The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916)/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
THE MAN FROM THE TRAIN
IN the supposition that he was to have less liberty, Eaton proved correct. Harriet Santoine, to whose impulses had been due his first privileges, showed toward him a more constrained attitude the following morning. She did not suggest hostility, as Avery constantly did; nor, indeed, was there any evidence of retrogression in her attitude toward him; she seemed merely to be maintaining the same position; and since this seemed difficult if they were often together, she avoided him. Eaton found his life in the house after that first day more strictly ordered into a routine which he was obliged to keep. He understood that Santoine, steadily improving but not yet able to leave his bed, had taken up his work again, propped up by pillows; one of the nurses had been dismissed; the other was only upon day duty. But Eaton did not see Santoine at all; and though he learned that Miss Davis or another stenographer, whose name was West, came daily to the house, he never was in a position again to encounter any outsider either coming or going. Besides the servants of the house, he met Blatchford, with whom Eaton usually breakfasted; he also lunched with Blatchford, and Harriet sometimes—sometimes with Avery; he dined with Blatchford and Avery or with all three.
At other times, except that he was confined to the house or to a small space of the grounds about it and was kept under constant surveillance, he was left largely to his own devices; and these at least sufficed to let him examine morning and night, the vase in which he was to find the signal that was to be left for him; these permitted examination of window-locks in other rooms, if not in Santoine's study; these permitted the examination of many other items also and let him follow at least the outline of the method of Santoine's work.
There was no longer room for Eaton to doubt that Harriet had the confidence of her father to almost a complete extent. Now that Santoine was ill, she worked with him daily for hours; and Eaton learned that she did the same when he was well. But Avery worked with the blind man too; he too was certainly in a confidential capacity. Was it not probable then that Avery, and not Harriet, was entrusted with the secrets of dangerous and ugly matters; or was it possible that this girl, worshiping her father as she did, could know and be sure that, because her father approved these matters, they were right?
A hundred times a day, as Eaton saw or spoke with the girl or thought of her presence near by, this obsessed him. A score of times during their casual talk upon meeting at meals or elsewhere, he found himself turned toward some question which would aid him in determining what must be the fact; but each time he checked himself, until one morning—it was the fifth after his arrival at Santoine's house—Harriet was taking him for his walk in the garden before the house.
It was a bright, sunshiny morning and warm—a true spring day. As they paced back and forth in the sunshine—she bare-haired and he holding his cap in his hand—he looked back at the room in the wing where Santoine still lay; then Eaton looked to the daughter, clear-eyed, clear-skinned, smiling and joyous with the day. She had just told him, at his inquiry, that her father was very much stronger that morning, and her manner more than ever evidenced her pride in him.
"I have been intending to ask you, Miss Santoine," Eaton said to her suddenly then, "if your belief in the superiority of business over war—as we were discussing it ten days ago—hasn't suffered a shock since then?"
"You mean because of—Father?"
"Yes; you can hardly go back far enough in the history of war to find a time when the soldier's creed was not against killing—or trying to kill—a sleeping enemy."
She looked at him quickly and keenly. "I can't think of Father as being any one's enemy, though I know of course no man can do big things without making some people hate him. Even if what he does is wholly good, bad people hate him for it." She was silent for a few steps. "I like your saying what you did, Mr. Eaton."
"Why?"
"It implies your own creed would be against such a thing. But aren't we rather mixing things up? There is nothing to show yet that the attack on Father sprang out of business relations; and even if it did, it would have to be regarded as an—an atrocity outside the rules of business, just as in war, atrocities occur which are outside the rules of war. Wait! I know what you are going to say; you are going to say the atrocities are a part of war even if they are outside its recognized rules."
"Yes; I was going to say that."
"And that atrocities due to business are a part of business, even if they are outside the rules."
"Yes; as business is at present conducted."
"But the rules are a part of the game, Mr. Eaton."
"Do you belong among the apologists for war, Miss Santoine?"
"I?"
"Yes; what you say is exactly what the apologists for war say, isn't it? They say that war, in spite of its open savagery and inevitable atrocities, is not a different sort of combat from the combat between men in time of peace. That is, the acts of war differ only in appearance or in degree from the acts of peace. Is that what you believe, Miss Santoine?"
"That men in times of peace perform acts upon each other which differ only in degree from the acts of war?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe that, Mr. Eaton?"
He hesitated. "Do you want me to answer that question from my own experience or from what I would like to believe life to be?"
"From your own experience, of course."
"Then I must answer that I believe the apologists to be right as to that fact."
He saw her clear eyes darken. "But you don't believe that argument itself, do you, Mr. Eaton?" she appealed. "It is only the old, old argument, 'Whatever is, is right.' You don't excuse those acts—those atrocities in time of peace? Or was I mistaken in thinking such things were against your creed? Life is part right, part wrong, isn't it?"
"I am not in a good position to judge, I'm afraid; for what I have seen of it has been all wrong—both business and life."
He had tried to speak lightly; but a sudden bitterness, a sharp hardness in his tone, seemed to assail her; it struck through her and brought her shoulders together in a shudder; but, instead of alienating her, she turned with a deeper impulse of feeling toward him.
"You—you do not want to tell more—to tell how it has been wrong; you don't want to tell that—" She hesitated, and then in an intimate way which surprised and frightened him, she added, "to me?"
After she had said it, she herself was surprised, and frightened; she looked away from him with face flushed, and he did not dare answer, and she did not speak again.
They had come to the end of the gardens where he was accustomed to turn and retrace his steps toward the house; but now she went on, and he went on with her. They were upon the wide pike which ran northward following, but back from, the shore of the lake. He saw that now, as a motor passed them on the road, she recalled that she was taking him past the previously appointed bounds; but in the intimacy of the moment, she could not bring herself to speak of that. It was Eaton who halted and asked, "Shall we go on?"
"Wouldn't you like to?"
They walked on slowly. "I wish you could tell me more about yourself, Mr. Eaton."
"I wish so too," he said.
"Then why can you not?" She turned to him frankly; he gazed at her a moment and then looked away and shook his head. How had she answered, in what she already had said, the question which lay below what he had asked her? In her defense of business, did she know all the cruelties of business and defend the wrong she knew, together with the right, as inevitable? Or did she not know all of what was known even under her father's roof; and if she knew all, would she then loathe or defend it? Another motor sped near, halted and then speeded on again; Eaton, looking up, saw it was a runabout with Avery alone in it; evidently, seeing them in the road, Avery had halted to protest, then thought better of it and gone on. But other motors passed now with people who spoke to Harriet and who stopped to inquire for her father and wish him well.
"Your father does not seem to be one of the great men without honor in his own neighborhood," Eaton said to her after one of these had halted and gone on.
"Every one who knows Father likes and admires him!" she rejoiced.
"I don't mean exactly that," Eaton went on. "They must trust him too, in an extraordinary way. His associates must place most complete confidence in him when they leave to him the adjustment of matters such as I understand they do. There is no way, as I comprehend it, that any of the powerful men who ask his advice could hold him accountable if he were unfair to them; yet men of the most opposite types, the most inimical and hostile, place their affairs in his hands. He tells them what is just, and they abide by his decision."
Harriet shook her head. "No; it isn't quite that," she said.
"What, then?"
"You are correct in saying that men of the most opposite sorts—and most irreconcilable to each other—constantly place their fate in Father's hand; and when he tells them what they must do, they abide by his decision. But he doesn't decide for them what is just."
"I don't understand."
"Father cannot tell them which side is just because, if he did that, they wouldn't consider his decision; and they wouldn't ask him to make any more; he would lose all influence for better relations. So he doesn't tell them what is just."
"What does he tell them, then?"
"He tells them what would be the outcome if they fought, who would win and who would lose and by how much. And they believe him and abide by his decision without fighting; for he knows; and they know that he knows and is absolutely honest."
Eaton was silent for a moment as they walked along. "How can he come to his decision?" he asked at last.
"How?"
"I mean, much of the material presented to him must be documentary."
"Much of it is."
"You will pardon me," Eaton prefaced, "but of course I am immensely interested. How are these written out for him—in Braille characters or other letters for the blind?"
"No; that would not be practicable for all documents, and so it is done with none of them."
"Then some one must read them to him."
"Of course."
Eaton started to speak—then refrained.
"What were you going to say?" she questioned.
"That the person—or persons—who reads the documents to him must occupy an extremely delicate position."
"He does. In fact, I think that position is Father's one nightmare."
"Nightmare?"
"The person he trusts must not only be absolutely discreet but absolutely honest."
"I should think so. If any one in that position wanted to use the information brought to your father, he could make himself millions overnight, undoubtedly, and ruin other men."
"And kill Father too," the girl added quietly. "Yes," she said as Eaton looked at her. "Father puts nothing above his trust. If that trust were betrayed—whether or not Father were in any way to blame for it—I think it would kill him."
"So you are the one who is in that position."
"Yes; that is, I have been."
"You mean there is another now; that is, of course, Mr. Avery?"
"Yes; here at this house Mr. Avery and I, and Mr. Avery at the office. There are some others at the office whom Father trusts, but not completely; and it is not necessary to trust them wholly, for all Father's really important decisions are made at the house, and the most important records are kept here. Before Mr. Avery came, I was the only one who helped here at the house."
"When was that?"
"When Mr. Avery came? About five years ago. Father had an immense amount of work at that time. Business conditions were very much unsettled. There was trouble at that time between some of the big Eastern and the big Western men, and at the same time the Government was prosecuting the Trusts. Nobody knew what the outcome of it all would be; many of the biggest men who consulted Father were like men groping in the dark. I don't suppose you would remember the time by what I say; but you would remember it, as nearly everybody else does by this: it was the time of the murder of Mr. Latron."
"Yes; I remember that," said Eaton; "and Mr. Avery came to you at that time?"
"Yes; just at that time I was thrown from my horse, and could not do as much as I had been doing, so Mr. Avery was sent to Father."
"Then Mr. Avery was reading to him at the time you speak of—the time of the Latron murder?"
"No; Mr. Avery came just afterward. I was reading to him at that time."
"No one but you?"
"No one. Before that he had had Mr. Blatchford read to him sometimes, but—poor Cousin Wallace!—he made a terrible mistake in reading to Father once. Father discovered it before it was too late; and he never let Cousin Wallace know. He pretends to trust Cousin Wallace now with reading some things; but he always has Mr. Avery or me go over them with him afterward."
"The papers must have been a good deal for a girl of eighteen."
"At that time, you mean? They were; but Father dared trust no one else."
"Mr. Avery handles those matters now for your father?"
"The continuation of what was going on then? Yes; he took them up at the time I was hurt and so has kept on looking after them; for there has been plenty for me to do without that; and those things have all been more or less settled now. They have worked themselves out as things do, though they seemed almost unsolvable at the time. One thing that helped in their solution was that Father was able, that time, to urge what was just, as well as what was advisable."
"You mean that in the final settlement of them no one suffered?"
"No one, I think—except, of course, poor Mr. Latron; and that was a private matter not connected in any direct way with the questions at issue. Why do you ask all this, Mr. Eaton?"
"I was merely interested in you—in what your work has been with your father, and what it is," he answered quietly.
His step had slowed, and she, unconsciously, had delayed with him. Now she realized that his manner toward her had changed from what it had been a few minutes before; he had been strongly moved and drawn toward her then, ready to confide in her; now he showed only his usual quiet reserve—polite, casual, unreadable. She halted and faced him, abruptly, chilled with disappointment.
"Mr. Eaton," she demanded, "a few minutes ago you were going to tell me something about yourself; you seemed almost ready to speak; now—"
"Now I am not, you mean?"
"Yes; what has changed you? Is it something I have said?"
He seemed to reflect. "Are you sure that anything has changed me? I think you were mistaken. You asked if I could not tell you more about myself; I said I wished I could, and that perhaps I might. I meant some time in the future; and I still hope I may—some time."
His look and tone convinced her; for she could recall nothing he had asked about herself or that she had replied to, which could have made any change in him. She studied him an instant more, fighting her disappointment and the feeling of having been rebuffed.
They had been following the edge of the road, she along a path worn in the turf, he on the edge of the road itself and nearer to the tracks of the motors. As she faced him, she was slightly above him, her face level with his. Suddenly she cried out and clutched at him. As they had stopped, she had heard the sound of a motor approaching them rapidly from behind. Except that this car seemed speeding faster than the others, she had paid no attention and had not turned. Instantaneously, as she had cried and pulled upon him, she had realized that this car was not passing; it was directly behind and almost upon him. She felt him spring to the side as quickly as he could; but her cry and pull upon him were almost too late; as he leaped, the car struck. The blow was glancing, not direct, and he was off his feet and in motion when the wheel struck; but the car hurled him aside and rolled him over and over.
As she rushed to Eaton, the two men in the rear seat of the car turned their heads and looked back.
"Are you all right?" one called to Eaton; but without checking its speed or swerving, the car dashed on and disappeared down the roadway.
She bent over Eaton and took hold of him. He struggled to his feet and, dazed, tottered so that she supported him. As she realized that he was not greatly hurt, she stared with horror at the turn in the road where the car had disappeared.
"Why, he tried to run you down! He meant to! He tried to hurt you!" she cried.
"No," Eaton denied. "Oh, no; I don't think so."
"But they went on without stopping; they didn't wait an instant. He didn't care; he meant to do it!"
"No!" Eaton unsteadily denied again. "It must have been—an accident. He was—frightened when he saw what he had done."
"It wasn't at all like an accident!" she persisted. "It couldn't have been an accident there and coming up from behind the way he did! No; he meant to do it! Did you see who was in the car—who was driving?"
He turned to her quickly. "Who?" he demanded.
"One of the people who was on the train! That man—the morning we—the morning Father was hurt—do you remember, when you came into the dining car for breakfast and the conductor wanted to seat you opposite a young man who had just spilled coffee? You sat down at our table instead. Don't you remember—a little man, nervous, but very strong; a man almost like an ape?"
He shuddered and then controlled himself. "Nothing!" he answered her clasp of concern on his arm. "Quite steady again; thanks. Just dizzy; I guess I was jarred more than I knew. Yes, I remember a fellow the conductor tried to seat me opposite."
"This was the same man!"
Eaton shook his head. "That could hardly be; I think you must be mistaken."
"I am not mistaken; it was that man!"
"Still, I think you must be," he again denied.
She stared, studying him. "Perhaps I was," she agreed; but she knew she had not been. "I am glad, whoever it was, he didn't injure you. You are all right, aren't you?"
"Quite," he assured. "Please don't trouble about it, Miss Santoine."
He dusted himself off with her help and tried to limp as little as possible; and when she insisted upon returning to the house, he made no objection, but he refused to wait while she went back for a car to take him. They walked back rather silently, she appreciating how passionately she had expressed herself for him, and he quiet because of this and other thoughts too.
They found Donald Avery in front of the house looking for them as they came up. Eaton succeeded in walking without limping; but he could not conceal the marks on his clothes.
"Harriet, I've just come from your father; he wants you to go to him at once," Avery directed. "Good morning, Eaton. What's happened?"
"Carelessness," Eaton deprecated. "Got rather in the way of a motor and was knocked over for it."
Harriet did not correct this to Avery. She went up to her father; she was still trembling, still sick with horror at what she had seen—an attempt to kill one walking at her side. She stopped outside her father's door to compose herself; then she went in.
The blind man was propped up on his bed with pillows into almost a sitting position; the nurse was with him.
"What did you want, Father?" Harriet asked.
He had recognized her step and had been about to speak to her; but at the sound of her voice he stopped the words on his lips and changed them into a direction for the nurse to leave the room.
He waited until the nurse had left and closed the door behind her. Harriet saw that, in his familiarity with her tones and every inflection of her voice, he had sensed already that something unusual had occurred; she repeated, however, her question as to what he wanted.
"That does not matter now, Harriet. Where have you been?"
"I have been walking with Mr. Eaton."
"What happened?"
She hesitated. "Mr. Eaton was almost run down by a motor-car."
"Ah! An accident?"
She hesitated again. She had seen on her father's face the slight heightening of his color which, with him, was the only outward sign that marked some triumph of his own mind; his blind eyes, abstracted and almost always motionless, never showed anything at all.
"Mr. Eaton said it was an accident," she answered.
"But you?"
"It did not look to me like an accident, Father. It—it showed intention."
"You mean it was an attack?"
"Yes; it was an attack. The man in the car meant to run Mr. Eaton down; he meant to kill him or to hurt him terribly. Mr. Eaton wasn't hurt. I called to him and pulled him—he jumped away in time."
"To kill him, Harriet? How do you know?"
She caught herself. "I—I don't know, Father. He certainly meant to injure Mr. Eaton. When I said kill him, I was telling only what I thought."
"That is better. I think so too."
"That he meant to kill Mr. Eaton?"
"Yes."
She watched her father's face; often when relating things to him, she was aware from his expression that she was telling him only something he already had figured out and expected or even knew; she felt that now.
"Father, did you expect Mr. Eaton to be attacked?"
"Expect? Not that exactly; it was possible; I suspected something like this might occur."
"And you did not warn him?"
The blind man's hands sought each other on the coverlet and clasped together. "It was not necessary to warn him, Harriet; Mr. Eaton already knew. Who was in the car?"
"Three men."
"Had you seen any of them before?"
"Yes, one—the man who drove."
"Where?"
"On the train."
The color on Santoine's face grew brighter. "Did you know who he was?"
"No, Father."
"Describe him, dear," Santoine directed.
He waited while she called together her recollections of the man.
"I can't describe him very fully, Father," she said. "He was one of the people who had berths in the forward sleeping-car. I can recall seeing him only when I passed through the car—I recall him only twice in that car and once in the diner."
"That is interesting," said Santoine.
"What, Father?"
"That in five days upon the train you saw the man only three times."
"You mean he must have kept out of sight as much as possible?"
"Have you forgotten that I asked you to describe him, Harriet?"
She checked herself. "Height about five feet, five," she said, "broad-shouldered, very heavily set; I remember he impressed me as being unusually muscular. His hair was black; I can't recall the color of his eyes; his cheeks were blue with a heavy beard closely shaved. I remember his face was prognathous, and his clothes were spotted with dropped food. I—it seems hard for me to recall him, and I can't describe him very well."
"But you are sure it was the same man in the motor?"
"Yes."
"Did he seem a capable person?"
"Exactly what do you mean?"
"Would he be likely to execute a purpose well, Harriet—either a purpose of his own, or one in which he had been instructed?"
"He seemed an animal sort of person, small, strong, and not particularly intelligent. It seems hard for me to remember more about him than that."
"That is interesting."
"What?"
"That it is hard for you to remember him very well."
"Why, Father?"
Her father did not answer. "The other men in the motor?" he asked.
"I can't describe them. I—I was excited about Mr. Eaton."
"The motor itself, Harriet?"
"It was a black touring car."
"Make and number?"
"I don't know either of those. I don't remember that I saw a number; it—it may have been taken off or covered up."
"Thank you, dear."
"You mean that is all, then?"
"No; bring Eaton to me."
"He has gone to his room to fix himself up."
"I'll send for him, then." Santoine pressed one of the buttons beside his bed to call a servant; but before the bell could be answered, Harriet got up.
"I'll go myself," she said.
She went out into the hall and closed the door behind her; she waited until she heard the approaching steps of the man summoned by Santoine's bell; then, going to meet him, she sent him to call Eaton in his rooms, and she still waited until the man came back and told her Eaton had already left his rooms and gone downstairs. She dismissed the man and went to the head of the stairs, but her steps slowed there and stopped. She was strained and nervous; often in acting as her father's "eye" and reporting to him what she saw, she felt that he found many insignificant things in her reports which were hidden from herself; and she never had had that feeling more strongly than just now as she was telling him about the attack made on Eaton. So she knew that the blind man's thought in regard to Eaton had taken some immense stride; but she did not know what that stride had been, or what was coming now when her father saw Eaton.
She went on slowly down the stairs, and when halfway down, she saw Eaton in the hall below her. He was standing beside the table which held the bronze antique vase; he seemed to have taken something from the vase and to be examining it. She halted again to watch him; then she went on, and he turned at the sound of her footsteps. She could see, as she approached him, what he had taken from the vase, but she attached no importance to it; it was only a black button from a woman's glove—one of her own, perhaps, which she had dropped without noticing. He tossed it indifferently toward the open fireplace as he came toward her.
"Father wants to see you, Mr. Eaton," she said.
He looked at her intently for an instant and seemed to detect some strangeness in her manner and to draw himself together; then he followed her up the stairs.