The Secret of Lonesome Cove/Chapter 9

Sundayman’s Creek Road, turning aside just before it gains the turnpike to the Eyrie Hotel to evade a stretch of marsh, travels on wooden stilts across a deep clear pool fed by a spring. Signs at each end of the crossing threaten financial penalties against any vehicle traversing the bridge faster than a walk. Now, the measure of a walk for an automobile is dubious; but the most rigorous constable could have found no basis for protest in the pace maintained by a light electric car, carrying a short, slender, elderly man, who peered out with weary eyes into the glory of the July sunshine. At the end of the bridge the car stopped to allow its occupant a better view of a figure prostrate on the brink of the pool. Presently the figure came to the posture of all fours. The face turned upward, and the motorist caught the glint of a monocle. Then the face turned again to its quest.

“Are you looking for something lost?” asked the man in the car.

“Yes,” was the reply. “Very much lost.”

“When did you lose it, if it’s not an impertinent question?”

“Not in the least,” answered the other cordially. “I didn’t lose it at all.”

“Ah!” The motorist smiled. “When was it lost, then?”

Across the monocled face passed a shadow of thoughtful consideration. “About four million years ago, I should judge.”

“And you are still looking? I perceive that you are an optimist,” said the elderly man.

“Just at present I’m a limnologist.”

“Pardon me?”

“A limnologist. Limnology is the science of the life found on the banks of small bodies of water. It is a fascinating study, I assure you. There is only one chair of limnology in the world.”

“And you, I presume, are the incumbent?” asked the other politely.

“No, indeed! The merest amateur, on the contrary. I’m humbly hoping to discover the eggs of certain neuropterous insects. We know the insects, and we know they lay eggs; but how they conceal them has been a secret since the first dragon-fly rose from the first pool.”

“Ah! You are an entomologist, then.”

“To some extent.”

“So was I, once—when I had more time. Business has drawn my attention, though never my interest, away from it. I’ve entirely dropped my reading in the last year. By the way, were you here in time to witness the swarm of antiopas last month? Rather unusual, I think.”

“No, I missed that. What was the feature, specially?”

“The suddenness of the appearance. You know, Helmund says that—”

“Pardon me, who?”

“Helmund, the Belgian.”

“Oh, yes, certainly. Go on!”

The stranger went on at some length. He appeared to be an interested rather than a learned student of the subject. As he talked, sitting on the step of his car, from which he had descended, the other studied him, his quiet but forceful voice, his severely handsome face, with its high brows, harsh nose, and chiseled outlines, from which the eyes looked forth, thoughtful, alert, yet with the gaze of a man in pain. Presently he said courteously:

“If you are going back to the hotel, may I take you along? I am Alexander Blair.”

“Thank you. I’ll be glad of a lift. My name is Chester Kent.”

“Not the Professor Kent of the Ramsay case?”

“The same. You know, Mr. Blair, I’ve always believed that you had more of a hand in Ramsay’s death than I. Now, if you wish to withdraw your offer of a lift—”

“Not at all. A man who has been so abused by the newspapers as I, can stand a little plain speaking. For all that, on my word, Professor Kent, I had no hand in sending Ramsay on that dirty business of his.”

The scientist considered him thoughtfully. “Well, I believe you,” said he shortly, and got into the machine.

“This meeting is a fortunate chance for me,” said Blair presently.

“Chance?” murmured Kent interrogatively.

The car swerved sharply, but immediately resumed the middle of the road.

“Certainly, chance,” said the motorist. “What else should it be?”

“Of course,” agreed Kent. “As you say.”

“I said fortunate,” continued the other, “because you are, I believe, the very man I want. There is an affair that has been troubling me a good deal. I haven’t been able to look into it personally, because of the serious illness of my son, who is at my place on Sundayman’s Creek. But it is in your line, being entomological, and perhaps criminal.”

“What is it?” asked Kent.

“An inexplicable destruction of our stored woolens by the clothes moth. You may perhaps know that I am president of the Kinsella Mills. We’ve been having a great deal of trouble this spring, and our superintendent believes that some enemy is introducing the pest into our warehouses. Will you take the case?”

“When?”

“Start to-night for Connecticut.”

Chester Kent’s long fingers went to the lobe on his ear. “Give me until three o’clock this afternoon to consider. Can I reach you by telephone?”

“Yes, at Hedgerow House, my place.”

“That is how far from here?”

“Fourteen miles; but you need not come there. I could return to the hotel to conclude arrangements. And I think,” he added significantly, “that you would find the project a profitable one.”

“Doubtless. Are you well acquainted with this part of the country, Mr. Blair?”

“Yes, I’ve been coming here for years.”

“Is there an army post near by?”

“Not within a hundred miles.”

“Nor any officers on special detail about?”

“None, so far as I know.”

Kent produced from his pocket the silver star with the shred of cloth hanging to it. “This may or may not be an important clue to a curious death that occurred here three days ago.”

“Yes, I’ve heard something of it,” said the other indifferently. “I took it to be mostly gossip.”

“Before the death there was a struggle. This star was found at the scene of the struggle.”

“It looks like the star from the collar of an officer. I should say positively that it was from an army or navy uniform.”

“Positiveness is the greatest temptation and snare that I have to fight against,” remarked Chester Kent. “Otherwise I should say positively that no officer, going to a dubious rendezvous, would wear a uniform which would be certain to make him conspicuous. Are you yourself an expert in woolen fabrics, Mr. Blair?”

“I have been.”

“Could you tell from that tiny fragment whether or not the whole cloth is all wool?”

Without replying, Blair gave the steering handle a quick sweep, and the car drew up before a drug store. He took the star and was gone a few minutes.

“Not all wool,” he announced on his return.

“Exit the army or navy officer,” remarked Kent.

“Why so?”

“Because regulations require all-wool garments—and get them. What is the fabric?”

“A fairly good mixture, from the very elemental chemical test I made. Something in the nature of a worsted batiste, I should judge, from what I could make out under the inferior magnifying-glass that they loaned me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blair. You’ve eliminated one troublesome hypothesis for me. I’ll telephone you before three o’clock. Good day.”

From the woolen manufacturer, Chester Kent went direct to the Martindale Center library, where he interviewed the librarian.

“Do you get the Agriculture Department publications?”

“Yes.”

“Have you a pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Entomology, Helmund on The Swarm Phenomenon in Lepidoptera?”

“Yes, sir. It was inquired for only yesterday by Mr. Blair.”

“Ah, yes. He’s quite interested in the subject, I believe.”

“It must be quite recent, then,” said the librarian. “We haven’t seen him here for a long time until two days ago, when he came and put in a morning, reading on insects.”

“So, Mr. Alexander Blair,” said Kent, addressing the last fence post on the outskirts of the town, after a thoughtful walk, “that was a fatal break on your part, that mention of Helmund. Amateurs who have wholly dropped a subject since years back don’t usually know publications issued only within three months. That casual meeting with me was well carried out, and you called it chance. A very palpably manufactured chance! But why am I worth so much trouble to know? And why does Alexander Blair leave a desperately ill son to arrange an errand for me at this particular time? And is Hedgerow House, fourteen miles distant and possessing just such an electric car as a woman would use in driving round the country, perhaps the place whence came Sedgwick’s sweet lady of mystery? Finally, what connection has all this with the body lying in Annalaka burying-ground?”

Eliciting no reply from the fence post, Kent returned to the Eyrie, called up Hedgerow House, and declined Blair’s proposition.

Early that evening Francis Sedgwick came to the hotel. The clerk, at first negligent, pricked up his ears and exhibited unmistakable signs of human interest when he heard the name; for the suspicion attaching to the artist had spread swiftly. Moreover, the caller was in a state of hardly repressed excitement.

“Mr. Kent? I’m afraid you can’t see him, sir. He isn’t in his room.”

“Isn’t he about the hotel?”

The clerk hesitated. “I ought not to tell you, sir, for it’s Mr. Kent’s strict orders not to be disturbed; but he’s in his special room. Is it anything very important? Any new evidence, or something of that sort?”

“That is what I want Mr. Kent to decide.”

“In that case I might take the responsibility. But I think I had better take you to him myself.”

After the elevator had carried them to the top of its run, they mounted a flight of stairs, and walked to a far corner of the building.

“Nobody’s been in here since he took it,” explained the clerk as they walked. “Turned all the furniture out. Special lock on the door. Some kind of scientific experiments, I suppose. He’s very quiet about it.”

Having reached the door, he discreetly tapped. No answer came. Somewhat less timidity characterized his next effort. A growl of surpassing savagery from within was his reward.

“You see, Mr. Sedgwick,” said the clerk. Raising his voice he called, “Mr. Kent, I’ve brought—”

“Get away and go to the devil!” cried a voice from inside in fury. “What do you mean by—”

“It’s I, Kent, Sedgwick. I’ve got to see you.”

There was a silence of some seconds.

“What do you want?” asked Kent at length.

“You told me to come at once if anything turned up.”

“So I did,” sighed Kent. “Well, chase that infernal bell-boy to the stairs, and I’ll let you in.”

With a wry face the clerk retired. Kent opened the door, and his friend squeezed through into a bare room. The walls were hung and the floor was carpeted with white sheets. There was no furniture of any kind, unless a narrow mattress in one corner could be so reckoned. Beside the mattress lay a small pad and a pencil. Only on the visitor’s subconscious self did these peculiarities impress themselves, such was his absorption in his own interests.

“It’s happened!” he announced.

“Has it?” said Kent. “Lean up against the wall and make yourself at home. Man, you’re shaking!”

“You’d shake, too,” retorted the artist, his voice trembling.

“No; anger doesn’t affect me that way. Wait! Now, don’t tell me yet. If I’m to have a report, it must be from a sane man, not from one in a blind fury. Take time and cool down. What do you think of my room?”

“It looks like the abode of white silence. Have you turned Trappist monk?”

“Not such a bad guess. This is the retreat of my mind. I think against the blank walls.”

“What’s the game?” asked Sedgwick, interested in spite of himself.

“It dates back to our college days. Do you remember that queer freshman, Berwind?”

“The mind-reader? Yes. The poor chap went insane afterward.”

“Yes. It was a weak mind, but a singularly receptive one. You know we used to force numbers or playing-cards upon his consciousness by merely thinking of them.”

“I recollect. His method was to stand gazing at a blank wall. He said the object we were thinking of would rise before him visually against the blankness. Did you ever figure out how he managed to do it?”

“Not exactly. But his notion of keeping the mind blank for impressions has its points. If you throw off the clutch of the brain, as it were, and let it work along its own lines, it sometimes arranges and formulates ideas that you wouldn’t get from it under control.”

“Sort of self-hypnosis?”

“In a sense. For years I’ve kept a bare white room in my Washington house to do my hard thinking in. When your affair promised to become difficult for me, I rigged up this spot. And I’m trying to see things against the walls.”

“Any particular kind of things?”

Kent produced the silver star from his pocket, and told of its discovery. “The stars in their courses may have fought against Sisera,” he remarked; “but they aren’t going out of their way to fight—to fight—to—to—” Kent’s jaw was sagging down. His lean fingers pulled savagely at the lobe of his long-suffering ear. “The stars in their courses—in their courses— That’s it!” he half whispered. “Sedgwick; what was it your visitor said to you about Jupiter?”

“She didn’t mention Jupiter.”

“No, of course not. Not by name. But what was it she said about the planet that she pointed out, over the sea?”

“Oh; was that Jupiter? How did you know?”

“Looked last night, of course,” said Kent impatiently. “There’s no other planet conspicuous over the sea at that hour, from where you stood. That’s not important; at least, not now. What did she say?”

“Oh, some rot about daring to follow her star and find happiness, and that perhaps it might lead me to glory or something.”

A kind of snort came from Kent. “Where have my brains been!” he cried. He thrust the bit of embroidery back into his pocket. Then, with an abrupt change of tone:

“Well, is your temper in hand?”

“For the present.”

“Tell me about it, then.”

“You remember the—the picture of the face?” said Sedgwick with an effort.

“Nobody would easily forget it.”

“I’ve been doing another portrait from the sketches. It was on opaque glass, an experimental medium that I’ve worked on some. Late this afternoon I went out, leaving the glass sheet, backed against a light board, on my easel. The door was locked with a heavy spring. There’s no possible access by the window. Yet somebody came in and smashed my picture to fragments. If I can find that man, Kent, I’ll kill him!”

Kent glanced at the artist’s long strong hands. They were clenched on his knees. The fingers were bloodless.

“I believe you would,” said the scientist with conviction. “You mustn’t, you know. No luxuries, at present.”

“Don’t joke with me about this, Kent.”

“Very good. But just consider, please, that I’m having enough trouble clearing you of a supposed murder of your doing, to want a real one, however provoked, on my hands.”

“Keep the man out of my way, then.”

“That depends. Anything else in your place damaged?”

“Not that I noticed. But I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. I came here direct to find you.”

“That’s right. Well, I’m with you, for the Nook.”

Locking his curious room after him, Kent led the way to the hotel lobby, where he stopped only long enough to send some telegrams. The sun was still a few minutes short of its setting when he and his companion emerged from the hotel. Kent at once broke into a trot.