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Four Stragglers

<h3> —VIII— </h3> <h4> THE MESSAGE </h4> Polly Wickes, from her pillow, stared into the darkness. There had been no thought of sleep; it did not seem as though there ever could be again. She had undressed and gone to bed—but she had done this mechanically, because at night one went to bed, because she had always gone to bed. Not to sleep! The tears blinding her eyes, she had groped her way up the stairs from the living room where she had left Howard Locke, and somehow she had reached her room. That was hours and hours ago. Surely the daylight would come soon now; surely it would soon be morning. She wanted the daylight, she wanted the morning, because the darkness and the stillness seemed to accentuate a terrible and merciless sense of isolation that had come so swiftly, so suddenly into her life—to overturn, to dominate, to stupefy, to cast contemptuously aside the dreams and thoughts and hopes of happiness and contentment. And yet, though she yearned for the morning, she even dreaded it more. How could she meet Howard Locke—at breakfast? She couldn't. She wouldn't go down to breakfast. The small hands came from under the coverings, and clasped themselves tightly about the aching head—and she turned and buried her face in the pillow. She might easily, very easily evade breakfast—and postpone the inevitable for a few minutes, even a few hours. Why did she grasp at pitiful subterfuges such as that? She was nameless. That phrase had come hours ago. It had scorched itself upon her brain—as a branding iron at white heat sears its imprint upon quivering flesh, never to be effaced, always to endure. She was nameless. It wasn't that she had not always known it—she always had. But it meant now what it had never meant before. Until now it had been as something that, since it must be borne, she had striven to bear with what courage was hers, and, denying its right to embitter life, had sought to imprison it in the dim recesses of her mind—but now in an instant it had broken its bonds to stand forth exposed in all its ugliness; no longer captive, but a vengeful captor, claiming its miserable right from now on to control and dominate her life. She had thought of love—it would have been unnatural if she had not. But she had never loved, and therefore she had thought of it only in an abstract way. Dream love—fancies. But she loved now—she loved this man who had so suddenly come into her life—she loved Howard Locke. And happinesss, greater than she had realised happiness could ever be, had unfolded itself to her gaze, and, love had become a vibrant, personal thing, so wonderful, so tender and so glad a thing, that beside it all the world was little and insignificant and empty; but even as the glory of it, and the joy of it had burst upon her, she had been obliged to turn away from it—not very bravely, for the tears had scalded her as she had run from the living room—because there was no other thing to do, because it was something that was not hers to have. She could never be the wife of any man. She was nameless. Why had she ever found it out! It might so easily have been that she would have never known. That—that no one need ever have known! She was sure that even her guardian did not know. She smothered her face deeper in the pillow as she cried out in anguish. She could have had happiness then—and—and it would have been honourable for her to have taken it, wouldn't it? She lay quiet for a little while. No; that was cowardly, selfish. If she really loved this man, she should be glad for his sake that she knew the truth, glad now of the day when she had found it out. She remembered that day. It seemed to live more vividly before her now than it ever had before. Mrs. Wickes—her mother—had—had been drinking. The words had been a slip of the tongue; a slip that her mother, owing to her condition at the time, had not even been conscious of. Mrs. Wickes had been garrulously recounting some sordid crime that had remained famous even amongst its many fellows in Whitechapel, and, in placing the date, had stated it was two years after Mr. Wickes had died. Later on, in the same garrulous account, she had again referred to the date, but had placed it this time by saying that she, Polly, was a baby not more than a month old when it had happened. And on that day when she had listened to her mother's tale she had still been but a child—in years. She could not have been more than twelve—but she was very old for twelve. The slums of London had seen to that. And so, the next day, when her mother had been more herself, she had asked Mrs. Wickes, more out of a precocious curiosity perhaps than anything else, for an explanation. Mrs. Wickes had flown into a furious rage. "Mind yer own business!" Mrs. Wickes had screamed at her. "The likes of you a-slingin' mud at yer mother! Wot you got to complain of? Ain't I takin' care of you? If ever you says another word I'll break yer back!" She had never said another word. In one sense she had not been different from any other child of twelve then, and it had not naturally caused any change in her feelings toward her mother; nor in the after years, with their fuller light of understanding, had it ever changed or abated her love for the mother with whom she had shared hardship and distress and want. She thanked God for that now. Her mother might have been one to inspire little love and little of respect in others; but to her, Polly, when she had parted from her mother to come here to America, she had parted from the only human being in all the world she had ever loved, or who, in turn, had ever showed affection for her. She had never ceased to love her mother; instead, she had perhaps been the better able to understand, and even to add sympathy to love and to know a great pity, where bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness might otherwise have been, because she, too, had lived in those drab places where the urge of self-preservation alone was the standard that measured ethics, where one fought and snatched at anything, no matter from where or by what means it came, that kept soul and body together—because she could look out on that life, not as one apart, but with the eyes of one who once had been a—a guttersnipe. And now? Now that this crisis in her life had come—what now? She did not know. She had been trying to think calmly, but her brain would not obey her—it was crushed, stunned. It ached even in a physical way, frightfully, and— She raised her head suddenly from the pillow in a sort of incredulous amazement—and immediately afterward sat bolt upright in bed. The telephone here in her room was ringing. At this hour! Her heart suddenly seemed to stop beating. Something—something must be wrong—something must have happened—Dora—Mr. Marlin! It was still ringing—ringing insistently. She sprang from the bed, and, running to the 'phone, snatched the receiver from its hook. "Yes, yes?" she answered breathlessly. "What is it?" A voice came over the wire; a man's voice, rising and falling creepily in a sing-song, mocking sort of way: "Is that you, Polly—Polly Wickes—Polly Wickes—Polly Wickes—Wickes—Wickes—P-o-l-l-y W-i-c-k-e-s?" It frightened her. She felt the blood ebb from her cheeks. There was something horribly familiar in the voice—but she could not place it. Her hand reached out to the wall for support. "Yes"—she tried to hold her voice in control, to answer steadily—"yes; I am Polly Wickes. Who are you? What do you want?" She heard the sound as of a gust of wind from a door that was suddenly blown open, the beat of the sea, then the slam of a door—and then the voice again: "Polly—Polly Wickes." The words seemed to be choked now with malicious laughter. "Why don't you dress in black, Polly Wickes—Polly Wickes—for your mother, Polly Wickes?" "What do you mean?" she cried frantically. "Who are you? Who are you? What do you mean?" There was no answer. She kept calling into the 'phone. Nothing! No reply! The voice was gone. She stood there staring wildly through the darkness. Black ... for her mother ... dead! No, no ... it couldn't be true! That voice ... yes, it was like the horrible voice that had called out the other night ... she knew now why it was familiar.... Terror-stricken, the receiver dropped from her hand. Dead! Her mother dead! It couldn't be true! She began to grope around her. The chair—her dressing gown. Her hands felt the garment. She snatched it up, flung it around her, and stumbled to the door and along the hall to Captain Francis Newcombe's room. And here she knocked mechanically, but, without listening for response, opened the door, and, stumbling still in a blind way, crossed the threshold. "Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!" she sobbed out. Captain Francis Newcombe was not asleep. Quite apart from the fact that he had only got to bed but a very short while before, the cards that night had gone too badly against him, and there was a savage sense of fury upon him that would not quiet down. And now, as he heard his door open and heard Polly call, he was out of bed and into a dressing gown in an instant. Polly out there in his sitting room—at half-past four in the morning! And she was sobbing. She sobbed now as he heard her call again: "Guardy! Guardy! Oh, guardy!" This was queer—damned queer! His face was suddenly set in the darkness as he crossed the bedroom floor—but his voice was quiet, cool, reassuring, as he answered her: "Right-o, Polly! I'm coming!" He switched on the light as he entered the sitting room. It brought a quick, startled cry over the sobs. "Oh, please, guardy!" she faltered out. "I—I—please turn off the light." "Of course!" he said quietly—and it was dark in the room again. He had caught a glimpse of a little figure crouching just inside the door—a little figure with white, strained face, with great, wondrous masses of hair tumbling about her shoulders, with hands that clasped some filmy drapery tightly across her bosom, and small, dainty feet that were bare of covering. And as he moved toward her now across the room, another mood took precedence over the savagery he had just been nursing—a mood no holier. It might be queer, this visit of hers; but that glimpse of her, alluring, intimate, of a moment gone, had set his blood afire again—and far more violently than it had on that first occasion when he had seen her here on the island two nights ago. It brought again to the fore the question that, through a cursed nightmare of happenings, had almost since that time lain dormant. Was he going to let Locke have her—or was he going to keep her for himself? How far had she gone with Locke? They had been a lot together. Well, that mattered little—if he wanted her for himself he would make the way to get her, Locke and hell combined to the contrary! The woman—against her potential value as somebody else's wife! Damn it, that was the wonder of her—that she could even hold her own when weighed on such scales. There were lots of women. He had reached her now, and touched her, found her hand and taken it in his own. "What is it, Polly?" he asked gently. "What's the matter?" "It's—it's mother," she whispered brokenly. "The telephone in my room rang a few minutes ago, and some one—a man—and, oh, guardy, I'm sure it was the same voice that we heard when we were in the woods the night before last—asked me why I didn't wear black for my mother. It—it couldn't mean anything else but—but that mother is dead. Oh, guardy, guardy! How could he know, guardy? How could he know?" Captain Francis Newcombe made no movement, save to place his arm around the thinly clad shoulders, and draw the little figure closer to him. It was dark here, she could not have seen his face anyway, but it was composed, calm, tranquil. Perhaps the lips straightened a little at the corners—nothing more. But the brain of the man was working at lightning speed. Here was disaster, ruin, exposure if he made the slightest slip. Again, eh? This was the fourth time this devil from the pit had shown his hand! The reckoning would be adequate! But how was he to answer Polly? Quick! She must not notice any hesitation. Tell her that Mrs. Wickes was dead? He had a ready explanation on his tongue, formulated days ago, to account for having withheld that information. Seize this opportunity to tell her that Mrs. Wickes was not her mother? No! Impossible! He had meant to use all this to his advantage, and in his own good time. It was too late now. He was left holding the bag! If he admitted that Mrs. Wickes was dead, he admitted that there was some one on this island whose mysterious presence, whose mysterious knowledge, must cause a furor, a search, with possible results that at any hazard he dared not risk. Polly would tell Locke—Dora—everybody. It was impossible! But against this, sooner or later, Polly must know of Mrs. Wickes' death, and— Bah! Was he become a child, the old cunning gone? He would keep her for a while from England—travel—anything—and, months on, the word would come that Mrs. Wickes was dead, and found in the old hag's effects would be Polly's papers. The one safe play, the only play, was not alone to reassure the girl now, but to keep her mouth shut. Above all to keep her mouth shut! But—how? How? Yes! He had it now! His soul began to laugh in unholy glee. His voice was grave, earnest, tender, sympathetic. "He couldn't have known, Polly," he said. "That is at once evident on the face of it. How could any one on this little out-of-the-way island possibly know a thing like that when I, who am the only one who could know, and who have just come direct from England, know it to be untrue. Don't you see, Polly?" He had drawn her head against his shoulder, stroking back the hair from her forehead. She raised it now quickly. "Yes, guardy!" she said eagerly. "I—I see; and I'm so glad I came to you at once. But—but it is so strange, and—and it still frightens me terribly. I don't understand. I—I can't understand. Why should any one ring the telephone in my room at this hour, and—and tell me a thing like that if it were not true?" "Or even if it were true—at such an hour, or in such a manner," he injected quietly. "Tell me exactly what happened, Polly." "I think I've told you everything," she said. "I don't think there was anything else. When I answered the 'phone, the voice asked if I were Polly Wickes, and kept on repeating my name over and over again in a horrible, crazy, sing-songy way, and then I heard a sound as though a door had been blown open by the wind, and I could hear the waves pounding, and then the door was evidently slammed shut again, and the voice said what I—I have told you about wearing black for my mother. And then I couldn't hear anything more, and I couldn't get any answer, though I called again and again into the 'phone. Oh, guardy, I can't understand! I—I'm sure it was the same voice as that other night. What does it mean? Guardy, what should we do? Who could it be?" A door blown open by the wind! The pound of the waves! Where was there a telephone that would measure up to those requirements? Not in the house! Captain Francis Newcombe smiled grimly in the darkness. The private installation was restricted to the house and its immediate surroundings. Therefore the boathouse! The boathouse had a 'phone connection. And there was still an hour or more to daybreak! But first to shut Polly's mouth. "Polly," he said gravely, measuring his words, "I haven't the slightest doubt but that it was the same voice we heard in the woods; in fact, I'm quite sure of it. And I'm equally sure now that I know who it is." She drew back from him in a quick, startled way. "But, guardy, you said it was only some one catcalling to—" "Yes; I know," he interrupted seriously. "But I did not tell you what I was really suspicious of all along. With what I had to go on then, it did not seem that I had any right to do so. It's quite a different matter now, however, after what has happened to-night." "Yes?" she prompted anxiously. "There can be only two possible explanations," he said. "Either some one is playing a cruel hoax; or it is the work of an unhinged mind, an irrational act, a phase of insanity that—" "Guardy!" she cried out sharply. "You mean—" "Yes," he said steadily; "I do, Polly. And there can really be no question about it at all. Can you imagine any one doing such a thing merely from a perverted sense of humour?—any one of us here?—for it must have been some one of us who is connected with the household in order to have had access to a telephone. It is unthinkable, absurd, isn't it? On the other hand, the hour, the irresponsible words, their 'crazy' mode of expression, as you yourself said, the motiveless declaration of a palpable untruth, all stamp it as the work of one who is not accountable for his actions—of one who is literally insane. And then the fact that you recognised the voice as the one we heard two nights ago is additional proof, if such were needed, which it very obviously is not. You remember that we had seen Mr. Marlin in his dressing gown disappear under the verandah a few minutes before we heard the calls and cries and wild, insane laughter. My first thought then was that it was Mr. Marlin, and I was afraid that either harm had, or might, come to him. I sent you at once back to the house, and I ran into the woods to look for him. I did not find him; and, therefore, as there was always the possibility then that I had been mistaken, I felt that I should not alarm any of you here, and particularly Miss Marlin, by suggesting that Mr. Marlin's condition was decidedly worse than even it was supposed to be. Is it quite plain, Polly? I do not think we have very far to look for the one who telephoned you to-night." He could just see her in the darkness, a little white, shadowy form, as she stood slightly away from him now. One of her hands was pressed in an agitated way to her face and eyes; the other still held tightly to the throat of her dressing gown. "Oh, yes, it's plain, guardy," she whispered miserably. "It's—it's too plain. Poor, poor Mr. Marlin! What are we to do? It would hurt Dora terribly if she knew her father had done this. I—I can't tell her." "Of course, you can't," said Captain Francis Newcombe gravely. "Your position is even more delicate than mine was the other night. I do not see that you can do anything—except to say nothing about it to any one for the present." "Yes," she agreed numbly. She began to move toward the door. "It's not likely to happen again," said Captain Francis Newcombe reassuringly; "and, anyway, you can make sure it won't by just leaving the receiver off the hook. Do that, Polly." And then, solicitously: "But you're not frightened any more now, are you, Polly? A mystery explained loses its terror, doesn't it? And, besides, the main thing was to know that your mother was all right." "My mother—" He thought he heard her catch her breath in a quick, sudden half sob. "It's all right, Polly," he said hastily. "Don't think of that part of it any more. Everything's all right." "Yes; I—I know." Her voice was very low. "It's—all right. I—good-night, guardy." She had opened the door. "I'll see you to your room," he said. "No," she answered; "I'm not frightened any more. Good—good-night, guardy." "Good-night, Polly," he said. The door closed. Captain Francis Newcombe stood in the darkness. And for a moment he did not move—but the mask was gone now, and the laughter that came low from his lips was a mirthless sound, and the working face was black with fury. And then he turned, and with a bound was back in the bedroom, and snatching at his clothes began to dress. There was still an hour to daybreak. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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