The Blind Man's Eyes - William MacHarg (best books to read now txt) 📗

corner beyond the fireplace, evidently connecting with the room above.

The room in which they were was so plainly Basil Santoine's work-room that the girl did not comment upon that; but as Eaton glanced at the stairs, she volunteered:

"They go to Father's room; that has the same space above."

"I see. This is a rather surprising room."

"You mean the windows?" she asked. "That surprises most people—so very much light. Father can't see even sunlight, but he says he feels it. He likes light, anyway; and it is true that he can tell, without his eyes, whether the day is bright or cloudy, and whether the light is turned on at night. The rooms in this wing, too, are nearly sound-proof. There is not much noise from outside here, of course, except the waves; but there are noises from other parts of the house. Noise does not irritate Father, but his hearing has become very acute because of his blindness, and noises sometimes distract him when he is working.... Now, what was it you wished to say to me, Mr. Eaton?"

Eaton, with a start, recollected himself. His gaining a view of that room was of so much more importance than what he had to say that, for a moment, he had forgotten. Then:

"I wanted to ask you exactly what my position here is to be."

"Oh," she said. "I thought that was plain to you from what Father said."

"You mean that I am to be kept here?"

"Yes."

"Indefinitely?"

"Until—as Father indicated to you on the train—he has satisfied himself as to the source of the attack upon him."

"I understand. In the meantime, I am not to be allowed to communicate at all with any one outside?"

"That might depend upon the circumstances."

He gazed at the telephone instrument on the desk. "Miss Santoine, a moment ago I tried to telephone, when I—" He described the incident to her. The color on her cheeks heightened. "Some one was appointed to listen on the wire?" he challenged.

"Yes." She hesitated, and then she added, in the manner in which she had directed him to the guard outside the house: "And besides, I believe there are—or will be—the new phonographic devices on every line, which record both sides of a conversation. Subject to that, you may use the telephone."

"Thank you," said Eaton grimly. "I suppose if I were to write a letter, it would be taken from me and opened and read."

She colored ruddier and made no comment.

"And if I wished to go to the city, I would be prevented or followed?"

"Prevented, for the present," she replied.

"Thank you."

"That is all?"

The interview had become more difficult for her; he saw that she was anxious to have it over.

"Just one moment more, Miss Santoine. Suppose I resist this?"

"Yes?"

"Your father is having me held here in what I might describe as a free sort of confinement, but still in confinement, without any legal charge against me. Suppose I refuse to submit to that—suppose I demand right to consult, to communicate with some one in order, let us say, to defend myself against the charge of having attacked your father. What then?"

"I can only answer as before, Mr. Eaton."

"That I will be prevented?"

"For the present. I don't know all that Father has ordered done about you; but he is awaiting the result of several investigations. The telegrams you received doubtless are being traced to their sources; other inquiries are being made. As you have only lately come back to America, they may extend far and take some time."

"Thank you," he acknowledged. He went to the door, opened it and went out; he closed it after him and left her alone.

Harriet stood an instant vacantly staring after him; then she went to the door and fastened it with a catch. She came back to the great table-desk—her blind father's desk—and seated herself in the great chair, his chair, and buried her face in her hands. She had seemed—and she knew that she had seemed—quite composed as she talked to Eaton; now she was not composed. Her face was burning hot; her hands, against her cheeks, were cold; tremors of feeling shook her as she thought of the man who just had left her. Why, she asked herself, was she not able to make herself treat this man in the way that her mind told her she should have treated him? That he might be the one who had dealt the blow intended to kill her father—her being could not and would not accept that. Yet, the only reason she had to deny it, was her feeling.

That Eaton must have been involved in the attack or, at least, must have known and now knew something about it which he was keeping from them, seemed certain. Yet she did not, she could not, abominate and hate this man. Instead, she found herself impelled, against all natural reason, more and more to trust him. Moreover, was it fair to her father for her to do this?

Since childhood, since babyhood, even, no one had ever meant anything to her in comparison with her father. Her mother had died when she was young; she had never had, in her play as a child, the careless abandon of other children, because in spite of play she had been thinking of her father; the greatest joy of childhood she could remember was walking hand in hand with her father and telling him the things she saw; it had been their "game"; and as she grew older and it had ceased to be merely a game—as she had grown more and more useful to the blind man, and he had learned more fully to use and trust her—she had found it only more interesting, a greater pleasure. She had never had any other ambition—and she had no other now—except to serve her father; her joy was to be his eyes; her triumph had been when she had found that, though he searched the world and paid fortunes to find others to "see" for him, no one could serve him as she could; she had never thought of herself apart from him.

Now her father had been attacked and injured—attacked foully, while he slept; he had come close to death, had suffered; he was still suffering. Certainly she ought to hate, at least be aloof from any one, every one, against whom the faintest suspicion breathed of having been concerned in that dastardly attack upon her father; and that she found herself without aversion to Eaton, when he was with her, now filled her with shame and remorse.

She crouched lower against this desk which so represented her father in his power; she felt tears of shame at herself hot on her cold hands. Then she got up and recollected herself. Her father, when he would awake, would wish to work; there were certain, important matters he must decide at once.

Harriet went to the end of the room and to the right of the entrance door. She looked about, with a habit of caution, and then removed a number of books from a shelf about shoulder high; she thus exposed a panel at the back of the bookcase, which she slid back. Behind it appeared the steel door of a combination wall-safe. She opened it and took out two large, thick envelopes with tape about them, sealed and addressed to Basil Santoine; but they were not stamped, for they had not been through the mail; they had been delivered by a messenger. Harriet reclosed the safe, concealed it and took the envelopes back to her father's desk and opened them to examine their contents preparatory to taking them to him. But even now her mind was not on her work; she was thinking of Eaton, where he had gone and what he was doing and—was he thinking of her?

Eaton had left the room, thinking of her. The puzzle of his position in relation to her, and hers to him, filled his mind too. That she had been constrained by circumstances and the opinions of those around her to assume a distrust of him which she did not truly feel, was plain to him; but it was clear that, whatever she felt, she would obey her father's directions in regard to him. And she had told that Basil Santoine, if he was to hold his prisoner as almost a guest in his house pending developments, was to keep that guest strictly from communication with any one outside. Santoine, of course, was aware from the telegram that others had been acting with Eaton; the incident at the telephone had shown that Santoine had anticipated that Eaton's first necessity would be to get in touch with his friends. And this, now, indeed was a necessity. The gaining of Santoine's house, under conditions which he would not have dared to dream of, would be worthless now unless immediately—before Santoine could get any further trace of him—he could get word to and receive word from his friends.

He had stopped, after leaving Santoine's study, in the alcove of the hall in front of the double doors which he had closed behind him; he heard Harriet fasten the inner one. As he stood now, undecided where to go, a young woman crossed the main part of the hall, coming evidently from outside the house—she had on hat and jacket and was gloved; she was approaching the doors of the room he just had left, and so must pass him. He stared at sight of her and choked; then, he controlled himself rigidly, waiting until she should see him.

She halted suddenly as she saw him and grew very pale, and her gloved hands went swiftly to her breast and pressed against it; she caught herself together and looked swiftly and fearfully about her and out into the hall. Seeing no one but himself, she came a step nearer, "Hugh!" she breathed. Her surprise was plainly greater than his own had been at sight of her; but she checked herself again quickly and looked warningly back at the hall; then she fixed on him her blue eyes—which were very like Eaton's, though she did not resemble him closely in any other particular—as though waiting his instructions.

He passed her and looked about the hall. There was no one in sight in the hall or on the stairs or within the other rooms which opened into the hall. The door Eaton had just come from stayed shut. He held his breath while he listened; but there was no sound anywhere in the house which told him they were likely to be seen; so he came back to the spot where he had been standing.

"Stay where you are, Edith," he whispered. "If we hear any one coming, we are just passing each other in the hall."

"I understand; of course, Hugh! But you—you're here! In his house!"

"Even lower, Edith; remember I'm Eaton—Philip Eaton."

"Of course; I know; and I'm Miss Davis here—Mildred Davis."

"They let you come in and out like this—as you want, with no one watching you?"

"No, no; I do stenography for Mr. Avery sometimes, as I wrote you. That is all. When he works here, I do his typing; and some even for Mr. Santoine himself. But I am not confidential yet; they send for me when they want me."

"Then they sent for you to-day?"

"No; but they have just got back, and I thought I would come to see if anything was wanted. But never mind about me; you—how did you get here? What are you doing here?"

Eaton drew further back into the alcove as some one passed through the hall above. The girl turned swiftly to the tall pier mirror near to which she stood; she faced it, slowly drawing off her gloves, trembling and not looking toward him. The foot-steps ceased overhead; Eaton, assured no one was coming down the stairs, spoke swiftly to tell her as much as he might in their moment. "He—Santoine—wasn't taken ill on the train, Edith; he was attacked."

"Attacked!" Her lips barely moved.

"He