, and I heard myself squeal again. I was pretty much dotty, I guess.

“While I was trying to think she came alive. She didn’t stir slow and moan like I have seen men, in my sea days, when they were knocked out. She was on her feet before I knew it, and off at a dead run. The broken handcuff went jerking and jumping around her as she ran. That was an awful night full of awful things. But the one worst sight of all—worse, even, than the finding of her afterward—was that mad figure leaping over the broken ground toward the cliff’s edge.

“Even if I had tried to follow I never could have caught her. And she was going straight for her death. She dropped down out of sight into a hollow and came up on the rise beyond. I yelled to her to stop, for God’s sake to stop. Then I held my breath to listen for her scream when she went over. I never heard it.

“But I heard something else. I heard a man’s voice. It was clear and strong and high. There was death in it, I tell you, Mr. Kent, living horror gripped at the throat that gave that cry. Then there was a rush of little stones and gravel down the face of the cliff. That was all.

“Beyond me the ground rose. I ran up on it. It gave me a clear view of the cliff-top. I thought sure I would see the man who had cried out, from there. Not a sight of him! Nothing moved in the moonlight. I thought he must have gone over the cliff, too. I threw myself down and buried my face.

“How long I lay on the ground I do not know. The wisp of cloud had blotted out the woman’s star, now, and by that I knew she was dead. But the moon was shining high. It gave me light enough to see my way into the gully, and I stumbled and slid down through to the beach.

“I found her body right away. It lay with the head against a rock. But there was no sign of the man’s body, the man who had yelled. So I thought perhaps he had not gone over the cliff, and I sat and waited to see if he would come and care for her. It was quite clear to me what I must do, if he did not come. Perhaps my own brain was queer from the shock and the beating she had given me with her manacled wrist; but I felt that before I went away from there I must conceal the cause of her death, and everything about it that I could. If it was known how she was killed, they would be more likely to suspect me.

“I went back and got the rope. I got an old grating from the shore. I dragged the body into the sea and let it soak. I lashed it to the grating. I stripped the jewelry from her. But I could not take it. That would have made me a murderer.

“There is a rock in the gully that I marked. Nobody else would ever notice it. Under it I hid the jewelry. I can take you to it, and I will.

“I got on my coat and sunk my robe in a creek, and got myself to the railroad station for a morning train. And when I got home I married Irene, and I am through with the crooked work forever.

“This is the whole truth. I did not kill her. I do not know to-day who or what she is. I have looked in the papers, and there is nothing, and that is so strange that I would think it was all a fearful dream, if it was not for my smashed-up wrist. But if any human being knows more about the death of Astræa, it must be the man who shouted as she fell from the cliff, and who went away and did not come back.

“And may God have no mercy for me if this is not all a true statement, so far as I know the truth.


 * “(Signed) ”