Blindfolded - Earle Ashley Walcott (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📗

of the discourse for a minute."

"That's what I was talking about," she said sharply,--"about taking her and the rest of us through Chinatown."

"Yes, yes. I remember," I said unblushingly. "If I can get away from business, I'm at your service at any time."

Then Mrs. Bowser wandered on with the arrangements she would find necessary to make, and I heard one of the low voices behind me:

"Now this is a profound secret, you know. I wouldn't have them know for the world that any one suspects. I just heard it this week, myself."

"Oh, I wouldn't dare breathe it to a soul," said the other. "But I'm sure I shan't sleep a wink tonight." And they moved away.

I interrupted Mrs. Bowser to explain that I must speak to Mrs. Knapp, and made my escape as some one stopped to pass a word with her.

"Oh, must you go, Henry?" said Mrs. Knapp. "Well, you must come again soon. We miss you when you stay away. Don't let Mr. Knapp keep you too closely."

I professed myself happy to come whenever I could find the time, and looked about for Luella. She was nowhere to be seen. I left the room a little disappointed, but with a swelling of pride that I had passed the dreaded ordeal and had been accepted as Henry Wilton in the house in which I had most feared to meet disaster. My opinion of my own cleverness had risen, in the language of the market, "above par."

As I passed down the hall, a tall willowy figure stepped from the shadow of the stair. My heart gave a bound of delight. It was Luella Knapp. I should have the pleasure of a leave-taking in private.

"Oh, Miss Knapp!" I said. "I had despaired of having the chance to bid you good night." And I held out my hand.

She ignored the hand. I could see from her heaving bosom and shortened breath that she was laboring under great agitation. Yet her face gave no evidence of the effort that it cost her to control herself.

"I was waiting for you," she said in a low voice.

I started to express my gratification when she interrupted me.

"Who are you?" broke from her lips almost fiercely.

I was completely taken aback, and stared at her in amazement with no word at command.

"You are not Henry Wilton," she said rapidly. "You have come here with his name and his clothes, and made up to look like him, and you try to use his voice and take his place. Who are you?"

There was a depth of scorn and anger and apprehension in that low voice of hers that struck me dumb.

"Can you not answer?" she demanded, catching her breath with excitement. "You are not Henry Wilton."

"Well?" I said half-inquiringly. It was not safe to advance or retreat.

"Well--! well--!" She repeated my answer, with indignation and disdain deepening in her voice. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

"What should I say?" I replied quietly. "You make an assertion. Is there anything more to be said?"

"Oh, you may laugh at me if you please, because you can hoodwink the others."

I protested that laughter was the last thing I was thinking of at the moment.

Then she burst out impetuously:

"Oh, if I were only a man! No; if I were a man I should be hoodwinked like the rest. But you can not deceive me. Who are you? What are you here for? What are you trying to do?"

She was blazing with wrath. Her tone had raised hardly an interval of the scale, but every word that came in that smooth, low voice was heavy with contempt and anger. It was the true daughter of the Wolf who stood before me.

"I am afraid, Miss Knapp, you are not well tonight," I said soothingly.

"What have you done with Henry Wilton?" she asked fiercely. "Don't try to speak with his voice. Drop your disguise. You are no actor. You are no more like him than--"

The simile failed her in her wrath.

"Satyr to Hyperion," I quoted bitterly. "Make it strong, please."

I had thought myself in a tight place in the row at Borton's, but it was nothing to this encounter.

"Oh, where is he? What has happened?" she cried.

"Nothing has happened," I said calmly, determining at last to brazen it out. I could not tell her the truth. "My name is Henry Wilton."

She looked at me in anger a moment, and then a shadow of dread and despair settled over her face.

I was tempted beyond measure to throw myself on her mercy and tell all. The subtle sympathy that she inspired was softening my resolution. Yet, as I looked into her eyes, her face hardened, and her wrath blazed forth once more.

"Go!" she said. "I hope I may never see you again!" And she turned and ran swiftly up the stair. I thought I heard a sob, but whether of anger or sorrow I knew not.

And I went out into the night with a heavier load of depression than I had borne since I entered the city.


CHAPTER XIII

A DAY OF GRACE

The wind blew strong and moist and salt from the western ocean as I walked down the steps into the semi-darkness of Pine Street. But it was powerless to cool the hot blood that surged into my cheeks in the tumult of emotion that followed my dismissal by Luella Knapp. I was furious at the poor figure I had cut in her sight, at the insults I had been forced to bear without reply, and at the hopelessness of setting myself right. Yet, more than all was I sick at heart at the dreadful task before me. My spirit was bleeding from every stab that this girl had dealt me; yet I had to confess that her outburst of rage had challenged my admiration even more than her brightness in the hour that had gone before. How could I go through with my work? How could I bear to overwhelm her with the sorrow and disgrace that must crush on her if I proved to the world the awful facts that were burned on my brain?

Resolve, shame, despair, fought with each other in the tumult in my mind as I passed between the bronze lions and took my way down the street. I was called out of my distractions with a sudden start as though a bucket of cold water had been thrown over me. I had proceeded not twenty feet when I saw two dark forms across the street. They had, it struck me, been waiting for my appearance, for one ran to join the other and both hastened toward the corner as though to be ready to meet me.

I could not retreat to the house of the Wolf that loomed forbiddingly behind me. There was nothing to do but to go forward and trust to my good fortune, and I shifted my revolver to the side-pocket of my overcoat as I stepped briskly to the corner. Then I stopped under the lamp-post to reconnoiter.

The two men who had roused my apprehensions did not offer to cross the street, but slackened their pace and strolled slowly along on the other side. I noted that it seemed a long way between street-lamps thereabouts. I could see none between the one under which I was standing and the brow of the hill below. Then it occurred to me that this circumstance might not be due to the caprice of the street department of the city government, but to the thoughtfulness of the gentlemen who were paying such close attention to my affairs. I decided that there were better ways to get down town than were offered by Pine Street.

To the south the cross-street stretched to Market with an unbroken array of lights, and as my unwary watchers had disappeared in the darkness, I hastened down the incline with so little regard for dignity that I found myself running for a Sutter Street car--and caught it, too. As I swung on to the platform I looked back; but I saw no sign of skulking figures before the car swept past the corner and blotted the street from sight.

The incident gave me a distaste for the idea of going back to Henry Wilton's room at this time of the night. So as Montgomery Street was reached I stepped into the Lick House, where I felt reasonably sure that I might get at least one night's sleep, free from the haunting fear of the assassin.

But, once more safe, the charms of Luella Knapp again claimed the major part of my thoughts, and when I went to sleep it was with her scornful words ringing in my ears. I awoke in the darkness--perhaps it was in but a few minutes--with the confused dream that Luella Knapp was seized in the grasp of the snake-eyed Terrill, and I was struggling to come to her assistance and seize him by his hateful throat. But, becoming calm from this exciting vision, I slept soundly until the morning sun peeped into the room with the cheerful announcement that a new day was born.

In the fresh morning air and the bright morning light, I felt that I might have been unduly suspicious and had fled from harmless citizens; and I was ashamed that I had lacked courage to return to Henry's room as I made my way thither for a change of clothes. I thought better of my decision, however, as I stepped within the gloomy walls of the house of mystery, and my footfalls echoed through the chilling silence of the halls. And I lost all regret over my night's lack of courage when I reached my door. It was swung an inch ajar, and as I approached I thought I saw it move.

"I'm certain I locked it," was my inward comment.

I stopped short and hunted my revolver from my overcoat pocket. I was nervous for a moment, and angry at the inattention that might have cost me my life.

"Who's there?" I demanded.

No reply.

I gave a knock on the door at long reach.

There was no sound and I gave it a push that sent it open while I prudently kept behind the fortification of the casing. As no developments followed this move, I peeped through the door in cautious investigation. The room was quite empty, and I walked in.

The sight that met my eyes was astonishing. Clothes, books, papers, were scattered over the floor and bed and chairs. The carpet had been partly ripped up, the mattress torn apart, the closet cleared out, and every corner of the room had been ransacked.

It was clear to my eye that this was no ordinary case of robbery. The search, it was evident, was not for money and jewelry alone, and bulkier property had been despised. The men who had torn the place to pieces must, I surmised, have been after papers of some kind.

I came at once to the conclusion that I had been favored by a visit from my friends, the enemy. As they had failed to find me in, they had looked for some written memoranda of the object of their search.

I knew well that they had found nothing among the clothing or papers that Henry had left behind. I had searched through these myself, and the sole