II
THE DARK HOUSE IN SELDEN’S SQUARE
“When strange eyes peer through the veiling dark,
Take care, my friend, take care!”
—From the Doggerels of Balmacenso.
IT was Kenyon’s idea, upon entering the cab, to afford himself an opportunity, out of earshot of the idlers, of bringing this bizarre situation to an end. But as before the girl gave him no chance.
“When you left Rio,” she began, in a rather hesitating way, “you had but little money, I understand.”
“That,” smiled Kenyon, “is very true.” And, for all the smile, he gazed at her searchingly. For it was a very odd thing that she should know so much about him. Within fifteen minutes she had told him that he had arrived on the Blenheim, that he had sailed from Rio, and that he had been hard put for money when he left there. But the thick veil hid her face from him, and he turned his gaze away, baffled.
In a few moments she spoke again; and once more he detected the slight note of hesitancy in her voice.
“Have you seen Moritze & Co.?”
“Moritze & Co.?” he repeated wonderingly.
“Oh!” suddenly. “I had forgotten. Of course you have not yet heard of them in connection with this matter.”
Kenyon laughed.
“Why, no,” he admitted; “I must confess that I have not heard of them in connection with this matter; nor of anyone or anything else having to do with it. It’s all a mystery to me.”
“Could you expect anything more, under the circumstances?” She was fumbling in a small handbag as she spoke. He watched her, amazed at how the thing drifted on.
“It does not do to speak freely of some things before all is ready,” she continued, with a return of the cold manner of a few moments before. “You should have learned that while you were with Nunez.”
He caught his breath.
Nunez! She knew about that! And he had not thought that any person north of Panama knew of the part that he had played in that ill-fated expedition in Uruguay. He was still confusedly groping amid the mental haze which her words had produced, when she spoke again.
“I was entrusted with this and asked to give it to you.”
She placed a slip of crackling paper in his hand; the cab lamps were too dim for him to discern the figures, but a glance showed the young man that it was a check.
“No, no,” he cried, hastily. “I cannot accept this!”
“Why not? It is the exact sum that you demanded.”
If there had been scorn in her voice before, it now seemed to have increased a hundredfold; and the undisguised contempt in her manner showed her disbelief in him. This was very evident to Kenyon; he was too young to be indifferent to a woman’s scorn, and a hot flush arose to his face. When he spoke his voice was sharp and had a ring that she had not heard before.
“The reason why I cannot take this is very plain to myself, at least,” said he. “There has been some mistake made. I am not the man you take me to be!”
He saw her start at this, and peer at him through the changing light. The veil seemed to obstruct her vision and she flung it aside; for the first time he saw her face.
“Dark,” he muttered, “and beautiful. And her eyes! Heavens! I never saw anything like them before.”
And her head had a proud, youthful lift to it that caught his attention instantly. It was the sort of thing that he had always admired, but had never seen so completely possessed before.
“I am afraid,” she said, coldly, “that I do not quite understand. There can be no mistake. You are the person for whom I was sent.”
“I think not.”
“Yet you admit that you are just from Rio?”
“Yes.”
“And that you came in the Blenheim?”
“I did.”
“And you served with General Nunez in Uruguay, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Then there is nothing wanting. You are the man. But,” and the dark eyes flashed as she spoke, “I hardly think, were the choice of my making, that I should have fixed upon you.”
The continued scorn of her manner piqued him. He was not accustomed to it.
“No?” he questioned.
“No. You resort to odd and useless evasions. You do not speak straightforwardly. You dodge the point at issue. You seem uncertain as to whether you shall go on, or go back. I expected, at least, to find a man of firmness and decision.”
This aroused Kenyon. Youth, as a rule, desires to show to good advantage before a pretty woman. And to this he was no exception.
“You do me an injustice,” he said. He spoke calmly, slowly, and evenly enough, but there was heat behind the words. “If I have shown any lack of decision it is because of my natural reluctance to proceed farther in this, to me, incomprehensible affair. I desire to be honest, and have no wish to penetrate deeper into a matter which cannot in the least concern me.” He leaned toward her and continued. “Once again I tell you that I am not the man you take me to be.”
She drew back from him as far as the limited space of the cab would permit, but said nothing. He crackled the check paper in his fingers, as he held it up and proceeded.
“This money is not for me. I cannot accept it. I think you had better assure yourself that all is right before going any farther.”
Sudden anger filled her eyes, even in the dimness he could see it glinting in amber points. But her voice, when she spoke, showed no trace of it.
“What more can I do?” she asked. “You have satisfactorily answered every question that I have asked.”
“You might ask one more,” suggested Kenyon, coolly.
“And what is that?”
“My name.”
He could feel her searching his face with those beautiful eyes once more. But there was no doubt in them now; neither was there any abatement of the anger that glowed in them.
“Why should I ask your name?” she asked. “I know it already.”
“I question that,” said Kenyon, confidently.
“It is written upon the check which you hold in your hand.”
As they passed a street lamp, Kenyon held up the check so that the light would fall upon it.
She had spoken the truth! In a cramped, quavering hand he saw that it was drawn to the order of Steele Kenyon!
Once more he settled heavily back against the cushions of the cab. He was lost in astonishment. But almost at the same instant the vehicle pulled up and the apron was flung open.
“And now,” remarked the girl, evenly, “if you have made up your mind that everything is right we will get out.”
He sprang down and helped her to alight. It was an instinct that prompted him to do so, however, for his mind was groping in a maze of wonderment. The strangeness of the whole incident was beating sluggishly in his brain; and try as he would he could make nothing of it.
She knew his name! She knew of Nunez, of Rio, of everything. And, now, incredible as it seemed, there was little doubt but what he was actually the person wanted. He could not intelligently grasp any part of it, and with military abruptness ceased trying.
“Let it work itself out as it will,” he muttered, “I’ll not say another word in protest.”
So when the girl opened a heavy door with a pass-key, he asked no questions; and when she closed the door softly behind them, he followed her down the wide, dimly lit hall without a word.
The house was soundless. The girl opened the door of a room off the hall; a single gas jet burned lowly within; she motioned for him to go in.
“Please sit down,” she said. “You will not be kept waiting long.”
Even in the uncertain flicker of the low-turned light, her way of carrying herself pleased him. She was tall and straight, her outlines were soft and womanly; and then there was the proud lift of the head which he had noticed before. There was a suppleness in her movements that one could not help observing; but her air of youthful distinction was what impressed Kenyon most of all.
But there was no lessening of the scorn in her manner; and as she made a movement as though to leave the room, a sort of quick regret flashed over him.
“Somehow,” he murmured, after she had gone, “I wish she had stayed. I’d like to be better acquainted with her; I’d like to have a chance to convince her that I don’t deserve such treatment as she’s been giving me.”
He sat down and stared at the door which had closed upon her a moment before.
“An armor of ice, that’s what it is,” he thought. “And it doesn’t belong to her. I could see a charm beneath it that she could not hide. It showed itself when she spoke of the person who is ill. And she’s beautiful. Heavens, yes! She’s beautiful.”
He sat broodingly for a moment or two; then his thoughts reverted to the comedy in which he was playing so odd a part, and his humorous brown eyes twinkled.
“They will ring in the second act before long, I suppose,” he muttered, with a little yawn. “And I have no doubt but what it will bring the denouement as well.”
Some little time passed and Kenyon sat patiently awaiting the outcome of his adventure. But nothing occurred. The house remained soundless.
In his thirty years of life he had gone through many strange experiences, but for sheer uniqueness this present adventure surpassed them all. As he sat there in the semi-darkness he began to marshal the facts together.
After Nunez had been killed in that last desperate stand in Montevideo, Kenyon had fled north through Uruguay with Balmacenso, and crossed the frontier into Rio Grande du Sol. Then they made their way to Rio.
“And Balmacenso,” silently argued Kenyon, “was the only man in Rio who knew my identity; and Balmacenso died of a fever a good two weeks before the Blenheim entered port. He could not have sent word north that I was going to sail in her; for at the time of his death I had no intention of doing so—in fact I had never heard of the ship before she steamed up the harbor.
“And yet here is this girl, and some others whom I’m perhaps shortly to see, expecting me, on that very ship. And apparently they know of my connection with the revolt in Uruguay; of my being flat broke in that God-deserted hole, Rio; of my—but what’s the use of rehearsing all their surprising knowledge. I must go deeper into the affair before I can understand any of it.”
He waited patiently. The flickering point of almost blue flame of the gas jet threw an uncertain light in a confined radius about where he sat; the remainder of the room was shadowy and obscure. But his eyes gradually became accustomed to the dimness of the far corners; and little by little the consciousness stole upon him that he was not alone.
Directly opposite, at a point where the struggling light rays failed entirely to dispel the shadows, he began to discern the outlines of two human figures, indistinct, vague, but constantly assuming more definite form as his eyes searched them out.
Kenyon’s steady courage had been proven a thousand times in the campaigns of Nunez in South America; no matter what the stress of the moment, or the unexpected nature of the danger his brain always worked coolly and smoothly. And now, though he began to fear that he had been led into a trap, he remained perfectly still. The two shapes in the shadow sat with their backs to the wall their faces turned toward him; he could now and then catch the shifting glint of their eyes, but they made no other movement.
For some little time Kenyon silently and coolly observed them. The house was as soundless as before; nothing occurred that gave him the least idea as to what to expect.
But, as no movement of any sort was made, the thing became tiresome. As the girl did not return, and as the two silent men in the shadow made no sign, Kenyon resolved to take the initiative himself. The gas jet was within easy arm’s length; rising suddenly he turned it on, full head.
“Gentlemen,” he remarked, bowing with a graceful and easy politeness that was natural to him, “a trifle more light, I think, would make us better acquainted.”