CHAPTER XIII.
The Storm Breaks.
THE full horror of it swept over me, at that moment. We were lost! Gilbert was powerless to help me, and these terrible creatures had us both firmly in their clutches!
"There is nothing to be done, then," I said slowly. "Only—I—I am sorry that I've dragged you into this; that I've brought such trouble upon you"
'There's a great deal to be done!" he interrupted me. "You will be quite safe in a few hours, I promise you, if you will keep your nerve, and do just what I say. I know you're not a coward, Maida darling, but you must summon all your courage, for the worst of this terrible experience is before you. I cannot hide you anywhere on the island, even in the bungalow, for they would break in and search every nook and corner. I—I would die for you, dear, you know that, but I can do nothing against so many. Their gardeners and menservants are undoubtedly in their pay in this scheme, and if they kill me, your only chance of escape from the island would be gone."
"The lighthouse!" I cried. "Couldn't you hide me there?"
He shook his head.
"I had thought of that. But they would be sure to look there first of all. Now, Maida, I don't want to alarm you, but we have only a few minutes left together. You were followed from the house. I caught a glimpse of that Frenchman, far up the sands, as I turned away from the disabled launch. He will see our footprints on the beach, and undoubtedly follow us here. Listen, dear, and try to understand and obey me, for your very life may depend upon it. I want you to leave me here and strike out through the woods straight across the island and back to the house by the other path."
"The house!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Gilbert, surely you don't mean for me to go back to them, to walk into that trap again?"
"You must do more than that," he returned, earnestly. "You must pretend cordiality, friendliness, utterly disarm any fears they may entertain. If they should suspect for a moment that you know the truth, they would lock you up and put a strong guard about you, be sure of that. It is the only way, dear, you have got to steel yourself to meet them as if nothing had happened. Late tonight, when they've all retired and the house is quiet. I'll come and take you away in their racing motor boat—but first I'll treat their launch as they treated mine, so that there will be no fear of pursuit."
"But how will I get out of the house?" I asked, trembling. "I could never climb down that tree in the dark!"
"There's a long ladder at the end of their kitchen garden. I've noticed it more than once. I'll get you down safely on it, Maida dear. Which is your window?"
I described it as well as I could, and he nodded reassuringly. Then his face changed, and he peered cautiously from behind the barrier of rock.
"He's coming!" his tones were tense and very low, and he added as I started in swift terror. "Don't be frightened, Maida. He's not near yet, and walking very slowly, watching our tracks, as I surmised he would. You've time enough to get away before he reaches us. My poor darling!" Gilbert drew me to my feet, and held me close. "I wish there were some other way, but there isn't. Try to be your own brave self, and meet them on their own ground. They have deceived you for ten days, now try with all your might to outwit them for as many hours. Promise me that you won't lose courage, dear, and that you will try!"
"I promise, Gilbert!" I whispered, with my eyes on his.
"I cannot bear to let you go, to send you back, straight into their clutches once more, but I must!" he said quickly. "Good-bye, dearest. Don't lose heart. Only trust me, have faith in me, and know that I will save you!" For a moment longer I clung to him, and then, shuddering, turned blindly away and stumbled off over the rocks. I dared not glance over my shoulder at him; I knew that if I did, I should rush back and fling myself hysterically into his arms, and Monsieur Pelissier would come upon us, and our last chance would be gone. Gilbert was right, of course. There was no other way, and yet every instinct within me revolted at going back, and presenting myself again before them, a smiling docile dupe!
I reached the shelter of the woods, and pushed through the undergrowth in what I knew to be the general direction of the path. I prayed that I might be able to get safely through that fearful day, and that the night would come quickly, bringing Gilbert, and release from this hideous captivity.
All at once I became conscious of a faint rustling behind me, which drew unmistakably nearer, and then the tramp of feet. Monsieur Pelissier was almost upon me! My first impulse was to rush on wildly, but I quickly realized the futility of it, and the suspicion it would draw down upon me, so I decided to await his coming deliberately. A huge old tree, a victim, doubtless, of the previous week's storm, lay prone athwart my path, and I seated myself upon it. My arm was stinging and throbbing, and the dull, insistent ache in my shoulder warned me that it was badly wrenched. Whether it was the pain or merely the reaction from the nervous strain of the mystery which I had instinctively felt surrounded me for so many days, I could not have told, but from being terror-stricken and tremulously fainthearted, my mood changed swiftly to one of courageous aggression. Now that the first shock of the astounding revelation which had come to me was past, I found myself growing more and more furious at the deception of which I had been so easy a victim.
Instead of dreading the approach of the Frenchman, I was almost anxious for the meeting, ready to encounter his suspicions, and pit my wits against his. I would keep my promise to Gilbert, I had no fear of failure now! I would play with them as they had played with me! I would show them that the simple little schoolgirl they had decoyed into the net so smoothly spread for her, was not quite such a gullible fool as they had imagined.
I cradled my hurt arm with the other, and smiled blandly as Monsieur Pelissier parted the sumac bushes and sprang into view. He halted, at finding himself face to face with me, and panting, took off his hat with ironic obeisance.
"Good morning, Monsieur Pelissier!" I started to laugh but checked it hastily. There was a little running note of hysteria in my voice which warned me to control myself. "I couldn't say it before, because you were asleep. See! I have hurt my arm!"
"Ah, Mademoiselle, that is a great pity! How did it happen?"
He came toward me, and I moved along confidentially and gave him room to seat himself beside me.
"I tried to climb a tree, and I fell and scraped it, and wrenched my shoulder," I chattered on as lightly as I could. I noticed the little glint which came into his eyes when I mentioned the tree, and giggled like a simpleton. "Oh, Monsieur, you did look funny sitting there fast asleep in the hall! I was a little angry with you and Aunt Julie, too, to treat me like a naughty child who couldn't be trusted not to disobey and I made up my mind that I would slip out in spite of you, and I did!"
I added the last with a naive air of triumph, and he laughed somewhat uneasily, favoring me with a sharp sidelong glance. I saw that he didn't quite know how to accept my sudden change of front, and I was determined to make the most of his bewilderment.
"Alaric was mistaken about that young man leaving the Barford bungalow. I've seen him again, and what is more I've been talking to him!" I went on gaily, quite as if I was unaware that he already knew. "I was just determined that Aunt Julie shouldn't get the best of me, and treat me as she does Lorna and Bijou, but I'm sorry now. He's quite a stupid ordinary sort of young man, not a bit good fun!"
I paused, inwardly aghast at the fluency of my mendacity, and he asked, in an ominously quiet voice.
"And where did you meet him, Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, on the beach," I returned frankly. "I walked along with him to a pile of rock back there, and sat down for a few minutes. He—he wanted to bind up my arm for me, but there wasn't anything but salt water to bathe it with, and after a little while I thought I'd better go home. If you'll promise not to say anything to Aunt Julie about the trick I played on you, I'll tell you a little joke!"
"Ah, Mademoiselle, I cannot promise that!" he was smiling though, in a relieved fashion, and I knew that I had won. "You have been tres méchante to disobey, and it was not in good taste, this rendezvous with a strange young man!"
"But I won't do it again, ever!" I protested, like a repentant child. "I didn't give you away, you know, Monsieur Pelissier, about going to see a lady on the other island, and then fibbing about it! You might be generous!"
"Well, we shall see! Poor little arm!" he stroked it, tenderly, and my flesh crept beneath his touch. "What is it, this little joke you have to tell me?"
"You'd never guess!" I replied, giggling. "You remember that afternoon, when the storm came up, and you were so—so horrid to me? Well, that young man heard Aunt Julie shrieking for Lucie, and he thought it was I! So this morning, I told him I was her niece, Lucy Smith, and he believed it! He—he wanted to call but I discouraged that!"
Monsieur Pelissier laughed, outright, and I joined him, merrily. His was not a very pleasant laugh, but it fell like music on my ears. My bold stroke had succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. Perhaps the inward consciousness that I was only telling what had been at one time the literal truth, had lent a ring of sincerity to my voice which absolutely convinced him.
As it was, he pressed my hand, and cried in unfeigned relief and merriment
"Ah, you American ingenues! Is it any wonder that we abase ourselves before you? You are irresistible, comme le diable! The joke, it is really too good to keep just between us! We must tell the others! But they will laugh!"
"Monsieur!" I protested, in an injured fashion. "It is too good to tell them! I will not give Aunt Julie the satisfaction! I have trusted you, I have confided in you, and now you betray me!"
"And why have you trusted me, Mademoiselle?" he asked, with amazing frankness. "You have not before this morning chosen to honor me with your confidence!"
I shrugged. I wasn't prepared for this.
"You were not kind!" I protested, guilelessly. "You treated me as the rest did, like a perfect child! Perhaps it is because I succeeded so easily in outwitting you this morning, or it may be just the contrast with that stupid young man, but I have come to the conclusion that we shall be good friends. You are not like the others, Monsieur, I could not help seeing that from the first. You are a man of the world, you have a sense of humor, and it has seemed to me sometimes that you were laughing at them all, as well as at me! Even Lorna, different as she is from the rest of the family, does not understand you as well as I do!"
I added the last sentence diplomatically, but I saw at once that it hadn't been necessary. Clever as he was, I had struck a responsive chord in his egotism, and he drank in my crass flattery, with thirsty greed.
"And you, Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed. "Permit me to make my compliments to you! That pretty little head of yours is not empty, it seems! And you—you are also quite different from the rest!"
I followed up my advantage quickly.
"Then you will not tell them? You said just now, Monsieur, that it was not in good taste, for me to talk to that young man without regard to the conventions. Do you think that scene which Aunt Julie created on the veranda the other day was in better taste? Don't you think it would be well to avoid a repetition of that if we can? Come, Monsieur Pelissier, we went for a little stroll together, you and I, this morning, did we not?"
"You daughters of Eve!" he sighed, and rolled his eyes. "You tempt the poor men, even as your universal mother did before you—and we fall! Mademoiselle, it shall be as you desire, I am as wax in your hands. We will keep our little secrets, we two, and we shall be friends. But there must be no more adventures like that of this morning, you comprehend. I, also, am a guest of Mrs. Smith, and it would be my duty to tell her."
"No more!" I cried gaily. "Did I not tell you he was stupid? Come, it is growing late, and I find that my arm still pains a little. Let us go back."
He sprang up, in instant solicitude.
"The poor arm! I, too, am stupid like the others, for I had quite forgotten it! We will return at once that it may be cared for."
He guided me to the path, and we set briskly out for the house.
My spirits were rising, unaccountably. The truths horrible as it was, had been almost a relief after the vague doubts and seemingly purposeless mysteries o the last days, and although the hazard of escape still lay before me, I was confident that Gilbert's plan would succeed. This Monsieur Pelissier was by far the cleverest of the whole nefarious gang, with the probable exception of the man who passed himself off as Mr. Fordyce, and who, I shrewdly suspected, was the ringleader of the whole dastardly group. If I had so easily hoodwinked the Frenchman, I should have little trouble with the others. I fancied he had fallen in with my plan so readily because it would help to conceal from the others the fact that he had failed in his trust, and given me the opportunity to slip away, in spite of their crafty precautions.
I chattered on gaily as we neared the house. I did not want to give him time to think, to begin to wonder if the swift change in my manner toward him held a deeper significance than appeared upon the surface. His fears were completely lulled, and he was laughing lightly at some silly remark of mine as we rounded the corner, and burst upon the view of the psuedo-Smiths, who were assembled in an anxious group on the veranda.
"Good morning!" I said, as sweetly as I could, looking from one to another of their worried, expectant faces with new eyes. Knowing the truth, I wondered how even after a lapse of years since I had seen the real Smiths I had for a moment been deceived. Theirs was the vulgarity bred of the cities, not of the simple open life of the ranches and oil-fields. Accepting the thin veneer of cultivation for what it was, I had taken the rest for granted. What a selfconfident little idiot I had proved myself!
"Where in the world have you two been?" demanded the woman who had called herself Aunt Julie.
"We went for a little stroll, Mademoiselle and I," Monsieur Pelissier played up promptly.
"But your arm!" the false Bijou screamed suddenly to me. "It's all blood!"
"What has happened? How did you hurt yourself?" cried "Aunt Julie," her accents sharpened with swift apprehension.
"Mademoiselle had the misfortune to stumble over a fallen tree," the Frenchman replied for me. "It was most regrettable, and very careless of me not to have been at her side to assist her."
The double significance of his added remark was not lost upon me, and I smiled as I said reassuringly:
"It really isn't anything, Aunt Julie. I only scraped my arm a little. I will go now and bathe it, and change my gown. I won't keep you waiting for breakfast."
I turned to go into the house, with a sigh of relief that the worst was over; and then without a sign of warning, the end of the farce came! It was such a little thing, too, which precipitated it—I dropped my handkerchief. Monsieur Pelissier jumped for it, but unluckily, I was too quick for him. Unluckily, for as I stooped to recover it, that telltale fragment of newspaper slipped from my blouse!
Something seemed to clutch me by the throat, and for an instant I stood, spellbound, while a perverse breeze caught it and swirled it, face uppermost to the feet of the pseudo Mrs. Smith!
The great black letters stared up accusingly: "Maida Waring Still Missing. Police Baffled. No Clue Yet to Abductors."
Monsieur Pelissier drew in his breath with a sharp sibilant hiss, and an electrified stir swept over the tense group. Then something seemed to snap inside of me, and I sprang toward the bit of paper, but it was too late. Alaric lunged forward and seized it and in the moment of silence which followed, I heard Bijou's queer, choking gasp. Monsieur Pelissier was the first to speak.
"The game is up, it would seem!" he remarked slowly, with a shrug of comprehensive shoulders.
"Yes!" I cried. "I know now that you are imposters, all of you! You will spend the rest of your lives in prison for this outrage, when my father finds you!"
My courage had risen boldly to meet this unexpected calamity and I felt a savage exultant joy sweep over me that I need no longer mask my rage and contempt.
"Where did you get this paper, girl? Who told you?" Aunt Julie advanced with the ominous glitter in her eyes.
"Need you ask?" the Frenchman intervened, with an ugly smile. "That young man gave it to her of course. We have him to deal with now. She fooled me nicely this morning, the little minx!" He turned to me with an ironic bow. "Again my compliments, Mademoiselle! I did not believe you capable of it! The stage has lost an ingenue par excellence!"
"Cut it out!" growled Alaric, fiercely. "I told you from the start this was a damn fool game to play, and now you see what's come of it!"
"He'll get away!" Aunt Julie screamed suddenly. "That man! He knows! He'll escape while you stand here quarreling and we shall be lost. Leave the girl to me, and attend to him!"
"Oh, he's safe enough, for the time being!" Alaric leered. "He won't get off the island, I promise you. Our boats are chained fast, and I fixed his last night."
Bijou sobbed hysterically and covered her face with her hands, and as the sun glinted on her pointed, polished nails, a lightning flash of memory returned to me.
"Oh, my Gawd!" she moaned. "I knew it wouldn't work! I knew it! I told Herman so, but he wouldn't listen!"
"Shut up, you fool!" roared Alaric, but I had scarcely heard. I advanced impetuously to where she cowered against the veranda rail.
"Why I know you!" I cried triumphantly. "You who palmed yourself off as Bijou Smith—you're May Grady, and you were my father's stenographer until he discharged you for dishonesty for selling his business secrets to outsiders! I thought before that I had seen you and when the sun shone on your nails just now, I knew!"
"That's enough out of you!" the pseudo Aunt Julie stormed. "You'll be put where you won't talk so much!"
"I don't care what you do with me!" I cried, recklessly. "You'll answer to my father and to the law for what you have done, be sure of that. To think that I should ever have mistaken you for my Aunt Julie! I felt that something was wrong two days ago when you were so angry you forgot to lisp! I should have known then!"
She sprang upon me, with her arm upraised, as if to strike me to the ground, but the Frenchman seized her in a grip of steel.
"Connie, don't," May Grady moaned hysterically.
Alaric turned upon her roughly, and half-pushed, half-flung her into the hall.
"Get out of the way, and keep out, if you know what's good for you!" he growled. "You'll give the whole show away next!"
"Control yourself!" Monsieur Pelissier said warningly, in a low authoritative tone to the distraught woman he held. "Remember our orders! No abuse, and no force unless it is absolutely necessary. Mademoiselle," he turned to me with a travesty of deprecation in his manner, "will you retire quietly with Lorna, or must we escort you?"
The girl he spoke of as Lorna had stood by quietly since the moment of their exposure, and now she came to me, and laid her hand gently on my arm.
"Remember what I have said to you, Maida. I have tried to be your friend," she said softly. "Come with me now. It will be best for you."
I shrank from her touch.
"Oh!" I cried. "Don't touch me! I thought you were different from the others, but you are not! You are wicked, as bad as they! How dared you speak of my mother to me. Her name was a desecration, coming from your lips!"
She stepped back with a little shrug, and Alaric and the Frenchman advanced one on each side of me. They took hold of my arms, not roughly but firmly, and turning me toward the door, forced me forward.
The horror of it all suddenly swept over me overwhelmingly, and I could feel my knees giving way. For the third time that morning a swift sinking faintness crept up and all but enveloped me. I could feel my senses reeling, but the thought of Gilbert came like a steadying hand laid on my wildly beating heart. He would help me, he would save me!
With "Mrs. Smith" bringing up in the rear, they propelled me into the hall, and there we came face to face with the housekeeper at the foot of the stairs.
"Oh, Mrs. Macpherson!" I cried. "Help! Help! I am Maida Waring! These people are kidnappers! They are holding me prisoner! Get word to the mainland, to my father, to the police!"
She stood transfixed, her broad, honest face blank with bewilderment, as Mrs. Smith bustled toward her.
"It has come, Mrs. Macpherson!" she said, in a low, meaning tone. "She has taken a bad turn again, poor child! You know I told you we were afraid of just such a seizure as this!"
"Puir lassie!" Mrs. Macpherson shook her head in shocked pity. "Puir feckless thing! Would it not be well, madam, to fetch a dochtor frae the toon?"
"I am not crazy!" I cried wildly. "I am as sane as you! Get a doctor, get anybody from the mainland who will listen to me, and you will be well rewarded, I promise you! These people are committing a crime!"
"Aunt Julie" touched her handkerchief to her eyes hypocritically.
"Poor little girl!" she sighed. "It's terrible, isn't it? No, we don't need a doctor. We know just what to do for her, she's had these hallucinations so often! We can only give her absolute quiet and silence and rest."
There was no hope for me here! The stolid Scotchwoman evidently believed her, and stood staring with half-frightened, wholly sympathetic eyes as they bore me into the library. These diabolically clever schemers had prepared for even this contingency! All the servants had probably been informed that I was a harmless lunatic, and being cut off themselves from the mainland, had not learned of the countrywide search for me! That explained the stupid, scared way the parlor maid behaved when I encountered her on the morning after our arrival. How blindly I had disregarded a thousand significant things, which should have warned me of the truth!
They forced me through the library into the billiard room, and then with a sickening sense of dismay, I realized their intent. They were going to lock me in the cabin, that impregnable room built from part of a ship, and from it I could not hope to escape!
A sob welled up in my throat, but I choked it back fiercely. These horrible people should not see me break down, while my senses remained to me! I might indeed be helpless in their hands, but they would not be given an opportunity to gloat over my despair! I set my teeth in my quivering lip and held my head high, and so crossed the threshold of the room which was to be my prison.
The two men loosed their hold upon me, and as they withdrew I slowly turned and faced the woman who had duped me, and taken me from under Miss Farmingdale's eyes. She was glaring at me, with a derisive malevolent smile curving her thin lips.
"You see what your sneaking and prying has brought you to!" she sneered. "If you had left well enough alone, my dear Maida, you would have been treated with all indulgence, and have been none the wiser until the moment of your release. As it is, you have only yourself to thank for this situation."
"None the wiser!" I echoed in infinite scorn. "Do you imagine that I have not been aware from the beginning, in spite of your elaborate precautions, that there was something wrong? You never have been for one instant the Aunt Julie I remembered. She was a plain, simple, wholehearted woman, not vicious and unspeakably vulgar. She was commonplace, not common! I must inevitably have discovered the truth for myself, unaided, before long. I know who Bijou is at least, and I shall not forget that she addressed you just now as 'Connie.' That will be something for the authorities to work upon, when I am free."
"You are not free yet, however," she replied, significantly. "It is by no means certain that you ever will be! Perhaps, if you are—when you are—you will find it advantageous to indulge in a convenient loss of memory. You are just as far now from being restored to your father as you were the day we sailed from New York, and you can disabuse your mind at once of the idea that your young man will rescue you; we will take good care of that. There is only one thing more which I have to say to you. Remember when lunatics, however harmless, become violent, they are put into straight-jackets. I should advise you to attempt no disturbance. It would have no effect upon us and only a very disastrous one upon yourself."
She turned and walked from the room, leaving me standing there, speechless, gazing at her in unutterable horror and loathing. The heavy oak door slammed after her, and I heard the key grate in the lock, and a massive bolt shot into place. I was a prisoner, indeed!