THE SOLITARY INITIAL

Gretchen, the chambermaid, craned her neck over the banisters in her endeavor to find out what was going on in the large square reception hall on the floor below. Her limited knowledge of English prevented her understanding much of what she overheard. The voices grew more indistinct as the speakers moved away, and finally ceased entirely. Gretchen straightened up and rubbed her stiff muscles, then with a backward glance down the corridor toward Mrs. Meredith’s boudoir door, she turned to her right and ran into Susanne.

“Oh, excuse!” she exclaimed in confusion, her pretty color mounting.

Susanne picked up the lingerie which Gretchen’s unexpected collision had knocked from her hand and smiled kindly.

“Mon Dieu. You are in a hurry,” she commented. “But, petite, why so white?” as Gretchen’s color receded as rapidly as it had come.

“I”—Gretchen caught her breath sharply—“it is this house; it make me nervous.” Tears hung on her eyelashes and she brushed them away. She edged closer to the French maid, who was eyeing her in real concern. “Did you go with madame to the funeral?”

“But, yes.” Susanne’s kindly expression altered to one of deep seriousness. “The services were of the most simple at the chapel, but at the grave were many strangers and they crowded about until some one in authority ordered them back. Mademoiselle Anne was greatly upset and Madame Meredith very angry.”

“Have they returned?” questioned Gretchen timidly.

“Oui. Here comes madame now,” as Mrs. Meredith’s voice was heard on the staircase. With an alarmed look behind her, Gretchen darted past Susanne and down the corridor toward the back stairs. The French maid regarded the flying figure thoughtfully for a second, then advanced in time to meet Mrs. Meredith at the head of the circular staircase.

“Shall I pack madame’s trunks?” she asked as the older woman paused to take breath after her rapid climb upstairs.

“No; Mr. Hollister wishes us to remain here for several days longer,” replied Mrs. Meredith. “Have you seen Miss Anne?”

“Oui, madame; she has gone to her room.” Susanne followed her mistress down the corridor. “Doctor McLane just telephoned, madame, that he call soon to see Mademoiselle Anne.”

“Very well, let me know first,” with emphasis, “when he comes. Wait for me in my bedroom, Susanne,” and Mrs. Meredith crossed the boudoir. Not stopping to knock on the panel of the closed door, she opened it, and stepped inside her daughter’s room. Anne looked up from the couch where she had thrown herself twenty minutes before, and at sight of her mother, half rose.

“Don’t get up.” Mrs. Meredith drew a chair over to the couch and seated herself. At her air of conscious rectitude Anne’s heart sank. “There is something I wish to discuss with you.” Unconsciously Anne braced herself; her mother’s “something” was sure to be disagreeable—it generally was. “I noticed, Anne, that during the funeral services you sat in the same pew with Doctor Curtis.”

“Yes, mother, I did.” Anne judged she was expected to answer as Mrs. Meredith came to a full pause.

“And you took his arm and walked with him afterward from the chapel to the grave?”

“I did.” She gazed full at her mother. “He is blind, you know.”

“So that was it—philanthropy.” Mrs. Meredith nodded her head, well satisfied. “But, my child, don’t let your kind heart run away with our discretion. It is no longer necessary to cultivate Doctor Curtis’ acquaintance.”

“I beg your pardon, mother.” Anne’s heart was beating a bit more rapidly. “I do not agree with you.”

Mrs. Meredith sat back in her chair. “When you take that tone, Anne, I know you are going to be obstinate. But you must listen to me. The so-called ‘engagement’ between you and Doctor Curtis is at an end.”

“On what grounds?” meeting her mother’s eyes. “Expediency?”

“Anne, how dare you?”

Anne straightened her slender figure and threw back her head. “On the contrary, mother,” she said clearly, “Doctor Curtis and I will carry out Uncle John’s plans to the letter.”

Mrs. Meredith gazed at her, thunderstruck. “You mean—”

“That our marriage will take place before this week is out.”

Mrs. Meredith, livid with wrath, sat for some moments absolutely silent. When she finally spoke, both voice and manner were more conciliatory.

“Heroics are all very well in their place,” she began, “but before this rash marriage is consummated, there are many things to consider. First, Doctor Curtis is blind. He has no future,” she paused, “but he has a past—”

“Explain your hints, mother,” as Mrs. Meredith paused again.

“Has he spoken to you of his past career?”

“No.” Anne’s white cheeks turned crimson. “We have never had a lengthy conversation.”

“It is just as well,” dryly. “I have started an investigation—”

Anne was on her feet, her usually calm, cold demeanor transformed into passionate fervor. “I warn you, mother, to stop any so-called investigations. Is your record, and mine, so clean in this plan for a hurried, wild marriage that we can afford to blacken the man, who under hard pressure of blindness and destitution consented to it?”

“Anne!”

“Stop, mother; I will be heard,” as Mrs. Meredith raised her hand with an imperative gesture. “Doctor Curtis afforded us the means to gratify that mysterious mandate which Uncle John insisted upon by agreeing to marry me, and by that marriage, in name only, I will inherit a large fortune.”

“Your uncle’s death alters that—”

“Does it?” For the first time Anne did not meet her mother’s eyes. “Doctor Curtis has proved himself a gentleman and a man of honor in his treatment of me. Yesterday, when I was heckled by Coroner Penfield, he came to my assistance. I,” raising her head proudly, “I will not be a party to any act, overt or concealed, which endeavors to pry into his past.”

The door banged shut as Anne, springing to her feet, fled through it. Pressing her hands against her hot cheeks, she leaned panting against the wall of the boudoir to recover her self-possession before going to Lucille’s bedroom.

Downstairs in the library Sam Hollister rubbed his bald head with a large silk handkerchief and gratefully accepted Herman’s suggestion of a cocktail from what had once been John Meredith’s private stock.

“Bring three,” he added. “I am sure Mr. Armstrong will join me, and Doctor Curtis will be here presently.” As the butler disappeared, he turned to Gerald Armstrong. “A cocktail,” he remarked dryly, “may make you a more agreeable companion.” Armstrong transferred his gaze from his carefully creased trousers to Hollister’s flushed countenance.

“Why so heated?” he asked. “Sit down and take things calmly.”

The look that the lawyer cast at his younger companion was anything but complimentary. “Calmly?” he fumed. “Where is that ass, Hull?”

“Do you mean Colonel Julian Hull?” Armstrong made no attempt to conceal his amusement. “My revered senior partner is, I believe,” glancing at his wrist watch, “in our office watching the stock market.”

“And you ought to be with him,” with equal vehemence. “Why are you hanging around this house?”

“Isn’t that my business?” Armstrong’s sallow cheeks had turned a deep red, but otherwise he displayed no anger. His voice had not lost its teasing quality, which to many people was an annoying characteristic.

“It may be the coroner’s business if you are not careful,” exploded Hollister, losing his little store of patience, which had been sorely tried that morning. “What put it into your head not to appear at the inquest yesterday afternoon?”

“My dear Hollister,” Armstrong smiled tolerantly, “I explained in my note to Coroner Penfield, which I understand he did me the honor to read at the inquest, that not having been in the house at the hour John Meredith died, my testimony would add nothing to the investigation.”

His voice carried to the farther end of the library and David Curtis listened attentively as he skillfully avoided the furniture in his slow progress toward the two men. Absorbed in watching each other, neither man heard his approach. Curtis paused almost at Hollister’s back and gently struck his cane against the side of a mahogany card table. Armstrong swept a startled glance behind him and then resumed his nonchalant pose, while Hollister stepped to one side and laid his hand on a chair back.

“Hello, Curtis!” Hollister pushed the chair he had grasped toward the blind surgeon. “Sit down and be comfortable. Here comes Herman with the cocktails.”

“Thanks, but I won’t have any,” Curtis said, as the butler stopped before him, silver tray in hand. “Cocktails and brain work don’t go together successfully.”

“And what does your brain work comprise?” asked Armstrong, with a snicker of amusement as he took one of the frosted glasses. He drained his before Herman had time to serve the lawyer. “If you don’t wish the one Doctor Curtis scorned, I’ll take it, Hollister.” He drank the second cocktail more leisurely, then turned to Curtis. “You haven’t answered my question, doctor.”

“Ever hear of the fourth dimension, Armstrong?” Curtis smiled, as he addressed the young stockbroker; it deepened at the latter’s sulky nod. “Well, a problem of that kind provides very good mental relaxation—”

“For a blind man,” interjected Armstrong, contemptuously.

“Just so,” agreed Curtis, his manner unruffled. He turned to their silent companion. “Why so fidgety, Hollister? You have snapped your watch cover shut half a dozen times since I have been sitting here.”

Hollister replaced his hunting-case watch in his pocket.

“Mrs. Meredith is late,” he explained. “We have to be at the Metropolis Bank in twenty minutes.”

Armstrong leaned forward, a touch of eagerness in his manner.

“So you are going to open John Meredith’s safe deposit box to-day,” he commented. “I understand the bank officials had called it off until later in the week.”

“I don’t know who your informant could have been,” replied the lawyer dryly, “but it has not been postponed, except as to hour, to oblige Coroner Penfield. Ah, here is Mrs. Meredith,” as the widow appeared in the doorway.

“Don’t let me disturb you, Gerald,” she exclaimed, as Armstrong went with Hollister to the door. “Oh, Doctor Curtis, I did not at first see you,” catching sight of the blind surgeon over Hollister’s shoulder. She turned to the lawyer. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Sam; but Anne detained me. How long do you suppose we will be at the bank?”

“About an hour, perhaps two, but not longer than that,” Hollister added, catching her expression of dismay.

“In case we are delayed in returning,” Mrs. Meredith addressed Curtis directly, “I have told Herman to serve luncheon and not to wait for us. In our absence, doctor, I trust that you will act as host.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Meredith,” replied Curtis, bowing deferentially. He could not see the sudden look of aversion which Gerald Armstrong cast in his direction, but he was aware intuitively that Mrs. Meredith’s formal courtesy cloaked the animosity which he fully realized from almost their first meeting was only slumbering, ready to burst forth at any moment. That she had not taken kindly to his inclusion in the house party had been incautiously told him by Lucille Hull; and he judged that only dire necessity had later induced Mrs. Meredith to agree to her brother-in-law’s plan for his marriage to her daughter.

Herman’s approach broke up the little group. “Damason is at the door, madam, with the car,” he announced, and with a bow to Curtis Mrs. Meredith moved away, Hollister in her wake. Armstrong was about to follow them when Herman addressed him.

“Inspector Mitchell has just telephoned to ask if you were here, sir,” he said. “He is waiting to speak to you.”

Armstrong smothered an oath. “Tell him to go to—Guinea!” he directed. “No, wait,” as Herman bowed and moved a few steps away. “I’ll talk to the beggar,” and he hurried back into the library, and over to the branch telephone standing on a small table in a corner, which had been devoted exclusively to John Meredith’s use.

Armstrong’s conversation over the telephone with Inspector Mitchell appeared to be a strictly one-sided affair, or so Curtis judged from the few monosyllabic remarks from the stockbroker. When he hung up the receiver a few minutes later he was scowling.

“Persistent devils, these detectives,” he said, walking over to the smoking stand and striking a match which he applied to an expensive cigar. “Mitchell insists that I wait until he gets here.”

“Does his request put you to inconvenience?” asked Curtis politely.

Armstrong shrugged his shoulders, but whatever answer he would have made was forgotten on catching sight, through one of the windows, of Lucille and Anne walking across the lawn toward the lodge. Without a word of explanation to Curtis, he opened the French window and hurried after the two girls.

Curtis made his way over to the window and stood in it facing the lawn. He was not aware that his tall figure in its well-fitting suit of gray clothes was silhouetted against the dark background of the library, or that, at Armstrong’s hail, Anne and her cousin had swung around. Anne’s gaze traveled past Armstrong’s advancing figure and rested on Curtis. She instinctively raised her hand to wave a friendly greeting, then dropped it. For an instant she had forgotten that Curtis was blind. There was a catch in her throat as she spoke to Armstrong and her face was unsmiling as she walked with him and Lucille to the lodge.

It was fully ten minutes before Curtis left the window and went slowly upstairs to his bedroom. Pausing by his bed, he laid his cane across it. In doing so his hand touched some clothing. Lifting it up he found it was a suit of pajamas. Curtis bent down and passed his hand rapidly over the bed; it was, as he thought, made up. Why then were his pajamas laid out on the bed at noon? Had Gretchen, the chambermaid, forgotten to put them away or was it carelessness on the part of Fernando, his Filipino valet?

Somewhat perplexed, Curtis again picked up his pajamas. As he ran his fingers over the jacket he drew out a handkerchief from the pocket. Holding it close to his nose he detected the odor of chloroform. Only a faint, very faint, trace of the chloroform remained, but it was sufficient to identify the handkerchief as the one thrown toward him by the unknown woman in John Meredith’s bedroom on the night of Meredith’s murder.

Curtis sat down in the nearest chair and spread the pajamas across his knee. In the rapid march of events he had forgotten the handkerchief which he had inadvertently stuffed into the pocket of his pajamas on going to his room to rest after the discovery of Meredith’s body.

He judged the handkerchief to be of the finest linen, of dainty size. Deftly his fingers traveled around its edges. Was there no mark by which he might establish the identity of the mysterious woman in Meredith’s bedroom? His long, sensitive fingers stopped at one corner. Slowly they traced out the solitary initial—the capital letter “A.”