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Anna Katharine Green >> Initials Only
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He had said in a moment of elation, "I will do it alone;" but he
knew even then that he could not. Two hands were necessary to start
the car; afterwards, he might manage it alone. Descent was even
possible, but to give the contrivance its first lift required a
second mechanician. Where was he to find one to please him? And
what was he to do if he did not? Conquer his prejudices against
such men as he had seen, or delay the attempt, as Oswald had
suggested, till he could get one of his old cronies on from New
York. He could do neither. The obstinacy of his nature was such
as to offer an invincible barrier against either suggestion. One
alternative remained. He had heard of women aviators. If Doris
could be induced to accompany him into the air, instead of clinging
sodden-like to the weight of Oswald's woe, then would the world
behold a triumph which would dwarf the ecstasy of the bird's flight
and rob the eagle of his kingly pride. But Doris barely endured
him as yet, and the thought was not one to be considered for a
moment. Yet what other course remained? He was brooding deeply
on the subject, in his hangar one evening--(it was Thursday and
Saturday was but two days off) when there came a light knock at
the door.
This had never occurred before. He had given strict orders, backed
by his brother's authority, that he was never to be intruded upon
when in this place; and though he had sometimes encountered the
prying eyes of the curious flashing from behind the trees encircling
the hangar, his door had never been approached before, or his
privacy encroached upon. He started then, when this low but
penetrating sound struck across the turmoil of his thoughts, and
cast one look in the direction from which it came; but he did not
rise, or even change his position on his workman's stool.
Then it came again, still low but with an insistence which drew his
brows together and made his hand fall from the wire he had been
unconsciously holding through the mental debate which was absorbing
him. Still he made no response, and the knocking continued. Should
he ignore it entirely, start up his motor and render himself
oblivious to all other sounds? At every other point in his career
he would have done this, but an unknown, and as yet unnamed,
something had entered his heart during this fatal month, which made
old ways impossible and oblivion a thing he dared not court too
recklessly. Should this be a summons from Doris! Should
(inconceivable idea, yet it seized upon him relentlessly and would
not yield for the asking) should it be Doris herself!
Taking advantage of a momentary cessation of the ceaseless tap tap,
he listened. Silence was never profounder than in this forest on
that windless night. Earth and air seemed, to his strained ear,
emptied of all sound. The clatter of his own steady, unhastened
heart-beat was all that broke upon the stillness. He might be
alone in the Universe for all token of life beyond these walls, or
so he was saying to himself, when sharp, quick, sinister, the
knocking recommenced, demanding admission, insisting upon attention,
drawing him against his own will to his feet, and finally, though
he made more than one stand against it, to the very door.
"Who's there?" he asked, imperiously and with some show of anger.
No answer, but another quiet knock.
"Speak! or go from my door. No one has the right to intrude here.
What is your name and business?"
Continued knocking--nothing more.
With an outburst of wrath, which made the hangar ring, Orlando
lifted his fist to answer this appeal in his own fierce fashion
from his own side of the door, but the impulse paused at fulfilment,
and he let his arm fall again in a rush of self-hatred which it
would have pained his worst enemy, even little Doris, to witness.
As it reached his side, the knock came again.
It was too much. With an oath, Orlando reached for his key. But
before fitting it into the lock, he cast a look behind him. The
car was in plain sight, filling the central space from floor to
roof. A single glance from a stranger's eye, and its principal
secret would be a secret no longer. He must not run such a risk.
Before he answered this call, he must drop the curtain he had
rigged up against such emergencies as these. He had but to pull
a cord and a veil would fall before his treasure, concealing it as
effectually as an Eastern bride is concealed behind her yashmak.
Stepping to the wall, he drew that cord, then with an impatient
sigh, returned to the door.
Another quiet but insistent knock greeted him. In no fury now, but
with a vague sense of portent which gave an aspect of farewell to
the one quick glance he cast about the well-known spot, he fitted
the key in the lock, and stood ready to turn it.
"I ask again your name and your business," he shouted out in loud
command. "Tell them or--" He meant to say, "or I do not turn this
key." But something withheld the threat. He knew that it would
perish in the utterance; that he could not carry it out. He would
have to open the door now, response or no response. "Speak!" was
the word with which he finished his demand.
A final knock.
Pulling a pistol from his pocket, with his left hand, he turned
the key with his right.
The door remained unopened.
Stepping slowly back, he stared at its unpainted boards for a
moment, then he spoke up quietly, almost courteously:
"Enter."
But the command passed unheeded; the latch was not raised, and only
the slightest tap was heard.
With a bound he reached forward and pulled the door open. Then a
great silence fell upon him and a rigidity as of the grave seized
and stiffened his powerful frame.
The man confronting him from the darkness was Sweetwater.
XXXV
THE MAN WITHIN AND THE MAN WITHOUT
An instant of silence, during which the two men eyed each other;
then, Sweetwater, with an ironical smile directed towards the
pistol lightly remarked:
"Mr. Challoner and other men at the hotel are acquainted with my
purpose and await my return. I have come--" here he cast a glowing
look at the huge curtain cutting off the greater portion of the
illy-lit interior--"to offer you my services, Mr. Brotherson. I
have no other motive for this intrusion than to be of use. I am
deeply interested in your invention, to the development of which I
have already lent some aid, and can bring to the test you propose
a sympathetic help which you could hardly find in any other person
living."
The silence which settled down at the completion of these words had
a weight which made that of the previous moment seem light and all
athrob with sound. The man within had not yet caught his breath;
the man without held his, in an anxiety which had little to do with
the direction of the weapon, into which he looked. Then an owl
hooted far away in the forest, and Orlando, slowly lowering his arm,
asked in an oddly constrained tone:
"How long have you been in town?"
The answer cut clean through any lingering hope he may have had.
"Ever since the day your brother was told the story of his great
misfortune."
"Ah! still at your old tricks! I thought you had quit that
business as unprofitable."
"I don't know. I never expect quick returns. He who holds on for
a rise sometimes reaps unlooked-for profits."
The arm and fist of Orlando Brotherson ached to hurl this fellow
back into the heart of the midnight woods.
But they remained quiescent and he spoke instead. "I have buried
the business. You will never resuscitate it through me."
Sweetwater smiled. There was no mirth in his smile though there
was lightness in his tone as said:
"Then let us go back to the matter in hand. You need a helper;
where are you going to find one if you don't take me?"
A growl from Brotherson's set lips. Never had he looked more
dangerous than in the one burning instant following this daring
repetition of the detective's outrageous request. But as he noted
how slight was the figure opposing him from the other side of the
threshold, he was swayed by his natural admiration of pluck in the
physically weak, and lost his threatening attitude, only to assume
one which Sweetwater secretly found it even harder to meet.
"You are a fool," was the stinging remark he heard flung at him.
"Do you want to play the police-officer here and arrest me in mid
air?"
"Mr. Brotherson, you understand me as little as I am supposed to
understand you. Humble as my place is in society and, I may add,
in the Department whose interests I serve, there are in me two men.
One you know passably well--the detective whose methods, only
indifferently clever show that he has very much to learn. Of the
other--the workman acquainted with hammer and saw, but with some
knowledge too of higher mathematics and the principles upon which
great mechanical inventions depend, you know little, and must
imagine much. I was playing the gawky when I helped you in the
old house in Brooklyn. I was interested in your air-ship--Oh,
I recognised it for what it was, notwithstanding its oddity and
lack of ostensible means for flying--but I was not caught in the
whirl of its idea; the idea by which you doubtless expect, and
with very good reason too, to revolutionise the science of aviation.
But since then I've been thinking it over, and am so filled with
your own hopes that either I must have a hand in the finishing and
sailing of the one you have yourself constructed, or go to work
myself on the hints you have unconsciously given me, and make a car
of my own."
Audacity often succeeds where subtler means fail. Orlando, with
a curious twist of his strong lip, took hold of the detective's arm
and drew him in, shutting and locking the door carefully behind him.
"Now," said he, "you shall tell me what you think you have
discovered, to make any ideas of your own available in the
manufacture of a superior self-propelling air-ship."
Sweetwater who had been so violently wheeled about in entering that
he stood with his back to the curtain concealing the car, answered
without hesitation.
"You have a device, entirely new so far as I can judge, by which
this car can leap at once into space, hold its own in any direction,
and alight again upon any given spot without shock to the machine or
danger to the people controlling it."
"Explain the device."
"I will draw it."
"You can?"
"As I see it."
"As you see it!"
"Yes. It's a brilliant idea; I could never have conceived it."
"You believe--"
"I know."
"Sit here. Let's see what you know."
Sweetwater sat down at the table the other pointed out, and drawing
forward a piece of paper, took up a pencil with an easy air.
Brotherson approached and stood at his shoulder. He had taken up
his pistol again, why he hardly knew, and as Sweetwater began his
marks, his fingers tightened on its butt till they turned white in
the murky lamplight.
"You see," came in easy tones from the stooping draughtsman, "I
have an imagination which only needs a slight fillip from a mind
like yours to send it in the desired direction. I shall not draw
an exact reproduction of your idea, but I think you will see that
I understand it very well. How's that for a start?"
Brotherson looked and hastily drew back. He did not want the other
to note his surprise.
"But that is a portion you never saw," he loudly declared.
"No, but I saw this," returned Sweetwater, working busily on some
curves; "and these gave me the fillip I mentioned. The rest came
easily."
Brotherson, in dread of his own anger, threw his pistol to the other
end of the shed:
"You knave! You thief!" he furiously cried.
"How so?" asked Sweetwater smilingly, rising and looking him calmly
in the face. "A thief is one who appropriates another man's goods,
or, let us say, another man's ideas. I have appropriated nothing
yet. I've only shown you how easily I could do so. Mr. Brotherson,
take me in as your assistant. I will be faithful to you, I swear it.
I want to see that machine go up."
"For how many people have you drawn those lines?" thundered the
inexorable voice.
"For nobody; not for myself even. This is the first time they have
left their hiding-place in my brain."
"Can you swear to that?"
"I can and will, if you require it. But you ought to believe my
word, sir. I am square as a die in all matters not connected
--well, not connected with my profession," he smiled in a burst
of that whimsical humour, which not even the seriousness of the
moment could quite suppress.
"And what surety have I that you do not consider this very matter
of mine as coming within the bounds you speak of?"
"None. But you must trust me that far."
Brotherson surveyed him with an irony which conveyed a very
different message to the detective than any he had intended. Then
quickly:
"To how many have you spoken, dilating upon this device, and
publishing abroad my secret?"
"I have spoken to no one, not even to Mr. Gryce. That shows my
honesty as nothing else can."
"You have kept my secret intact?"
"Entirely so, sir."
"So that no one, here or elsewhere, shares our knowledge of the new
points in this mechanism?"
"I say so, sir."
"Then if I should kill you," came in ferocious accents, "now
--here--"
"You would be the only one to own that knowledge. But you won't
kill me."
"Why?"
"Need I go into reasons?"
"Why? I say."
"Because your conscience is already too heavily laden to bear the
burden of another unprovoked crime."
Brotherson, starting back, glared with open ferocity upon the man
who dared to face him with such an accusation.
"God! why didn't I shoot you on entrance!" he cried. "Your courage
is certainly colossal."
A fine smile, without even the hint of humour now, touched the
daring detective's lip. Brotherson's anger seemed to grow under it,
and he loudly repeated:
"It's more than colossal; it's abnormal and--" A moment's pause,
then with ironic pauses--"and quite unnecessary save as a matter
of display, unless you think you need it to sustain you through
the ordeal you are courting. You wish to help me finish and prepare
for flight?"
"I sincerely do."
"You consider yourself competent?"
"I do."
Brotherson's eyes fell and he walked once to the extremity of the
oval flooring and back.
"Well, we will grant that. But that's not all that is necessary.
My requirements demand a companion in my first flight. Will you go
up in the car with me on Saturday night?"
A quick affirmative was on Sweetwater's lips but the glimpse which
he got of the speaker's face glowering upon him from the shadows
into which Brotherson had withdrawn, stopped its utterance, and the
silence grew heavy. Though it may not have lasted long by the clock,
the instant of breathless contemplation of each other's features
across the intervening space was of incalculable moment to Sweetwater,
and, possibly, to Brotherson. As drowning men are said to live over
their whole history between their first plunge and their final rise
to light and air, so through the mind of the detective rushed the
memories of his past and the fast fading glories of his future; and
rebelling at the subtle peril he saw in that sardonic eye, he
vociferated an impulsive:
"No! I'll not--" and paused, caught by a new and irresistible
sensation.
A breath of wind--the first he had felt that night--had swept
in through some crevice in the curving wall, flapping the canvas
enveloping the great car. It acted like a peal to battle. After
all, a man must take some risks in his life, and his heart was in
this trial of a redoubtable mechanism in which he had full faith.
He could not say no to the prospect of being the first to share a
triumph which would send his name to the ends of the earth; and,
changing the trend of his sentence, he repeated with a calmness
which had the force of a great decision.
"I will not fail you in anything. If she rises--" here his trembling
hand fell on the curtain shutting off his view of the ship, "she
shall take me with her, so that when she descends I may be the first
to congratulate the proud inventor of such a marvel."
"So be it!" shot from the other's lips, his eyes losing their
threatening look, and his whole countenance suddenly aglow with the
enthusiasm of awakened genius.
Coming from the shadows, he laid his hand on the cord regulating
the rise and fall of the concealing curtain.
"Here she is!" he cried and drew the cord.
The canvas shook, gathered itself into great folds and disappeared
in the shadows from which he had just stepped.
The air-car stood revealed--a startling, because wholly unique,
vision.
Long did Sweetwater survey it, then turning with beaming face upon
the watchful inventor, he uttered a loud Hurrah.
Next moment, with everything forgotten between them save the glories
of this invention, both dropped simultaneously to the floor and
began that minute examination of the mechanism necessary to their
mutual work.
XXXVII
HIS GREAT HOUR
Saturday night at eight o'clock.
So the fiat had gone forth, with no concession to be made on account
of weather.
As Oswald came from his supper and took a look at the heavens from
the small front porch, he was deeply troubled that Orlando had
remained so obstinate on this point. For there were ominous clouds
rolling up from the east, and the storms in this region of high
mountains and abrupt valleys were not light, nor without danger even
to those with feet well planted upon mother earth.
If the tempest should come up before eight!
Mr. Challoner, who, from some mysterious impulse of bravado on the
part of Brotherson, was to be allowed to make the third in this
small band of spectators, was equally concerned at this sight, but
not for Brotherson. His fears were for Oswald, whose slowly
gathering strength could illy bear the strain which this additional
anxiety for his brother's life must impose upon him. As for Doris,
she was in a state of excitement more connected with the past than
with the future. That afternoon she had laid her hand in that of
Orlando Brotherson, and wished him well. She! in whose breast
still lingered reminiscences of those old doubts which had beclouded
his image for her at their first meeting. She had not been able to
avoid it. His look was a compelling one, and it had demanded thus
much from her; and--a terrible thought to her gentle spirit--he
might be going to his death!
It had been settled by the prospective aviator that they were to
watch for the ascent from the mouth of the grassy road leading in
to the hangar. The three were to meet there at a quarter to eight
and await the stroke and the air-cars rise. That time was near,
and Mr. Challoner, catching a glimpse of Oswald's pallid and
unnaturally drawn features, as he set down the lantern he carried,
shuddered with foreboding and wished the hour passed.
Doris' watchful glance never left the face whose lightest change
was more to her than all Orlando's hopes. But the result upon her
was not to weaken her resolution, but to strengthen it. Whatever
the outcome of the next few minutes, she must stand ready to sustain
her invalid through it. That the darkness of early evening had
deepened to oppression, was unnoticed for the moment. The fears of
an hour past had been forgotten. Their attention was too absorbed
in what was going on before them, for even a glance overhead.
Suddenly Mr. Challoner spoke.
"Who is the man whom Mr. Brotherson has asked to go up with him?"
It was Oswald who answered.
"He has never told me. He has kept his own counsel about that as
about everything else connected with this matter. He simply advised
me that I was not to bother about him any more; that he had found
the assistant he wanted."
"Such reticence seems unpardonable. You have--displayed great
patience, Oswald."
"Because I understand Orlando. He reads men's natures like a book.
The man he trusts, we may trust. To-morrow, he will speak openly
enough. All cause for reticence will be gone."
"You have confidence then in the success of this undertaking?"
"If I hadn't, I should not be here. I could hardly bear to witness
his failure, even in a secret test like this. I should find it too
hard to face him afterwards."
"I don't understand."
"Orlando has great pride. If this enterprise fails I cannot answer
for him. He would be capable of anything. Why, Doris! what is
the matter, child? I never saw you look like that before."
She had been down on her knees regulating the lantern, and the
sudden flame, shooting up, had shown him her face turned up towards
his in an apprehension which verged on horror.
"Do I look frightened?" she asked, remembering herself and lightly
rising. "I believe that I am a little frightened. If--if anything
should go wrong! If an accident-" But here she remembered herself
again and quickly changed her tone. "But your confidence shall be
mine. I will believe in his good angel or--or in his self-command
and great resolution. I'll not be frightened any more."
But Oswald did not seem satisfied. He continued to look at her in
vague concern.
He hardly knew what to make of the intense feeling she had
manifested. Had Orlando touched her girlish heart? Had this
cold-blooded nature, with its steel-like brilliancy and honourable
but stern views of life, moved this warm and sympathetic soul to
more than admiration? The thought disturbed him so he forgot the
nearness of the moment they were all awaiting till a quick rasping
sound from the hangar, followed by the sudden appearance of an
ever-widening band of light about its upper rim, drew his attention
and awakened them all to a breathless expectation.
The lid was rising. Now it was half-way up, and now, for the first
time, it was lifted to its full height and stood a broad oval disc
against the background of the forest. The effect was strange. The
hangar had been made brilliant by many lamps, and their united glare
pouring from its top and illuminating not only the surrounding
treetops but the broad face of this uplifted disc, roused in the
awed spectator a thrill such as in mythological times might have
greeted the sudden sight of Vulcan's smithy blazing on Olympian
hills. But the clang of iron on iron would have attended the flash
and gleam of those unexpected fires, and here all was still save
for that steady throb never heard in Olympus or the halls of
Valhalla, the pant of the motor eager for flight in the upper air.
As they listened in a trance of burning hope which obliterated all
else, this noise and all others near and distant, was suddenly lost
in a loud clatter of writhing and twisting boughs which set the
forest in a roar and seemed to heave the air about them.
A wind had swooped down from the east, bending everything before
it and rattling the huge oval on which their eyes were fixed as
though it would tear it from its hinges.
The three caught at each other's hands in dismay. The storm had
come just on the verge of the enterprise, and no one might guess
the result.
"Will he dare? Will he dare?" whispered Doris, and Oswald answered,
though it seemed next to impossible that he could have heard her:
"He will dare. But will he survive it? Mr. Challoner," he suddenly
shouted in that gentleman's ear, "what time is it now?"
Mr. Challoner, disengaging himself from their mutual grasp, knelt
down by the lantern to consult his watch.
"One minute to eight," he shouted back.
The forest was now a pandemonium. Great boughs, split from their
parent trunks, fell crashing to the ground in all directions. The
scream of the wind roused echoes which repeated themselves, here,
there and everywhere. No rain had fallen yet, but the sight of
the clouds skurrying pell-mell through the glare thrown up from the
shed, created such havoc in the already overstrained minds of the
three onlookers, that they hardly heeded, when with a clatter and
crash which at another time would have startled them into flight,
the swaying oval before them was whirled from its hinges and thrown
back against the trees already bending under the onslaught of the
tempest. Destruction seemed the natural accompaniment of the moment,
and the only prayer which sprang to Oswald's lips was that the motor
whose throb yet lingered in their blood though no longer taken in
by the ear, would either refuse to work or prove insufficient to
lift the heavy car into this seething tumult of warring forces.
His brother's life hung in the balance against his fame, and he
could not but choose life for him. Yet, as the multitudinous
sounds about him yielded for a moment to that brother's shout,
and he knew that the moment had come, which would soon settle all,
he found himself staring at the elliptical edge of the hangar, with
an anticipation which held in it as much terror as joy, for the end
of a great hope or the beginning of a great triumph was compressed
into this trembling instant and if--
Great God! he sees it! They all see it! Plainly against that
portion of the disc which still lifted itself above the further
wall, a curious moving mass appears, lengthens, takes on shape,
then shoots suddenly aloft, clearing the encircling tops of the
bending, twisting and tormented trees, straight into the heart of
the gale, where for one breathless moment it whirls madly about
like a thing distraught, then in slow but triumphant obedience to
the master hand that guides it, steadies and mounts majestically
upward till it is lost to their view in the depths of impenetrable
darkness.
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