"I think you were; and I think that a few minutes ago when I said you were not surprised by the attempt made to-day to run you down, you were also going to speak of it; for that attempt makes clear the meaning of the telegram. Its meaning was not clear to me before, you understand.
It said only that you were known and followed. It did not say why you were followed. I could not be certain of that; there were several possible reasons why you might be followed--even that the "one" who "was following" might be some one secretly interested in preventing you from an attack on me. Now, however, I know that the reason you feared the man who was following was because you expected him to attack you.
Knowing that, Eaton--knowing that, I want to call your attention to the peculiarity of our mutual positions on the train. You had asked for and were occupying Section Three in the third sleeper, in order--I a.s.sume and, I believe, correctly--to avoid being put in the same car with me. In the night, the second sleeper--the car next in front of yours--was cut off from the train and left behind. That made me occupy in relation to the forward part of the train exactly the same position as you had occupied before the car ahead of you had been cut out. I was in Section Three in the third sleeper from the front."
Eaton stared at Santoine, fascinated; what had been only vague, half felt, half formed with himself, was becoming definite, tangible, under the blind man"s reasoning. He was aware that Harriet Santoine was looking alternately from him to her father, herself startled by the revelation thus pa.s.sionlessly recited. What her father was saying was new to her; he had not taken his daughter into his confidence to this extent.
Eaton"s hands closed instinctively, in his emotion. "What do you mean?"
"You understand already," Santoine a.s.serted. "The attack made on me was meant for you. Some one stealing through the cars from the front to the rear of the train and carrying in his mind the location Section Three in the third car, struck through the curtains by mistake at me instead of you. Who was that, Eaton?"
Eaton sat unanswering, staring.
"You did not realize before, that the man on the train meant to murder you?" Santoine demanded.
"No," said Eaton.
"I see you understand it now; and that it was the same man--or some one accompanying the man--who tried to run you down this morning. Who is that man?"
"I don"t know," Eaton answered.
"You mean you prefer to shield him?"
"Shield him?"
"That is what you are doing, is it not? For, even if you don"t know the man directly, you know in whose cause and under whose direction he murdered Warden--and why and for whom he is attempting to murder you."
Eaton remained silent.
In his intensity, Santoine had lifted himself from his pillows. "Who is that man?" he challenged. "And what is that connection between you and me which, when the attack found and disabled me instead of you, told him that--in spite of his mistake--his result had been accomplished? told him that, if I was dying, a repet.i.tion of the attack against you was unnecessary?"
Eaton knew that he had grown very pale; Harriet must be aware of the effect Santoine"s words had on him, but he did not dare look at her now to see how much she was comprehending. All his attention was needed to defend himself against Santoine.
"I don"t understand." He fought to compose himself.
"It is perfectly plain," Santoine said patiently. "It was believed at first that I had been fatally hurt; it was even reported at one time--I understand--that I was dead; only intimate friends have been informed of my actual condition. Yesterday, for the first time, the newspapers announced the certainty of my recovery; and to-day an attack is made on you."
"There has been no opportunity for an attack on me before, if this was an attack. On the train I was locked up under charge of the conductor."
"You have been off the train nearly a week."
"But I have been kept here in your house."
"You have been allowed to walk about the grounds."
"But I"ve been watched all the time; no one could have attacked me without being seen by your guards."
"They did not hesitate to attack you in sight of my daughter."
"But--"
"You are merely challenging my deductions! Will you reply to my questions?--tell me the connection between us?--who you are?"
"No."
"Come here!"
"What?" said Eaton.
"Come here--close to me, beside the bed."
Eaton hesitated, and then obeyed.
"Bend over!"
Eaton stooped, and the blind man"s hands seized him. Instantly Eaton withdrew.
"Wait!" Santoine warned. "If you do not stay, I shall call help." One hand went to the bell beside his bed.
Harriet had risen; she met Eaton"s gaze warningly and nodded to him to comply. He bent again over the bed. He felt the blind man"s sensitive fingers searching his features, his head, his throat. Eaton gazed at Santoine"s face while the fingers were examining him; he could see that Santoine was merely finding confirmation of an impression already gained from what had been told him about Eaton. Santoine showed nothing more than this confirmation; certainly he did not recognize Eaton. More than this, Eaton could not tell.
"Now your hands," Santoine ordered.
Eaton extended one hand and then the other; the blind man felt over them from wrists to the tips of the fingers; then he let himself sink back against the pillows, absorbed in thought.
Eaton straightened and looked to Harriet where she was standing at the foot of the bed; she, however, was intently watching her father and did not look Eaton"s way.
"You may go," Santoine said at last.
"Go?" Eaton asked.
"You may leave the room. Blatchford will meet you downstairs."
Santoine reached for the house telephone beside his bed--receiver and transmitter on one light band--and gave directions to have Blatchford await Eaton in the hall below.
Eaton stood an instant longer, studying Santoine and trying fruitlessly to make out what was pa.s.sing in the blind man"s mind. He was distinctly frightened by the revelation he just had had of Santoine"s clear, implacable reasoning regarding him; for none of the blind man"s deductions about him had been wrong--all had been the exact, though incomplete, truth. It was clear to him that Santoine was close--much closer even than Santoine himself yet appreciated--to knowing Eaton"s ident.i.ty; it was even probable that one single additional fact--the discovery, for instance, that Miss Davis was the source of the second telegram received by Eaton on the train--would reveal everything to Santoine. And Eaton was not certain that Santoine, even without any new information, would not reach the truth unaided at any moment. So Eaton knew that he himself must act before this happened. But so long as the safe in Santoine"s study was kept locked or was left open only while some one was in the room with it, he could not act until he had received help from outside; and he had not yet received that help; he could not hurry it or even tell how soon it was likely to come. He had seen Miss Davis several times as she pa.s.sed through the halls going or coming for her work with Avery; but Blatchford had always been with him, and he had been unable to speak with her or to receive any signal from her.
As his mind reviewed, almost instantaneously, these considerations, he glanced again at Harriet; her eyes, this time, met his, but she looked away immediately. He could not tell what effect Santoine"s revelations had had on her, except that she seemed to be in complete accord with her father. As he went toward the door, she made no move to accompany him. He went out without speaking and closed the inner and the outer doors behind him; then he went down to Blatchford.
For several minutes after Eaton had left the room, Santoine thought in silence. Harriet stayed motionless, watching him; the extent to which he had been shaken and disturbed by the series of events which had started with Warden"s murder, came home strongly to her now that she saw him alone and now that his talk with Eaton had shown partly what was pa.s.sing in his mind.
"Where are you, Harriet?" he asked at last.
She knew it was not necessary to answer him, but merely to move so that he could tell her position; she moved slightly, and his sightless eyes shifted at once to where she stood.
"How did he act?" Santoine asked.
She reviewed swiftly the conversation, supplementing his blind apperceptions of Eaton"s manner with what she herself had seen.
"What have been your impressions of Eaton"s previous social condition, Daughter?" he asked.