Frank L. Packard

“ Locke stared into the other's face. A half angry, half—yes, that was it—cunning gleam had come into the blue eyes.
"What is the matter with Captain Newcombe?" he asked bluntly.
"He's a philanthropist," snapped Mr. Marlin. "A philanthropist! And all philanthropists are fools—with money."
"Oh!" said Locke a little helplessly. "So that's it, is it? Yes, of course! But I did not know Captain Newcombe was a philanthropist."
"What else is he?" demanded Mr. Marlin fiercely. "Polly Wickes herself proves it. Do you know who Polly Wickes is? No; you don't! I'll tell you! I heard her tell Dora. ”

“ But he, Captain Francis Newcombe, had no intention of making any such unpardonable misplay as that! Runnells would never look down the barrel of a revolver with a confidence born of the fact that the trigger dared not be pulled; Runnells would never feel a grip upon his throat and still be able to defy the clutching fingers because he knew they feared the cry, the gasp, the noise of strangulation. It would not be in Runnells' room that the man would lay bare his soul through fear to-night! Runnells would be played as a fish is played! ”

“ Captain Francis Newcombe pushed Runnells ruthlessly forward until they both stood over it. And now the flashlight's ray played upon it—upon a twisted, crumpled form, a dead thing, a man whose clothes in places were in ribbons as though the very body had been mangled, a man in a white shirt sleeve where the sleeve of the coat had been torn away at the armpit, a man around whose neck and across whose face were long, horribly regular lines of round, lurid marks, near purple now against the bloodless skin. ”

“ Captain Francis Newcombe returned along the deck, and halted outside his cabin window. He examined it critically. It had been pried open from the outside—the marks were distinctly indented on the sill, as though a jimmy, or iron bar of some kind, had been used.
He stared at it, his jaws clamped. It was unpleasant. Some one on the ship had deliberately, premeditatively, attempted to murder him. There was something of hideous malignancy in it. To pry the window open, and wait there patiently in the storm for the sole purpose of ending a man's life! ”

“ And where the door had stood, there showed now but an oblong of filmy, hazy murk, scarcely more penetrable to the eye than the black interior of the hut. Nothing more! No, that was not true. There was something else—something white, a small white fluttering thing that seemed to drift and flutter downward to the ground. No sound from without—save the night sounds of the woods: The leaves talking to one another; the stir in the grasses; the low, faint, never-ending chatter of insects.
The watch ticking on Captain Francis Newcombe's wrist became a loud, discordant thing. ”

“ Captain Francis Newcombe stepped quickly around to the other side of the hut, and tried the door. It was unlocked. He smiled in a sort of grim humour as he pushed it open, and, entering, closed it again behind him. That was the first sign of intelligence—no, applied to a maniac, it could hardly be termed intelligence!—well then, craftiness that measured up in at least a little way to the intensive order of cunning with which the insane in general were popularly credited. An unlocked door was no mean safe-guard. ”

“ Captain Francis Newcombe's hand felt along the wall to guide him in the darkness. He had no desire to stumble over anything and arouse anybody; Locke, or Dora Marlin, for instance—and he had not forgotten that Polly was probably lying wide awake. The only one to be aroused was Runnells—and that very quietly. Runnells was a professional criminal, not a particularly clever one, but possessed, where a question of self-preservation was concerned, of a certain low cunning born of his hazardous career, a cunning that was not to be ignored. ”

“ Understand? And look out for yourself—the man's no fool, I'll say that for him."
"Right!" said Runnells in a muffled voice, as they came out of the woods and the boathouse loomed up, shadowy and indistinct, some fifty yards away.
There was laughter in Captain Francis Newcombe's soul now, a mirth parented out of savagery and vindictiveness, a laugh at the blind fool treading so warily and cautiously and silently across the sandy beach here in order that he should not be denied the shambles! The laugh seemed to demand physical, audible expression. ”

“ Yes; I know. These nights are like that sometimes, aren't they? They make you dream any dream you want to have come true, and, while you dream wide awake, you almost actually experience its fulfilment then and there. And so it is nearly as good as a real fairyland, isn't it? And anyway, Polly, you look like a really, truly fairy yourself to-night."
"No," said Polly Wickes. "You are the fairy. Fairies aren't supposed to be dark; they have golden hair, and blue eyes, and—"
"A wand," interrupted Dora Marlin, with a mischievous little laugh. ”

“ The house is really a castle, and it's built mostly of coral, and is so pretty; and the foliage is a dream—the whole island, and it's really an awfully big one, is just like a huge garden. And, too, it's just like a little world all of your own. The servants are mostly negroes, with pickaninnies running around, and they live in jolly little bungalows, ever and ever so many of them, that peep out of the trees at you everywhere you go. And then there is the aquarium. It's Mr. Marlin's hobby. ”

“ Captain Francis Newcombe shook his head.
"I think you're wrong, sir," he said judicially. "It isn't the aftermath of the war, or the result of the war. It is the war, of which the recent struggle was only a phase. It's been going on since the days of the cave man. You've only to reduce the nation to the terms of the individual, and you have it. A nation lusts after something which does not belong to it. It proceeds to take it by force. If it fails it is punished. That is war. The criminal lusts after something. He flings down his challenge. If he is caught he is punished. ”

“ It took him around the corner of the house, and here, under a flight of steps that led to the verandah above, he found himself confronted with a basement door. Captain Francis Newcombe smiled. He had never ranked the task of probing the old fool's actions as one that demanded much ingenuity, or as presenting any particular difficulty. It was simply a question of watching the other without being seen himself; and with the man's mode of exit and entry from and into the house already known, the rest would almost automatically take care of itself. ”

“ As Runnells had said, it was a sickening sight. Well, no matter! The mode or cause of death was an incident, wasn't it? Paul Cremarre found here on the island, whether dead or alive, was what mattered—it meant that the menace, that hellish nightmare of the "unknown," that had been hanging over him, Shadow Varne, was gone now—that the way was clear ahead—a fortune here—America once more an "open sesame"—riches, luxury, all he had builded for, his again to take at his leisure without fear now of any interference from any source. And yet he seemed to hate the man the more because he was dead. ”

“ It opened a vista to uglier and still more evil things—things that only a soul dead to decency, black as the pit of hell, could have conceived and patiently put into execution. A child—a gutter-snipe, Polly had called herself—rescued from naked poverty and the slums of Whitechapel by a man such as Newcombe, whose only promptings were the promptings of a fiend! Why? Was there room to question further why Captain Francis Newcombe had years ago adopted such a ward—when now before one's eyes those years were bearing their poison fruit? ”

“ I'd like to hear why you think I am morally responsible for Mr. Marlin's death; and, particularly, I'd like to know what—"
"I want to get this over," said Locke, with a set face. "You are clever. If it appeals to a certain sense of morbid vanity in you, that they say all criminals possess, I grant at once that you are as clever a scoundrel, and as miserable and inhuman and unscrupulous a one, as ever blasphemed the image in which God made him."
Captain Francis Newcombe strained upward from the chair, his lips working—but Locke stood over him now and pushed him back. ”

“ So it was Runnells who had indulged in that little telephone conversation; Runnells, the pitiful, foolhardy moth—and the flame! Runnells, instead of being already in bed, was just getting back. So much the better—it would tax Runnells' ingenuity a little beyond its limitations to explain this unseemly hour! It made it perhaps just a little easier to handle and break the man.
Captain Francis Newcombe moved silently back again to the door of Runnells' room, and again listened at the panels. The sound of movement from within was distinctly audible. Runnells was preparing to go to bed. ”

“ It wasn't anything human that killed Paul Cremarre."
"No," mumbled Runnells, "no; it wasn't anything human. Oh, my Gawd, the look of it! It—it made me sick. Those—those round red things on his face—and the eyes—the eyes—I—I ain't afraid of a dead man, but—but I was afraid in there."
"Runnells," said Captain Francis Newcombe evenly, "at bottom you are a stinking coward, a spineless thing—you always were. But you've never really known fear—not yet! I'm going to teach you what fear is!" ”

“ Locke's voice was low now, rasping his words. "It is so monstrous that, strong as the circumstantial evidence against you is, I would not have been able to credit it had I not had a basis for belief that permitted of no denial. I know you for exactly what you are. I know that you are a criminal, that you are one by profession, that you have no other profession, that you are without conscience, inhuman, ruthless, a fiend who would do honour to hell itself."
"By God!" Captain Francis Newcombe with livid face surged up from the chair to his feet. ”

“ There was too much significance attached to the old maniac's act of creeping stealthily in and out under his own verandah in the dead of night; especially when added to this had been the information gleaned from Polly that Mr. Marlin was in the habit of stealing out of the house at intervals for a succession of nights on end, though at a later hour each night. It was the obvious! But why a later hour each night? Rather queer! But the man's brain was queer! Why try to square insanity with the rational? ”

“ But Locke's face, too, was white now with passion, as with a suddenly outflung hand he thrust the other away.
"I am not through yet," he said. "Denial, any attitude of pretended righteous indignation, or any other attitude that may suggest itself to you as the best mask to adopt, is hardly worth your while when attempted with one who once very narrowly escaped being one of your victims—with a man who once, because you feared he possessed the information that you know now he does possess, you tried to murder with cold-blooded deliberation." ”