She who sleeps A romance of New York and the Nile
which stone steps led down to a sunken garden. Far below lay the bowl
of the valley through which ran the high road to New York. A
semicircular path swept around before the long, low porch of the
house, which, as he immediately noted, appeared to be deserted. All
visible windows were shaded. There was no evidence of life whatever
about the premises. His hopes fell to zero.
Stepping onto the porch, which looked very dusty and unswept, he
pressed the bell and waited, lighting a cigarette.
There was no response; not even the barking of a dog. A second and a
third time he rang with equally negative results. The thing was
growing more and more extraordinary.
Since this road, now closed, clearly led to nowhere but the house, if
he had imagined that figure of a girl at the window, by whom had he
been taken to the hospital?
Baffled, but not beaten, he walked down the steps again. He had noted
a path which clearly led to a garden at the back--a garden concealed
behind that high wall against which he had crashed. He turned into it,
passed under the very window in which the girl had stood, and came out
at the rear of this house of mystery.
He paused in sight of the garden. Beside him was a door. It was partly
open--and from beyond came an unmistakable sound of clattering pots
and pans!
Barry raised his hand and rapped sharply. The sounds ceased. A minute
passed in silence. Barry rapped again, more loudly.
The door was suddenly opened--so suddenly, he realized, that the woman
who now stood before him must have crept forward to peep at the
intruder. He found himself confronted by a truly formidable female,
built for cargo rather than for speed. Her arms appeared to be wet to
the elbows, and were, in the words of Jim Sakers, to whom Barry later
gave an account of the interview, “as per specification. See ‘Village
Blacksmith,’ page 1.” Her muscular hands rested upon her hips. She was
iron-jawed, and her regard was a challenge.
“Good-morning,” he began. “My name is Barry Cumberland.”
The woman did not reply.
“I could get no answer to the bell,” he went on, “and came around in
the hope of finding someone at home.”
“There’s no one home but me.”
“Can you tell me when they will be back?”
“Who?”
“Well--particularly the lady. The lady whom I really came to thank for
her service----”
“Say it again.”
“The lady who witnessed an accident which took place outside this
house two weeks ago.”
The Amazon stared in silence, until:
“Forgive me,” said Barry patiently, “but did you hear what I said?”
“I heard.”
“Then why don’t you answer?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But a lady _does_ live here.”
“Does she?”
Barry was torn between laughter and indignation, but he feared an
assault might follow any manifestation of either; therefore:
“I think I told you that my name was Barry Cumberland?” he said in his
most amiable manner.
“You surely did.”
“You may have heard the name?”
“You said it twice.”
“Hang it all! At least you must know I mean no harm. I want to thank
the owner of the house for taking care of me when otherwise I might
have died on the roadside.”
“There’s no one home.”
“So you have told me! But surely I can communicate with him somewhere?
What is his name?”
“Brown.”
“But there are so many Browns! What is his first name?”
“John.”
Barry, stifling his rising anger, drew out a pocket case and pencil.
Solemnly he noted the name “John Brown”; then:
“And at what address can I write to Mr. Brown?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, is it anywhere in America, or has Mr. Brown gone to Europe?”
“I don’t know.”
Apparently by accident, a ten-dollar bill dropped from the case, and
Barry held it out insinuatingly. Thereupon, with suddenly dilated
nostrils, the formidable guardian of the empty mansion slammed the
door in his face! He distinctly heard a bolt being shot.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said he.
There are some situations from which retirement in good order is the
only possible course; and Barry Cumberland recognized the fact that
this was one of them. Returning his wallet to his pocket, he began to
retrace his steps.
“What the devil does it mean?” he muttered.
Of the woman’s antagonism there could be no doubt, nor of her loyalty
to her employer. “John Brown!” Of course, it was a fabrication. She
was lying, deliberately. Her instructions plainly were to give no
information--and she had followed them to the letter.
The object of it all defied his imagination, but he was more than ever
certain that the girl at the window overlooking the garden had been
real and no figment of delirium.
As he walked slowly out to the road again, his mind was busy with
possible theories. He had learned much but little. Suspicion created
by the barred road was strengthened by what he had found at the house.
For some unfathomable reason, the girl at the window and those
associated with her were peculiarly anxious to avoid meeting him.
But the longer he considered the problem, the more hopeless it became.
He determined to consult the local real estate people, to endeavour to
trace the ownership of the place, and to identify this “John Brown”
who was so pointedly anxious to avoid him.
CHAPTER V.
BARRY IS HAUNTED
“In short,” said Jim, “the princess may be described as still at
large?”
“Shut up about ‘the princess,’” Barry retorted. “At least I have found
out that the woman didn’t lie. The house actually belongs to someone
called John Brown.”
“Then, in private life, the--the lady--must be a Miss or a Mrs. Brown.
Not a romantic name. But what did the realty sportsman tell you about
this mysterious citizen Brown?”
“Very little. Said he had never seen him. And, for your enlightenment,
there is no Mrs. Brown and no Miss Brown.”
“Odder and odder. Have you thought that she may have been the daily
help bound for a fancy-dress orgy?”
“I have not.”
“Well, think about it. Sherlock Holmes would have thought about it at
once. Another theory. Mr. Brown may be a bootlegger! A third
theory----”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
Jim Sakers looked at Barry reproachfully.
“You are not tackling this thing in the light of pure reason,” he
protested. “The proper method is to think of every possible solution,
jot ’em all down, and then pick out the right one.”
“Go to blazes!” said Barry.
He had begun to cultivate a sort of New Jersey complex, and was
forever driving out into the hills which had been the scene of his
strange and unfortunate experience.
One afternoon he drove as far as the club from which he had been
returning when the accident had occurred. He had no particular purpose
in view, beyond that of travelling over the now familiar route. The
golf course was thickly dotted with players, but none of his intimate
set seemed to be in the clubhouse or on the tennis courts. He smoked
a reflective pipe on the veranda, watching long drives and short
drives from the first tee, and then set out for home again.
Rain threatened; indeed, was only checked by a high wind. And at a
point in the descending road which seemed to be peculiarly familiar
for some reason, he pulled up and sat staring as one who has seen an
apparition.
A long-dormant memory awoke.
Through a rift in the driving clouds sunlight poured suddenly upon a
building halfway down the slope beneath, surrounded by high walls and
having a curious turretlike structure at one corner!
Good heavens! It was _the_ house--her house; and he had first seen it
under very similar conditions on the evening of his crash! The clouds
swept on, and shadow came where there had been light--just as had
happened before.
He had not dreamed it, after all. But, nevertheless, his first glimpse
of the building had been in the nature of an omen. Considering the
fact that it lay a mile or more back from the main road, his
subsequently coming to disaster under its very walls was at least an
amazing coincidence.
Automatically he took out his case and lighted a cigarette, all the
time watching the mystery house nestling there far below in its
enclosing gardens. Once he glanced away. It was to see what prospect
offered of sunlight again flooding that part of the landscape. Even as
he looked back, the desired effect came about. Some quality in the
atmosphere seemed to bring out details very sharply; and the result
was that effected by a reducing glass. He saw the house as through the
lens of a camera.
Smoke from his newly lighted cigarette rose before his eyes. Abruptly
he tossed the cigarette away, and watched--watched; eagerly, fixedly.
A tiny but clear-cut figure in the distance, a girl moved in the
walled garden!
She appeared to be gathering flowers.… The shadow of a cloud crept
across and across; until once more the picture was blotted out.
Barry’s heart gave a great leap. At crazy speed he swept down the
valley road, taking one keen bend on two tires. Of his going he
afterward remembered nothing. When, for the second time, he stepped
upon the porch of “John Brown’s” house, he recalled the remark of a
girl he had once overheard: “Barry Cumberland is picturesquely mad,”
she had said.
“She was right,” he reflected and pressed the bell.
The place looked as it had looked before. All the windows were shaded.
There was dust on the porch. No one answered his repeated ringing.
In a state bordering upon stupefaction, he went to that side path
which led to the garden. He found only a barred gate, at which he
stared in unbelieving wonder. Beyond, he could see the door where he
had held his interview with the unrelenting caretaker. But all around
was silence. To-day there was no rattling of pots and pans.
Could it be, as his father had hinted, that imagination was playing
tricks with him? Had the vision at the window indeed been the outcome
of an injury, and was this phantom of the garden an aftermath of it--a
second illusion--a mirage? Back along the ill-kept road he walked to
the barrier, where, heedless of possible loss, he had left the Rolls.
What ailed him? Was he going mad? Was his interest in this house and
its occupants due to frustrated curiosity? If so, did this fully
explain his waking and sleeping dreams of a dark-eyed girl in a cloudy
robe, watching him from a high balcony?
Barry was taking Aunt Micky to dine that evening at a restaurant on
Forty-seventh Street, which legitimately enjoyed the reputation of
owning a good cellar. Jim Sakers was joining them, and bringing Jack
Lorrimer. Jack was Barry’s cousin. She was very pretty, having missed
the Cumberland nose. Following dinner, they were going to see the most
improper play on Broadway. The event was in honour of Aunt Micky, who
occasionally indulged in what she termed “a night of pure sin.”
Having dressed, Barry was sitting smoking in the library when she came
down. He had been studying the figure of a slender priestess from the
temple at Dendera.
“Well, young Cumberland,” came a deep female voice, “dreaming again?”
Barry turned--he was seated on the edge of the library table--and
smiled at the speaker. Countess Colonna was a woman of medium height,
sturdily built, and deep-chested, as were all the Cumberlands. Her
crisp gray hair was closely bobbed; her unflinching steel-gray eyes
looked out from under thick, dark eyebrows to tell the world that a
dissolute husband had not crushed her spirit. She had been handsome in
her youth. The Cumberland nose in a woman was not unattractive.
Her dress was somewhat masculine, consisting of a smart dinner jacket
with white silk waistcoat--the latter cut moderately low--a short
black skirt, black silk stockings, and chic black shoes. That she had
hitherto refrained from wearing trousers Barry regarded as a
concession, for which he was duly grateful.