In Jeopardy

Chapter XX

This morning I am allowed to sit up. Betty is busy at her household accounts, and Little Hugh is playing on the floor with blocks and tin soldiers. What a tremendous big chap he is! Perhaps a trifle shy of me at present, but time will soon put that to rights.

A beautiful day, and I am feeling almost if not quite myself. To-morrow I am to get up, and Chalmers Warriner is coming to dinner.

It is a long and well nigh incredible story to which I have been listening this evening. But it explains everything and clears up everything, and the shadow that has hung over "Hildebrand Hundred" for so long has finally fled away; never, thank God! to return.

Imprimis, let me register full and frank confession of my unutterable folly in ever doubting Betty; or, for that matter, my dear friend Chalmers Warriner. And the explanation was so absurdly simple—the secret engagement between Warriner and Hilda Powers. Of course, Betty had been Hilda's confidante and could not betray her even to re-establish a foolish husband's peace of mind. The ridiculous side of the affair lay in the fact that there had been no particular reason for keeping the engagement under cover, outside of Hilda's whim to have the announcement delayed until after the marriage of her elder sister Eva. Anyhow it had been a secret and Betty had kept it loyally, even to her own hurt. Moreover, she may have detected other traces of the green-eyed monster in my make-up, and had decided that I needed a salutary lesson. Let it go at that.

Of course, the mere statement of fact was enough to untangle the whole coil; explained at once was the confidential understanding which certainly had existed between my wife and my friend; also Warriner's appearance at Stockbridge (where Hilda was already Betty's guest), and all the other straws that seemed to show which way the wind blew, and yet were nothing but straws, hopelessly light-minded and wholly irresponsible. I made my amends humbly enough, and they were generously accepted; we will say no more about it.

Dinner was over, and we were taking our coffee on the front portico. It was a perfect June night, the heavens a sable pall studded with innumerable star-clusters, the little vagrant breezes redolent of new mown hay, a nightingale singing in a nearby boscage. An atmosphere of heavenly peace and quiet that I must needs disturb with the blunt question:

"And now what was it that killed John Thaneford?"

Chalmers Warriner threw away the butt of his cigar. "What was it that killed all the Hildebrands throughout two generations?" he retorted. "Yardley and Randall and Horace and Richard, and Francis Graeme? The answer to the one question is the answer to them all. And, finally, there was Eunice Trevor, who went voluntarily to meet the invisible angel of death—a brave woman if there ever was one! Of course you remember the unfinished letter which she left behind her. There was a particular paragraph in it that impressed me, and I copied it down in my note-book." He pulled out the little volume and began to read:

"It must be evident," continued Chalmers, "that Eunice Trevor was aware of the very real danger attendant upon the occupation of the room we call the library at 'Hildebrand Hundred.' But she did not know what was the nature of that danger; in the same breath she speaks of the peril as being eternally menacing and eternally patient—a contradiction in terms. How could the Terror be always ready to strike, and yet, in one case at least, wait half a century for the opportunity? This discrepancy bothered me from the very first; but let me explain myself more exactly; I made some other notes at the time."

Warriner ruffled the leaves of his note-book, and began again:

"Eunice Trevor gives a list of the owners of the 'Hundred,' together with the dates of their succession and death, running back to 1860, when Yardley Hildebrand succeeded his father, Oliver; Yardley himself dying a year later under mysterious circumstances. At least I assume that they were mysterious, for Effingham has assured me that he died alone and while engaged in looking over some papers in the then newly completed library. The list continues with Randall and Horace and Richard Hildebrand, and ends with Francis Graeme. Now for Miss Trevor's comments:

Warriner lit a fresh cigar.

"Making due allowance for feminine hyperbole," he said judicially, "and for the writer's excited state of mind, we arrive at certain definite facts. Here are six deaths—seven if we include that of John Thaneford—and all of them happening under apparently natural but really abnormal conditions. The constant factors in the series of equations are the locale and the general circumstances—an unattended death and no visible cause for dissolution. The period is a variable quantity—from one to over fifty years. We therefore may conclude justifiably that Miss Trevor was wrong in her assertion about something deadly and menacing being always in the room, ready to spring upon its prey. Under that hypothesis the apartment would quickly have become impossible for human occupancy. The alternative theory is that, granting certain conditions, the lethal agent might enter the room and accomplish its deadly purpose, and then immediately withdraw. Finally, this agency might be human or purely mechanical in character. You see what I'm driving at. From the first, I believed that the attack was delivered from without, while Betty and Eunice held that it was what the police call an inside job."

"And neither theory was wholly right nor wholly wrong," observed Betty.

"Perfectly," rejoined Warriner. "As usual, the truth lay in the middle distance. Now you go on, Betty; this is your part of the story."

"My part of the story!" echoed Betty deprecatingly. "I'm not an author; I'm merely the amanuensis, the typist, if you please."

"Mock modesty," proclaimed Warriner. "Even now we would still be standing before a closed door were it not for Betty and her master-key."

"Yes, my master-key," scoffed Betty. "Only it doesn't seem very clever of me to have carried it all these months without ever thinking to use it."

"Perhaps you couldn't find your pocket," suggested Chalmers.

"Enough of this bush-beating and persiflage," I commanded severely. "Will you go on and tell me, Betty?"

"Well," began my wife obediently, "we had been warned away from the 'Hundred,' but you were obstinate and wouldn't budge; you had to be saved in spite of yourself.

"Of course I was right in going North immediately after the Midsummer Night's ball at 'Powersthorp.' Little Hugh really needed the change, and I wanted to be able to call at will on Chalmers for assistance in working out my problem. I couldn't do so if I stayed on at the 'Hundred,' even by means of correspondence. I don't suppose, Hugh, that I need to particularize any further in this direction?"

I mumbled something unintelligible, and, to add to my discomfiture, Warriner actually laughed. Never mind; I deserved it all.

"I could feel reasonably easy in my mind," went on Betty, "since I knew that the library had been dismantled and locked up. Besides, I had your solemn promise that you would not attempt to enter it for any purpose."

"I forgot," I murmured.

"That sounds like honest penitence, and I can forgive you—now. But I shall never be able to forget the afternoon your letter came with its calm announcement that you had been in the room to see about the damaged window; yes, and would probably have to go again.

"That letter reached Stockbridge at ten o'clock in the morning of Thursday, the twenty-first. Fifteen minutes later an express train left for New York, and Chalmers and I were the passengers on it, leaving Hilda to follow with the nurse and the baby. At the first opportunity I sent you a telegram. Did you receive it?"

My thoughts went back to the yellow telegraphic sheet clutched in John Thaneford's black-knuckled hands, and held up before my helpless eyes. "Yes, it came," I answered slowly, "but too late to be of any use."

"I was afraid of that," said Betty, "but we were leaving no stone unturned. We were missing connections all the way down, and I knew that the trap was ready for springing. And someone else knew it, too—John Thaneford."

"But," I objected, "Eunice expressly says that John Thaneford did not know the secret; except perhaps in part."

"What did he mean then by stupefying you with whiskey, and placing you, bound and helpless, in the big swivel-chair?" put in Warriner.

I was silent.

"Finally," continued Warriner, "it seemed certain that something had gone wrong with the working of the machinery, whatever it was. Whereupon he started for you—you remember—with bare hands."

Ah, yes, I remembered.

"Unquestionably, Thaneford was carrying out a perfectly definite plan of procedure. He knew what ought to have happened."

"But it didn't happen," I protested. "I'm here and very much alive."

"It did, and it didn't," retorted Warriner. "John Thaneford is dead."

"You mean—you mean——" I boggled.

"Yes, the Terror had entered the room; don't you recall how close I kept to the wall when I was trying to reach you? But it had become a blind Terror, and John Thaneford got in its way."

"But how and why?" I asked helplessly.

"Betty, it's your turn again," said Warriner, settling back in his chair.

Chapter XXI

"So, too, I had my key, but I had only used it once—to unlock the first and most obvious door——"

"The combination of the safe," I interrupted.

"Precisely. It never occurred to either of us that it might be a master-key to which all locks must yield. But so it was.

"Not that I learned to use it without a lot of trouble and discouragement. It took months and months, and I only got it fully working on the train trip down from Stockbridge.

"Of course, you have guessed that the whole story lay buried in that leather-bound book belonging to Fielding Thaneford which we found in the safe. I remembered all that you had told me about 'Le Chiffre Indéchiffrable,' but even granting that that particular cypher had been employed, how was I ever to stumble upon the indispensable key-word, or more likely, key-sentence?

"One day I had an inspiration. There was the series of numbers: 1-4-2-4-8. Considered as numbers merely they could be of no use, since most cypher codes are built up on letters. But I might put the numbers into their written word equivalents, thus: One-four-two-four-eight It was certainly conceivable that these letters might form the key-sentence; it would be all the more easily memorized since, in its numerical form, it served as a combination to the safe.

"I had with me the magic square which you had made for me, and I began very carefully to work out the problem according to your directions.

"The initial procedure was to put down my theoretical key-sentences, thus:"

"Underneath I must write the cypher message, and half a dozen letters would be enough to show if I were on the right track. I opened Mr. Fielding Thaneford's old book, and copied down the first seven letters, ranging them vertically under the key-letters. That gave me this arrangement:"

"Now the rule goes on to say that you must find the letter O in the top horizontal column, and follow that column vertically downward until you come to the first cypher letter, in this case Q. The letter at the outside, left end of this second horizontal column, will be the first letter of the original message.

"Well, I tried it, and got the letter B. The next pair yielded an I, which was encouraging, as one would expect a vowel in this position. But the third try gave me a J, and that was not so promising; then I got an N and an E. So far my decoded message read: BIJNE; not very enlightening. The next pair showed the letter U in both key-sentence and cypher. Such a combination is impossible on our magic square, and I had to put down a blank space. The final letter obtained was a Q, and the complete result read: BIJNE-Q. Pure gibberish of course. I tried out a few more pairs, and then gave up in disgust; my beautiful theory had fallen to pieces.

"Just the same, I wasn't ready to give it up. I knew, right in my bones, that old Mr. Thaneford had wanted to tell me something of supreme importance at that last moment on his deathbed, when my hand lay in his and I could feel the intermittent pressure of his fingers. It was impossible that I should be mistaken about any of the figures, for he went over the series three or four times; besides, they did open the safe.

"I was still sure that the numbers meant something more than the mere combination to an old strong-box that held nothing of any pecuniary value. The real secret lay between the covers of that leather-bound book, and I was certain that the old man had been desirous that I should discover it. The Thanefords and the Hildebrands had not been friends for a long while, although nobody knew just why. Probably, it was some ancient grudge Or unforgiven wrong, and old Mr. Thaneford had done his part in keeping it up. But now that he was sick and paralyzed and dying, and especially since he and I had become friends of a sort, he was willing to bury the hatchet. So he told all he could—you remember that he couldn't speak—and he seemed to feel satisfied that I would find the hint sufficient, that I would be clever enough to solve the puzzle.

"And surely it was a puzzle. My best guess had come a flivver, and I didn't see how I could go a step further. Perhaps it was silly to attach so much importance to what the old man had tried to tell me, but I had an intuition that our future happiness and safety were bound up in those crumbling leather covers.

"Time went on, and the solution was as far off as ever; at least apparently. Little Hugh and I had come to Irvington for the winter; it was close to Christmas, and I had the blues terribly. Just to think of Christmas and that abyss lying between us! For I knew that you would not come unless I called, and I could not send for you quite yet. Suppose that the discovery of the secret should be close at hand; I might need Chalmers to help out on some difficult scientific point.

"It is always the little things that show the way out. Hilda's weekly letter had come, and I was reading it eagerly hoping to find some mention of you. Now Hilda, poor dear! is an awful speller; she never could learn to visualize words. As I read along I came on a word which looked odd; then I saw that she had committed the careless stenographer's error of spelling 'forty' with an u, thus: 'fourty.' Of course, the pronunciation is the same in either case—and then it was that I got my big idea. Was it possible that the phonetic sounds in my series of numbers might fit words of entirely different meaning than their ordinary equivalents in letters? Let me try.

"1-4-2-4-8. Why, yes, 1 is 'one' and also 'won'; 4 is 'four' and also 'for'; 2 is 'two' and also 'too'—quick! let me get them all down. And here was the result: Won—for—too—for—ate. You see that, in every instance, the phonetic sound of the number can be represented exactly by a word of entirely different meaning. But this peculiar quality in the series, 1-4-2-4-8, would not be apparent at a casual glance, and the figures could even be written down for future reference, or sent to a distant correspondent, without any probability of that inner significance becoming revealed. Very clever of Fielding Thaneford—that is if my deductions were really correct!

"The first step was to set down the new key-sentence with the cypher writing underneath. Here it is; this time using fifteen letters."

"Applying the decoding rule I got the following in my first six tries:"

"You can imagine how excited I was. If my theory were correct the next four letters should be OURT, completing the word 'Thane Court,' Eureka! it is coming! It is coming! I got both the O and the U.

"From the height of exultation to the depths of despair. For instead of R in the ninth place, I had to set down an I; and then, in succession: CDD-FKL. Perfectly impossible! Look at it: THANECOUICDD-FKL, etc.

"And yet the cypher had certainly started to uncode; what could have thrown me off the track? For I had succeeded in getting 'Thanecou,' and that unusual combination was significant in the highest degree. What word could it be but 'Thane Court,' the ancestral home of the Thanefords? Why the chances were a million to one against my reaching such a series for—for——"

"Fortuitously," I prompted.

"Yes, that's it; something like the 'fortuitous concourse of atoms' that the philosophers talk about. I remember the phrase from my school days.

"And yet the mix-up came to spoil everything. For what could any sensible person make of THANECOUICDD-FKL?

"I tried carrying on the series until my brain was positively dizzy, but I got nothing except incomprehensible rubbish. And yet I knew that I had found a real clue; how in the world had I lost it again? I used to work until I actually went fast to sleep at my desk, but nothing came of it. It was enough to drive one mad.

"The middle of May I went up to Stockbridge, and of course I carried my troubles with me. Wherever I looked I seemed to see that tantalizing key-sentence: Won—for—too—for—ate; it was as bad as the squaring of the circle. Just some little, insignificant error was keeping me from the solving of the puzzle, but for the life of me I couldn't put my finger on it. Honestly now, Hugh, do you think you would have been clever enough to have figured it out?"

I checked up Betty's "layout" and went over the decoding process with meticulous care. I got precisely the same result: THANECOU—and then chaos.

"It beats me," I confessed. "It's enough to make one dotty."

"I dare say that is what Aunt Alice Crew thought of me in her heart of hearts," laughed Betty, "although she was too polite to say so. And, really, it was getting on my nerves. I couldn't eat, and a nuit blanche was no uncommon thing with me. I couldn't get it out of my head, you understand, that the solving of the problem must be of immense importance. There was a mystery at the 'Hundred,' and so long as it remained a mystery there could be no enduring peace or happiness for us. If you had been willing to sell the 'Hundred' there might have been some chance of escaping the curse; hadn't poor Eunice said as much in that weird statement which she left behind her. But you would not consider the suggestion even."

"I suppose I was pig-headed and altogether in the wrong," I admitted humbly. "But it all seemed so fantastic and incredible—here in the twentieth century."

"Granting that the mystery had continued unsolved," said Betty, looking me straight in the eye. "What then?"

"But you have given me to understand——" I began.

"Never mind that," interrupted my wife. "Even now you don't know the secret, and I might find it inadvisable to tell you. Admitting the possibility that the ghost has not been truly laid, would you still insist upon remaining master of 'Hildebrand Hundred'?"

A vision of those strong, cruel hands, with their black-tufted knuckles, rose before me, and I shuddered.

"Or would you be willing that Little Hugh should enter upon his inheritance with this cloud hanging over it?"

"No, I wouldn't," I said soberly. "To be honest, I hadn't thought of it in that light."

"You see a woman has to consider all these things," rejoined Betty. "But you have been very patient, Hugh, and the winding up of my yarn won't take long. The crisis begins with Chalmers' coming to Stockbridge."

"For me, that was the denouement, the end of all things," I said shamefacedly, and Warriner roared.

"You see, I never suspected even that I was cast for the role of breaker up of homes," he remarked meditatively. "Betty and I were good friends, of course, but once you appeared on the sky line I was reduced to playing gooseberry. Besides, there never had been anyone else than Hilda for me."

"I'm only trying to explain my conduct," I retorted. "I'm well aware that nothing can excuse it. Shoot, Betty."

"Of course, Chalmers was coming to Stockbridge," went on Betty, "for the simple reason that Hilda was visiting me. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to his arrival, because he had promised to dig up certain data for me.

"You remember the list of Hildebrand tragedies as given by Eunice; how Yardley Hildebrand had succeeded his father, Oliver, in 1860, and had died the following year; then how his younger brother, Randall, had become master of the 'Hundred,' and had only lived a twelvemonth; and so on.

"Well, I thought it might be useful to ascertain all these dates exactly, and, in order to do that, it would be necessary to take transcripts from the parish register at S. Saviour's. I wrote to Chalmers, and asked him to look up this information and bring it with him when he came to Stockbridge. Not only did he do this, but he took the trouble to type out the complete record, so that all the facts in the case might lie under the eye. I'll read it."

Betty pulled out a folded sheet of paper from the portfolio lying in her lap and began:

"And now we may add a final entry," continued Betty: "John Thaneford, nephew to Richard, b. July 16, 1892; d. June 22, 1922."

Betty handed me over the list. "Do you notice anything peculiar about those dates?" she asked.

I read the paper through, and then again. "You have already pointed out," I began hesitatingly, "that the tenure of 'Hildebrand Hundred' was for the comparatively brief period of one to three years. Except for Richard, who held the property for over fifty."

"I don't mean that. Examine the actual dates."

I scanned the record with still greater attention. "Ah!" I exclaimed, "here is something strange. Everyone of these men, and Eunice, too, died in June; yes, and on a day of the month that varied between the twentieth and the twenty-second. Is that what you had in mind?"

"Yes, and it seemed to indicate clearly that those particular three days, the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second of June——"

"In astronomical parlance, the summer solstice," interrupted Warriner.

"——was the danger period."

"Yes, and then?"

"Your letter came, saying that you had been obliged to enter the library to look after the window repairs; you added that you would probably have to go again to finish up the job. As I have already told you, that letter reached me on Thursday morning, June the twenty-first; Chalmers and I left at once for New York. On the way down I succeeded in reading the cypher, and so got Fielding Thaneford's message in full."

"But how in the world——" I began.

"You'll know in good time," cut in Betty. "First, I want you to consider another of my sources of information. Here it is," and she held up a small book bound in tattered leather.

"This," continued my wife, "is a diary kept by Horace Hildebrand, who succeeded to the 'Hundred' in 1862, and died June 22, 1865. The notes refer chiefly to the weather, a record that many country gentlemen are fond of keeping for their own amusement. The only period which interests us is that covering those fatal June days in 1863, 1864, and 1865."

Betty thumbed over the leaves, and stopped at the latter part of June, 1863.

"You see that the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second are described as overcast and rainy. Now for 1864:

"'June 20, cloudy; June 21, clear. (Note: A total eclipse of the sun took place to-day, the period of partial and complete darkness lasting from 10.45 a. m. to 2.10 p. m.); June 22, cloudy.' Finally, we take 1865:

"'June 20, rainy; June twenty-first, heavy rains; June 22, fine and clear.' This is the last entry in the book as Horace Hildebrand was found dead later on in that same day.

"Just one more point. What possible hypothesis can we establish to account for Richard Hildebrand's half century of immunity? Now it happened that I had questioned Effingham on this very subject before I left the 'Hundred.' Effingham had lived, as boy and man, on the Hildebrand estate for over sixty years. Consequently, he knew Marse Richard, as he called him, very well, and was familiar with his habits of life.

"According to Effingham, Richard Hildebrand disliked the warm weather, and always left the 'Hundred' the first of June; he would spend the summer at the 'Old White,' returning to Maryland toward the end of September. But in 1918, the last year of his life, he was too feeble to go away from home. His favorite room was the library, and there he was found dead the evening of the twentieth of June, 1918. He was supposed to have died of heart disease; certainly there was no suspicion of foul play.

"So that was the sum total of my investigations to date," concluded Betty. "Do you make anything of it?"

"It's beyond me," I confessed frankly. "What is the answer?"

"Only Fielding Thaneford himself can give it," replied Betty. "Here is his fully decoded statement, and I'll ask Chalmers to read it aloud. As I said a moment ago, we worked it out together that long day on the train. When we reached town we had the whole story, and knew what to expect. Except one thing: Would it be a cloudy day? But it turned out fair and hot, with only a faint suggestion of thunder in the air. There was a bad wreck on the Cape Charles route, and anyhow we had missed the connection for the morning train. So we hired a car, threw away the speedometer, and made to strike the 'Hundred' by midday. We couldn't quite do it, but the tide of chance had turned at last, and it didn't matter. Now go on, Chalmers."

Warriner ruffled the dozen or more sheets of paper between his fingers and began:

Chapter XXII

FIELDING THANEFORD.