THE FACE IN THE ALCOVE

The first thing I noticed as I sped up the stairs was the absence of Stodger from his post in the upper hall, where I had last seen him.

Only a few minutes previously I had peeped into the lower hall to satisfy myself that everything was right; at that time he was leaning on the bal.u.s.trade, engaged in a desultory conversation with Officer Morrison, stationed below. But in a moment I understood.

The bath room door stood wide open, and on the floor lay Miss Cooper--lifeless, was my first horrified thought. Stodger, with the best of intensions and the least possible capacity for carrying them out, knelt helplessly beside her, under the delusion that he was rendering first aid.

Instantly I lifted the still form from the floor and pillowed the sunny brown tresses in the hollow of my arm. How light she was! How soft!

How lovely and tender! It was wonderful--a sublime revelation--thus to feel the actual contact of her warm, yielding body.

But Heaven knows, I did n't stop to a.n.a.lyze my feelings at the time.

For a while I was shaken, panic-stricken, utterly unable to do more than stare numbly down at the sweet pale face, framed in its nimbus of wavy brown hair. I got a grip on myself, though, and Stodger was sent flying to fetch Miss Fluette.

She came quickly enough, wondering and alarmed; and when she beheld me holding her cousin, would have s.n.a.t.c.hed her from me--with what biting words I can only imagine.

But for once in her life, at least, that proud, wilful young lady bowed without a murmur to the tone of authority; for one brief moment she stared at me astounded, and in the next, as comprehension dawned, melted. It is hard to say which of her two att.i.tudes was the more impressive: the flaming anger provoked by the sight of the unconscious girl in my arms, or the tenderly sweet manner with which she presently turned to minister to her. The voice which bade me leave Genevieve to her care was actually gentle. Very reluctantly, I withdrew with Stodger into the hall. Before I closed the door, however, I tersely charged Miss Belle to give me as soon as possible the explanation of the mystery.

The door closed, I turned upon my unoffending a.s.sociate rather angrily, I 'm ashamed to say; but Stodger's good-nature was imperturbable. He could tell me absolutely nothing that threw light upon whatever terrifying experience Miss Cooper had undergone.

He had remained at the spot where I had last seen him, he said; a position he had a.s.sumed purposely, because from there he had a view of practically the entire second story. He had opened all the doors so that the slightest sound or movement in any of the chambers could not fail to attract his attention. Immediately behind him, by simply turning his head, he could see through the bath room, across the landing at the top of the rear stairs, and into the small sewing-room beyond. To right and left--east and west--the corridor extended the width of the house, and an intruder could have gained access to any of the rooms only by pa.s.sing the watcher.

The sudden piercing scream, Stodger protested, had startled and astonished him as much as it had anybody. He wheeled round to find the bath room door so nearly closed that it was impossible to glimpse what lay beyond until he had again opened it; which he had done promptly, he declared, to behold only Miss Cooper. She was lying on the floor in a dead faint.

Miss Belle called to me, after a minute or two of anxious waiting, and I hastened into the bath room. Genevieve was so far recovered that she was able to look wonderingly up at her cousin, a terrified expression yet lingering in her eyes. Her face was white and drawn. Her cousin was upon one knee, supporting her upon the other and holding her tightly.

I knelt upon the other side, taking one of the little hands in mine.

Almost at once I was gladdened and relieved by seeing the sweet face break into one of its lovely smiles.

"What was it?" I asked, anxiously enough. "Have you been hurt?"

"No, no," replied she, quickly, "not hurt--not in the least; only frightened within an inch of my life." She shuddered, and made as if to rise.

"Let me up, Belle; I 'm all right now--just a wee bit trembly from the shock, maybe, but I can stand."

She tried to laugh and to make light of the matter, but the pale lips and quivering muscles belied the attempt. I lifted her to her feet.

Her cousin remained close to her, keeping a supporting arm round her waist and watching the white countenance with a pa.s.sionate solicitude that made me glance curiously at her.

Every action, almost every word, of this vivid, high-spirited girl seemed to be an echo of her impetuous, wayward temper. Even a concern as natural as that excited by her cousin's present plight, was charged with an intensity which made me wonder what the effect might be if her feelings were ever deeply or ruthlessly stirred. While her affections were stamped with an immoderate fervor, one might readily enough fancy her resentment, fired by a word perhaps, striking with a blind vehemence that recked not at all of consequences. Her emotions, apparently, knew no happy, tranquil, steadfast medium.

As we stepped into the hall, Genevieve was saying, "I 'll go with you to the library. I merely got what I deserved, I suppose, for presuming to think that I might accomplish something single-handed. But--oh, it was dreadful!"

"What was?" bluntly demanded Miss Belle. "What silly notion ever made you jump up and sail out of the room that way?"

Genevieve turned to me with a faint smile.

"The face at the curtains," said she.

"Face!" echoed Miss Belle, manifestly believing that her cousin's mind was not normal. "For goodness' sake, Genevieve, what do you mean?"

But the girl continued to address me.

"You did n't see it?"

We had paused at the head of the stairs, two of us nonplussed and very curious. I shook my head.

"When you left the room," said I, "I was too occupied otherwise to be heeding the curtained alcove. I wondered, though, what sudden impulse moved you--why you should have gone into the alcove at all."

"I knew that you could not leave the room right then," she explained, the color coming quickly back to her cheeks; "I remembered our pact, and I thought I saw an opportunity of being really of a.s.sistance. It is not to be wondered at that n.o.body else saw what I did. It all happened so swiftly. By the merest chance I glanced toward the alcove, and at that very instant the curtains parted sufficiently for me to see a face." Again she shuddered.

"Mr. Swift, it was the most hideous face I ever looked upon. Had I been alone in the library doubtless it would have terrified me even then. But instantly it disappeared, and without a thought of being afraid, I hastened to investigate.

"As I got to the conservatory I saw the door at the farther end just closing. It didn't slam--there was n't a sound--but simply closed quickly before my eyes. Never for a moment did it occur to me that I ought to be cautious; that closing door only made me run the faster to learn who or what had closed it.

"Well, when I opened it, and the next door across the little pa.s.sage, I saw the same thing repeated in the bedroom beyond--a door closing, apparently from its own volition. The same thing happened with the door opening into the rear hall.

"It was maddening to be just so far behind and unable to gain the fraction of a second which would enable me to find out who was fleeing from me in such haste--maddening to be rewarded with no more than a procession of closing doors.

"The chase continued on up the rear stairs, to the landing between the bath room and the small room at the back; there for the first time I felt a misgiving, and I hesitated. I was out of breath, my heart was pounding until my ears roared; everything else was so deathly still.

"A glance told me that the rear room was empty of any living presence.

Cautiously I pushed open the bath room door; but it was too dark to see inside."

"Was the door into the hall shut?" I interrupted quickly, remembering that Stodger believed it to be open.

"Yes. I entered a bit timidly; all my a.s.surance had somehow evaporated. Then--then, before I had time to make another move, two hands seized me.

"I was thrown violently against the wall, and one of the hands tried to grasp my throat. I was fighting as hard as I could; but--I was helpless.

"Then I screamed. I put my whole soul into it. Everything slipped away from me, and I knew nothing more until Belle was holding me in her arms and I felt her dabbing my face with water. . . . Dear girl, don't look so tragic; I'm all right now."

While Genevieve hung close at my side, the inquest waited until I had searched the place from cellar to garret. But never a trace of the mysterious intruder did I find. When I became satisfied that he had safely made his escape I asked Genevieve to describe the face.

"I 'm afraid I can't," she returned hesitatingly. "I had such a lightning-like glimpse of it. Still, in a general way, it was very swarthy and wrinkled--quite ape-like. The lower part was covered with a short, curling, spa.r.s.e black beard; the eyes were like"--she searched for a simile--"like a snake's."

"That's graphic enough," I said; "but the description fits no countenance that I can now call to mind."

"What can it mean?" she asked wonderingly.

"It means," I grimly replied, "that I guessed right: the ruby is in this house. And I 'm going to have a time keeping it here, too, until I find it myself."

The one mistake of the intruder, whoever he might be, had been in peeping between the alcove curtains; of course he had been reconnoitring only; but a person who could move through the house so noiselessly might easily have accomplished, without discovery, whatever errand brought him there.

The idea was positively uncanny and far from pleasant to dwell upon.

Stodger's hearing may not have been remarkably acute, but if my life depended upon shutting that door so close behind him and not attracting his attention, why, I should have hesitated long before essaying the performance. To have the ruby lifted from under the very noses of the watchers--while they were wide awake, too--would in all truth be a sorry ending of our search for it.

For the nonce, however, the mysterious face introduced only an additional problem; one upon which I had but little time, just at present, to bestow thought. The drama in the library had been interrupted at its most crucial stage. It was all-important that at least one phase of the case be brought to a termination, however unsatisfactory that termination might be, before anything else should be undertaken.

After explanations had been made and order was restored, the foreman did not proceed, as might have been expected, by reading the verdict.

Instead he jerked his head sideways toward Miss Cooper.