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Show fjM;iO' :: fl If The Mystery of Hartley House ! By CLIFFORD S. RAYMOND pi ' J nitrated by IRWIN MYERS Copyright by George H. Doran Co. i! WVVVVVVViVVV & "JOHN!" Synopsis. Dr. John Mlchelson, Just beiiinniiii; his career, becomes resilient physician and companion of ilomer SUIney at Hartley house. Mr. Hiiney is an American, a seml-Invalid, seml-Invalid, old and rich and very desirous de-sirous to live. Mrs. Sidney is a Spanish woman, dignified and reticent reti-cent . Jed, the butler, acts like a privileged member of the family. Hartley house is a tine old isolated country place, with a murder story, a "haunted pool." and many watchdogs, watch-dogs, and an atmosphere of mystery. mys-tery. The "haunted pool" is where Kichard Iiobson, son of a former owner of Hartley house, had killed hia brottier, Arthur Dobson. Jed hcKins operations by locking the doctor in his room the very first night. Doctor John fixes his door so he can't be locked in. He meets l.sobcl. daughter of the house and talis in love at first sight, in the nlKht he finds the butler drunk and holding Mrs. Sidnyy by the wrist. ' lie interferes. Mrs. Sidney explains. ex-plains. John 'buys a revolver. John overhears Jed telling Mrs. Sidney he will have his way. In reply she says she will not hesitate to kill him. Jin. Sidney asks John to consent 7o the announcement of his ei'cagement to Isobel. The young people consent to the make-believe make-believe announcement. Jed tries to kill John. CHAPTER III Continued. 4 Mr. Sidney never liked to have his vicarious ilrinkin; interrupted, but lie always was.- pood na'turcd. "Well, doctor," he said, "what now? Is Jed drinking too much for my health V" At tlmt moment no possible amount of liquor would have been too much for Jed. The wretch must have thought I was 11 ghost. ".led may drink himself to death, for all me," I said. "That probably is the best end lie can come to. I think he is gallows meat, but I want to talk-to talk-to him when you can spare him." "We can't snare Jed to have him hanged,'' said Mr. Sidney. "He's too useful. Who else could drink my wine of an evening? Go alo;ig with the doctor, .led, and see what he wants. It's probably a matter of pills or powders pow-ders for me." .led was recovering from his shock, but he still showed the effects of it. "Xo hurry," I said. "I'd rather wait n half hour. I'll be in my room." I went there and wrote two letters. "r!olh were to one point. They related circumstantially what had happened that afternoon. One I addressed to a htwyer I knew, and the other to Dr. Iirownell. Jed knocked at the door as I finished them. He was still unnerved. un-nerved. "I have something I want you to read," I stud, and gave him the letters. He read them and moistened his lips. "You dou't noed to talk, Jed," I said. "I'll do all the talking that's necessary. neces-sary. I am not going away. I am going go-ing to stay right here, and you'd better be very careful of my health. These letters go out tonight. The men who get them will keep their mouths shut so long as I am alive. If anything should happen to me, whether you had anything to do with it or not, you'd tune a difficult lime with a jury." "It was a mistake," he said. "I would not do you any harm. I shot at a rabbit." "Twice with a pistol, when you had a shotgun?" I said. "You did! I was the rabbit. CHAPTER IV. Jed came to me the next day in one of his candid moods. "I did shoot at you yesterday," he said. "I know you did," I replied. "And you're wondering why nnd you're wondering if I intend to do it gain." "I don't wonder at anything you do," I said. "And you know that if yon do it again, the evidence is prepared pre-pared against you. I think I am perfectly per-fectly safe. I know you are a cow-rd." cow-rd." "Xo. I'm not a coward," he said, as if he were staling a fact and not making mak-ing a boast. "I never do anything without a purpose, and when I have a purpose, I do it r.o matter what the consequences may be. The reason I wanted to shoot you was because you were engaged to Isobel. I intend to marry Isobel. Xow I know that you are not going to marry Isobel. You are just the foolish fence that her mother thought she could build up around Isobel and keep me from trying try-ing to marry her. Isobel doesn't want 7u. She is laughing at you. So we might as well be friends again." "You preposterous old fool!" I said. "You seTiile alonho'ic! You are a violation vio-lation of decency. You enfeebled, exasperating ex-asperating old goat! You would sicken the moral conscience of a mummy. If you ever associate your aspirations with the name of Miss Sidney again, I'll .-ut your throat with a paper kic.fe." .Jed smih d end made me feel ridiculous. ridicu-lous. "I am a more inlelligent man than tou." lie s.,id. "You are too simple for the ':':! -;i!ii-s of life. You could not po---:!.o :e s;!!ic;enr for a girl of Miss "'"l',- - racier. She would die of 0 I boredom i:i six months. There Is nothing noth-ing preposterous about my candidacy for Miss Sidney. I am older than I'd like to be, but that Is all." "You are a hideous old fool," I said, "but I think I can handle you, and I give you warning." "I am going to be quite friendly," said Jed. "l'ou flatter yourself," I said. "Well, anyway," he said, "I'm friendly." friend-ly." He proved to be so. The life of the house went placidly from day to day. Isobel, with a sense of our posturing toward each other, made mocking gestures ges-tures of affection which shocked her mother. She particularly delighted to demonstrate, when Jed was serving dinner. I thought she would end by getting me shot in the back, but Jed had rated me finally as unimportant, which did my egotism no good. For such a rascal to discard me, formally betrothed as I was to Isobel, in his scandalous pursuits of that beautiful girl, was preposterous. If Mrs. Sidney had known that I was Idiotically in love with Isobel, she would not have sought relief from her distress by the arrangement which made me her daughter's protective fiance. The only thing I could take credit for In this absurd situation was that Mrs. Sidney was not allowed to know the state of my feelings. I was as sensible as a corrupting ro-: ro-: manticism would permit me to be. I 1 knew that any affection I might place in this fashion was a real and serious emotional vice, which If not controlled might lead to unhappiness. That consciousness con-sciousness had steadied me, but it had not delivered me. Isobel walked brightly through the old house of tragedy as surely it was, however hidden the tragedy. Site was the glint of sunshine in the aisles of the dark woods, the odor of roses against the wall. She had the charm of the hollyhocks, the freshness of the hepatica in the spring, the beauty of the wild rose in June. If I showed my feeling more than a liver sausage shows a soul, I hope I may be punished. What I thought of Isobel was my own affair, so long as I kept it strictly my own affair. I took myself in hand with as much energy and promptness as I could, following fol-lowing the announcement of our engagement. en-gagement. I did .not want to confess myself a fool. I did not intend to do so if I could help it. I overdid it. I became disagreeable. I kept as much out of Isobel's presence as possible. I never willingly was alone with her. I did my best to avoid meeting her or speaking to her. Isobel met the situation with her natural frankness after I had been giving this demonstration of myself for some time. "Doctor," she said, "this household necessarily imposes friendships upon the people in it. I wonder if we could not be a little more agreeable to each other." I did not know what to say. I hoped not to be a hypocrite, and I did not want to be absurd. "I shall be glad to be as agreeable as I can," I said after some mental stuttering. "I want to be, but I am so awkward." "I want to be, too," said Isobel ; "and if we both want to be, we shall not have to glower at each other every time we meet. Even mother does not require it and father would detest it." Without saying anything more, she made me see that I had used a cheap device to escape the consequences of a foolish affection. The girl in a very friendly fashion had shown me that my avoidance of her was marked, cool and unreasonable. It was wholly reasonable rea-sonable from my poor standpoint, but from no other. I saw that I was meeting my difficulty difficul-ty by running away from it, and I not only did not like the timidity of escape in this fashion, but furthermore, I did not like the opinion Isobel formed of me because of It. I had to face the music, and after that I did. It ought not to have astonished me that I felt better instantly. I knew that a coward cow-ard only increased his troubles. I imagine If I had not seemed such a professional stick, such a thing aloof from human emotions, Isobel would have been merely friendly and kind. As it was. she was tantalizing. She liked me well enough, but that meant very little. If she did not drive, ride, walk or play tennis with me, she had a choice of the servants. It was I or nothing. I w as with Mr. Sidney a number, of hours every day. They varied, sometimes some-times seven or eight a day in different periods, sometimes three or four. Very little of this time was occupied in professional pro-fessional duty. Life at Hartley house would have been intolerably lonesome if I had been there merely as a practitioner. prac-titioner. And therefore I welcomed a routine that was outside my prnfes- j sion. Mr. Sidney had it delicacy o I perception which told him when attention at-tention upon even so amiable an invalid in-valid might be drawing upon the physical phys-ical reserve of the people waiting upon him or being with him. lie always managed that they never should feel the fatigue of It. We saw no company at Hartley house. We made no calls and received none. We extended no invitations and received none. The estate was baron- j lal, and it had baronial habits, but 11 brought no friends' to the doors. It was nearly always with regard tc Isobel that the condition seemed unnatural. un-natural. For an Invalid like Mr. Sidney Sid-ney it was natural enough. Mrs. Sidney Sid-ney was wholly devoted to him ; I was engaged in professional duties ; and for Jed and the servants in the house it was natural to be content with what they had of life or with the performance perform-ance of duties for which they were paid and which they might abandon at will. But this was Isobel's life. She was young, vibrant, beautiful, but vistas opening into human prospects were closed to her. And she was engaged en-gaged to a piece of professional dead wood who happened to be the only masculine thing available when her mother was In great distress. Later Isobel said that as a woman she knew of course that I loved her, but this Is evident fiction. She did no such thing, and it would be an un-kindness un-kindness to her to think so. What was only comedy If I were, as she thought I was, an Indifferent, unfeeling unfeel-ing man, would have been cruelty If it had been known that the position was mockery of denied hopes. Isobel used me to gain her liberty. She affected familiarities and called me "John" derisively, or worse "dear" or "old dear." I protested, in more pain than she could guess. . "We are engaged," she said. "What should I call you?" "You might consider the fact that we are not engaged," I suggested. "But we are. If we don't act as if we were, you'll not be any protection against Jed. Don't you want' me to call you John?" "Of course I do," I said. "It's perfectly per-fectly straightforward, natural and proper." "Then It's the 'dear' and 'old dear' you object to, and I perfectly delight in calling you 'old dear.' It fils so Isobel Used Me to Gain Her Liberty. well it is really wonderful. It is almost al-most a complete description as well as a charming appellation. I adore it." "I object to. unnecessary freedom," I said. "But it helps to deceive Jed." "Nothing deceives Jed. He was deceived de-ceived only for a short while. Then he tried to kill me. He apologized afterward after-ward for his mistake. He knows the character of our engagement." "Just the same, he has not bothered mother since then as he did before." "That is because he is a coward and I have him where I can control him." Mrs. Sidney did not understand her daughter. That was not astonishing; Isobel was a young American woman ; Mrs. Sidney had Spanish traditions. Isobel came naturally, through her father, to a candor which never ceased to amaze and occasionally to distress dis-tress her mother. Isobel said what she thought. Her frankness came from honesty of character. Her lovely mother regarded life as something to be managed by reticence and denial. Mrs. Sidney was esthetic, and if a fact were unesthetic, she denied it and put it out of her consider;! I ion. It was, to her, the only proper thing to do. Isobel was a clever tennis-player and I a poor one. She heat me three or four sets every fine afternoon. She liked to drive a car and ride a horse. I drove and rode with her. When Isobel said for the first time that she wanted to take me for a drive in the car. her mother made a gesture of dismay. Isobel stood before her and smiled. "You know we are engaged, mother," sue said. I thought of the hen at the pond's edge seeing her brood of ducklings in the water. Mrs. Sidney was not in a panic and she did not II titter, but her distress was acute. She knew the girl had to develop and she knew I hat she had to live in North, not South America. Amer-ica. I'.ut knowledge is .lot a complete anodyne to pain. Isono! took her mother's hand and kissed it, and then her lips. She smiled In such an honest, frank, perceptive fashion I know that a smile can contain con-tain all the human underatandin;; In ;:z.. :.:.-- t the world, because I saw Isobel's and then, holding her mother's hand, she allowed Mrs. Sidney to have the mo- ment of distress with the intimate support sup-port of her own presence. It may seem a small struggle that i mother and daughter went through, but It did not seem small to me who i witnessed it, and it had no rhetorical and little emotional expression. Isobel knew her mother suffered, but she was wise. Mrs. Sidney dreaded her tla lighter's adopted mode of life, but knew her daughter. "Good-bye, mother," said Isobel. ""Ve sha'n't be gone long. Come on, John." That was the first time she had called me John honestly and without comedy. I knew her finesse. She did it to give her mother the comfortable sense that she was not going upon a wild adventure of an automobile ride with an unrelated man but was within the strict intimacy of the family. We went driving, Isobel at the wheel. She liked to drive fast and I do not. I am timid. I do not think that locomotion loco-motion Is a genuine human pleasure. Possibly it is, behind either a fast or a plodding horse. I prefer the plodding horse. Locomotion then merely reveals gradually changing facets of the scene; one likes to see the manifold aspects of a landscape unfold. But an automobile auto-mobile driven as Isobel wanted to drive it revealed no facets. It merely blurred the vision and gave the idea that the satisfaction sought was a certain cer-tain amount of wind blown in the face. For such as love it, not for me! "That was a difficult scene, doctor," she said. I knew that was what she would call me next -"doctor." I came directly di-rectly down out of the clouds. "I know It was," I said, "and I admired ad-mired the honest way in which you managed it." "I think I shall continue to call you John just that way," she said. "It seems more honest and decent. After all, we are engaged." i Sometimes Mr. Sidney could be taken out in an automobile, of a warm, fair afternoon. It was not often that his strength permitted this, but whenever when-ever It did, I was glad not only to allow al-low but to suggest that he make use of all opportunities. The most beautiful of our river drives bright us, within the limitation of Mr. Sidney's strenglh, to the penitentiary peni-tentiary at Alwick. It was a hideous structure of barracks, work-rooms and 1 walls, of cells and armed guards ; but it was in lovely surroundings, and if we took the best roads, we came naturally natur-ally to the prison walls. Mr. Sidney would look at the enclosure en-closure and the guards in the turrets as if interpreting his own life in the terms r,f prison existence. We may have taken this drive by the prison road ten times when, approaching It on . another of our outings, Mr. Sidney had the driver stop at the entrance. "I feel very strong and well today, doctor," he said, "and if you do not object, I think I should like to go inside. in-side. I have SOPH Mlo nutcirla r,,.,-,tr times, I have a curiosity to see the inside." in-side." I consented, thinking that with Jed and me helping him we acted as his legs, guiding and sustaining his feeble motions he was strong enough to make the effort. I did not know whether it was good or bad pyschology to give him a sight of so many imprisoned impris-oned men, hut my instinct suggested that it would, in his case, be good. He was a logical, reasoning man a rare phenomenon in the human race. If he had been emotion! and sentimental, I should have had more doubt. Mr. Sidney was important enough to be known in the neighborhood. The warden of the prison came to meet him in the office as soon as we had entered. He was very cordial to Mr. Sidney, who himself never showed more his aristocracy of democracy. I am a democrat. I nm most fond of an aristocratic democrat. Such was Mr. Sidney. Mr. Sidney visit the penitentiary. peni-tentiary. rl'u BB .OXT1.NUKO.) |