OCR Text |
Show Tlae Mystery f Hartley House 1 t By CLIFFORD S. RAYMOND $ i f Illustrate by IRWIN MYERS Copyri.ht by G. R Don., Co. were morose. Please sit down, John." I did. In a comfortable chair. We looked at the fire, "I'll be Baying good-bye tomorrow," I said. "What are you going to do?" "I have made soif arrangements. !.'ll build up a small practice, I may go to a small town. I think that would suit me. I haven't the temperament tempera-ment for a city. It Is chill." "You have really set yourself back by coming here," she suggested. "Possibly," I admitted, "In purely material ways; but I have lived the wonder time of my life here. The sacrifice sac-rifice was cheap." "But it was a sacrifice 7" "In a strictly pragmatic fashion, yes." "Tou think of It as a sacrifice?" "I do not I think of It as my real CHAPTER XVII Continued. 17 There was u lot of malevolence In Mr. Sidney's tone, a tremendous amount of linto. Richard Dobson uttered ut-tered tli(i quivering, quavering little cry again and started to run. As he got under wuy, lie shrieked. It Hound-ad Hound-ad like un old woman's shriek. "Sir. Sidney Blurted after him. He .Vttl Uiut cane you saw him take out bt this room. That was the one he wus beaten down with. "I think for a moment he wanted to kill Kichard. lie nourished the stick and yelled. Kit-hard, being In a fren-y fren-y of fright, wus stronger on his logs than his brother. He was off Into the bush. Mr. Sldriey stumbled and fell. He got up rather slowly, as If he were either hurt or as If his strength were leaving - him. I could hoar Richard rhrleklng farther off In the bush. "When Sir. Sidney got up, he turned toward the house, and I ran to beat faliii hore and found you." Jed rocked a .while, and I did not say anything. "1 am decidedly shaken," he said after a while. "I was very fond of him, and I am a useless old man, an alcoholic of no account except to him, and he Is dead." "There Is only one thing to do," I said. "Richard Dobson must be on his wny to freedom tomorrow. We shall have to sec to that." . Jed aroused himself for an Instant. "Yon copy-book moralist !" he said. "You would Interfere with a genial, lovable man's magnificent hate just because he Is (lend and your scruples have become Important. You ought to cho"ke. Let the brute Dick Dobson rot In prison. It's his desert." "It can't be done, Jed," I said. "Tomorrow "To-morrow we'll go to Alwick prison and explain." ' o For me to act without telling Mrs. Sidney was impossible, and It was almost al-most impossible for me to take the subject up with her. I saw her only for a moment, told her that, being acquainted ac-quainted with the .facts, I thought I knew what the conscience of the house would require. Her world had been destroyed ; her light had gone out. She had no pride for herself; she' shrank from the possibility pos-sibility of a hurt to Isobel, but I had judghd the conscience of the house corret'tly. She would have protected Mr. Sidney against all the equities and Justice In the world that was her afn In her own esteem. But now he was dead: justice could be done. 1 did not want to act without Lionel's Lio-nel's knowing what I was doing. I loped she would approve of what I Intended to do, though I Intended to tfo it whether she did or not. I had to tell the story. 1 "You are right, John," she said. "But how magnificent father was ! JHe was stark Nemesis, the cleanest, ' purest Justice there Is!" She was a bit ecstatic. They teach young ladies too many generalizations, 1' thought. There was no rhapsody in this ; It was- ugly. Jed had one more fash of spirit as we started' for the penitentiary. "Yon poor old copy-book fool of a r.oralist!" he said: "Why can't your insignificant conscience be satisfied without doing a lot of damage ,tc no good end? Hang you moralists ! You wreck life. Richard Dobson can't " ve "You Presume That I Am Not in Lov With You." life. The rest of my existence will be the sacrifice." "You are a simple sort of a person, John." "I presume so. I have no Teason to think otherwise." "Where did you get your Ideas of women, John?" "I have no ideas of women. I am not presumptuous or, in that fashion, egotistic." "Tes, you are," she said. "I don't think you are right in saying say-ing that." "You are presumptuous about me," "I am not!" I exclaimed in hurt pride. "You are," she said. "Tou presume that I am not in love with you." (THE END). (an have It either way you want. You are going to force him out of tie only place he has to live, and ycu are going go-ing to give him the tragedy of knowing know-ing that his life was wrecked." "lie Is a rich man," I said. "Half l he old Dobson estate is his. All of It Is IiIn. His brother was legally and Is now actually dead." ' Vou are a worse man than I was," kbit Jed. "I never interfered with Mr. S dney's scheme of punishment. You are trying to. His scheme was just." "What's the use of this debate?" I reclaimed. "You are morally incapable incapa-ble of right doing." "And you are a foolish collection of pious axioms," said Jed. When we came to the penitentiary entrance, we encountered Morgan of the Metropolitan agency. He stopped me. "You had me fooled," he said. "I really thought you didn't know." "I did not know," I said. "Didn't you !" he exclaimed. "You are here to see Richard Dobson. I followed fol-lowed my hunch. I have the answer to the thing. I know why this man Sidney never was younger than twenty years. You are here to see Richard Dobson because you are representing Arthur Dobson." "Arthur Dobson is dead." "I know he Is as a name ; but he Is alive as Sidney." "Mr. Sidney is dead," I said. "We have come here to tell Richard Dobson Dob-son that he can go free. I did not know who Arthur Dobson was until last night" As Slorgan stood before us on the penitentiary steps, I thought how true had been my conception of him as the Inevitable. Mr. Sidney had outplayed out-played fate, but it was by using the trump card death. Morgan's face showed some unpleasant unpleas-ant lines. "What do you mean, that Sidney is dead?" he asked. "He died Christmas night. I read his diary last night. Jed gave It to me. It Is the one Dravada tried to steal. We came here at once to tell Richard Dobson." "Let his brother Arthur tell him. Richard is dead," said Morgan, going on down the steps. "But I am not through with you people. Publicity is just as good now as it was before." He got Into an automobile, and was driven away. "Something always happens to these moral consciences," said Jed savagely. savage-ly. "You'll learn life some day, young fellow. Now keep your mouth shut inside here." The warden told us that Richard Dobson had died the night before. He had sustained a great shock the night he walked out of the penitentiary and was found on Mr. Sidney's grounds. The adventure not only overtaxed him physically, but jt had affected his imagination. im-agination. When the guards found him, after the message from Hartley house, he was Incoherent and In a fever. fe-ver. He never regained strength or rationality. ra-tionality. He had been quiet at times, but at other times was in delirium. When delirious, he suffered chiefly from the delusion that he had seen his brother's ghost. He died slowly and In great misery, the warden said. "Now keep your mouth shut, you fool," Jed ordered by merely prodding prod-ding me in the ribs. The warden was affected by the news of Mr. Sidney's death. He remembered re-membered him as the pleasant man who had called one day. It seemed to me that our visit, so shortly after Mr. Sidney's death, must appear as a thing strangely without purpose to the warden, war-den, but Jed was so apparently right In asking for silence at this time that I yielded to his prudential course. The right and wrong of the Dobson affair was in the grave. Our departure depar-ture from the pfnitentiary was awkward, awk-ward, I thought. The virdeo did not seem to find it ao. On the way back Je(j presented, viciously, vi-ciously, the sharp edges) of our trouble. "You have that fellow Slorgan to deal with," he said. "SJI you are going to be moralistic, you will run the lives of two ladies who have trusted you. Morgan has to be bought. You are not doing anyone any hurt now. You are not keeping an innocent man in the penitentiary. You are not disturbing justice or defeating punishment. You re taking the surest means to the protection of the Innocent by bribing this man to silence." Of all the obvious things I might bave said to this man who for a long time had terrorized the Sidney household, house-hold, none seemed pertinent. They would have been Imprecations and reproaches. re-proaches. They would have dealt with the past. He, as If he had a clean slate, was dealing with the future. fu-ture. It did Mrs. Sidney and Isobel no good to tell Jed that he had been a rascal and was rjnfit to advise. "If you go to Mrs. Sidney." said Jed, "she will sacrifice herself and everybody else. Go to Miss Sidney and tell her that the family must pay Mr. Morgan S20.000. He'll want $50-000. $50-000. He'll take twenty. Give It to bim in five annual installments. . At the end of five years he'll be harmless. harm-less. You and Viss Sidney will nave established yourselves, and Morgan's story will be a drled-up walnut." The proposal was so repulsive that I did not answer Jed. He said a great deal more In a great deal of bitterness, bitter-ness, chiefly against mo and what he conceived to be my moralistic Ideas. When we had returned to Hartley house, Jed said: "Do at least one thing, ask Miss Sidney what she prefers." I had no right and no inclination to make a decision which concerned the family and not me. I did not want to speak to Mrs. Sidney Jed was right, her conscience might permit only the answer which would expose the family to consequences. I spoke to IsobeL We compromised with Morgan. Jed again was right. Morgan wanted $50,-000. $50,-000. He took $20,000. Isohl had been insistent. She had been Impatient of any suggestion that there could be anything immoral or dangerous in such compromising. Feminine Fem-inine morals are selfishly protective of things near and dear. A generalized general-ized immorality, an unembodied immorality, im-morality, is to women unimportant It is less than unimportant; it Is Impossible Impos-sible ; It does not exist This is a part of the Instinct which nourishes and protects the infant. ( "I don't understand you at all, John," she said. "Is there any question ques-tion in your mind that we ought to protect my .father's memory and my mother's peace of mind? You admit that even now this man Morgan can wreck the things we hold dearest. You admit that a small payment can protect these things. You know that the one thing of which we have more than we need Is money, and you admit ad-mit that we are not doing any person any harm by using it to bribe this man Slorgan." Of course, I had to give in. CHAPTER XVIII. Mr. Sidney was burled by the pool on a bitter afternean when the snow creaked underfoot, and the sun, in a cold blue sky to the southwest above the hills across the river, could hardly hard-ly be regarded as a warm and sustaining sustain-ing star. The servants were pall bearers sad ones ; and we had the chaplain from the penitentiary to read the service in the room Mr. Sidney had wsed. The sun came in the southwestern windows, win-dows, and the canaries sang. Algol was afraid of strangers and hid himself. him-self. Otherwise it was Mr. Sidney's room. We carried the coffin the half-mile In the bitter cold to the grave which had been dug by the pool with mattocks mat-tocks through the frozen earth. Mrs. Sidney took my arm, but walked the distance bravely. Isobel went as if she were a clear-eyed Spartan girl accepting ac-cepting life without a quaver or whimper, whim-per, upon the terms offered. We left the remains of our gracious gentleman there. So genial a man could not die. He still pervaded the house. He had impregnated im-pregnated it. His death could not de-. de-. stroy his influence. Even his room, his death chamber, remained jovial ; but Algol attached himself to Isobel and could not be parted from her. He went to her room that night. Necessity and delicacy both suggested sug-gested that I go away for a while the following morning. It was necessary for me to establish myself In the city, in material and physical facts of lodging, lodg-ing, and so forth, and delicacy intimated intimat-ed that I was an alien in the household house-hold upon a strangely fictitious standing. stand-ing. I went away in the early morning, leaving word that I would return In a day or two to say good-bye. I came back the evening of the second day. by automobile from the city. I had been impelled to go back and had so far resisted the compulsion that I had missed train time. Then the impulse reasserted itself so irresistibly that I took an automobile for the 40-mile ride. Jed met me at the door. His cordiality cor-diality was unforced. It was the dinner din-ner hour. Jed suggested either some biscuits and sherry In my room or an omelet with mushrooms. Mrs. Sidney, he said, had been Spartan, but was In collapse. Miss Sidney was somewhere about he did not know where. I did not want anything to eat and went toward the library. Isobel was sitting there by the fire. I had often seen her thus before. It was one of the familiar pictures I should remember. There were probably proba-bly a half dozen others none better than this. She looked up as I entered. "I am glad you are back, John," she said. I could think only of a commonplace. common-place. "I did not Intend to disturb you," I said. "How Is your mother?" "Utterly and happily stupefied," said Isobel. "Her pain waits for her." "And yourself?" "I can't find a tragedy In It" she said. "I feel a sense of terrible but inevitable loss. I had reconciled myself my-self to It. I can't be a sentimental rebel reb-el against life. His life was happy to the end. He would hate us If we Mr. Sidney Staged After Him. tts!de the penitentiary. He has no n5ney, no way of ranking any, pj j-lhte to go, no friends. You : re goto? go-to? to throw him out of his home. Tflu are going to torture him with the knowledge that his life was wasted la prison when he was a free man in lw. You are going to destroy tie Sidney Sid-ney family." "Richard Dobson saw his brother," Jnflid, "that night nt tne pool." Tie saw a ghost." asserted Jed. "Or rt he 't see a ghost, ho must w.-nt w stn.i In the penitentiary. If he V'vew It was his brother, why didn't v tlpmnnd n Inquiry and his frrv iom? F.itlier because he saw a ghost vr -!-. ot want his freedom. You |