The Crack of Doom
"It was my mistake. I am glad to know that I did you an injustice. You
are my friend, are you not?"
"I believe I have the right to claim that title," I answered.
"Then what you ask is granted. Come." She put her hand boldly into mine.
I grasped the slender fingers, saying:
"Yes, Natalie, some day I will prove to you that I am your friend."
"The proof is unnecessary," she replied, in a low sad voice.
We started for the sea. Not a word was spoken on the way. Nor did our
eyes meet. We were in a strange position. It was this: the man who had
vowed he was the woman's friend--who did not intend to shirk the proof
of his promise, and never did gainsay it--meant to ask the woman,
before the day was over, to clear herself of knowingly associating with
a gang of scientific murderers. The woman had vaguely divined his
purpose, and could not clear herself.
When we arrived at the shore we occupied ourselves inconsequently. We
hunted little fishes until Natalie's dainty boots were dripping. We
examined quaint denizens of the shallow water until her gloves were
spoilt. We sprang from rock to rock and evaded the onrush of the foaming
waves. We made aqueducts for inter-communication between deep pools. We
basked in the sunshine, and listened to the deep moan of the sounding
sea, and the solemn murmur of the shells. We drank in the deep breath of
the ocean, and for a brief space we were like happy children.
The end came soon to this ephemeral happiness. It was only one of those
bright coins snatched from the niggard hand of Time which must always be
paid back with usurious charges. We paid with cruel interest.
Standing on a flat rock side by side, I nerved myself to ask this girl
the same question I had asked her friend, Edith Metford, how much she
knew of the extraordinary and preposterous Society--as I still tried to
consider it--which Herbert Brande had founded. She looked so frank, so
refined, so kind, I hardly dared to put my brutal question to an
innocent girl, whom I had seen wince at the suffering of a maimed bird,
and pale to the lips at the death-cry of a rabbit. This time there was
no possibility of untoward consequence in the question save to
myself--for surely the girl was safe from her own brother. And I myself
preferred to risk the consequences rather than endure longer the thought
that she belonged voluntarily to a vile murder club. Yet the question
would not come. A simple thing brought it out. Natalie, after looking
seaward silently for some minutes, said simply:
"How long are we to stand here, I wonder?"
"Until you answer this question. How much do you know about your
brother's Society, which I have joined to my own intense regret?"
"I am sorry you regret having joined," she replied gravely.
"You would not be sorry," said I, "if you knew as much about it as I
do," forgetting that I had still no answer to my question, and that the
extent of her knowledge was unknown to me.
"I believe I do know as much as you." There was a tremor in her voice
and an anxious pleading look in her eyes. This look maddened me. Why
should she plead to me unless she was guilty? I stamped my foot upon the
rock without noticing that in so doing I kicked our whole collection of
shells into the water.
There was something more to ask, but I stood silent and sullen. The
woods above the beach were choral with bird-voices. They were hateful to
me. The sea song of the tumbling waves was hideous. I cursed the yellow
sunset light glaring on their snowy crests. A tiny hand was laid upon my
arm. I writhed under its deadly if delicious touch. But I could not put
it away, nor keep from turning to the sweet face beside me, to mark once
more its mute appeal--now more than mere appeal; it was supplication
that was in her eyes. Her red lips were parted as though they voiced an
unspoken prayer. At last a prayer did pass from them to me.
"Do not judge me until you know me better. Do not hate me without cause.
I am not wicked, as you think. I--I--I am trying to do what I think is
right. At least, I am not selfish or cruel. Trust me yet a little
while."
I looked at her one moment, and then with a sob I clasped her in my
arms, and cried aloud:
"My God! to name murder and that angel face in one breath! Child, you
have been befooled. You know nothing."
For a second she lingered in my embrace. Then she gently put away my
arms, and looking up at me, said fearlessly but sorrowfully:
"I cannot lie--even for your love. I know _all_."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WOKING MYSTERY.
She knew all. Then she was a murderess--or in sympathy with murderers.
My arms fell from her. I drew back shuddering. I dared not look in her
lying eyes, which cried pity when her base heart knew no mercy. Surely
now I had solved the maddening puzzle which the character of this girl
had, so far, presented to me. Yet the true solution was as far from me
as ever. Indeed, I could not well have been further from it than at that
moment.
As we walked back, Natalie made two or three unsuccessful attempts to
lure me out of the silence which was certainly more eloquent on my part
than any words I could have used. Once she commenced:
"It is hard to explain--"
I interrupted her harshly. "No explanation is possible."
On that she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and a half-suppressed sob
shook her slight figure. Her grief distracted me. But what could I say
to assuage it?
At the hall door I stopped and said, "Good-bye."
"Are you not coming in?"
There was a directness and emphasis in the question which did not escape
me.
"I?" The horror in my own voice surprised myself, and assuredly did not
pass without her notice.
"Very well; good-bye. We are not exactly slaves of convention here, but
you are too far advanced in that direction even for me. This is your
second startling departure from us. I trust you will spare me the
humiliation entailed by the condescension of your further acquaintance."
"Give me an hour!" I exclaimed aghast. "You do not make allowance for
the enigma in which everything is wrapped up. I said I was your friend
when I thought you of good report. Give me an hour--only an hour--to say
whether I will stand by my promise, now that you yourself have claimed
that your report is not good but evil. For that is really what you have
protested. Do I ask too much? or is your generosity more limited even
than my own?"
"Ah, no! I would not have you think that. Take an hour, or a year--an
hour only if you care for my happiness."
"Agreed," said I. "I will take the hour. Discretion can have the year."
So I left her. I could not go indoors. A roof would smother me. Give me
the open lawns, the leafy woods, the breath of the summer wind. Away,
then, to the silence of the coming night. For an hour leave me to my
thoughts. Her unworthiness was now more than suspected. It was admitted.
My misery was complete. But I would not part with her; I could not.
Innocent or guilty, she was mine. I must suffer with her or for her. The
resolution by which I have abided was formed as I wandered lonely
through the woods.
When I reached my room that night I found a note from Brande. To receive
a letter from a man in whose house I was a guest did not surprise me. I
was past that stage. There was nothing mysterious in the letter, save
its conclusion. It was simply an invitation to a public meeting of the
Society, which was to be held on that day week in the hall in Hanover
Square, and the special feature in the letter--seeing that it did not
vanish like the telegram, but remained an ordinary sheet of paper--lay
in its concluding sentence. This urged me to allow nothing to prevent my
attendance. "You will perhaps understand thereafter that we are neither
political plotters nor lunatics, as you have thought."
Thought! The man's mysterious power was becoming wearisome. It was too
much for me. I wished that I had never seen his face.
As I lay sleepless in my bed, I recommenced that interminable
introspection which, heretofore, had been so barren of result. It was
easy to swear to myself that I would stand by Natalie Brande, that I
would never desert her. But how should my action be directed in order
that by its conduct I might prevail upon the girl herself to surrender
her evil associates? I knew that she regarded me with affection. And I
knew also that she would not leave her brother for my sake. Did she
sympathise with his nefarious schemes, or was she decoyed into them like
myself?
Decoyed! That was it!
I sprang from the bed, beside myself with delight. Now I had not merely
a loophole of escape from all these miseries; I had a royal highway.
Fool, idiot, blind mole that I was, not to perceive sooner that easy
solution of the problem! No wonder that she was wounded by my unworthy
doubts. And she had tried to explain, but I would not listen! I threw
myself back and commenced to weave all manner of pleasant fancies round
the salvation of this girl from her brother's baneful influence, and the
annihilation of his Society, despite its occult powers, by mine own
valour. The reaction was too great. Instead of constructing marvellous
counterplots, I fell sound asleep.
Next day I found Natalie in a pleasant morning-room to which I was
directed. She wore her most extreme--and, in consequence, most
exasperating--rational costume. When I entered the room she pushed a
chair towards me, in a way that suggested Miss Metford's worst manner,
and lit a cigarette, for the express purpose, I felt, of annoying me.
"I have come," I said somewhat shamefacedly, "to explain."
"And apologise?"
"Yes, to apologise. I made a hideous mistake. I have suffered for it as
much as you could wish."
"Wish you to suffer!" She flung away her cigarette. Her dark eyes opened
wide in unassumed surprise. And that curious light of pity, which I had
so often wondered at, came into them. "I am very sorry if you have
suffered," she said, with convincing earnestness.
"How could I doubt you? Senseless fool that I was to suppose for one
moment that you approved of what you could not choose but know--"
At this her face clouded.
"I am afraid you are still in error. What opinion have you formed which
alters your estimate of me?"
"The only opinion possible: that you have unwillingly learned the secret
of your brother's Society; but, like myself--you see no way to--to--"
"To what purpose?"
"To destroy it."
"I am not likely to attempt that."
"No, it would be impossible, and the effort would cost your life."
"That is not my reason." She arose and stood facing me. "I do not like
to lose your esteem. You know already that I will not lie to retain it.
I approve of the Society's purpose."
"And its actions?"
"They are inevitable. Therefore I approve also of its actions. I shall
not ask you to remain now, for I see that you are again horrified; as is
natural, considering your knowledge--or, pardon me for saying so, your
want of knowledge. I shall be glad to see you after the lecture to which
you are invited. You will know a little more then; not all, perhaps, but
enough to shake your time-dishonoured theories of life--and death."
I bowed, and left the room without a word. It was true, then, that she
was mad like the others, or worse than mad--a thousand times worse! I
said farewell to Brande, as his guest, for the last time. Thenceforward
I would meet him as his enemy--his secret enemy as far as I could
preserve my secrecy with such a man; his open enemy when the proper time
should come.
In the railway carriage I turned over some letters and papers which I
found in my pockets, not with deliberate intention, but to while away
the time. One scrap startled me. It was the sheet on which Brande had