She who sleeps A romance of New York and the Nile
Cumberland’s hobby; a hobby in which he had sunk a not inconsiderable
fortune; in which he had sought, and ultimately found, it would seem,
consolation for the loss of Barry’s mother, who had died when Barry
was seven years old.
To-day the Cumberland Collection ranked as the second finest of its
kind in the United States. It was representative of Egyptian
civilization in all its phases--save that it contained no mummies. It
was not confined to the library, but overflowed into practically every
room in the house. Yet nowhere were there any mummies. This was a
concession to Aunt Micky, John Cumberland’s sister, who acted as the
widower’s housekeeper and hostess.
Whereas the loss of his wife had occasioned a wound to John
Cumberland’s heart that only time had healed, the loss by his sister
of the dissolute Count Colonna had left her a grateful if somewhat
embittered woman. The later years of her married life had been years
of hidden misery, during which she had realized to the full that, if
she had married a title, Colonna had married a dowry. Time, however,
had sweetened her even as it had healed her brother. She tasted the
strange fruits of our modern orchard with astonishment but without
dyspepsia, nevertheless firmly declining to remain under the same roof
with a mummy.
“This girl on the balcony seems to have made a tremendous impression
upon you,” said John Cumberland, keenly watching his son across the
library table.
“I can never forget her,” Barry declared; for between these two was
that rare comradeship which makes secrets unnecessary. “I don’t mean
that I have fallen in love at first sight, or anything ridiculous like
that! But I have an intense curiosity to know who she is.”
“You are quite sure,” his father went on, carefully selecting a cigar,
“that the order of events was: the girl and the crash?--not the crash
and the girl? You see what I mean, Barry? You have always had an
interest in these things--” he waved his cigar vaguely in the
direction of the library walls--“which I suppose I have encouraged.
You had it in mind to get back here to supper, and so it is just
possible----”
“I quite see what you mean,” Barry interrupted: “that the girl on the
balcony was the beginning of delirium _after_ I had banged my head?
Well, of course, it’s impossible to explain how I know it, but you are
wrong. I certainly saw her. And what adds to my certainty is the
curious behaviour of the people who took care of me afterward.”
“You mean the man who brought you to the hospital and the one who
towed your car to the garage?”
“Why, certainly!” Barry replied. “As not a thing was stolen, either
from me personally or out of the Rolls, why should these people have
deliberately kept in the background?”
“I see your point,” said his father slowly; “but I rather think there
was only one man concerned.”
“I believe you are right,” Barry agreed; “and I believe that this man
was acting for the girl I saw at the window!”
John Cumberland looked up, fumbling for his lighter.
“Now,” he confessed, “I don’t entirely follow you.”
“I mean, Dad,” Barry explained excitedly, “that she must have seen me.
She was looking at me. If I saw _her_, she certainly saw _me!_”
John Cumberland lighted his cigar.
“Now I begin to follow,” he nodded. “You mean that she didn’t want you
to trace her?”
“Exactly!”
“You are sure she saw you? A flash of lightning such as you describe
would have a very blinding effect.”
“It did,” Barry admitted ruefully, “in _my_ case! But the crash took
place less than twenty yards from the spot where she was standing.”
“Yes,” his father mused; “probably you are right. You think that she
sent this mysterious man with the Studebaker to your assistance, had
you taken to the hospital in Elizabeth, and then had the Rolls towed
to a distant garage, with the idea that you would be unable to find
the spot later? Rather a hazard. How was she to know that you were
unfamiliar with the neighbourhood?”
“She might have thought it worth a chance, at any rate.”
“But the object?” John Cumberland exclaimed. “What could be the
object? Was she very inadequately dressed? I mean was she likely to
feel ashamed of having been seen in such a condition?”
“Why, no,” said Barry reflectively. “She was very strangely dressed,
and, as far as that goes, scantily. But in these days that wouldn’t
upset her. There’s some mystery about it--of this I am certain.
To-morrow I am going exploring. I wish you could come.”
“Unfortunately I can’t,” was the reply. “I have two important
conferences. But if you go, let Hemingway drive you. You have had a
devil of a knock on the head, my boy, and you shouldn’t overtax
yourself.”
Barry, however, had planned to go with Jim Sakers, who claimed to know
the country like the palm of his hand. And on the following morning
the two made an early start, beneath a cloudless sky which lent the
towering buildings of New York an unfamiliar ethereal quality.
Jim Sakers, in appearance and in temperament, was as different from
Barry Cumberland as a Gruyère cheese is different from an ivory
Buddha. He was dark and of a lovable ugliness; practical to a degree
that his friend sometimes found irritating; invariably good-humoured;
and frankly ignorant of everything that could not be dealt with on
Wall Street. An enthusiastic sportsman to whom the Arts were an awful
mystery, he, withal, regarded the moody Barry more tenderly than
Horatio looked upon Hamlet.
Once extricated from the crossword puzzle of New York’s traffic and
clear of Hoboken’s shores, they began to make speed, Jim commenting
continuously upon sights by the way, as was his manner, Barry
answering only in monosyllables and being entirely wrapped up in his
own thoughts. Presently:
“When we get to the house,” he said, “I propose to call.”
“Cheers!” cried Jim. “I hope the Egyptian princess keeps a good
cellar. But what for?”
“To thank her for looking after me. I shall take it for granted that
she did.”
“Wait until we find the house,” Jim warned; “and then, wait until we
get in!”
Barry smiled lightly.
“Of course we shall find the house,” he asserted. “You know the way,
don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Jim assured him, “as far as the forks. I simply couldn’t
go wrong. But from there onward, I am entirely in your hands. You say
you took the middle road?”
“Yes,” Barry nodded. “The middle one.”
He became lost in thought again, paying so little attention to his
companion’s cheery remarks that presently these ceased, as mile after
mile was left behind and New York seemed to become very remote, in the
peace of the countryside that they were traversing.
And now, undaunted, Jim began to sing, loudly.
“‘_Dear one, the moon is waiting for the sunshine_----’”
“Shut up!” Barry implored. “Don’t sing. Or, if you _must_ sing, sing
the right words. It isn’t ‘the moon’--it’s ‘the world.’”
“Oh!” Jim stared. “I don’t believe it. But, anyway, I like ‘the moon’
better.”
“The tune is all wrong as well.”
“You’re too blamed particular!” said Jim.
Engaged in this argument they came sweeping down a long, straight
road, turned sharply to the right, and Jim pulled up.
“Behold!” he cried, and pointed.
Barry could not conceal his excitement.
“Gad!” he muttered. “It looks all different, now. But, yes, that’s the
road.”
“Middle one, boss?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, boss.”
Jim grinned cheerfully and swung around into the thoroughfare
indicated.
“Tell me when to stop, boss!” he shouted. “‘_Dear one, the moon_…’”
He sang lustily, and inaccurately, for half a mile or more; until:
“Here we are! Left!” Barry shouted.
Jim obediently turned into the narrow way indicated by his companion,
raced along it, and then:
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, and pulled up sharply. A barrier
confronted them. “We’ve got into a private road! And it’s closed for
repairs. Look!” He pointed to the board which clearly stated this
fact. “It’s been closed for a long time, too, from the look of it.
You’ve muddled the contract, you poor nut!”
Barry sat staring blankly ahead. At last:
“Try back,” he suggested. “I can’t make this out.”
Jim grunted, backed out to a gap, turned, and retraced the path to the
high road. Slowing up:
“Now, boss,” he demanded, “what next? Where’s the princess?”
Barry, who had been sitting with knitted brows, looked up sharply.
“Jim,” he declared, “that _was_ the right road--and it was open on the
night I drove along it!”
“We might park the bus and walk,” Jim suggested helpfully.
“No,” Barry replied; “I don’t feel fit enough. Besides----”
“Well?” Jim prompted.
“Why was the road closed? There’s a mystery here, Jim, and I shall
never solve it by blundering in like a bull at a fence.”
“Then what do we do now, boss?” Jim demanded.
“Go home!” was the reply.
“Right!” said Jim, and headed east for New York. “_Once upon a time_,”
he recited, in a loud singsong, “_there was a princess_…”
CHAPTER IV.
SHADED WINDOWS
In the days that followed, Barry Cumberland resigned himself to
waiting. He was soon practically fit again, however, and he made up
his mind to employ his first morning of freedom in a methodical search
for the scene of his accident.
Working from the nearest base where he could garage the convalescent
Rolls, he set out on foot; and in something less than half an hour had
reached the barricaded road. He had come alone. Jim Sakers’s open
scepticism upon the subject to which he usually alluded as “Barry’s
princess” had begun to jar upon the victim’s sensitiveness.
He made a slight detour through close-set trees and came out upon the
private road twenty yards beyond. There was nothing to show that
anything in the nature of repairs was taking place, and he proceeded
confidently, looking about him in quest of some landmark. He found
none. But presently an opening appeared on the left. Barry turned into
it, pulled up, and suppressed a cry of triumph.
Hitherto completely hidden by embracing woods, a house lay forty yards
back from the road. Its grounds were surrounded by a high wall, and
its construction was memorable because of a turret which crowned the
easterly wing of the building.
Barry stood watching it for a time, and groping for another memory
which the sight of the house provoked, but which nevertheless eluded
him. He realized from its situation that upon the southeast it must
look sheerly down into a valley. When, and where, before, had he seen
such a house? Try how he might he could not remember. Had he seen it
in a dream? Surely he had looked down upon it from a great height! But
when? Had the vision been prophetic--an omen? If so, an omen of what?
He advanced slowly. He bent, studying the road and the unkempt
shrubbery on his left. The track was altogether too deeply rutted to
have retained any imprint by which the passage of his own tires could
be identified.
But now, in the very shadow of the building, he pulled up sharply,
staring. There was a tree stump some four feet out from the wall, its
bark newly gashed in a rather peculiar manner. The undergrowth about
here, too, had an odd appearance. It was dying in patches.
Stepping back to the middle of the road, he looked up across the wall.
He found that he was staring directly at a window of the house
beyond--a window before which a small balcony projected!
He had made no mistake! Here it was--at this very spot--that he had
crashed! Dr. Barton had been nearer to the truth than he knew when he
had declared, “You seem to have tried to climb a tree.”
Exhilaration came. This provoking mystery was about to be solved.
Passing along the entire length of the wall without coming to any
gate, Barry reached the corner and looked across a sloping lawn beyond