The Lake Mystery :: CHAPTER X IN THE WOOD

CHAPTER X IN THE WOOD

THE others received the astonishing pronouncement of Billy Walker with varying emotions, of which the chief was a candid incredulity.

“How in the world do you justify that remarkable statement?” Roy demanded, breaking the silence of surprise, which had at first held the three.

For a moment, Billy showed traces of embarrassment. Then, swiftly, an expression of relief showed on his heavy face, and he spoke glibly enough:

“The conclusion to which I have come,” he declared ponderously, “is compelled by exact reasoning from all the facts in our possession. The late Mr. Abernethey unquestionably left for his heir some sort of clue as to the hiding-place of the money. Having in mind the whimsical nature of the man, we may well believe that, in a case such as this, the clue would be of an especially curious kind. Next, we have the fact that Mr. Abernethey was a musician. He was devoted to that art beyond anything else, excepting only his passion as a miser. Now, our search through his effects and his house has discovered only a single thing having a real, vital bearing on his personality, and—more than that—on the very object of our quest here, money. In consequence of all these facts, I am led to the conclusion that this page of manuscript offers us the clue for which we have hitherto been hunting in vain.” The speaker paused, to stare from one to another of his auditors triumphantly.

Roy uttered an ejaculation of impatience.

“Reason is a good thing sometimes, and sometimes it isn’t. This, I’m thinking, is one of the times when it isn’t. The trouble with your whole argument, Billy, lies in an additional fact; that a sheet of music can’t tell you where a certain hole in the ground may chance to be.”

“Why not?” Billy’s question came tartly.

Roy replied with a hint of disdain in his voice, such as is often characteristic of the musical person in speaking of his art to one unlearned.“The reason would be obvious to you, if you knew anything of music,” he declared.

“Then, it’s lucky I don’t,” was the other’s retort; “because, in some way that we don’t know yet, the clue we need is set down on that manuscript. It is logically certain, and, if you musical sharps can’t guess as much, it’s fortunate I’m along to give you the pointer.”

David, also, expressed himself as skeptical of the announcement made by Billy:

“If it had been anybody except Billy who had been hit by this idea, I should feel quite differently about it,” he asserted, chuckling in response to the glare of indignation with which the oracle received the words. “Of course, you know my feeling in the matter. I’m expecting some sort of inspiration to hit us; I have been, ever since Roy had his hunch. But Billy isn’t of the sensitive temperament, which is receptive to impressions of a psychic sort. If Roy had received this idea, without a bit of reason to back it up, I should have had high hopes—or if it had come to Saxe even, because he has the sensitiveness of the artistic temperament.”“Or even if it had come to your delicately susceptible self, I suppose,” Billy suggested, acrimoniously.

David nodded assent.

“With all humility, yes,” he answered, unabashed. “And you needn’t be peevish, Billy, for the simple reason that you’d be furious if anyone were to accuse you of being a psychic subject. Eh, wouldn’t you?”

Billy growled assent.

“That sort of thing’s all rot,” he affirmed, with emphasis. “I arrived at the fact easily and sanely by the exercise of a rationalizing intelligence.”

“Precisely!” David agreed. “And that’s why I don’t attach the slightest importance to your statement.” At this heterodox confession, Billy was too overwhelmed with disgust to pursue the argument farther.

Saxe did not share in the avowed disbelief of Roy and David. While the others were engaged in disputation, he had gone to the stack of music, and had looked through it until he came upon the sheet of manuscript. Then, he returned to his seat on the stool, placed the music on the rack, and devoted himself to scrutiny of the writing. He felt, somehow, that he dared not reject the suggestion that here was the very thing he sought as the guide to fortune. Nevertheless, though he studied the page with anxious intensity, he could perceive no possibility of any hint to be derived from the simple score of notes. There was nothing set down in the way of diagram, or combination of letters which by twist of ingenuity might be made to suit his need. Nothing showed beyond the phrases of a composition naked in its simplicity. Reason told him that any trust in this manuscript were delusion. Yet, he hung over it, absorbed, even while he chided himself for his interest in a thing plainly worthless to the purpose.

It was Billy Walker, turning in disgust from the debate with David, who first observed Saxe’s absorption in the manuscript, and his vanity was at once consoled by this mute support. He got up lumberingly, and crossed over to the piano, where he stood looking down at the music. His action caused David and Roy to perceive what Saxe was doing, and forthwith, despite their skepticism, they, too, rose and went to the piano, there to stare down curiously at the manuscript on the rack.

Here is a copy of the sheet on which the four adventurers were looking down:

[Listen]The four stood in silence for a long minute, gazing down at the manuscript page with keen discouragement. Saxe was the first to speak, shaking his head dispiritedly:

“It means nothing,” he said, with melancholy certainty in his voice. “There is no possibility of its meaning anything. For a moment, I was foolish enough to hope that Billy had really got the right idea, but he hasn’t. This is a plain bit of music, nothing more.”

“Of course!” Roy agreed, with a contemptuous inflection. “My personal opinion is that the power of ratiocination is not always what it’s cracked up to be, Billy.”

David, once again, shared the general disbelief.

“No,” he declared, “the idea won’t hold water. There is no way to convey meaning by the score of a musical composition except the emotion that the author has experienced himself, and wishes thus to interpret to his hearers. The old man meant in this case to tell us of the spell that the love of gold lays on the miser. He has done that. Billy was the one who called our attention to the fact. He must be content with that much glory. His other idea was just poppycock.”

Billy Walker was unconvinced.

“I know nothing about music,” he conceded. “But I have the God-given gift of reason, which is not vouchsafed to the brutes—or to all human beings, I regret to say. Reason convinces me that the clue lies somewhere on this sheet. I reaffirm my conclusion. Since I know nothing of music, the remainder of the work must be done by you. It has now become your responsibility. I have done my part.”

The dignity and the earnestness with which this declaration was made impressed the doubters in spite of themselves. When Billy had ceased speaking, they remained silent, vaguely hesitant, though quite unconvinced. Saxe, perhaps, more than either of the others was desirous of accepting Billy’s idea as true, but he was unable to justify it by anything tangible. His was, after all, the chief interest in the issue, and he was eager to seize on even the most meager possibility that offered hope of success. So now, he was anxious to believe, and racked his brain to find some character of subtle significance on the page before him. It was in vain. He could discern nothing beyond the obvious meaning of the score as the symbol of a musical composition.

Thus the matter remained for a week. Billy Walker retained certainty as to the correctness of his judgment; David and Roy maintained their attitude of skepticism; Saxe continued his mood of willingness to believe, along with a total incapacity to find an atom of evidence in support of it. He sat for hours before the manuscript, hoping for some inspiration to come, but his thoughts remained barren. He realized, with poignant regret, that time was slipping away on swiftest wings, yet he felt himself powerless before the problem, on the solving of which his fortune was conditioned.

Nevertheless, not all his time was given to the quest. A part, even the greater part, was bestowed on Margaret West—on her in person, when opportunity served, on her in thought, when absent from her. His failure to make any progress in the search for the treasure would without doubt have caused him vastly more distress of mind, had it not been for the fact that most of his energy was devoted to the girl. Worry over money could not affect him to desperation, when he was constantly titillating over the secret of a maiden’s heart. He was assiduous in his attentions, but he could not win from Margaret any sure indication of preference. She was as amiable as the most exacting lover might require, but she displayed none of that coyness or confusion for which Saxe looked as a sign that her heart was engaged. He did not dare over-much, for the brief length of their acquaintance seemed to forbid. But this restraint caused him torment on account of jealousy, since Masters appeared soon as an open rival in the wooing of the girl. Margaret’s treatment of the engineer was of such a sort that it drove Saxe nearly to desperation. She was unfailingly as amiable to the one as to the other of her suitors. It was, to Saxe, utterly inconceivable that any woman could be guilty of such folly as to love a man like the engineer, yet the girl’s attitude toward Masters filled him with alarm, so that he pressed his own suit with more insistence, and came to hate his adversary exceedingly.

Masters, too, suffered under the curse of jealousy. His love for Margaret was a sincere passion, and the hate Saxe bore for him he returned in overflowing measure. Through all his emotion of love, however, there remained in undiminished vigor his desire to possess himself of the gold hidden by Abernethey. And, presently, there grew in him a desperate resolve, brought into being in part by greed, in part by hatred of his rival.

May Thurston was another in the throes of anguish, and that from no fault of her own. Her love for the engineer had involved her in almost unendurable humiliation. His ostentatious worship of Margaret West at first filled May with the agony of outraged affection, then forced her to the wrath of revolt against such treachery. This mood endured. The little hypocrisies of loving, which Masters attempted on the rare occasions when the two were alone together, did not deceive her in the least. Yet, the final break between the two was delayed for lack of courage on her part to accuse him openly of his guilt. The matter stood thus between them when, one morning after a sleepless night, May got from her bed before sunrise, dressed herself hurriedly, and left the cottage, hoping that the freshness of the dawn might serve to soothe her wearied nerves. She wandered aimlessly hither and yon through the woods bordering the shore, and did indeed win some solace for her soul in the radiance of the summer day. She was about fifty yards distant from the cottage, descending the slope that ran to the shore, when she heard a slight noise among the bushes in front of her. She halted instantly, curious to know what manner of creature might be at hand, and welcoming any distraction from the distress in her heart.

Herself hidden by a screen of foliage, she peered forth cautiously, searching with her eyes the thicket beyond. At first, she could distinguish nothing, and, after a little, became convinced that she had been deceived by the dropping of a rotted branch. She was on the point of advancing again, when another and louder sound arrested her. It issued from a place somewhat farther to the right than that she had scrutinized, and now, as she watched intently, she made out the dim form of some object moving slowly within a clump of high bushes, from the center of which grew a thick-leafed sapling. Another minute of inspection convinced her that the object was a man, and immediately an intuition bore upon her that it was Masters himself. Sure of his identity, she went forward quickly, following the impulse of the moment, and called him by name.

Masters—for it was in truth the engineer—whirled and faced the girl with an expression of terror, which, however, vanished so swiftly that May afterward found herself wondering if in fact she had not merely imagined it. Moreover, he smiled on her with more tenderness than he had exhibited in his manner for days, and his voice, when he spoke, was caressing:

“You, May!” he cried. His tones indicated a joyous surprise over the unexpected meeting. “You, too, are rivaling the lark this morning, like myself. I woke up three hours ago, and, when I found there was no chance to get to sleep again, I decided to commune with nature. I’ve been trailing a wonderful moth, but I’ve lost it at last, I’m sorry to say. It was a beauty!” He paused from the flow of words, which had been perhaps a trifle too rapid for entire sincerity, and regarded the girl with a glance that was at once fond and quizzical. “And did you, too, have a touch of insomnia?” he inquired.

May nodded, rather listlessly. For some reason that she could not understand, she was not convinced by the specious suavity of the engineer’s utterance. At the back of her mind was a belief that the man was lying, though she refused to allow the accusation place. Her instinct revolted against the disloyalty of the fellow. Nevertheless, her heart was moved to a last struggle in behalf of the love to which she had once so joyously surrendered herself. She determined on an appeal to that better nature which she believed the engineer to possess:

“Hartley,” she said softly, “I wish you to do something for me—no, for yourself. I want you to give up this mad idea of securing the gold Mr. Abernethey hid.” The gaze of her dark eyes was full of affectionate pleading.

The reply of Masters was prompt, without any least trace of hesitancy. He put out his hand, and took hers, pressing it tenderly.

“Dearest,” he said softly, “you have been right, and I have been wrong. I see it now. I was carried away for a little while by my longing for money. I wanted it for you, not for myself altogether—you must know that. Now, I have repented. It was my conscience that kept me awake last night. I have already abandoned the idea of trying to get hold of a fortune that doesn’t rightly belong to me. Can you forgive me, dearest? I’ve been a little mad, I think.” He paused, and, in the silence that followed, drew her to him, and kissed her very gently on the forehead.

May accepted the embrace—knew not, indeed, how to refuse it, although it failed to thrill her with that rapture which she had once known in his arms. Instead, she sighed in a confusion of emotions, which she herself was far from understanding. As a matter of fact, however, this was the beginning of the end. At last, under the stress of doubt inflicted persistently on her higher nature, the physical attraction exerted by Masters, which, unknown to her, had been the impelling cause for the activity of her imagination in making him an ideal, this potency of sex charm was overwhelmed by the essential antagonism between her soul and his. A certain shyness held her mute, so that Masters was well content with the effect he had secured; but, in this, his self-confidence and the seeming passivity of the girl led him far astray. In truth, May felt assured that Masters lied, and the failure of personal contact to yield any emotion save an actual dissatisfaction set the instinctive disbelief in bold relief. When, soon afterward, they separated, May was secretly aware that her first romance had come to an inglorious end.

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