A Woman Named Smith Page 16

  CHAPTER XV

  THE HEART OF HYNDS HOUSE

  I stood staring at the broken coin in my hand with a sort ofstupefaction, while The Jinnee moved slowly away from the window. Ihad received a summons I could not ignore. Had I not promised,smilingly indeed, but sincerely, to answer that call whenever andhowever it should come?

  The music had ceased for the moment, and the big hall was quiteempty, for the dancers had trooped into the dining-room, from whichcame laughter and chattering voices, and the chink of silver andchina. The great front doors were wide open. I slipped unseen intothe darkly bright, whispering night.

  The moon was high in the heavens, for it was past midnight; the windwas chill upon my shoulders, the dew silvery under my feet. Therewas an odor abroad--the ineffable odor of sleepily stirring spring,of young new leaves budding, of tender grass, growing like a baby'shair.

  At some distance ahead I could just distinguish the dark figure ofthe messenger, flitting soundless as a shadow. And then, to myinfinite relief, out of the shrubbery stepped Boris, and thrust hisdoggy nose into my hand. I laid hold of his collar, and he trottedsedately beside me.

  I had half expected to be led to the gray-gabled cottage, but TheJinnee stole along in the shadow of the hedge, stopped beside thespring-house, and held up his hand.

  "In the name of God!" said I, involuntarily.

  "The compassionate, the merciful!" finished The Jinnee, and turningto the east made a profound reverence. There was something so simpleand so sincere in his manner that my momentary fear subsided.

  "But why have I been sent for? Why are _you_ here?" I wondered.

  He folded his arms upon his breast, and in a sing-song voice,curiously unlike any other I had ever heard, answered parrotlike:

  "This is the word of the master: Take to the fair-haired lady thebroken coin, my sign, and she will remember her word to me. Verily,for the sign's sake, she will follow without fear."

  "The master is not ill, then?"

  "In his body he is well. But of the spirit of man, and what help heneeds, there is but one judge, namely, God."

  "He has need of me?"

  "He sends the token by me, Achmet." And he stood there with amotionless patience, waiting.

  Achmet! I remembered an afternoon in the Enchanted Wood, and thatname ringing in my ears--Achmet!

  "I will follow you," I said. And instantly The Jinnee pushed openthe unlocked door of the spring-house and stepped inside.

  I hesitated for a moment, turning my head toward Hynds House,blazing with lights. I could hear voices, laughter, snatches ofsong. From the kitchen Mary Magdalen's great, rich, unctuous laughrolled out like an organ peal. Silhouetted against the lightedlibrary window was one of our big black cats, with an arched backand an uplifted and expressive tail.

  "I wait," said a quiet voice. And, clutching Boris by the collar, Istepped inside the door.

  It was dark in there; only a faint and broken light came through theone window, set high in the wall. Boris's eyes were balls of fire,and his feet made a stealthy, scuffling sound on the flagged floor.The little spring bubbling in its stone basin was like a whispering,secretive voice.

  Achmet stooped down, over in one corner. Then, shading a very modernflash-light with a fold of his robe, he showed me one of the squareflags lifted, and a black hole yawning in the floor.

  I backed away. With a crooked, sly smile, The Jinnee snapped hisfingers at Boris. The big dog jerked himself free of my hand anddisappeared.

  "Now!" said The Jinnee. And like one in a dream I gathered mylace-trimmed skirts in my hand and backed down a spider-web stairwaythat barely gave one foothold. Achmet waited until I reached thebottom, then he, too, backed in, and I heard the flagstone fall toover my head.

  There was a moment of utter and awful blackness and stillness. I wasupon the point of shrieking, when something cold and friendlytouched my hand: Boris was nosing me. The Jinnee, at the bottom ofthe steps, showed the light.

  We were in a circular shaft, narrowing upward like an invertedfunnel. It was quite clean and dry, lined with hard cement.Branching from it were two wedge-shaped openings, just wide enoughto allow one person at a time to walk through.

  The Jinnee plunged into one of these, and Boris and I followed.There was nothing else for us to do.

  "This is safest way. If I come through house, I am seen. Not wantthat," said Achmet, over his shoulder.

  I made no reply. I was wondering what The Author would have said hadhe seen us at that moment--The Jinnee shuffling ahead in heellessslippers and Oriental dress, upon his woolly head a red fez with asilver crescent on it, and on his breast a string of _saphies_,verses from the Koran, in exquisite Arabic script, framed in flatround pieces of silver and strung on a chain. Boris, larger andnobler even than most of his breed, paced behind him. Then came I, aslim blonde woman, with fair hair powdered, in a dress a centuryold.

  The passage wasn't quite six feet high, and so still that youcould hear the beating of your heart. Achmet's slippers went_scuf-scuf-scuf_. Boris swayed from side to side, his tonguelolling, his eyes phosphorescent. He resembled those ghost-houndsof old stories, terrific beasts that follow the Wild Huntsman.

  We went down some steps. I shouldn't have been surprised had I foundmyself climbing the beanstalk after Jack. Dazedly I thought: "I'llwake up in the morning and tell them at the breakfast-table what awonderful dream I had." I could fancy the Lady with the Soulclasping her hands, and The Author crinkling his eyes, and Alicialaughing.

  This last passage, which, I learned afterward, ran under thecarriage house, presently crooked like an elbow and led us into awindowless and stone-floored little room, under the cellar. On theopposite side of the room was the opening of another such passage,with stone steps leading to it. On these steps sat Nicholas Jelnik.

  He got to his feet and stood looking at me. A momentary red rushedto his cheek, and his eyes flashed. Boris, tongue out, tail wagging,rubbed against him, and the master's hand dropped between thespeaking eyes with a swift caress.

  "Good dog! You came with her!"

  "And I. Am I not also a good dog?" asked The Jinnee, jealously.

  Mr. Jelnik's reply I did not understand, but Achmet made arespectful salutation, and his grin was the grin of a little boy.

  "Sophy!" said Nicholas Jelnik, and his voice shook, "Sophy! Oh, Iknew you would come!" He gave a low, pleased laugh. "And now she ishere, she doesn't even ask why I have sent for her!"

  "The mistress," said Achmet, "should have been of the Faith. MayAllah enlighten her!"

  "Sit down here beside me for a few minutes, Sophy, and rest," saidMr. Jelnik, seating himself. "And do not look so pale, my littlecomrade."

  "I thought--that you might be ill," I faltered. "I thought--that youneeded me."

  "I am not ill, but I do need you," he said quickly, and took my handin a firm clasp. The touch of that hand brought me out of mytrance-like state. It was all right, and the most natural thing inthe world, that I should be sitting in this windowless vault, withtwo candles and a shadowy lantern burning dimly in the still air, anold black Jinnee squatting on his heels watching me, a greatwolf-hound stretched beside him. Wasn't Nicholas Jelnik holding myhand?

  "Sophy," he said directly, "I have found the lost Key of HyndsHouse." I looked at him dumbly. "I have reached that point where Ican tell you everything, little friend. Thank Heaven you have come!"But of a sudden his-forehead was damp.

  "You will remember," he said, after a moment's silence, and stillholding my hand--and I think that now he held it as he had once heldhis mother's--"when I talked to you about my childhood and mymother, I told you she had made me more of an American than anAustrian. This old home-town of her people, this old house, themystery that blackened the Hynds name, were as real to me as thescenes and people that actually surrounded me.

  "When I was older, she turned over to me all her family papers, andI sifted and assorted and reduced them to system and order. I foundamong them Richard Hynds's own brief account of
the affair, andcopies of letters to his father, but the bulk of the papersconsisted of such data as his son and namesake could gather. Thisformed a copious mass, for he had set down every least circumstancethat he thought might have any bearing upon his father's case. Thesepapers, guarded so jealously, bequeathed to his successors thesacred task of righting Richard Hynds.

  "In Richard's short statement, left for his little son, he, asrightful heir of Hynds House, mentions the secret passages and tellshow they may be entered. He had been taught that much, himself, onreaching his majority. But there was one vital secret that hadn'tbeen revealed to Richard, for not until the head of Hynds House knewhe was about to die did he give to his successor the Key to thehidden room; the room concealed so cunningly that without the Keyone could never hope to find it. They planned and built wonderfullywell, those old master work-men. They meant that secret room to bethe strong-box, the inviolate hiding-place which should keep whatmight be entrusted to it. It was, as it were, the heart of HyndsHouse.

  "Remember that Richard's father died of a stroke of apoplexy, andwithout speaking. Thus Freeman would know no more than Richard did.There was but one person alive who knew, and that was--"

  "A slave?" I whispered, remembering Freeman's diary.

  "A slave, an unlettered slave. How he discovered it I do not know.But he did discover it. He knew, and the Hyndses did not. In regardto this same slave, a curious item was set down by Richard's son:

  "'This day Black Shooba's son told me of a heathen song Shooba madebefore he died and swore him to forget not. 'Tis a strange chaunt:

  "I, Shooba, the Snake Soul, make me a Song. In the night I sing it for my Snake. My Snake showed me a Secret Thing. Two Eyes and Two Eyes looked upon One Eye. One Eye is open and sees, and sees not. This my Snake showed me, in the Dark. But the Strong Ones, the White Ones, They have no Snake. Ho! Never shall they see it!"'

  "Sounds like a stark raving, doesn't it? One can fancy the doctorfeeling a bit ashamed of himself when he wrote it down.

  "I rather fancied it raving, myself, until one day I came across--"here he paused, and looked at me intently--"a yellowed slip of paperbetween the pages of an old diary that had been accidentallydiscovered. I knew then that there was really something to bediscovered, and that I had not been a visionary sentimentalist whenI yielded to my mother's last expressed wish that I should comehere and search.

  "I suppose," he went on dreamily, "that it was in my blood, thedesire to come here to Hyndsville, like a homing bird. But when mymother died, the ties that bound me to her country seemed to be in ameasure loosened. Then, too, the _Wanderlust_ had me in its grip. Iput aside the profession my father had bred me to, left my affairsin what I thought capable hands, and indulged my desire to wander upand down the earth and sail the seven seas. It was upon one of theseprowls that I came upon my old Achmet here, and induced a master whodidn't love him to part with him." And he looked at the old man withwhimsical tenderness.

  "I am your slave," spoke up The Jinnee, sturdily. "I am the fosteredoffspring of my master's bounty. May he live a thousand years!"

  That shocked my Yankee ears. Achmet smiled his crooked smile.

  "Why did the sahiba follow when I showed her a broken coin?" heasked.

  "Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me."

  "Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent.

  "Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed.He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave." Oh, shameupon you, Sophy Smith, for there was that in you, and that not theleast divine part, which was in full accord with black Achmet!

  "Achmet's ideas are of the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with afaint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with awave of the hand, he continued:

  "Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways ofthe world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they wouldgive me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came toHyndsville.

  "With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparativelyeasy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's deathI had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes,Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place--" he paused,and looked at me with a puzzled frown--"it has seemed to me thatthere were--well, secret influences, say; things outside of oursphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon myspirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be sopowerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it.

  "Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old manreputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said thattroubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is theold and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp anddrove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin andtried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. Jelnik, "the gipsy wasright."

  "Ah, yes, I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, thatfirst day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn anddusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enoughfor me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchenwindow, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges whilehis cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to playthe obliging Jinnee. You had your dinner, and I had a bit ofharmless amusement. It pleased me to hear Alicia call me Ariel. Itpleased me to stand by, to protect you, if that should be necessary.Achmet and I took turns in safeguarding you at night.

  "You will understand"--he gave me a straight, clear, proudlook--"that it was never my desire to mystify or to frighten you.But I couldn't take you offhand into my confidence, could I? I hadto find out something more about you. Remember, too, that my searchin no wise jeopardizes your interests.

  "Day after day, night after night, Sophy, I have pored overold papers, or burrowed mole-like into the black recesses ofHynds House. Bit by bit I have pieced scraps of evidencetogether--Shooba's savage chant with Scipio's dying whisper inFreeman's ear, and these two with a rude verse and a line ofdots. But there the thread snapped.

  "Do you remember the morning you told me, The Author's guess that'Hellen's Keye' was the Greek fret, the design over all the windowsand doors of Hynds House? The trail was plain then. I was to followthe line of the Greek key for three and thirty turnings, when Ishould come upon a sign. I tried and tried. And to-night--I reachedthe end of it, Sophy. I found it." Again his forehead was damp, andhis pallor, if possible, deepened.

  I rose as if on springs. The hair of my head rose, too, I thought,and my scalp tingled.

  "Found what?"

  "The hidden room that the masters built for the master of HyndsHouse." He stopped, and a shudder passed over him. His hand closedupon mine, and it was deathly cold.

  "You have been in a secret room?--here in Hynds House?" I askedincredulously.

  "Yes," said he in a whisper. "I opened the door--and went in. Theroom hadn't been opened for a hundred years, Sophy. There was atable in one corner, and I went over to it. There was somethingelse there, too, Sophy." He moistened his lips, and looked at mewith dilated eyes.

  "What?" I asked; "in God's name, what?"

  "The thief," said Nicholas Jelnik.