The Seventh Noon

F >> Frederick Orin Bartlett >> The Seventh Noon

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"Sometime early this morning."

If the boy was in the neighborhood, Chung asserted eagerly, he would
find him within an hour or hang the cursed-of-his-ancestors, Tung, by
his pigtail from his own window.

"Which is better than being locked up in jail. Are you children,"
Donaldson exploded, "that you can be duped like that?"

Chung appeared worried. But his slant eyes contracted until scarcely
more than the eye-lashes were revealed. However inactive he may have
been up to now, Donaldson knew that an end had come to his
sluggishness. When Chung left the room there was determination in
every wrinkle of his loose embroidered blouse.

So there were some nooks in Chinatown, mused Donaldson, that even Saul
did not know. The longer he sat there, the more indignant he became at
the treachery of this moon-faced traitor who was indirectly responsible
for the nightmare through which the girl had passed. Yet, as he
realized, no more responsible than he himself. He had been a thousand
times more unfaithful to the girl than Tung had been to Saul.

Chung returned with a brew of his finest tea. He was loquacious. He
tried one subject after another, interjecting protestations of his
friendship for Saul. Donaldson heard nothing but the even voice and
the sibilant dialect. He seemed chained to that one torturing picture.
Even the prospect of finding the boy and so ending the suspense which
had battered Miss Arsdale's nerves for so long brought little relief.
He never could be needed again as he had been needed then. He might
even have been able to detain Arsdale and so have avoided this present
crisis. He felt all the pangs of an honest sentry who, asleep at his
post, awakes to the fact that the enemy has slipped by him in the night.

It was well within the hour when Chung's lieutenant glided in with a
message that brought a suave smile to the face of his master.

"Allee light," he announced, beaming upon Donaldson. "Gellelum
dlownslairs."

"You've found him!"

"In callage," nodded Chung, with the genial air of a clergyman after
completing a marriage ceremony.

Donaldson reached the carriage before Chung had descended the first
half-dozen steps. He opened the door and saw a limp, unkempt form
sprawled upon the seat. He recognized it instantly as Arsdale. But
the man was in no condition to be carried home. He must take him
somewhere and watch over him until he was in a more presentable shape.
But one place suggested itself,--his own apartments.

Donaldson paused. He must take this bedraggled, disheveled remnant of
a man to the rooms which stood for rich cleanliness. He must soil the
nice spotlessness of the retreat for which he had paid so dearly. In
view of the little he had so far enjoyed of his costly privileges, this
last imposition seemed like a grim joke.

"To the Waldorf," he ordered the driver with a smile.

He himself climbed up on the box where he could find fresh air. At the
hotel he bribed a bellboy to help him with the man to his room by way
of the servant's entrance. Then he telephoned for the hotel physician,
Dr. Seton.

Before the doctor arrived Donaldson managed to strip the clothes from
the senseless man and to roll him into bed. Then he sat down in a
chair and stared at him.

"It's an opium jag," he explained, as soon as Dr. Seton came in, "but
that is n't the worst feature of it. I 'm tied here to him until he
comes to. I can't tell you how valuable my time is to me. I want you
to take the most heroic measures to get him out of it as soon as
possible."

"Very well, we 'll clear his system of the poison. But we can't be too
violent. We must save his nerves."

"Damn his nerves," Donaldson exclaimed. "He doesn't deserve nerves."

The doctor glanced sharply from his patient to Donaldson himself. He
noted the latter's pupils, his tense lips, his tightened fingers. He
had jumped at the word poison, like a murderer at the word police.

"See here," he demanded, "you have n't any of this stuff in you, have
you?"

"No," answered Donaldson, calmly.

"Anything else the matter with you?"

"Nothing but nervousness, I guess. I 've been under something of a
strain recently."

Donaldson turned away. He was afraid of the keen eyes of this man.
Barstow had not experimented very long with the stuff; perhaps, after
all, it did produce symptoms. But he reassured himself the next
minute, remembering that the drug was unknown. Barstow had not
revealed his discovery to any one. If he showed a dozen symptoms they
would be unrecognizable.

The doctor dropped his questioning and turned to his patient. He
subjected the man to the stomach-pump and hot baths. Donaldson
assisted and watched every detail of the vigorous treatment with
increasing interest. At the end of two hours Arsdale was allowed to
sleep.

Seton put on his coat and wrote out instructions for the further care
of the man. But before leaving he again turned his shrewd eyes upon
Donaldson himself.

"My boy," he said kindly, "you ought to pay some attention to your own
health. I hate to see a man of your age go to pieces."

He squinted curiously at Donaldson's eyes. The latter withdrew a
little.

"What makes you think there is anything wrong with me?" he asked.

"Your eyes for one thing," he answered.

"Nonsense. If I need anything, its only a good sweating, such as you
gave Arsdale."

"There are some poisons not so easily sweated out."

Donaldson hesitated. While watching this man at work upon the boy, he
had felt a temptation which was now burning hot within him. It was
possible that it was not too late even now to clean his own system of
the drug he had swallowed. This man, he knew, would bring to his aid
all the wisdom of medical science. Barstow may have been mistaken,
although he knew the careful chemist well enough to realize this was
well nigh an impossibility. The next second he held out his hand. It
was steady. He smiled as he saw Seton pause a moment to note if it
trembled.

"Thanks for all you 've done, doctor," he said. "Do you think I can
take him home tomorrow?"

"If you follow my instructions. The boy really has a sound physique.
He ought to pull out quickly."

As the door closed upon the doctor, Donaldson drew a breath of relief.
Thank God he had resisted his impulse. He would keep true to his
compact. He must remain true to himself. That was all that was now
left. There must be no shirking--no flinching. If he had played the
fool, he must not play the coward. The subtle tempter had suggested
the girl, but he realized that he had better not come to her at all
than to come as one who had played unfairly with himself. To be
unfaithful to the spirit of his undertaking would be as weak a thing as
not to fulfill the letter of his oath. His shadowy duty to the girl
would not justify himself in evading a crisis demanding his life for
the life of another, nor would it vindicate the greater evasion. It
was a matter of honor to remain true to that which at the start had
justified the whole hazard to him. It was this which restrained him
even from learning whether or not Barstow was in town.

The man on the bed was breathing heavily, his lips moving at every
breath in a way to form a grimace. He made in this condition the whole
room as tawdry as a tavern tap. And at the feet of this thing he was
tossing his meager store of golden minutes.

Yet it was through this inert medium alone that Miss Arsdale could pay
the debt to the father who had been so good to her; and it was only
through this same unsightly shell that he, Donaldson, could in his turn
repay his debt for the dreams she had quickened in him.

He stepped to the telephone to tell her what he could of that which he
had found and done. The mere sound of her voice as it came over the
wire brightened the room like a flood of light. The joy in it as she
listened to what he had accomplished was payment enough for all he had
sacrificed. He told her that the doctor had advised keeping the boy in
for at least another day.

"Oh, but you are good!" she exclaimed. "And you will not leave
him--you will guard him against running off again?"

"I shall stay here at his side until it is absolutely safe to go."

"If I could only come down!"

"But you must n't. You must stay where you are and do as you 're told."

"It will be only for to-day and to-night, won't it?"

"Probably that is all."

"That is n't very long."

"Not as time goes."

"But it will seem long."

"Will it--to you?"

He regretted the question the moment it had been uttered. But it came
to his lips unbidden.

"Of course," she answered.

"It will seem very long to me," he returned slowly. "Almost a
lifetime."

"Perhaps you will telephone now and then."

"Very often, if I may."

"The nurse says she 'll not allow me to answer the telephone after nine
at night."

"Nine to-night is a long way off yet."

"It's only half a day."

"But that's twelve hours!"

"Do you think that long?"

"Yes. That seems a very long while to me."

"It is soon gone."

"Too soon."

"Then comes the night and then the morning and then you 'll bring him
home."

"Then I 'll bring him home."

What a new meaning that word home had when it fell from her lips. What
a new meaning everything had.

She turned aside to address some one in the room and then her voice
came in complaint.

"The nurse is here with my medicine."

"Then close your eyes and swallow it quickly. I 'll telephone you
later and inquire how it tasted."

"Thank you. Good bye."

"Good bye."

He hung up the receiver and settled down to the grim task of counting
the passing minutes which were draining his life as though each minute
were a drop of blood let from an artery. And all the company he had
for it was this poor devil on the bed who grimaced as he breathed.

He folded his arms. If this, too, was a part of the cost he must pay
it like a man.

CHAPTER XVI

_The Fourth Day_

The morning of Tuesday, May twenty-eighth, found Donaldson still
sitting in the chair, facing the form upon the bed. He had not
undressed, and had slept less than an hour. He was now waiting for
eight o'clock, when he had received permission from the nurse to ring
up Miss Arsdale again.

With some tossing Arsdale had slept on without awaking fully enough to
be conscious of his surroundings. Now, however, Donaldson became aware
that the fellow's brain was clearing. He watched the process with some
interest. It was an hour later before the man began to realize that he
was in a strange room, and that another was in the room with him. It
was evident that he was trying hard, and yet with fear of whither the
road might lead him, to trace himself back. He had singled out
Donaldson for some time, observing him through half-closed eyes, before
he ventured to speak.

"Where am I?" he finally faltered huskily.

"In my charge."

"Who are you?"

"One Donaldson."

"I never heard of you."

"That is not improbable."

Arsdale reflected upon this for some time before he gained courage to
proceed further.

"I 'm going to get up," he announced, at the end of some five minutes.

"No, you 're not. You are going to stay right where you are."

"What right have you to keep me here?" he demanded.

"The right of being stronger than you."

Arsdale struggled feebly to his elbow, but Donaldson pushed him back
with a pressure that would not have made a child waver. He stood
beside him wondering just how much the dulled brain was able to grasp.
The long night had left him with little sympathy. The more he had
thought of that blow, the greater the aversion he felt towards Arsdale.
If the boy had n't struck her he would feel some pity for him, but that
blow given in the dark against a defenseless woman--the one woman who
had been faithful and kind to him--that was too much. It had raised
dark thoughts there in the night.

Arsdale, his pupils contracted to a pin-point, stared back at him. Yet
his questions proved that he was now possessed of a certain amount of
intelligence. If he was able to realize that he was in a strange
place, he might be able to realize some other things that Donaldson was
determined he _should_.

"You are n't very clear-headed yet, but can you understand what I am
saying to you now?"

Arsdale nodded weakly.

"Do you remember anything of what you did yesterday?" he demanded, in a
vibrant voice that engraved each word upon the sluggish brain.

"No," answered the man quailing.

"No? Then I'll tell you. You came back to the house and you struck
your sister."

"No! No! Not that! I didn't do that."

Donaldson responded to a new hope. This seemed to prove that the
conscience of the man was not dead. It came to him as a relief. He
was relentless, not out of hate, but because so much depended upon
establishing the fact that the fellow still had a soul.

"Yes. You did," he repeated, his fingers unconsciously closing into
his palms. "You struck her down."

"Good God!"

"Think of that a while and then I 'll tell you more."

"Is she hurt, is she badly hurt?"

Without replying Donaldson returned to his chair on the opposite side
of the bed and watched him as a physician might after injecting a
medicine. Arsdale stared back at him in dumb terror. Donaldson could
almost see the gruesome pictures which danced witch-like through his
disordered brain. He did n't enjoy the torture, but he must know just
how much he had upon which to work.

It was in the early hours of the morning that Donaldson had become
conscious of the new and tremendous responsibility which rested upon
him. To leave Arsdale behind him alive in such a condition as this
would be to leave the curse upon the girl,--would be to desert her to
handle this mad-man alone. He had seen red at the thought of it. It
would be to brand his own act with unpardonable cowardice; it would be
to go down into his grave with the helpless cries of this woman ringing
in his ears; it would be to shirk the greatest and most sacred duty
that can come to a man. The cold sweat had started upon his forehead
at the thought of it.

The inexorable alternative was scarcely less ghastly. Yet in the face
of this other the alternative had come as a relief. If it cost him his
immortal soul, this other should not be left behind to mar a fair and
unstained life. He would throttle him as he lay there upon the bed
before he would leave him behind to this. He would go to his doom a
murderer before he would leave Arsdale alive to do a fouler murder.
That should be his final sacrifice,--his ultimate renunciation. In its
first conception he had been appalled by the idea, but slowly its
inevitability had paralyzed thought. It had made him feel almost
impersonal. Considering the manner in which he had been thrust into
it, it seemed, as it were, an ordinance of Fate.

Though this had now become fixed in his mind, there was still the scant
hope that he had grasped from what he had observed in Arsdale's manner.
Given the morsel of a man, and there was still hope. Therefore it was
with considerable interest that he watched for some evidence of the
higher nature, even if only expressed in the crude form of shame. At
times Arsdale looked like a craven cornered to his death--at times like
a man struggling with a great grief--at times like a man dazed and
uncomprehending.

To himself he moaned continuously. Frequently he rose to his elbow
with the cry, "Is she hurt?"

Still in silence Donaldson watched him. Once Arsdale fell forward on
his chin, where he lay motionless, his eyes still upon Donaldson. The
latter helped him back to the pillow, but Arsdale shrank from his touch.

"Your eyes!" he gasped, covering his own with his trembling hand.
"They are the eyes of a devil. Take them off me--take them off!"

But Arsdale could not endure his blindness long. It made the ugly
visions worse. So, he saw the girl with red blood streaming down her
cheeks.

The sight of this writhing soul raised many new speculations in
Donaldson's mind especially in connection with its possible outcome.
In the matter of religion he was negative, neither believing any
professed creed nor denying any. He had received no early impetus, and
had up to now been too preoccupied with his earthly interests, with no
great grief or happiness to arouse him, to formulate any theory in his
own mind. Even at the moment he had swallowed the poison the motive
prompting him to it had been so intensely material that it had started
but the most momentary questions. It was the thought of Mrs.
Wentworth, the sight of the baby, the indefinable boundaries of his own
love--it was love that pressed the question in upon him. Now the other
extreme embodied in the sight of the man before him, capped by the
acute query of what the sin of murder might mean, sharpened it to a
real concern. If such love as the mother and the girl connoted forbade
the conception that love expired with life, the torture of this other
stunted soul seemed prophetic of what might be awaiting his own future,
dwarfed by the shifty expedient he had adopted to check its
development. If punishment counted for anything, he was, to be sure,
receiving his full portion right here on earth. The realization of
what he was leaving was an inquisition of the most exquisite order.
But would this be the end? His consciousness, as he sat there, refused
to allow the hope,--refused even to allow the hope to be desired.

So, face to face, each of these two struggled with the problem of his
next step. To each of them life had a new and terrible significance.
From a calm sea it had changed to wind-rent chaos. It was revealing
its potentialities,--lamb-like when asleep, lion-like when roused.
Tangle-haired Tragedy had stalked forth into the midst of men going
about their business.

The man on the bed broke out again,

"Why did n't I die before that? Why did n't I die before?"

Then he turned upon Donaldson with a new horror in his eyes.

"I did n't kill her?" he gasped.

The answer to his cry came--though he could not interpret it--in the
ringing of the telephone. Donaldson crossed to it, while Arsdale
cowered back in bed as though fearing this were news of some fresh
disaster. To him the broken conversation meant nothing; to Donaldson
it brought a relief that saved him almost from madness.

"Is that you, Mr. Donaldson?" she asked.

"Yes. And you--you are well?"

There was a pause, and then came the query again,

"Is that you?"

"Yes, can't you hear my voice?"

"It does n't sound like your voice. Is anything the matter?"

"No, nothing. I don't understand what you mean."

She hesitated again and then answered,

"It--it made me almost afraid."

"It's your nerves. Did you sleep well?"

"Yea. And is Ben all right?"

"Yes."

"There it is again," she broke in. "Your voice sounds harsh."

"That must be your imagination."

"Perhaps," she faltered. "Are you going to bring him home to-day?"

"Probably not until this evening. But," he broke in, "I shall come
sooner myself. I shall come this morning. Will you tell that
gentleman waiting near the gate to come down here?"

"What gentleman?"

"You probably have n't seen him. I put him there on guard."

"You are thoughtful. Your voice is natural again. Is Ben awake now?"

"Yes."

"And does he know?"

"Some things."

"Mr. Donaldson," she said, and he caught the shuddering fear in her
voice, "are you keeping anything from me?"

"I don't know what you mean, but I will come up so that you may see
there has been no change."

"I still think you are concealing something."

"Nothing that is not better concealed; nothing that you could help."

"I should rather know. I do not like being guarded in that way."

"We all have to guard one another. You in your turn guard me."

"From what?"

"Many things. You are doing it now--this minute."

"From what?" she insisted.

"From myself."

"Oh, I don't know what you mean. I think you had better come up here
at once--if it is safe to leave Ben."

"I shall make it safe. Don't forget to send down my man."

He hung up the receiver and turned to Arsdale. The latter must have
noticed instantly the change in Donaldson's expression, for he rose to
his elbow with eager face.

"You'll tell me before you go! You'll tell before--"

"You didn't kill," answered Donaldson.

"Thank God!"

"She is n't even wounded seriously."

"She knows that it was I?"

"Yes. She knows."

"How she must hate me, gentle Elaine."

"It is hard for her to hate any one."

"You think she--she might forgive?"

"I don't know. That remains to be seen."

The man buried his face in his arms and wept. This was not maudlin
sentimentality; it struck deeper.

"Are you ready to do anything more than regret?" demanded Donaldson.
"Are you ready to make a fight to quit that stuff?"

"So help me as long as I live--"

"Don't tell me that. I want you to think it over a while. I 'm going
to have some one stay here with you until I get back this afternoon.
Will you remain quiet?"

"Yes."

"And remember that even if by chance you did n't do much harm, still
you struck. You struck a woman; you struck your sister."

Arsdale cringed. Each word was a harder blow than he, even in his
madness, could strike.

"It's a--terrible thing to remember. But--but it will be always with
me. It will never leave me."

As soon as the detective arrived Donaldson gave him his instructions,
adding,

"Look out for tricks, and be ready to tell me all he says to you."

"I 've had 'em before," answered the man.

CHAPTER XVII

_An Interlude_

She was waiting for him in the library with an expression both eager
and worried. She crossed the room to meet him, but paused half-way as
though really fearful of some change. But she saw only the same kind,
tense face, looking perhaps a bit heavy from weariness, the same dark
eyes with their strange fires, the same slight droop of the shoulders.
There was certainly nothing to fear in him as he stood before her with
a tender, quizzical smile about his large mouth. He looked to her now
more like a big boy than the cold, stern man she had half expected.

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

"No, not standing here where I can see you. But over the telephone
with your strange voice and your half meanings--what _did_ you mean?"

"Nothing you need worry about."

She became suddenly serious.

"I want to tell you now that there is no need of your trying to hide
anything at all from me about Ben."

"I am hiding nothing. But," he asked with quick intuition, "are _you_?"

She hesitated, met his eyes, and dropped her voice.

"I can tell you nothing--not even you--unless you have learned it."

"I, in my turn, don't know what you mean," he answered. "I have
learned nothing new about him. And it is too fair a morning," he
concluded abruptly, "to bother over puzzles. Things have happened so
rapidly that we are probably both muddled, and if we could spend the
time in explanations we should doubtless find that neither of us means
anything."

She was clearly relieved, but it raised a new question in Donaldson's
mind. Of course she understood nothing of what had taken place last
night unless by mental telepathy. But in these days of psychic
revelations a man could n't feel secure even in his thoughts. There
was apparently some inner secret--she had touched upon it
before--relating to the Arsdale curse. Doubtless if one pried
carefully enough many another skeleton could be found in the closets of
the house of this family half-poisoned now through three generations.

It was early and it suddenly occurred to her that he had probably not
yet breakfasted.

She struggled a moment with a conflicting sense of hospitality and
propriety, but finally said resolutely, "I should be glad if you would
breakfast with me. You ought to try your new cook."

The picture he had of her sitting opposite him at the coffee brought
the warm blood to his cheeks.

"I--why--"

"Will you have your chop well done?" she broke in, without giving him
time to frame an excuse.

"Yes," he answered.

She left him.

Within a very short time she announced the meal with pretty grace,
which concealed all trace of nervousness, save for the heightened color
of her cheeks, which, he noted, were as scarlet as though she herself
had been bending over a hot stove. She led the way into an exquisite
little dining room, which he at once took to be the expression of her
own taste. It was in white and apple green, with a large trellised
window opening upon the lawn. A small table had been placed in the sun
near the window, and was covered with dazzling white linen, polished
silver, and cut glass, which, catching the morning beams, reflected a
prismatic riot of colors. The chops, lettuce, bread and butter, and
coffee were already served. As he seated her, he felt as though he
were living out a dream--one of the dreams that as a very young man he
had sometimes dreamed when, lying flat upon his back in the sun, he had
watched the big cotton clouds wafted, like thistledown, across the blue.

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