Four Stragglers — Book III Chapter 3 The Warp and the Woof

THE WARP AND THE WOOF

Howard Locke stood leaning with his shoulder against one of the verandah pillars.

Behind him, in the house, he was conscious of a sort of hushed commotion.

Out on the lawn in front of him little groups of negroes stood staring at the house with strained, uplifted faces, or moved across his line of vision in frightened, pathetically humorous efforts to keep an unobtrusive silence--walking on tiptoes in their bare feet on the velvet lawn.

Queer how the black faces were mellowed into softer colours in the early morning light!

Mr. Marlin was dead.

Locke's eyes half closed; his lips drew together, compressed in a hard line.

Strange!

In one sense, he seemed still dazed with the events of the last hour; in another sense, his mind was brutally clear.

He was dazed because even yet it seemed impossible to grasp the fact that so sorrowful, and dire, and unrecallable a tragedy was an actual, immutable, existent truth.

It was not that Mr. Marlin in a sudden paroxysm of demented frenzy should have done what he had--even to the extent that the old man's attack should have been directed against his, Locke's, person.

He could quite understand that.

In the aquarium, only a few hours before, the old man had used identically the same words that he had shouted as he had burst in the bedroom door and had begun firing wildly: "You are one of them!

...

You are one of them!"

And then, apart from what had transpired in the aquarium, there had been the shock of the attack on the path almost immediately afterward.

The old man had not lost his money, but he had gone back to the house--he, Locke, had seen that too--and, instead of sleeping, these things had probably preyed and preyed upon his mind until he had lost the little reason that had been left to him and a homicidal mania had developed.

All that was quite easily understood.

As Polly had said, the specialist had predicted it if the old man became over-excited--and Miss Marlin had feared it.

It was not this phase, so logically explainable, of what had happened that affected him still in that dazed, numbed way; it was the fact, so much harder to understand, that quick and sudden, in the passing of a moment, old Mr. Marlin was gone.

He straightened up a little, easing the position of his shoulder against the pillar.

On the other hand, from an entirely different aspect, that of the _consequences_ as applied to his own course of action, his mind had been clear, irrevocable, settled in its purpose almost from the instant that--first to reach the old madman's side--he had found Mr. Marlin dead.

It was the end!

He was waiting now for Captain Francis Newcombe to return--from wherever the man had taken himself to.

The sight of the awed, grief-stricken figures on the lawn stirred him suddenly with keen emotion.

The girls were upstairs in Dora Marlin's room together and-- He wrenched his mind away from the course toward which it was trending.

For the moment it would do neither them nor himself any good; for the moment he was waiting for--Captain Francis Newcombe.

A queer smile came and twisted at his lips.

Was it defeat--or victory?

The smile passed.

His face became grave again.

There was Captain Francis Newcombe now--at the far edge of the lawn.

The man was strolling leisurely toward the house, then, suddenly pausing for an instant, he as suddenly broke into a run, elbowing his way unceremoniously through the groups of negroes, and, reaching the steps, covered them in a bound to the verandah.

"I say!"

he burst out breathlessly as he halted before Locke.

"Whatever is the matter?

This hour in the morning and every light on in the house--and all those negroes out there?"

"I've been waiting for you," said Locke quietly.

"Come in here."

He led the way to the French window by which he had found entry into the house a few hours before, and passed through into the room beyond.

Captain Francis Newcombe followed.

"I say!"

he repeated, closing the glass door with a push behind him.

"What's up, old man?"

"Mr. Marlin is dead," said Locke briefly.

"Dead!"

Captain Francis Newcombe stared incredulously.

"Why, he wasn't ill--at least not in that way.

I don't understand."

It was a small room, a sort of adjunct to the library which led off from it toward the rear of the house.

Howard Locke's fingers were aimlessly turning the leaves of a book which lay on the table in the centre of the room, and beside which he was standing now.

"A belief that he was being followed, that some one was trying to take his money away from him, turned him from a harmless lunatic into a dangerous madman," Locke said slowly.

"He seemed to believe that I was, to use his own words, 'one of them,' and he tried to shoot me in my room.

The household was aroused.

The servants came.

We tried to subdue him.

But he broke away from us then, and in running down the stairs fell, I think, and his revolver went off in his hand, killing him instantly."

"Good God!"

said Captain Francis Newcombe heavily.

"That's awful!

And that poor girl--Miss Marlin!"

"Yes," said Howard Locke, his fingers still playing with the leaves of the book.

Captain Francis Newcombe appeared to be greatly agitated.

He took out his cigarette case, opened and shut it several times, and finally restored it to his pocket with its contents untouched.

"It's ghastly!"

he ejaculated; and then in a slower, more meditative tone: "But with the shock of it over, I can't say I'm particularly surprised.

He struck me as acting in a more than usually peculiar manner all day yesterday, and especially last night, or, rather, this morning--as a matter of fact, it was on account of Mr. Marlin himself that I was out of the house when it happened.

He telephoned Polly about four o'clock this morning and nearly frightened her to death.

She came to my room in a pitiful state of distress.

He told her her mother was dead.

God knows why--except that it shows how mad he was.

From Polly's description of the conversation during which she had distinctly heard the sound of waves and the slam of a door in the wind, I decided that he must have telephoned from somewhere outside.

The only place I could think of was the boathouse.

If the man was as bad as that, I was afraid something might happen to him, so I dressed and went out.

It is obviously unnecessary to say that I did not find him.

Polly and I both decided, on Miss Marlin's account, to say nothing about it, but I can see nothing to be gained now, in view of what has happened, by keeping silent."

"No; there could be nothing gained by it now," agreed Locke a little monotonously.

"As you imply, it is only cumulative evidence of the man's state of mind just prior to his death."

"Exactly!"

nodded Captain Francis Newcombe gravely.

"But, after all, that is apart from the immediate present.

I suppose you have already seen to what you could here in the house, but there still must be many things to do."

Howard Locke closed the book, and stepped a little away from the table, a little nearer the other.

"There are," he said with quiet deliberation.

"But there is one thing in particular for you to do.

The mail came over from the mainland very late last night.

It naturally hasn't been touched this morning and is still in there"--he motioned toward the door leading from the rear of the room--"on the library table.

There is a letter there for you, a very urgent one, demanding your instant return to London."

Captain Francis Newcombe's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly--but his voice was a drawl: "I don't think I quite understand.

May I ask how you happen to know the contents of the letter?"

"I am speaking in a purely suggestive sense," Locke answered, his voice hardening a little.

"There is no letter for you that I know of.

I am suggesting a plausible explanation which you can make to Miss Marlin--_and Miss Wickes_--for leaving this place at once."

Captain Francis Newcombe stiffened, but his voice still retained its drawl.

"I am tempted to believe that insanity is infectious," he said; "either that, or perhaps my own intelligence is sadly astray this morning.

I

have neither the desire nor the intention to leave here, and especially at a time such as this when I might possibly be of even a little assistance to those who have been so hospitable to me, and so I do not require any excuse, however plausible or ingenious, for going away."

Locke's eyes rested appraisingly for a long moment on the other's cool, composed, suave face.

Well, was it any cooler, any more self-possessed than his own?

What of passion that was boiling within did not show on the surface!

"Nevertheless," he said steadily, "that is the excuse you will give.

One of the motor boats is going over to the mainland in a little while, and you are going on her.

I have already had your baggage--and Runnells'--put on board."

"You--_what_?"

The red was suddenly in Captain Francis Newcombe's face.

He took a quick step forward, his hands clenched.

"My baggage sent out of the house--by your orders!"

he said hoarsely.

"You've gone a bit too far now, my man, and you'll explain yourself--and explain yourself damned quick!

Out with it!

What's the meaning of this?"

Locke had not moved.

His eyes had not left the other's face.

There was something strangely _tempting_ about that face; it induced an almost uncontrollable impulse to _mark_ it, to batter it, to wreck it with a rain of blows that would not cease until physical exhaustion intervened and one could strike no more.

And yet his hands hung idly at his sides.

"Yes"--Locke's voice was not raised--"I will tell you the meaning of it.

You are going for two reasons.

The first is because you are morally responsible for Mr. Marlin's death; and the second is because you are--_what you are_--and as such, from the moment you say good-bye to her here, you are going out of Polly's life forever."

Captain Francis Newcombe came still a step nearer.

Locke's eyes had not left the other's face.

He read a cold, ugly glitter in the gaze that held on his; he saw the curious whitening of the other's lips--and a knotted fist suddenly drawn back to strike.

And with a lightning movement Locke caught the other's wrist and flung the blow aside.

"Don't do that!"

he said in a dead tone.

"God knows, it's hard enough to keep my hands off you as it is; but what is between you and me is not measured, or in any way altered by a brawl--and besides I cannot brawl here in this house where Mr. Marlin lies dead, and where there is already distress enough."

For a moment Captain Francis Newcombe did not speak; then abruptly he began to laugh, and, stepping over to a chair at the end of the table, flung himself nonchalantly into it.

"Upon my soul, Locke," he said coolly, "what I said at first in jest, I believe now must be true.

I believe you've gone completely off your head.

I'd like to hear why you think I am morally responsible for Mr. Marlin's death; and, particularly, I'd like to know what--" "I want to get this over," said Locke, with a set face.

"You are clever.

If it appeals to a certain sense of morbid vanity in you, that they say all criminals possess, I grant at once that you are as clever a scoundrel, and as miserable and inhuman and unscrupulous a one, as ever blasphemed the image in which God made him."

Captain Francis Newcombe strained upward from the chair, his lips working--but Locke stood over him now and pushed him back.

"Don't get up!"

he said with savage curtness.

"You are going to hear more than that before I am through.

I said you were clever--but your cleverness will do you no good here.

This is the end, Newcombe.

You took a child out of the slums of London--bought her in some unholy fashion, I imagine, from a woman named Mrs. Wickes; you sent the child out of England to America, and educated her in a school, especially selected I also imagine, where she would be brought into intimate contact with, and form her friendships amongst, the daughters of wealthy Americans of high social position.

Why?

In the light of what has happened, the answer is plain enough: That you might use her introduction into these homes as an entrée for yourself to further your own criminal purposes."

Locke paused.

A cold sneer had gathered on Captain Francis Newcombe's lips.

"You employed the word 'imagine' on both counts," he said.

"I congratulate you."

"Quite so!"

said Locke icily.

"I may even employ it again.

I am not imagining, however, when I say that you received a letter from Polly telling you that Mr. Marlin had half a million dollars in cash here on this island, and--" "Did Polly tell you that?"

demanded Captain Francis Newcombe sharply.

"Innocently--yes," Locke answered.

"And in her letter she also told you 'all about everything here,' to use her own words, which could not help but embrace the fact that Mr. Marlin was not right in his mind--yet, strangely enough, in the smoking room of the liner, you will perhaps remember, you had had no idea of any such thing, and even expressed anxiety for the safety of your ward."

Captain Francis Newcombe was painstakingly polishing the finger nails of one hand on the palm of the other now.

"One might possibly conceive a man to be eccentric and attribute his idiosyncrasies to that cause--without thought of classifying him as a raving lunatic," he observed in a bored voice.

Locke shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps there is a better explanation of your _mistake_," he said evenly.

"You did not, at that time, have the slightest idea that I, too, would be one of the party on this island."

Captain Francis Newcombe looked up from his finger nails.

"Did you?"

he inquired softly.

"Yes," said Locke curtly.

"Ah!"

Captain Francis Newcombe, with eyes half closed now, studied Locke's face for a full minute before he spoke again.

"I am becoming rather curious as to just who you are, Locke," he murmured finally.

"You ought to know," Locke responded grimly.

"I imagine it was you who went through my papers that night in my cabin."

"That is the third time," suggested Captain Francis Newcombe, "that you have said 'imagine.'

" "Yes."

Locke smiled without humour.

"I happen to _know_, however, that from the moment of your arrival here Mr. Marlin became more and more obsessed with the belief that he was being watched and followed.

I know from his own statement that he rather cunningly laid a false trail--to an old hut in the woods behind the house, wasn't it, Newcombe?

And it is rather conclusive evidence, I should say, that the man who followed that trail was the man who was watching Mr. Marlin.

I

saw you coming from that direction at three o'clock this morning.

You were unsuccessful, of course; but you are none the less, as I said before, morally responsible for Mr. Marlin's death."

Captain Francis Newcombe leaned back in his chair, and laughed softly, insolently, contemptuously.

"As I understand the indictment," he said coolly, "it is to the effect that I left London for the purpose of coming here and stealing some money that I knew a madman had hidden.

The evidence against me is from beginning to end purely circumstantial, and most of it is admittedly imaginative.

The one 'damning' fact adduced is that I was seen coming from somewhere at three o'clock this morning.

This is a bit thick, Locke--coming from you!"

His voice was beginning to lose its suavity.

"You don't _imagine_, do you, that any such 'case' as that would hold water for an instant in any court of law?"

"No," said Locke quietly; "I know it wouldn't. I quite agree with you there."

Captain Francis Newcombe's face for an instant held a look of puzzlement, as though he had not heard aright--then it stiffened into ugly menace.

"I think you need a lesson!"

He spoke from between set lips.

"This is no longer merely ridiculous, or absurd, or cracked-brained.

It is monstrous!"

"Again I agree with you."

Locke's voice was low now, rasping his words.

"It is so monstrous that, strong as the circumstantial evidence against you is, I would not have been able to credit it had I not had a basis for belief that permitted of no denial.

I know you for exactly what you are.

I know that you are a criminal, that you are one by profession, that you have no other profession, that you are without conscience, inhuman, ruthless, a fiend who would do honour to hell itself."

"By God!"

Captain Francis Newcombe with livid face surged up from the chair to his feet.

But Locke's face, too, was white now with passion, as with a suddenly outflung hand he thrust the other away.

"I am not through yet," he said.

"Denial, any attitude of pretended righteous indignation, or any other attitude that may suggest itself to you as the best mask to adopt, is hardly worth your while when attempted with one who once very narrowly escaped being one of your victims--with a man who once, because you feared he possessed the information that you know now he does possess, you tried to murder with cold-blooded deliberation."

"You?"

Captain Francis Newcombe, with head thrust forward, his eyes narrowed, searched every lineament of Locke's face.

"Look well!"

Locke spoke with scarcely any movement of the lips, in a cold, dead way, without inflexion in his voice.

"Look well!

It will do you little good.

You never saw my face before.

Shall I tell you where I first saw _yours_?

It was in a thicket one night, a night during the great German offensive.

There were four men there.

Three of them sat together with their backs against the trees; the other lay face down on the ground a little distance away.

A stray shell burst nearby.

One of the three, a Frenchman, called it a straggler.

'Like us,' you said.

I am the fourth straggler."

Captain Francis Newcombe drew slightly back.

He made no other movement.

He said nothing.

His eyes remained riveted on Locke's face.

"I was almost done in that night," said Locke.

"I'd had two days and two nights of it.

I did not hear all you said--what particular place it was, for instance, that had been robbed.

I heard of the share that each of you had played in the affair.

I saw your faces.

I heard the Frenchman, a self-admitted crook, hail you as a greater than himself--yes, as a greater even than any criminal in all France.

I

heard you check him with your name on his lips.

I heard him call your attention to my presence there.

I heard you say you had not forgotten--and in a flare of light I saw you with your rifle across your knees, its muzzle only a few feet away from my head.

Then in the ensuing darkness I was lucky enough to be able to wriggle silently back a few yards in among the trees--and a second later I saw the flash of your rifle shot."

Locke stopped.

His lips were dry.

He touched them with the tip of his tongue.

The two men stood eying each other.

Neither moved.

Locke spoke again: "As I crawled out of that thicket I swore that I would pay you for that shot if it took all my life to bring you to account.

I did not know your name, I did not know where you came from or where you lived; but I knew your face--and I was sure, as we are sometimes strangely sure of the future, that some time, in some place, you and I would meet again.

But it was four years before we did; and in those four years, during which I have travelled a great deal on my father's business, no man's face, in a crowd, or merely in passing on the street, whether here or abroad, but that I searched in the hope that it might be yours.

And then I saw you--in London--just a few days before we sailed.

I

followed you to your apartment, and I saw the other two--Runnells, and the Frenchman, whose name I discovered was Paul Cremarre.

I secured an introduction to you at your club, and I learned from you that you were sailing within a day or so on a certain ship.

I told you I was sailing on the same ship.

Within an hour after I had left you at the club, I did two things: I booked passage on that ship; and I engaged a man who was recommended to me as one of the best private detectives in England.

With the knowledge that you were a criminal, it was only a question of a short time then before the detective would unearth your record, or that you would be caught in some new venture; and meanwhile, leaving him to work up your 'history,' I crossed with you, and suggested the yachting trip as I did not intend to let you out of my sight again until you were trapped.

And I think, but for the fact that you have been told now, that would have been accomplished even more quickly than I had expected.

At one of the stops that I purposely made on the way down the coast on the _Talofa_, I received a letter from the detective mailed in London the day after we sailed.

He said that developments had been such that he was working in conjunction with Scotland Yard, and that he expected to be able to send me a very _satisfactory_ report within a day or so."

Captain Francis Newcombe took his cigarette case from his pocket for the second time--but now he calmly lighted a cigarette.

"And so," he said smoothly, "just at the moment when, after four long years, you are about to reap the fruits of your labour, you tell me to go.

Where?

Into the trap--waiting for me over there on the mainland?"

"No," said Locke bitterly.

"Where you will; you and Runnells--and Paul Cremarre.

We'll have no more trouble from any of you here."

Captain Francis Newcombe paused suddenly in the act of lifting his cigarette to his lips.

"This Paul Cremarre you speak of," he said, "what makes you think he is here?"

"Because I expected him to be here," said Locke shortly.

"He was one of the three of you.

He could not very well form part of your retinue as Runnells did.

He would have to come separately.

I know he is here because I saw a man wearing a mask last night.

I have reason to know it was not you; and since I superintended the packing of Runnells' baggage and have also seen Runnells himself, I know--for reasons that need not be explained--that it was not Runnells."

"I see," said Captain Francis Newcombe.

"So it must have been this Paul Cremarre--since the three would be here together.

I regret that I was not fortunate enough to have the advantage of your viewpoint, even though you honour me with the credit of having arranged all these little details.

And so, at the moment of your supreme success we are to go--we three.

May I ask why this change of heart?"

Howard Locke reached into his pocket and took out a faded envelope that was torn at one end.

"These," he said, his voice rasping hoarsely again, "are Polly's papers--her birth certificate, the marriage certificate of her parents--the proof of perhaps the most contemptible and scoundrelly crime you have ever committed; I say 'perhaps' because there may be lower depths of beastliness and inhumanity of which only a mind such as yours could conceive.

You know where these papers were found.

Besides using Polly as your cat's-paw and your tool, making her innocence serve your vile ends, you robbed her of her claim to even honest parentage!"

His face had grown white to the lips, his voice was almost out of control.

"And yet it is Polly--_Polly Gray_--who is saving you now!

I

have no change of heart.

I never, even on that night in the thicket, wanted to square my account with you as I do now.

But for Polly's sake I cannot do it.

I love her more than I hate you.

I want to save her from the sorrow and distress she would suffer if she knew the truth of what has happened here; and above all I want to save her from the misery and shame of having her name publicly connected with yours were you brought as a common criminal to stand in the dock.

And so you are going--where I do not know.

Not London, or anywhere else, as Captain Francis Newcombe any more--for you would no longer dare do that with the police at last hot on the investigation of your career.

But you are going out of her life never to contaminate it again.

And this is the bargain that I make with you--that she shall never hear from you again.

I compound no felony with you.

I have no power to hold you, even were I an officer of the law, without specific evidence of a specific crime.

That such evidence will inevitably be forthcoming is certain, but for the moment there is no warrant for your arrest.

You will make the excuse for your departure as I have suggested--and later on a brief notice of the death of Captain Francis Newcombe in some distant place will account for your continued silence, and remove you out of her life."

Captain Francis Newcombe blew a smoke ring in the air and watched it meditatively.

"Excellent!"

he murmured.

"And if I refuse?

To save Polly, you would have to call your bloodhounds off."

"It is too late for that," said Locke sternly.

"And even if it were not, it would be better that Polly should suffer even the shame of publicity than that you should remain in any way in touch with her life."

"I see!"

murmured Captain Francis Newcombe again.

"But with exposure as inevitable as you say it is, it is too bad that Polly should--er--nevertheless suffer her share of this shameful publicity whether I go or not."

"You fence well," said Locke with a grim smile.

"Scotland Yard sooner or later _will_ know, but they will not make public what they know until they have laid hands upon their man.

It is _your_ freedom that is at stake.

I told you I did not think you would venture to return to London."

"Locke," said Captain Francis Newcombe softly, "permit me to return the compliment--but also with reservations.