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

hurt you!" she cried.

"No," Eaton denied. "Oh, no; I don't think so."

"But they went on without stopping; they didn't wait an instant. He didn't care; he meant to do it!"

"No!" Eaton unsteadily denied again. "It must have been—an accident. He was—frightened when he saw what he had done."

"It wasn't at all like an accident!" she persisted. "It couldn't have been an accident there and coming up from behind the way he did! No; he meant to do it! Did you see who was in the car—who was driving?"

He turned to her quickly. "Who?" he demanded.

"One of the people who was on the train! That man—the morning we—the morning Father was hurt—do you remember, when you came into the dining car for breakfast and the conductor wanted to seat you opposite a young man who had just spilled coffee? You sat down at our table instead. Don't you remember—a little man, nervous, but very strong; a man almost like an ape?"

He shuddered and then controlled himself. "Nothing!" he answered her clasp of concern on his arm. "Quite steady again; thanks. Just dizzy; I guess I was jarred more than I knew. Yes, I remember a fellow the conductor tried to seat me opposite."

"This was the same man!"

Eaton shook his head. "That could hardly be; I think you must be mistaken."

"I am not mistaken; it was that man!"

"Still, I think you must be," he again denied.

She stared, studying him. "Perhaps I was," she agreed; but she knew she had not been. "I am glad, whoever it was, he didn't injure you. You are all right, aren't you?"

"Quite," he assured. "Please don't trouble about it, Miss Santoine."

He dusted himself off with her help and tried to limp as little as possible; and when she insisted upon returning to the house, he made no objection, but he refused to wait while she went back for a car to take him. They walked back rather silently, she appreciating how passionately she had expressed herself for him, and he quiet because of this and other thoughts too.

They found Donald Avery in front of the house looking for them as they came up. Eaton succeeded in walking without limping; but he could not conceal the marks on his clothes.

"Harriet, I've just come from your father; he wants you to go to him at once," Avery directed. "Good morning, Eaton. What's happened?"

"Carelessness," Eaton deprecated. "Got rather in the way of a motor and was knocked over for it."

Harriet did not correct this to Avery. She went up to her father; she was still trembling, still sick with horror at what she had seen—an attempt to kill one walking at her side. She stopped outside her father's door to compose herself; then she went in.

The blind man was propped up on his bed with pillows into almost a sitting position; the nurse was with him.

"What did you want, Father?" Harriet asked.

He had recognized her step and had been about to speak to her; but at the sound of her voice he stopped the words on his lips and changed them into a direction for the nurse to leave the room.

He waited until the nurse had left and closed the door behind her. Harriet saw that, in his familiarity with her tones and every inflection of her voice, he had sensed already that something unusual had occurred; she repeated, however, her question as to what he wanted.

"That does not matter now, Harriet. Where have you been?"

"I have been walking with Mr. Eaton."

"What happened?"

She hesitated. "Mr. Eaton was almost run down by a motor-car."

"Ah! An accident?"

She hesitated again. She had seen on her father's face the slight heightening of his color which, with him, was the only outward sign that marked some triumph of his own mind; his blind eyes, abstracted and almost always motionless, never showed anything at all.

"Mr. Eaton said it was an accident," she answered.

"But you?"

"It did not look to me like an accident, Father. It—it showed intention."

"You mean it was an attack?"

"Yes; it was an attack. The man in the car meant to run Mr. Eaton down; he meant to kill him or to hurt him terribly. Mr. Eaton wasn't hurt. I called to him and pulled him—he jumped away in time."

"To kill him, Harriet? How do you know?"

She caught herself. "I—I don't know, Father. He certainly meant to injure Mr. Eaton. When I said kill him, I was telling only what I thought."

"That is better. I think so too."

"That he meant to kill Mr. Eaton?"

"Yes."

She watched her father's face; often when relating things to him, she was aware from his expression that she was telling him only something he already had figured out and expected or even knew; she felt that now.

"Father, did you expect Mr. Eaton to be attacked?"

"Expect? Not that exactly; it was possible; I suspected something like this might occur."

"And you did not warn him?"

The blind man's hands sought each other on the coverlet and clasped together. "It was not necessary to warn him, Harriet; Mr. Eaton already knew. Who was in the car?"

"Three men."

"Had you seen any of them before?"

"Yes, one—the man who drove."

"Where?"

"On the train."

The color on Santoine's face grew brighter. "Did you know who he was?"

"No, Father."

"Describe him, dear," Santoine directed.

He waited while she called together her recollections of the man.

"I can't describe him very fully, Father," she said. "He was one of the people who had berths in the forward sleeping-car. I can recall seeing him only when I passed through the car—I recall him only twice in that car and once in the diner."

"That is interesting," said Santoine.

"What, Father?"

"That in five days upon the train you saw the man only three times."

"You mean he must have kept out of sight as much as possible?"

"Have you forgotten that I asked you to describe him, Harriet?"

She checked herself. "Height about five feet, five," she said, "broad-shouldered, very heavily set; I remember he impressed me as being unusually muscular. His hair was black; I can't recall the color of his eyes; his cheeks were blue with a heavy beard closely shaved. I remember his face was prognathous, and his clothes were spotted with dropped food. I—it seems hard for me to recall him, and I can't describe him very well."

"But you are sure it was the same man in the motor?"

"Yes."

"Did he seem a capable person?"

"Exactly what do you mean?"

"Would he be likely to execute a purpose well, Harriet—either a purpose of his own, or one in which he had been instructed?"

"He seemed an animal sort of person, small, strong, and not particularly intelligent. It seems hard for me to remember more about him than that."

"That is interesting."

"What?"

"That it is hard for you to remember him very well."

"Why, Father?"

Her father did not answer. "The other men in the motor?" he asked.

"I can't describe them. I—I was excited about Mr. Eaton."

"The motor itself, Harriet?"

"It was a black touring car."

"Make and number?"

"I don't know either of those. I don't remember that I saw a number; it—it may have been taken off or covered up."

"Thank you, dear."

"You mean that is all, then?"

"No; bring Eaton to me."

"He has gone to his room to fix himself up."

"I'll send for him, then." Santoine pressed one of the buttons beside his bed to call a servant; but before the bell could be answered, Harriet got up.

"I'll go myself," she said.

She went out into the hall and closed the door behind her; she waited until she heard the approaching steps of the man summoned by Santoine's bell; then, going to meet him, she sent him to call Eaton in his rooms, and she still waited until the man came back and told her Eaton had already left his rooms and gone downstairs. She dismissed the man and went to the head of the stairs, but her steps slowed there and stopped. She was strained and nervous; often in acting as her father's "eye" and reporting to him what she saw, she felt that he found many insignificant things in her reports which were hidden from herself; and she never had had that feeling more strongly than just now as she was telling him about the attack made on Eaton. So she knew that the blind man's thought in regard to Eaton had taken some immense stride; but she did not know what that stride had been, or what was coming now when her father saw Eaton.

She went on slowly down the stairs, and when halfway down, she saw Eaton in the hall below her. He was standing beside the table which held the bronze antique vase; he seemed to have taken something from the vase and to be examining it. She halted again to watch him; then she went on, and he turned at the sound of her footsteps. She could see, as she approached him, what he had taken from the vase, but she attached no importance to it; it was only a black button from a woman's glove—one of her own, perhaps, which she had dropped without noticing. He tossed it indifferently toward the open fireplace as he came toward her.

"Father wants to see you, Mr. Eaton," she said.

He looked at her intently for an instant and seemed to detect some strangeness in her manner and to draw himself together; then he followed her up the stairs.

CHAPTER XIV IT GROWS PLAINER

Basil Santoine's bedroom, like the study below it, was so nearly sound-proof that anything going on in the room could not be heard in the hall outside it, even close to the double doors. Eaton, as they approached these doors, listened vainly, trying to determine whether any one was in the room with Santoine; then he quickened his step to bring him beside Harriet.

"One moment, please, Miss Santoine," he urged.

She stopped. "What is it you want?"

"Your father has received some answer to the inquiries he has been having made about me?"

"I don't know, Mr. Eaton."

"Is he alone?"

"Yes."

Eaton thought a minute. "That is all I wanted to know, then," he said.

Harriet opened the outer door and knocked on the inner one. Eaton heard Santoine's voice at once calling them to come in, and as Harriet opened the second door, he followed her into the room. The blind man turned his sightless eyes toward them, and, plainly aware—somehow—that it was Eaton and Harriet who had come in, and that no one else was with them, he motioned Harriet to close the door and set a chair for Eaton beside the bed. Eaton, understanding this gesture, took the chair from her and set it as Santoine's motion had directed; then he waited for her to seat herself in one of the other chairs.

"Am I to remain, Father?" she asked.

"Yes," Santoine commanded.

Eaton waited while she went to a chair at the foot of the bed and seated herself—her clasped hands resting on the footboard and her chin upon her hands—in a position to watch both Eaton and her father while they talked; then Eaton sat down.

"Good morning, Eaton," the blind man greeted him.

"Good morning, Mr. Santoine," Eaton answered; he understood by now that Santoine never began a conversation until the one he was going to address himself to had spoken, and that Santoine was able to tell, by the sound of the voice, almost as much of what was going on in the mind of one he talked with as a man with eyes is able to tell by studying the face. He continued to wait quietly, therefore, glancing up once to Harriet Santoine, whose eyes for an instant met his; then both regarded again the face of the blind man on the bed.

Santoine was lying quietly upon his back, his head raised on the pillows, his arms above the bed-covers, his finger-tips touching with the fingers spread.

"You recall, of course, Eaton, our conversation on the train," Santoine said evenly.

"Yes."

"And so you remember that I gave you at that time four possible reasons—as the only possible ones—why you had taken the train I was on. I said