It did not please the young man to ask questions in this, his native city. He had spent time enough in studying a map of New York, and he knew his way about pretty well. But there were, naturally, things he did not know; for instance, he went to the Pennsylvania Station, and learned that his train for Stamford left from the Grand Central.
It was after one o’clock, then, so he went into a restaurant and had lunch before going farther—his first meal in the United States. He had never enjoyed anything more. To walk through these streets, among the hurrying and indifferent crowds, to be one of them, to feel himself at home here, filled him with something like elation. It was his city.
A little after three, he boarded the train. And, in spite of his caution and his native reticence, he would, at that moment, have relished a talk with one of his fellow countrymen in the smoking car. He was not disposed to start a conversation without encouragement, though, and nobody took any notice of him; nobody had, since his landing. A clever criminal, escaping from justice, could not have been much more successful in leaving no traces.
When he got out at Stamford, the rain had ceased, but the sky was menacing and overcast. He stood for a moment on the platform, again reluctant to ask questions, but there was no help for it this time.
He stopped a grocer’s boy, and asked him where Wygatt Road was. The boy told him. “But it’s a long way,” he added.
Ross didn’t care how long it was. This was the first suburban town he had seen, and it charmed him. Such a prosperous, orderly, lively town! He thought that he might like to live here.
Dusk was closing in early this dismal day; it was almost dark before he reached the hill he had to climb. The street lights came on, and through the windows of houses he could see shaded lamps and the shadows of people, comfortable rooms, bright little glimpses of domestic life. Past him, along the road, went an endless stream of motor cars, with a rush and a glare of light; he scarcely realized that he was in the country until he came to the top of the hill, and saw before him a signpost marked “Wygatt Road.”
He turned down here, and was at once in another world. It was dark, and very, very quiet; no motors passed him, no lights shone out; he walked on, quite alone, under tall old trees, to which clung a few leaves, trembling in every gust of wind. Overhead, ragged black clouds flew across the darkening sky; the night was coming fast.
And now he began to think about his extraordinary errand, now he began to think that he had been a fool to come. But it did not occur to him to turn back. He never did that. He was sorry he had begun a foolish thing, but, now that he had begun, he would carry on. If it took him all night, if it took him a week, he would find “Day’s End,” and do what he had set out to do.
There was no one to ask questions of here; no human being, no house in sight.
On one side of him was a belt of woodland, on the other an iron fence which appeared to run on interminably. Well, he also would go on interminably, and if “Day’s End” was on Wygatt Road, he would certainly come to it in the course of time.
He did. There was a break in the fence at last, made by a gateway between stone pillars, and here he saw, by the light of a match, “Day’s End,” in gilt letters. He opened the gate and went in; a long driveway stretched before him, tree lined; he went up it briskly.
He saw nothing, and heard nothing, but he had a vague impression that the grounds through which he passed were somber and forbidding, and he expected to see a house in keeping with this notion, an old, sinister house, suitable for people in “terrible trouble.”
It was not like that, though. A turn in the driveway brought him in sight of a long façade of lighted windows, and a large, substantial, matter-of-fact house—which made him feel more of a fool than ever. Yet, still he went on, mounted the steps of a brick terrace, and rang the doorbell.
The door was opened promptly by a pale and disagreeable young housemaid.
“I want to see Mrs. Jones, the housekeeper,” said Ross.
“You ought to go to the back door!” she remarked sharply. “You ought to know that much!”
Ross did not like this, but it was not his habit to let his temper override discretion.
“All right!” he said, and was turning away, ready to go to the back door, ready to go anywhere, so that he accomplished his mission, when the housemaid relented.
“As long as you’re here, you can come in,” she said. “This way!”
He followed her across a wide hall, with a polished floor and a fine old stairway rising from it, to a door at the farther end.
“It’s the room right in front of you when you get to the top,” she explained.
She opened the door; he went in, she closed the door behind him, and he found himself in what seemed a pitch-black cupboard. But, as he moved forward, his foot struck against a step, and he began cautiously to mount a narrow, boxed-in staircase, until his outstretched hand touched a door.
He pushed it open, and found himself in a well lighted corridor, and, facing him, a white painted door. And behind that door he heard some one sobbing, in a low, wailing voice.
He stopped, rather at a loss. Then, because he would not go back, he went forward, and knocked.
“Who is it?” cried a voice.
“I came to see Mrs. Jones,” Ross replied casually.
There was a moments silence; then the door was opened by the loveliest creature he had ever seen in his life. He had only a glimpse of her, of an exquisite face, very white, with dark and delicate brows and great black eyes, a face childlike in its soft, pure contours, but terribly unchildlike in its expression of terror and despair.
“Wait!” she said. “Go in and wait!”
She brushed past him, with a flutter of her filmy gray dress and a breath of some faint fragrance, and vanished down the back stairs.
Ross went in as he was instructed, and stood facing the door, waiting with a certain uneasiness for some one to come. But nobody did come, and at last he turned and looked about him.
It was a cozy room, with a cheerful red carpet on the floor, and plenty of solid, old-fashioned walnut furniture about; it was well warmed by a steam radiator, and well lighted by an alabaster electrolier in the ceiling; a clock ticked smartly on the mantelpiece, and on the sofa lay a big yellow cat, pretending to be asleep, with one gleaming eye half open.
It was such a thoroughly commonplace and comfortable room that the young man felt reassured. He decided to ignore the wailing voice he had heard, and the pallid, lovely creature who had opened the door. For all he knew, such things might be quite usual in this household, and, anyhow, it was none of his business. He had come to see Mrs. Jones, and to explain an error.
He watched the smart little clock for five minutes, and then began to grow restless. He had walked a good deal this day; he was tired; his shoes were wet; he wanted to be done with this business and to get away. Another five minutes—
It seemed to him that this was the quietest room he had ever known. Even the tick of the clock was muffled, like a tiny pulse. It was altogether too quiet. He didn’t like it at all.
He frowned uneasily, and turned toward the only other living thing there, the cat. He laid his hand on its head, and in a sort of drowsy ecstasy the cat stretched out to a surprising length, opening and curling up its paws. Its claws caught in the linen cover and pulled it up a little, and Ross saw something under the sofa.
He doubted the very evidence of his senses. He could not believe that he saw a hand stretched out on the red carpet. He stared and stared at it, incredulous.
Then he stooped and lifted up the cover and looked under the sofa. There lay a man, face downward.
He was very still. It seemed to Ross that it was this man’s stillness which he had felt in the room; it was the quiet of death.