The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916)/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FLAW IN THE LEFT EYE
SANTOINE, after Harriet had left the library, stood waiting until he heard the servant go out and close the door; he had instructed the man and another with him to remain in the hall. The blind man felt no physical weakness; he was wholly absorbed in the purpose for which he had dressed and come downstairs; now, as he heard Avery start forward to help him, he motioned him back. It was the rule in Santoine's house that the furniture in the rooms he frequented should be kept always in the same positions; the blind man could move about freely, therefore, in these rooms.
He walked slowly now to a large chair beside the table in the center of the room and sat down, resting his arm on the table; when he felt the familiar smoothness of the table under his finger-tips he knew he was facing the part of the room where the sound he had just heard had told him Avery must be.
"When did you learn that Eaton was Hugh Overton, Avery?" he asked.
"To-day."
"How did you discover it?"
He heard Avery, who had been standing, come forward and seat himself on the arm of the chair across the table from him; the blind man turned to face this place directly.
"It was plain from the first there was something wrong with the man," Avery replied; "but I had, of course, no way of placing him until he gave himself away at polo the other day."
"At polo? Then you knew about it the other day?"
"Oh, no," Avery denied. "I saw that he was pretending not to know a game which he did know; when he put over one particular stroke I was sure he knew the game very well. The number of men in this country who've played polo at all isn't very large and those who can play great polo are very few. So I sent for the polo annuals for a few years back; the ones I wanted came to the club to-day. His picture is in the group of the Spring Meadows Club; he played 'back' for them five years ago. His name was under the picture, of course."
"You didn't tell me, however, that he could play polo when you first found it out."
"No; I wanted to be sure of him before I spoke; besides, Harriet had seen it as well as I; I supposed she had told you."
"I understand. I am glad to know how it was. One less certain of your fidelity than I am might have put another construction on your silence; one less certain, Avery, might have thought that, already knowing Eaton's identity, you preferred instead of telling it to me to have me discover it for myself and so, for that reason, you trapped him into a polo game in Harriet's presence. I, myself, do not think that. The other possibility which might occur to one not certain of your fidelity we will not now discuss."
For a moment Santoine paused; the man across from him did not speak, but—Santoine's intuition told him—drew himself suddenly together against some shock; the blind man felt that Avery was watching him now with tense questioning.
"Of course," said Santoine, "knowing who Eaton is, gives us no aid in determining who the men were that fought with him in my study last night?"
"It gives none to me, Mr. Santoine," Avery said steadily.
"It gives none to you," Santoine repeated; "and the very peculiar behavior of the stock exchange to-day, I suppose that gives you no help either. All day they have been going down, Avery—the securities, the stocks and bonds of the properties still known as the Latron properties; the very securities which five years ago stood staunch against even the shock of the death of the man whose coarse but powerful personality had built them up into the great properties they are to-day—of Matthew Latron's death. To-day, without apparent reason, they have been going down, and that gives you no help either, Avery?"
"I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir."
"Yet you are a very clever man, Avery; there is no question about that. Your friend and my friend who sent you to me five years ago was quite correct in calling you clever; I have found you so; I have been willing to pay you a good salary—a very good salary—because you are clever."
"I'm glad if you have found my work satisfactory, Mr. Santoine."
"I have even found it worth while at times to talk over with you matters—problems—which were troubling me; to consult with you. Have I not?"
"Yes."
"Very well; I am going to consult with you now. I have an infirmity, as you know, Avery; I am blind. I have just found out that for several years—for about five years, to be exact; that is, for about the same length of time that you have been with me—my blindness has been used by a certain group of men to make me the agent of a monstrous and terrible injustice to an innocent man. Except for my blindness—except for that, Avery, this injustice never could have been carried on. If you find a certain amount of bitterness in my tone, it is due to that; a man who has an infirmity, Avery, cannot well help being a little sensitive in regard to it. You are willing I should consult with you in regard to this?"
"Of course I am at your service, Mr. Santoine." Avery's voice was harsh and dry.
The blind man was silent for an instant. He could feel the uneasiness and anxiety of the man across from him mounting swiftly, and he gave it every opportunity to increase. He had told Eaton once that he did not use "cat and mouse" methods; he was using them now because that was the only way his purpose could be achieved.
"We must go back, then, Avery, to the quite serious emergency to which I am indebted for your faithful service. It is fairly difficult now for one contemplating the reverence and regard in which 'big' men are held by the public in these days of business reconstruction to recall the attitude of only a few years ago. However, it is certainly true that five years ago the American people appeared perfectly convinced that the only way to win true happiness and perpetuate prosperity was to accuse, condemn and jail for life—if execution were not legal—the heads of the important groups of industrial properties. Just at that time, one of these men—one of the most efficient but also, perhaps, the one personally most obnoxious or unpopular—committed one of his gravest indiscretions. It concerned the private use of deposits in national banks; it was a federal offense of the most patent and provable kind. He was indicted. Considering the temper of any possible jury at that time, there was absolutely no alternative but to believe that the man under indictment must spend many succeeding years, if not the rest of his life, in the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta or Leavenworth.
"Now, not only the man himself but his closest associates contemplated this certainty with dismay. The man was in complete control of a group of the most valuable and prosperous properties in America. Before his gaining control, the properties had been almost ruined by differences between the minor men who tried to run them; only the calling of Matthew Latron into control saved those men from themselves; they required him to govern them; his taking away would bring chaos and ruin among them again. They knew that. There were a number of important people, therefore, who held hope against hope that Latron would not be confined in a prison cell. Just before he must go to trial, Latron himself became convinced that he faced confinement for the rest of his life; then fate effectively intervened to end all his troubles. His body, charred and almost consumed by flames—but nevertheless the identified body of Matthew Latron—was found in the smoking ruins of his shooting lodge which burned to the ground two days before his trial. I have stated correctly these particulars, have I not, Avery?"
"Yes." Avery was no longer sitting on the arm of the chair; he had slipped into the seat—he was hunched in the seat watching the blind man with growing conviction and fear.
"There were, of course," Santoine went on, "many of the violent and passion-inflamed who carped at this timely intervention of fate and criticised the accident which delivered Latron at this time. But these were silenced when Latron's death was shown to have been, not accident, but murder. A young man was shown to have followed Latron to the shooting lodge; a witness appeared who had seen this young man shoot Latron; a second witness had seen him set fire to the lodge. The young man—Hugh Overton—was put on trial for his life. I, myself, as a witness at the trial, supplied the motive for the crime; for, though I had never met Overton, I knew that he had lost the whole of a large fortune through investments recommended to him by Latron. Overton was convicted, sentenced to death; he escaped before the sentence was carried out—became a fugitive without a name, who if he ever reappeared would be handed over for execution. For the evidence had been perfect—complete; he had shot Latron purely for revenge, killed him in the most despicable manner. For there was no doubt Latron was dead, was there, Avery?"
Santoine waited for reply.
"What?" Avery said huskily.
"I say there was no doubt Latron was dead?"
"None."
"That was the time you came into my employ, Avery, recommended to me by one of the men who had been closest to Latron. I was not connected with the Latron properties except as an adviser; but many papers relating to them must go inevitably through my hands. I was rather on the inside in all that concerned those properties. But I could not myself see the papers; I was blind; therefore, I had to have others serve as eyes for me. And from the first, Avery, you served as my eyes in connection with all papers relating to the Latron properties. If anything ever appeared in those papers which might have led me to suspect that any injustice had been done in the punishment of Latron's murderer, it could reach me only through you. Nothing of that sort ever did reach me, Avery. You must have made quite a good thing out of it."
"What?"
"I say, your position here must have been rather profitable to you, Avery; I have not treated you badly myself, recognizing that you must often be tempted by gaining information here from which you might make money; and your other employers must have overbid me."
"I don't understand; I beg your pardon, Mr. Santoine, but I do not follow what you are talking about."
"No? Then we must go a little further. This last year a minor reorganization became necessary in some of the Latron properties. My friend, Gabriel Warden—who was an honest man, Avery—had recently greatly increased his interest in those properties; it was inevitable the reorganization should be largely in his hands. I remember now there was opposition to his share in it; the fact made no impression on me at the time; opposition is common in all things. During his work with the Latron properties, Warden—the honest man, Avery—discovered the terrible injustice of which I speak.
"I suspect there were discrepancies in the lists of stockholders, showing a concealed ownership of considerable blocks of stock, which first excited his suspicions. Whatever it may have been Warden certainly investigated further; his investigation revealed to him the full particulars of the injustice done to the nameless fugitive who had been convicted as the murderer of Matthew Latron. Evidently this helpless, hopeless man had been thought worth watching by some one, for Warden's discoveries gave him also Overton's address. Warden risked and lost his life trying to help Overton.
"I do not need to draw your attention, Avery, to the very peculiar condition which followed Warden's death. Warden had certainly had communication with Overton of some sort; Overton's enemies, therefore, were unable to rid themselves of him by delivering him up to the police because they did not know how much Overton knew. When I found that Warden had made me his executor and I went west and took charge of his affairs, their difficulties were intensified, for they did not dare to let suspicion of what had been done reach me. There was no course open to them, therefore, but to remove Overton before my suspicions were aroused, even if it could be done only at desperate risk to themselves.
"What I am leading up to, Avery, is your own connection with these events. You looked after your own interests rather carefully, I think, up to a certain point. When—knowing who Eaton was—you got him into a polo game, it was so that, if your interests were best served by exposing him, you could do so without revealing the real source of your knowledge of him. But an unforeseen event arose. The drafts and lists relating to the reorganization of the Latron properties—containing the very facts, no doubt, which first had aroused Warden's suspicions—were sent me through Warden's office. At first there was nothing threatening to you in this, because their contents could reach me only through you. But in the uncertainty I felt, I had my daughter take these matters out of your hands; you did not dare then even to ask me to give them back, for fear that would draw my attention to them and to you.
"That night, Avery, you sent an unsigned telegram from the office in the village; almost within twenty-four hours my study was entered, the safe inaccessible to you was broken open, the contents were carried away. The study window had not been forced; it had been left open from within. Do you suppose I do not know that one of the two men in the study last night was the principal whose agents had failed in two attempts to get rid of Overton for him, whose other agent—yourself, Avery—had failed to intercept the evidence which would have revealed the truth to me, so that, no longer trusting to agents, he himself had come in desperation to prevent my learning the facts? I realize fully, Avery, that by means of you my blindness and my reputation have been used for five years to conceal from the public the fact that Matthew Latron had not been murdered, but was still alive!"
The blind man halted; he had not gone through this long conversation, with all the strain that it entailed upon himself, without a definite object; and now, as he listened to Avery's quick breathing and the nervous tapping of his fingers against the arm of his chair, he realized that this object was accomplished. Avery not only realized that the end of deception and concealment had come; he recognized thoroughly that Santoine would not have spoken until he had certain proof to back his words. Avery might believe that, as yet, the blind man had not all the proof in his possession; but Avery knew—as he was aware that Santoine also knew—that exposure threatened so many men that some one of them now was certain to come forward to save himself at the expense of the others. And Avery knew that only one—and the first one so to come forward—could be saved.
So Santoine heard Avery now get up; he stood an instant and tried to speak, but his breath caught nervously; he made another effort.
"I don't think you have much against me, Mr. Santoine," he managed; it was—as the blind man had expected—only of himself that Avery was thinking.
"No?" Santoine asked quietly.
"I didn't have anything to do with convicting Overton, or know anything about it until that part was all over; I never saw him till I saw him on the train. I didn't know Warden was going to be killed."
"But you were accessory to the robbery of my house last night and, therefore, accessory to the murder of Wallace Blatchford. Last night, too, knowing Overton was innocent of everything charged against him, you gave orders to fire upon him at sight and he was fired upon. And what were you telling Harriet when I came in? You have told the police that Overton is the murderer of Latron. Isn't that so the police will refuse to believe anything he may say and return him to the death cell for the sentence to be executed upon him? The law will call these things attempted murder, Avery."
The blind man heard Avery pacing the floor, and then heard him stop in front of him.
"What is it you want of me, Mr. Santoine?"
"The little information I still require."
"You mean you want me to sell the crowd out?"
"Not that; because I offer you nothing. A number of men are going to the gallows or the penitentiary for this, Avery, and you—I suspect—among them; though I also suspect—from what I have learned about your character in the last few days—that you'll take any means open to you to avoid sharing their fate."
"I suppose you mean by that that I'll turn State's evidence if I get a chance, and that I might as well begin now."
"That, I should say, is entirely up to you. The charge of what I know—with the simultaneous arrest of a certain number of men in different places whom I know must be implicated—will be made to-morrow. You, perhaps, are a better judge than I of the cohesion of your group in the contingencies which it will face to-morrow morning. I offer you nothing now, Avery—no recommendation of clemency—nothing. If you prefer to have me learn the full facts from the first of another who breaks, very well."
Santoine waited. He heard Avery take a few more steps up and down; then he halted; now he walked again; they were uneven steps as Santoine heard them; then Avery stopped once more.
"What is it you want to know, sir?"
"Who killed Warden?"
"John Yarrow is his name; he was a sort of hanger-on of Latron's. I don't know where Latron picked him up."
"Was it he who also made the attack on the train?"
"Yes."
"Who was the other man on the train—the one that claimed the telegram addressed to Lawrence Hillward?"
"His name's Hollock. He's the titular owner of the place on the Michigan shore where Latron has been living. The telegram I sent night before last was addressed to his place, you know. He's been a sort of go-between for Latron and the men—those who knew—who were managing the properties. I'd never met him, though, Mr. Santoine, and I didn't know either him or Hollock on the train. As I said, I wasn't in the know about killing Warden."
"When did you learn who Eaton was, Avery?"
"The day after we got back here from the West I got word from Latron; they didn't tell me till they needed to use me." Avery hesitated; then he went on—he was eager now to tell all he knew in his belief that by doing so he was helping his own case. "You understand, sir, about Latron's pretended death—a guide at the shooting lodge had been killed by a chance shot in the woods; purely accidental; some one of the party had fired at a deer, missed, and never knew he'd killed a man with the waste shot. When the guide didn't come back to camp, they looked for him and found his body. He was a man who never would be missed or inquired for and was very nearly Latron's size; and that gave Latron the idea.
"At first there was no idea of pretending he had been murdered; it was the coroner who first suggested that. Things looked ugly for a while, under the circumstances, as they were made public. Either the scheme might come out or some one else be charged as the murderer. That put it up to Overton. He'd actually been up there to see Latron and had had a scene with him which had been witnessed. That part—all but the evidence which showed that he shot Latron afterwards—was perfectly true. He thought that Latron, as he was about to go to trial, might be willing to give him information which would let him save something from the fortune he'd lost through Latron's manipulations. The circumstances, motive, everything was ready to convict Overton; it needed very little more to complete the case against him."
"So it was completed."
"But after Overton was convicted, he was not allowed to be punished, sir."
Santoine's lips straightened in contempt. "He was not allowed to be punished?"
"Overton didn't actually escape, you know, Mr. Santoine—that is, he couldn't have escaped without help; Latron was thoroughly frightened and he wanted it carried through and Overton executed; but some of the others rebelled against this and saw that Overton got away; but he never knew he'd been helped. I understand it was evidence of Latron's insistence on the sentence being carried out that Warden found, after his first suspicions had been aroused, and that put Warden in a position to have Latron tried for his life, and made it necessary to kill Warden."
"Latron is dead, of course, Avery, or fatally wounded?"
"He's dead. Over—Eaton, that is, sir—hit him last night with three shots."
"As a housebreaker engaged in rifling my safe, Avery."
"Yes, sir. Latron was dying when they took him out of the car last night. They got him away, though; put him on the boat he'd come on. I saw them in the woods last night. They'll not destroy the body or make away with it, sir, at present."
"In other words, you instructed them not to do so until you had found out whether Overton could be handed over for execution and the facts regarding Latron kept secret, or whether some other course was necessary."
The blind man did not wait for any answer to this; he straightened suddenly, gripping the arms of his chair, and got up. There was more he wished to ask; in the bitterness he felt at his blindness having been used to make him an unconscious agent in these things of which Avery spoke so calmly, he was resolved that no one who had shared knowingly in them should go unpunished. But now he heard the noise made by approach of Eaton's captors. He had noted it a minute or more earlier; he was sure now that it was definitely nearing the house. He crossed to the window, opened it and stood there listening; the people outside were coming up the driveway. Santoine went into the hall.
"Where is Miss Santoine?" he inquired.
The servant who waited in the hall told him she had gone out. As Santoine stood listening, the sounds without became coherent to him.
"They have taken Overton, Avery," he commented. "Of course they have taken no one else. I shall tell those in charge of him that he is not the one they are to hold prisoner but that I have another for them here."
The blind man heard no answer from Avery. Those having Overton in charge seemed to be coming into the house; the door opened and there were confused sounds. Santoine stood separating the voices.
"What is it?" he asked the servant.
"Mr. Eaton—Mr. Overton, sir—fainted as they were taking him out of the motor-car, sir. He seems much done up, sir."
Santoine recognized that four or five men, holding or carrying their prisoner between them, had come in and halted in surprise at sight of him.
"We have him!" he heard one of them cry importantly to him. "We have him, sir! and he's Hugh Overton, who killed Latron!"
Then Santoine heard his daughter's voice in a half cry, half sob of hopeless appeal to him; Harriet ran to him; he felt her cold, trembling fingers clasping him and beseeching him. "Father! Father! They say—they say—they will—"
He put his hands over hers, clasping hers and patting it, "My dear," he said, "I thought you would wait for me; I told you to wait."
He heard others coming into the house now; and he held his daughter beside him as he faced them.
"Who is in charge here?" he demanded.
The voice of one of those who had just come in answered him. "I, sir—I am the chief of police."
"I wish to speak to you; I will not keep you long. May I ask you to have your prisoner taken to the room he occupied here in my house and given attention by a doctor? You can have my word that it is not necessary to guard him. Wait! Wait!" he directed, as he heard exclamations and ejaculations to correct him. "I do not mean that you have mistaken who he is. He is Hugh Overton, I know; it is because he is Hugh Overton that I say what I do."
Santoine abandoned effort to separate and comprehend or to try to answer the confusion of charge and questioning around him. He concerned himself, at the moment, only with his daughter; he drew her to him, held her and said gently, "There, dear; there! Everything is right. I have not been able to explain to you, and I cannot take time now; but you, at least, will take my word that you have nothing to fear for him—nothing!"
He heard her gasp with incredulity and surprise; then, as she drew back from him, staring at him, she breathed deep with relief and clasped him, sobbing. He still held her, as the hall was cleared and the footsteps of those carrying Overton went up the stairs; then, knowing that she wished to follow them, he released her. She drew away, then clasped his hand and kissed it; as she did so, she suddenly stiffened and her hand tightened on his spasmodically.
Some one else had come into the hall and he heard another voice—a woman's, which he recognized as that of the stenographer, Miss Davis.
"Where is he? Hugh! Hugh! What have you done to him? Mr. Santoine! Mr. Santoine! where is he?"
The blind man straightened, holding his daughter to him; there was anxiety, horror, love in the voice he heard; Harriet's perplexity was great as his own.
"Is that you, Miss Davis?" he inquired.
"Yes; yes," the girl repeated. "Where is—Hugh, Mr. Santoine?"
"You do not understand," the voice of a young man—anxious and strained now, but of pleasing timbre—broke in on them.
"I'm afraid I don't," Santoine said quietly.
"She is Hugh's sister, Mr. Santoine—she is Edith Overton."
"Edith Overton? And who are you?"
"You do not know me. My name is Lawrence Hillward."
Santoine asked nothing more for the moment. His daughter had left his side. He stood an instant listening to the confusion of question and answer in the hall; then he opened the door into the library and held it for the police chief to enter.