CHAPTER VI.
The only way in which I could keep Joyce with me for a little while longer was by pretending to be ill. That fetched her! And it wasn't all pretense, either, because I was horribly worried, not only about her and Robert, but about Jim. And about myself.
I said not a word to Joyce of Jim and his mission. So far as she knew, I'd abandoned hope, as she had. We heard nothing from Robert, or concerning him, and each day that dragged itself by was more of a cul-de-sac than the last.
By and by there came the end of Miss Reardon's fortnight in London. “Now Robert will be turned over to Opal!” I groaned to myself. And I was sure that the same thought was in the mind of Joyce. Just one or two days more, and after that a long monotony of bondage for him, year in, and year out!
As I waked in the morning with these words on my lips, Joyce herself knocked, playing nurse, with a tray of coffee and toast.
“I would have let you sleep on,” she said, “but a note has come by messenger for you, with 'Urgent' on the envelope in such a nice handwriting I felt you'd want to have it. So I brought your breakfast at the same time.”
The nice handwriting was Jim's. He had vowed not to write until there was news, good or bad. My fingers trembled as I tore open the letter.
- Make Lorillard invite you and Miss Arnold and your fiancé to a séance before Miss Reardon goes. It will have to be to-day or to-morrow. Don't take no for an answer. Manage it somehow. If you insist, Lorillard will force Reardon to consent. When the stunt's fixed up, let me know at once. Yours, Jim. L. is at his flat. You know the address.
By jove! This was a facer! Could I bring the thing off? But I simply must. I knew Jim well enough to be sure that the clock of fate had been wound up by him, ready to strike, and that it wouldn't strike if I didn't obey orders.
I pondered for a minute, whether or not to speak to Joyce, but quickly decided no. The request must first come from Robert.
I braced myself with some hot coffee, and thought hard. Then I asked Joyce for writing material, and scribbled a note to Robert. I told him:
- There is a reason why you must get us invited by Miss Reardon to the last séance she gives before leaving. When I say “us,” I mean Joyce as well as myself, and the man I've just promised to marry. I know this will seem shocking to you, perhaps impossible, as you promised not to see Joyce again “voluntarily.” But, oh, Robert, trust me and 'make' it possible for the sake of a brave girl who once saved your life at the risk of her own. This time won't count as “voluntary” on your part. It is a necessity.
When the note was ready, I said to Joyce that I'd just had news of Robert Lorillard from a great friend of mine who was much interested in Robert's welfare. This news necessitated my writing Robert, and, as I was still in bed I must request her to send the letter by hand.
“Go out to the nearest post office yourself, and have a messenger take it,” I directed.
While she was gone, I got up, bathed, and put on street dress for the first time since I'd been faking illness.
I felt much better, I explained, when Joyce came back, and added that later in the day, I might even be inclined to go for a walk or something.
“If you're so well as that, you'll be ready to let me go to India soon, won't you, dear?” she hinted. No doubt my few words about Robert and the sight of his name on a letter had made the poor girl desperate under her calm, controlled manner.
I was desperate, too, knowing that her whole future depended on the success of Jim's plan. If it failed, I should have to let her go, and all would be over!
“You must do what's best for you,” I answered. “But don't talk about it now. Wait till to-morrow.”
Joyce was dumb.
Hours passed, and no reply from Robert! I began to fear he'd gone away, or that he was hideously offended. We'd got through a pretense of luncheon, when a messenger came. Thank Heaven, Robert's handwriting was on the envelope! He wrote:
- I don't understand your wish, dear princess. It seems like deliberate torture of Joyce and me that she should be present when I am visited by the spirit of June, for that is what actually happens. June materializes. I see her, as well as hear her voice. Can Joyce bear this? You seem to think she can, and so I must. For you are a friend of friends, and you wouldn't put me to such a test without the best of reasons.
- I expected that Miss Reardon would refuse to receive strangers on such an occasion. But rather to my surprise she has consented, and a séance is arranged for this evening at nine o'clock in her rooms. To-morrow would have been too late, as she is leaving for the south of France to stay with some American millionairess at Cannes who hopes to get into touch with a son on the other side. You see, I don't use that old, cold word “dead.” I couldn't, now that I know how near and how like their earthly selves are those who go beyond.
- You speak of your “fiancé.” So you are engaged to be married? Don't think I'm indifferent because I leave mention of your news until the last. I'm deeply interested. Bless you, princess! Yours ever, R. L.
I read this letter, destroyed it, and then broke it to her that Robert earnestly wished us to attend the last séance with Miss Reardon.
She turned sickly white.
“I can't go!” she almost sobbed. “I simply can't!”
Then I said that it would hurt Robert horribly if she didn't. He wouldn't have asked such a thing without the strongest motive. I would be with her, I went on, and tried to pull her thoughts up out of tragic gulfs by springing the news of my engagement upon her. It may have sounded irrelevant, almost heartlessly so, but it braced the girl. And she little guessed that the engagement would not exist, save for Robert and her!
I telephoned Jim at the address on his letter, a house in Westminster which I happened to notice was in the same street as Opal Faweett's. It was a relief to hear his voice answer “Hello!” for he had demanded immediate knowledge of our plans; and goodness knew what mysterious preparations for his coup he might have to elaborate!
He would meet us at the Savoy at eight forty-five, and I could introduce him to Miss Reardon before the séance.
Joyce and I started at eight-thirty in a taxi, having made a mere stage pretense of dinner. We hardly spoke on the way, but I held her hand, and pressed it now and then.
Jim was waiting for us just inside the revolving doors of the hotel.
“I'd have liked to come for you in a car,” he said aside to me, “but I thought it would be hard on Miss Arnold, and maybe on you, to have more of my society than need be, you know!”
“Why on me?” I hastily questioned.
His black eyes blazed into mine.
“Well, I've sort of blackmailed you, haven't I?”
“Have you?”
“Into this engagement of ours.”
“Oh! I haven't got time to think of that just now!” I snapped. “Let's go to Miss Reardon's room.”
We went. Jim said no more except to mention that Mr. Lorillard had already gone up.
Joyce may have imagined Jim to be the friend interested in Robert's welfare; but as for me, I wondered how he knew Robert by sight. Then I scolded myself:
“Silly one! Hasn't he been watching, playing detective for you?”
It was poignant remembering the last time when Robert, Joyce, and I had met in Miss Reardon's sitting room, the last day of their happiness. But we greeted each other quietly, like old friends, though Joyce's heart must have contracted at sight of the man's changed face. All the renewed youth and joyous manhood her love had given him had burned out of his eyes. He looked as he'd looked when I saw him that day at River Orchard Cottage.
Miss Reardon was slightly nervous in manner, and she flushed like a girl, when I introduced Sir James Courtenaye to her. But soon she recovered her prim little poise, and began making arrangements for the séance.
“Mr. Lorillard has already tested my bona fides to his own satisfaction,” she said. “He has examined my small suite, and knows that no person, no theatrical properties, are concealed about the place. If any of you would like to look around, however, before we start, I'm more than willing. Also if you'd care to bind my hands and feet, or sit in a circle and hold me fast, I've no objection.”
As she made this offer, she glanced from one to the other of us. Joyce shook her head. Jim “left it to Princess di Miramare,” and I decided that if Mr. Lorillard was satisfied, we were.
“Very well,” purred Miss Reardon, “In that case there's nothing more to wait for. Mr. Lorillard, will you switch off the lights as usual?”
“Oh,” I broke in, surprised, “I thought you'd told us that the influence was just as strong in light as darkness!”
“That is so,” replied the medium, “except for materialization. For that, darkness is essential. There's some quality in darkness that they need. They can't get the strength to materialize in light conditions.”
“How can we see anything, if the room's pitch black?” I persisted.
“Explain to your friends, Mr. Lorillard, what takes place,” bade Miss Reardon.
“When—June comes—if she does come, with strangers here, she brings a faint light with her—seems to evolve it out of herself,” Robert said in a low voice.
As he spoke he switched off the light, and profound silence fell upon us.
Some moments passed, and nothing happened.
Joyce and I sat with locked, cold hands. I was on the right of the medium, and from my chair quite close to hers could easily have reached out and touched her, if I'd wished. On her left, at about the same distance, sat Robert. Jim was the only one who stood. He had refused a chair, and propped his long length against the wall between two doors: the door opening into the hall outside the suite, and that leading to Miss Reardon's bedroom and bath,
We could hear each other faintly breathe. Then, after five or six minutes I heard odd, gasping sounds, as if some one struggled for breath. These gasps were punctuated with moans, and I should have been frightened if the direction and nearness of the queer noise hadn't told me at once that it came from the medium. I'd never before been to a séance, yet I felt instinctively that this was the convulsive sort of thing to expect.
Suddenly a dim light—oh, hardly a light!—a pale greenish glimmer, as if there were a glowworm in the room, became faintly visible. It seemed to swim in a delicate, gauzy mist. Its height above the floor—this was the thought flashing into my mind—was about that of a tall woman's heart. A perfume of La France roses filled the room.
At first our eyes, accustomed to darkness, could distinguish nothing except this glowworm light and the surrounding haze of lacy gray. Then, gradually, we became conscious of a figure, a slender shape in floating draperies. More and more distinct it grew, as slowly it moved toward us, toward Robert Lorillard; and my heart gave a great jump as I made out the semblance of June Dana.
The form was clad in the gray dress which Miss Reardon had so surprisingly described when we met her first, the dress June had worn the day of her engagement, the dress of the portrait at River Orchard Cottage. The gray hat with the long curling plume shaded the face, and so obscured it that I should hardly have recognized it as June's had it not been for the thick wheel of bright, red-brown hair on each side, bunching out under the hat exactly as June had worn her hair that year. A long, thin scarf filmed like a cloud round the slowly moving figure, as if looped over the arms, which waved gracefully while the spirit form swam in air rather than walked.. There was an illusive glitter of rings, just such rings as June had worn, one emerald, one diamond. A dark streak across the ice-white throat showed her famous black pearls; and, strangest thing of all, the green light which glimmered through filmy folds of scarf was born apparently in a glittering emerald brooch.
At first the vision—which might have come through the wall of the room, for all we could tell—floated toward Robert. None save spirit eyes could have made him out distinctly in the darkness that was lit only by the small green gleam. But I fancied that he always sat in the same seat for these séances; he had taken his chair in a way so matter of course. So the spirit would know where to find him.
Within a few feet of distance, however, the form paused, and swayed as if undecided.
“She has seen that there are others in the room besides Robert and the medium!” I thought. “Will she be angry? Will she vanish?”
Hardly had I time to finish the thought, when the electricity was switched on with a click. The light, flooding the room, dazzled me for a second, but in the bright blur I saw that Jim Courtenaye had seized the gray figure. All ghostliness was gone from it A woman was struggling with him in dreadful silence, a tall, slim woman with June Dana's red bronze hair, June Dana's gray dress and hat and scarf.
She writhed like a snake in Jim's merciless grasp, but she kept her head bent not to show her face until suddenly, in some way, her hat was knocked off. With it—caught by a hatpin perhaps—went the gorgeous, bunched hair.
“A wig!” I heard myself cry.
And at the same instant Joyce gasped out, “Opal!”
Yes, it was Opal, disguised as June, in the gray dress and hat and scarf, with black pearls and emeralds, all copied from the portrait, and that haunting fragrance of roses that had been June's.
The likeness was enough to deceive June's nearest and dearest in that dimmest of dim lights which was like the ghost of a light. But with the room bright as day, all resemblance except in clothes, and wig, and height vanished at a glance.
The woman caught in her cruel fraud was a pitiable sight, yet I had no pity for her then. Staring at the whitened face, framed in disheveled, mouse-brown hair, the long upper lip painted red in a high, Cupid's bow to resemble June's beautiful mouth, I was sick with disgust. As at last she yielded in despair to Jim's fierce clutch, and dropped sobbing on the sofa, I felt I could have struck her. But she had no thought for me, nor for any of us, not even for Jim, who had ruined the game, nor for Miss Reardon who must have sold her to him at a price; she thought only of Robert Lorillard.
When she'd given up hope of escape, and lay panting, exhausted, flung across the sofa, she looked up at Robert!
“I loved you,” she wept. “That's why I did it. I couldn't let you go to another woman. I thought I saw a way to keep you always near me, almost as if you were mine. You can't hate a woman who loves you like that!”
Robert did not answer. I think he was half dazed. He stood staring at her, like the statue of a man. I was frightened for him. He had endured too much. Joyce couldn't go to him yet, though he would be all hers, by and by, but I could go, as a friend.
I laid my hand on his arm, and spoke his name softly.
“Robert, I always felt there was a fraud,” I said. “Now, thank Heaven, we know the truth before it's too late for you to be happy, as June herself would want you to be happy, if she knew. She wasn't cruel—the real June. She wasn't like this false one. Go now and take Joyce home to my flat, she's almost fainting.”
So, I got them both away. And when they were gone, the whole story was dragged from Opal. Jim forced her to confess. With Robert out of sight, the task wasn't difficult. You see, Miss Reardon had sold her beforehand. Jim doesn't care what price he pays, when he wants a thing!
First of all, he'd taken a furnished house near Opal Fawcett. She didn't know him from Adam, but he had her description. He followed her several times, and saw her go to the Savoy—even saw her go to Miss Reardon's rooms. Then, to Miss Reardon he presented himself en surprise, and pretended to know five times as much as he did; in fact, as much as he suspected. By this trick he broke down her guard. She confessed everything.
Opal and she had corresponded for several years as fellow mediums, sending each other clients from one country to another. When Opal learned that the Boston medium was coming to England, she asked if Miss Reardon would do her a great favor. In return for it, the American woman's cabin on shipboard and all expenses at one of London's best hotels should be paid.
This sounded alluring. Miss Reardon asked questions by letter, and by letter those questions were answered. A plan was formed, a plan which was a plot. Opal kept phonographic records of many voices among those of her favorite clients. She did this with their knowledge and consent, making presents to them of their own records to give to friends. It was just an interesting fad of hers! Such a record of June's voice she had posted to Boston. Miss Reardon, who was a clever mimic—a convenient professional asset!—learned to imitate the voice. She had a description from Opal of the celebrated gray costume with the jewels June wore.
As to that first meeting at the Savoy, Opal was aware that Joyce and I met Robert in the foyer of that hotel on most afternoons. A suite was engaged for Miss Reardon, and the lady was directed to await developments in the foyer at a certain hour, an old stage photograph of Robert Lorillard in her pocketbook. The rest had been almost simple, thanks to Opal's deadly cleverness. If it had not been for Jim, Robert would have become her slave, and Joyce would have fled from England.
“Well, are you satisfied?” Jim asked, spinning me home in his own car.
“More than satisfied,” I said. “Joyce and Robert will marry, and be the happiest couple on earth. They'll forget all this horror.”
“Which is what you'd like to do, if I'd let you, I suppose,” said Jim.
“Forget, you mean?”
“Yes. The promise I dragged out of you, and everything.”
“I never forget my promises,” I primly answered.
“But if I let you off it? Elizabeth, that's what I'm going to do! I love you too much, my girl, to blackmail you permanently, to get you for my wife in payment of a bargain. I may be pretty bad, but I'm hanged if I'm as bad as that.”
“Idiot!” I gurgled. “Haven't you the wits to see I want to marry you? I'm in love with you, you fool. Besides, I'm tired of being matron of honor, and you being best man every time people I 'brighten' marry!”
“It shan't happen again!” said Jim.
And then he almost took my breath away. What a strong man he is!