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

Donald, do you?—that Mr. Eaton went to the study to—to get something, and that whoever has been following him found him there and—and interrupted him and he killed Cousin Wallace?"

Santoine was silent an instant. "That seems the correct explanation, Harriet," he evaded. "It does not fully explain; but it seems correct as far as it goes. If Donald asks you what my opinion is, tell him it is that."

He felt his daughter shrink away from him.

The blind man made no move to draw her back to him; he lay perfectly still; his head rested flat upon the pillows; his hands were clasped tightly together above the coverlet. He had accused himself, in the room below, because, by the manner he had chosen to treat Eaton, he had slain the man he loved best and had forced a friendship with Eaton on his daughter which, he saw, had gone further than mere friendship; it had gone, he knew now, even to the irretrievable between man and woman—had brought her, that is, to the state where, no matter what Eaton was or did, she must suffer with him! But Santoine was not accusing himself now; he was feeling only the fulfillment of that threat against those who had trusted him with their secrets, which he had felt vaguely after the murder of Gabriel Warden and, more plainly with the events of each succeeding day, ever since. For that threat, just now, had culminated in his presence in purposeful, violent action; but Santoine in his blindness had been unable—and was still unable—-to tell what that action meant.

Of the three men who had fought in his presence in the room below—one before the safe, one at the fireplace, one behind the table—which had been Eaton? What had he been doing there? Who were the others? What had any of them—or all of them—wanted? For Santoine, the answer to these questions transcended now every personal interest. So, in his uncertainty, Santoine had drawn into himself—withdrawn confidence in his thoughts from all around, from Donald Avery, even from his daughter—until the answer should be found. His blind eyes were turned toward the ceiling, and his long, well-shaped fingers trembled with the intensity of his thought. But he realized, even in his absorption, that his daughter had drawn away from him. So, presently, he stirred.

"Harriet," he said.

It was the nurse who answered him. "Miss Santoine has gone downstairs. What is it you want of her, Mr. Santoine?"

The blind man hesitated, and checked the impulse he had had. "Nothing," he replied.

CHAPTER XIX PURSUIT

Harriet Santoine, still clad only in the heavy robe over her nightdress and in slippers, went from her father's bedroom swiftly down into the study again; what she was going to do there she did not definitely know. She heard, as she descended the stairs, the steward in the hall outside the study calling up the police stations of the neighboring villages and giving news of what had happened and instructions to watch the roads; but as she reached the foot of the stairs, a servant closed the study doors. The great, curtained room in its terrifying disorder was brightly lighted, empty, absolutely still. She had given directions that, except for the removal of Blatchford's body, all must be left as it was in the room till the arrival of the police. She stood an instant with hands pressed against her breast, staring down at the spots upon the floor.

There were three of these spots now—one where Blatchford's body had lain. They were soaking brownly into the rugs but standing still red and thick upon the polished floor. Was one of them Eaton's?

Something within her told her that it was, and the fierce desire to go to him, to help him, was all she felt just now. It was Donald Avery's and her father's accusation of Eaton that had made her feel like this. She had been feeling, the moment before Donald had spoken, that Philip Eaton had played upon her that evening in making her take him to his confederate in the ravine in order to plan and consummate something here. Above her grief and horror at the killing of her cousin and the danger to her father, had risen the anguish of her guilt with Eaton, the agony of her betrayal. But their accusation that Eaton had killed Wallace Blatchford, seeing him, knowing him—in the light—had swept all that away; all there was of her seemed to have risen in denial of that. Before her eyes, half shut, she saw again the body of her cousin Wallace lying in its blood on the floor, with her father kneeling beside it, his blind eyes raised in helplessness to the light; but she saw now another body too—Eaton's—not here—-lying somewhere in the bare, wind-swept woods, shot down by those pursuing him.

She looked at the face of the clock and then down to the pendulum to see whether it had stopped; but the pendulum was swinging. The hands stood at half past one o'clock; now she recalled that, in her first wild gaze about the room when she rushed in with the others, she had seen the hands showing a minute or so short of twenty minutes past one. Not quite a quarter of an hour had passed since the alarm! The pursuit could not have moved far away. She reopened the window through which the pursuers had passed and stepped out onto the dark lawn. She stood drawing the robe about her against the chill night air, dazed, stunned. The house behind her, the stables, the chauffeurs' quarters above the garages, the gardeners' cottages, all blazed now with light, but she saw no one about. The menservants—except the steward—had joined the pursuit; she heard them to the south beating the naked woods and shrubbery and calling to each other. A half mile down the beach she heard shouts and a shot; she saw dimly through the night in that direction a boat without lights moving swiftly out upon the lake.

Her hands clenched and pressed against her breast; she stood straining at the sounds of the man-hunt. It had turned west, it seemed; it was coming back her way, but to the west of the house. She staggered a little and could not stand; she stepped away from the house in the direction of the pursuit; following the way it seemed to be going, she crossed the lawn toward the garage. A light suddenly shone out there, and she went on.

The wide door at the car driveway was pushed open, and some one was within working over a car. His back was toward her, and he was bent over the engine, but, at the glance, she knew him and recoiled, gasping. It was Eaton. He turned at the same instant and saw her.

"Oh; it's you!" he cried to her.

Her heart, which almost had ceased to beat, raced her pulses again. At the sound she had made on the driveway, he had turned to her as a hunted thing, cornered, desperate, certain that whoever came must be against him. His cry to her had recognized her as the only one who could come and not be against him; it had hailed her with relief as bringing him help. He could not have cried out so at that instant at sight of her if he had been guilty of what they had accused. Now she saw too, as he faced her, blood flowing over his face; blood soaked a shoulder of his coat, and his left arm dangling at his side; but now, as he threw back his head and straightened in his relief at finding it was she who had surprised him, she saw in him an exultation and excitement she had never seen before—something which her presence alone could not have caused. To-night, she sensed vaguely, something had happened to him which had changed his attitude toward her and everything else.

"Yes; it's I!" she cried quickly and rushed to him. "It's I! It's I!" wildly she reassured him. "You're hurt!" She touched his shoulder. "You're hurt! I knew you were!"

He pushed her back with his right hand and held her away from him. "Did they hurt your father?"

"Hurt Father? No."

"But Mr. Blatchford—"

"Dead," she answered dully.

"They killed him, then!"

"Yes; they—" She iterated. He was telling her now—unnecessarily—that he had had nothing to do with it; it was the others who had done that.

He released her and wiped the blood from his eyes with the heel of his hand. "The poor old man," he said, "—the poor old man!"

She drew toward him in the realization that he could find sympathy for others even in such a time as this.

"Where's the key?" he demanded of her. He stared over her again but without surprise even in his eyes, at her state; if she was there at all at that time, that was the only way she could have come.

"The key?"

"The key for the battery and magneto—the key you start the car with."

She ran to a shelf and brought it to him; he used it and pressed the starting lever. The engine started and he sprang to the seat. His left arm still hanging useless at his side; he tried to throw in the gears with his right hand; but the mechanism of the car was strange to him. She leaped up beside him.

"Move over!" she commanded. "It's this way!"

He slipped to the side and she took the driving seat, threw in the gears expertly, and the car shot from the garage. She switched on the electric headlights as they dashed down the driveway and threw a bright white glare upon the roadway a hundred yards ahead to the gates. Beyond the gates the public pike ran north and south.

"Which way?" she demanded of him, slowing the car.

"Stop!" he cried to her. "Stop and get out! You mustn't do this!"

"You could not pass alone," she said. "Father's men would close the gates upon you."

"The men? There are no men there now—they went to the beach—before! They must have heard something there! It was their being there that turned him—the others back. They tried for the lake and were turned back and got away in a machine; I followed—back up here!"

Harriet Santoine glanced at the face of the man beside her. She could see his features only vaguely; she could see no expression; only the position of his head. But now she knew that she was not helping him to run away; he was no longer hunted—at least he was not only hunted; he was hunting others too. As the car rolled down upon the open gates and she strained forward in the seat beside her, she knew that what he was feeling was a wild eagerness in this pursuit.

"Right or left—quick!" she demanded of him. "I'll take one or the other."

"Right," he shot out; but already, remembering the direction of the pursuit, she had chosen the road to the right and raced on. He caught the driving wheel with his good hand and tried to take it from her; she resisted and warned him:

"I'm going to drive this car; if you try to take it, it'll throw us both into the ditch."

"If we catch up with them, they'll shoot; give me the car," he begged.

"We'll catch up with them first."

"Then you'll do what I say?"

"Yes," she made the bargain.

"There are their tracks!" he pointed for her.

The road was soft with the rains that precede spring, and she saw in the bright flare of the headlights, where some heavy car, fast driven, had gouged deep into the earth at the roadside; she noted the pattern of the tires.

"How do you know those are their tracks?" she asked him.

"I told you, I followed them to where they got their machine."

"Who are they?"

"The men who shot Mr. Blatchford."

"Who are they?" she put to him directly again.

He waited, and she knew that he was not going to answer her directly. She