"Then--you know the rest."
"The knife--it shall be done."
I have made it the rule of my life, against much painful experience and the admonitions of many philosophers, to act first and reason afterwards. And here it was a case of two to one. The men began stealing across the deck toward the steps that led up to the cottage, and with rather more zeal than judgment I took a step after them, and clumsily kicked over a chair that fell clattering wildly. Both men leaped toward the rail at the sound, and I flattened myself against the house to await developments. The silence was again complete.
"A chair blew over," remarked one of the voices.
"There is no wind," replied the other, the one I recognized as belonging to the leader.
"See what you can find--and have a care!"
The speaker went to the rail and began fumbling with the rope. The other, I realized, was slipping quite noiselessly along the smooth planking toward me, his bent body faintly silhouetted in the moonlight.
I knew that I could hardly be distinguishable from the long line of the house, and I had the additional advantage of knowing their strength, while I was still an unknown quant.i.ty to them. The men would a.s.sume that I was either Hartridge, the boat-maker, or Henry Holbrook, one of whom they had come to kill, and there is, as every one knows, little honor in being the victim of mistaken ident.i.ty. I heard the man"s hand scratching along the wall as he advanced cautiously; there was no doubt but that he would discover me in another moment; so I resolved to take the initiative and give battle.
My finger-tips touched the back of one of the folded camp-chairs that rested against the house, and I slowly clasped it. I saw the leader still standing by the rail, the rope in his hand. His accomplice was so close that I could hear his quick breathing, and something in his dimly outlined crouching figure was familiar. Then it flashed over me that he was the dark sailor I had ordered from Glenarm that afternoon.
He was now within arm"s length of me and I jumped out, swung the chair high and brought it down with a crash on his head. The force of the blow carried me forward and jerked the chair out of my grasp; and down we went with a mighty thump. I felt the Italian"s body slip and twist lithely under me as I tried to clasp his arms. He struggled fiercely to free himself, and I felt the point of a knife p.r.i.c.k my left wrist sharply as I sought to hold his right arm to the deck. His muscles were like iron, and I had no wish to let him clasp me in his short thick arms; nor did the idea of being struck with a knife cheer me greatly in that first moment of the fight.
My main business was to keep free of the knife. He was slowly lifting me on his knees, while I gripped his arm with both hands. The other man had dropped into the boat and was watching us across the rail.
"Make haste, Giuseppe!" he called impatiently, and I laughed a little, either at his confidence in the outcome or at his care for his own security; and my courage rose to find that I had only one to reckon with. I bent grimly to the task of holding the Italian"s right arm to the deck, with my left hand on his shoulder and my right fastened to his wrist, he meanwhile choking me very prettily with his free hand.
His knees were slowly raising me and crowding me higher on his chest and the big rough hand on my throat tightened. I suddenly slipped my left hand down to where my right gripped his wrist and wrenched it sharply. His fingers relaxed, and when I repeated the twist the knife rattled on the deck.
I broke away and leaped for the rail with some idea of jumping into the creek and swimming for it; and then the man in the boat let go twice with a revolver, the echoing explosions roaring over the still creek with the sound of saluting battleships.
"Hold on to that man--hold him!" he shouted from below. I heard the Italian sc.r.a.ping about on the deck for his knife as I dodged round the house. I missed the steps in the dark and scrambled for them wildly, found them and was dashing for the path before the last echo of the shot had died away down the little valley. I was satisfied to let things stand as they were, and leave Henry Holbrook and the canoe-maker to defend their own lives and property. Then, when I was about midway of the steps, a man plunged down from the garden and had me by the collar and on my back before I knew what had happened.
There was an instant"s silence in which I heard angry voices from the house-boat. My new a.s.sailant listened, too, and I felt his grasp on me tighten, though I was well winded and tame enough.
I heard the boat strike the platform sharply as the second man jumped into it; then for an instant silence again held the valley.
My captor seemed to dismiss the retreating boat, and poking a pistol into my ribs gave me his attention.
"Climb up these steps, and do as I tell you. If you run, I will shoot you like a dog."
"There"s a mistake--" I began chokingly, for the Italian had almost strangled me and my lungs were as empty as a spent bellows.
"That will do. Climb!" He stuck the revolver into my back and up I went and through the garden toward the cottage. A door opening on the veranda was slightly ajar, and I was thrust forward none too gently into a lighted room.
My captor and I studied each other attentively for half a minute. He was beyond question the man whom Helen Holbrook had sought at the house-boat in the summer dusk. Who Hartridge was did not matter; it was evident that Holbrook was quite at home in the canoe-maker"s house, and that he had no intention of calling any one else into our affairs.
He had undoubtedly heard the revolver shots below and rushed from the cottage to investigate; and, meeting me in full flight, he had naturally taken it for granted that I was involved in some designs on himself. As he leaned against a table by the door his grave blue eyes scrutinized me with mingled indignation and interest. He wore white duck trousers turned up over tan shoes, and a gray outing shirt with a blue scarf knotted under its soft collar.
I seemed to puzzle him, and his gaze swept me from head to foot several times before he spoke. Then his eyes flashed angrily and he took a step toward me.
"Who in the devil are you and what do you want?"
"My name is Donovan, and I don"t want anything except to get home."
"Where do you come from at this hour of the night?"
"I am spending the summer at Mr. Glenarm"s place near Annandale."
"That"s rather unlikely; Mr. Glenarm is abroad. What were you doing down there on the creek?"
"I wasn"t doing anything until two men came along to kill you and I mixed up with them and got badly mussed for my trouble."
He eyed me with a new interest.
"They came to kill me, did they? You tell a good story, Mr. Donovan."
"Quite so. I was standing on the deck of the houseboat or whatever it is--"
"Where you had no business to be--"
"Granted. I had no business to be there; but I was there and came near getting killed for my impertinence, as I have told you. Those fellows rowed up from the direction of the lake. One of them told the other to call you to your door on the pretense of summoning aid for a broken motor-car off there in the road. Then he was to stab you. The a.s.sa.s.sin was an Italian. His employer spoke to him in that tongue. I happen to be acquainted with it."
"You are a very accomplished person," he observed dryly.
He walked up to me and felt my pockets.
"Who fired that pistol?"
"The man in charge of the expedition. The Italian was trying to knife me on the deck, and I broke away from him and ran. His employer had gone back to the boat for safety and he took a crack at me as I ran across the platform. It"s not the fault of either that I"m not quite out of business."
An inner door back of me creaked slightly. My captor swung round at the sound.
"O Rosalind! It"s all right. A gentleman here lost his way and I"m giving him his bearings."
The door closed gently, and I heard the sound of steps retreating through, the cottage. I noted the anxious look in Holbrook"s face as he waited for the sounds to cease; then he addressed me again.
"Mr. Donovan, this is a quiet neighborhood, and I am a peaceable man, whose worldly goods could tempt no one. There were undoubtedly others besides yourself down there at the creek, for one man couldn"t have made all that row; but as you are the one I caught I must deal with you. But you have protested too much; the idea of Italian bandits on Tippecanoe Creek is creditable to your imagination, but it doesn"t appeal to my common sense. I don"t know about your being a guest at Glenarm House--even that is flimsy. A guest in the absence of the host is just a little too fanciful. I"m strongly disposed to take you to the calaboose at Tippecanoe village."
Having been in jail several times in different parts of the world I was not anxious to add to my experiences in that direction. Moreover, I had come to this lonely house on the Tippecanoe to gain information touching the movements of Henry Holbrook, and I did not relish the idea of being thrown into a country jail by him. I resolved to meet the situation boldly.
"You seem to accept my word reluctantly, even after I have saved you from being struck down at your own door. Now I will be frank with you.
I had a purpose in coming here--"
He stepped back and folded his arms.
"Yes, I thought so." He looked about uneasily, before his eyes met mine. His hands beat nervously on his sleeves as he waited, and I resolved to bring matters to an issue by speaking his name.
"_I know who you are, Mr. Holbrooke._"
His hands went into his pockets again, and he stepped back and laughed.
"You are a remarkably bad guesser, Mr. Donovan. If you had visited me by daylight instead of coming like a thief at midnight, you would have saved yourself much trouble. My name is displayed over the outer gate.
I am Robert Hartridge, a canoe-maker."
He spoke the name carelessly, his manner and tone implying that there could be no debating the subject. I was prepared for evasion but not for this cool denial of his ident.i.ty.