The sinister mark

Kate Rutherford Relieves Her Mind

"It was your own fault, Don. Your own fault, boy," Doctor Stevens remarked, with partly assumed annoyance. "If you'd waited at home until I 'phoned, you never would have seen Miss Blake with that dreadful thing on her face. It was part of the experiment I was trying upstairs."

He looked across his private office at a stately figure ensconced in the largest chair in the room. "It was Mrs. Rutherford who suggested how it could be managed, and she made Miss Blake up with her own fair hands. And Mr. Clancy backed me up in style." He glanced aside at Peter who was sitting near him.

"But," said Donald, looking down into the glowing face so near to his, as he and Mary (as he insisted on calling her) sat together upon a couch. "But I can't realize it all, somehow. The—mark, dear," he clasped her hand tenderly, "was a birthmark, wasn't it? I thought that it was practically impossible——"

"And I thought so, too, Donald," she interrupted. "For the last few years I've hunted up every report—all the experiments of this kind that have been tried, for I wanted—oh, I wanted so to be rid of the hideous, dreadful thing. I saw one of the best specialists here last fall. He said something might be done by skin-grafting, but that it would be a long and painful experiment. I was playing then, of course, and couldn't give up the time.... And then, just after that, there was an article in a silly magazine called Beauty, which told of the wonderful discovery, made by a doctor, in a little place near Chicago named Cordenham. It was a new kind of ray—which destroyed the colouring matter in the skin. I subscribed for the magazine at once, but there were only two more notices and they weren't very convincing. In the meantime I went to the library and looked for more authentic reports in all the current medical journals. I found the experiments of Doctor Witherspoon mentioned, but the articles seemed to indicate that nothing conclusive had been done at that time.... Oh, Donald, can you imagine with what anxious longing I watched for the new numbers of that magazine to appear?"

"And when they did come out, Mr. Morris," Peter interjected, "Miss Blake cut out some of the articles and saved them. That was how I traced her."

"You found them in her apartment?" asked Donald, quickly. "You didn't tell me that."

"No," answered Peter, promptly, "for the simple reason that I didn't find the articles. It was like the old story of the fisherman who was about to take a party out among some dangerous rocks. When asked if he knew where the submerged rocks were, he said, 'I don't know where they be, but I know where they ain't.' Well, that was my case. I found the magazines that the articles had been cut from pretty early in the game, but I didn't see any significance in that till I knew—well, most of the facts. Then I went back to the apartment and made a note of every magazine from which anything had been clipped, the date and page. After that, I went to the library—and found that the articles all pointed one way. Directly or indirectly, they pointed to Doctor Witherspoon and Cordenham."

"You're all right, Clancy," said Donald with sincerity. "You certainly are a wonder."

Peter looked a little sheepish. "It would have been more to the point if I'd made my discovery a little earlier," he said. "Miss Blake was almost ready to come back to town when I found her."

"Yes, Donald," said Mary, looking at him with concern in her beautiful eyes. "Doctor Witherspoon was almost ready to let me go, at last. Oh, my dear, if I had known it would be so long I never would have done what I did—have left you in suspense all these weeks. I would have told you everything, and taken the risk.... But the very last thing I found—it was in the Planet, just a few days before I went away—an article which gave a full description of a wonderful cure made by Doctor Witherspoon. It took only three days, and was absolutely successful.... From previous accounts in the medical journals, I knew that the operation was considered dangerous—but I pinned my faith to the last thing I'd learned—and hoped.

"I'd made up my mind to take the risk, anyway. I had my plans all laid, and that Saturday morning I drew enough money to see me through.... My only question was whether or not to tell you.... And then, that last night—that last night, dear, my courage failed utterly. When you spoke of 'my sister Anne' with such confidence in me in your dear voice—oh, Donald, every time you mentioned her, I felt—I can't tell you how beneath contempt I felt.... To deceive you! Oh, Donald——"

"Don't—don't think of it, dearest," he said, gently. "I understand, I understand."

"Oh, you're wonderful, wonderful," she said, with tears in her eyes. "But it would all have been different if I had realized. Mine was a bad case, Donald; the position and size of the mark, and my nervous exhaustion, they all told against me, and after the very first treatment I collapsed utterly. I knew nothing for days and days.... They kept me under anæsthetics and the treatment went on.... When I came fully to myself, it was so near the end, I was so close to achieving my heart's desire, that I made up my mind to wait—just a little while, dear—to regain my strength, and then come back and tell you—everything.... Oh, Donald," she paused, and looked deep into his eyes, "I wonder if you can realize, quite, what the whole thing meant to me. I knew you loved me, but I also knew how you shrank from anything ugly, abnormal. I had good reason to know.... And the thing had been a nightmare to me all my life long; I could not bear it any longer.... And, if the operation was not to be successful, I had made up my mind, Donald, that I would never, never see you again.... That Mary Blake should vanish. That there should be no one left but Anne, and that she would never be found, for—there would be nothing left in life for her, and she would have been glad to lay it down——"

"Oh, Mary, Mary!" he cried, and unheeding the others in the room, he threw his arms about her and held her fast. "It wouldn't have mattered if the experiment had failed, dear. I love you, you—you must have seen, just now, out there on the stairs—you must have realized that it would have made no difference——"

"Oh, yes, Donald, yes," she sobbed. "I saw—I saw it all, and I can't help being a little glad to know that not even that hideous disfigurement could make a difference. But I never would have caused you that pain, not even for my poor sister's sake, if I'd had any idea——"

"And that's what made me so angry with you, Don," said Doctor Stevens, striving to break the emotional tension of the scene. "As I said before, if you'd only waited as I told you, you'd have been saved a lot. You see, Don," he explained, "I have a very strong professional interest in the case upstairs, and there was just one chance in a million of helping Miss Rosamond Curwood to regain her memory, and the Lord put it into my hand. I do think, now, it was that good old chap, O'Malley, who first made the suggestion. It seems he had an experience once with a similar case, where the patient was confronted with someone well—intimately—known in the past."

"And this is how it happened just as it did, Mr. Morris," Peter broke in, eagerly. "I'd wired O'Malley and Mrs. Rutherford, from Cordenham, to meet us at the Penn. Station. Miss Blake didn't want me to telegraph you. She was afraid of the shock, and it would have been impossible to explain—well, everything—you see, in a telegram.... We got in about noon, and O'Malley told us of the discovery you'd made. We compared notes, and Miss Blake was certain that the person you'd found must be her twin sister, Rosamond, who'd disappeared years ago. Miss Blake was naturally all broken up over the whole thing, and O'Malley had a hunch that if the two sisters were suddenly brought together, it might bring Rosamond to herself. He called up Doctor Stevens on his own, while we were going over to Mrs. Rutherford's hotel, where we were going to ask you to come; and, by the time we'd seen to Miss Blake's luggage and arrived at the hotel, Doctor Stevens was there, waiting for us. He was keen on making the experiment, and was neither to hold nor to bind," he glanced, quizzically, at the doctor, "until he'd tried it out. Both Miss Blake and I wanted to get you first, but he said he wasn't at all satisfied with Miss Curwood's condition, and that the thing should be tried at once if it was to be any good. Miss Blake became alarmed at that, and agreed. But then we struck a snag; Miss Rosamond would never know her sister without the—the mark, which had been successfully removed. Then Mrs. Rutherford came to the front. She said, 'Why not paint it on again?' And that she did to perfection, I will say——"

"So I telephoned to keep you out of the way, Don," added Doctor Stevens, "and you upset all our plans."

"But you haven't told me yet whether you were successful," said Donald, who, with Mary's hand held close in his, had followed the conversation intently. "Were they right, Mary? And is your sister——"

She shook her head, sadly,

"She knew me, Donald. She recognized me—but she remembers nothing, nothing at all, that has happened since we were little children together. Perhaps—oh, perhaps, Donald, it is just as well. She has no painful memories, and her life must have been—hard, I'm afraid. Doctor Stevens says——"

"We can hope. We can always hope," said the doctor, comfortingly; but by the look in his eyes, Donald Morris knew that there was little hope, in this world, for Rosamond Curwood.

"We'll take care of her, Mary," Donald said, gently. "We'll take care of her together, dear."

There was a moment's pause, and then Mrs. Rutherford spoke, for almost the first time.

"Look here, Don," she said, in her deep, commanding voice. "I don't want you to blame Anne for having played a part to the world."

"I don't, Aunt Kate," he said, looking not at her, but at Mary. "I understand——"

"But that's just it," interrupted the old lady, quickly. "You understand a part. That's all. I know you've a lively imagination, and I will say, Don, that you're—that you're a pretty satisfactory person—take it all in all.... But I want you to understand that it was I who put Anne up to the whole thing, and I guess I'll need a few prayers if my poor old soul is ever to get out of Purgatory."

"Don't talk that way, Aunt Kate," said Donald, smiling at her perturbed face.

"All right, Don," she agreed, "but I want you to know, just the same, how the whole thing came about. This clever young countryman of mine," with an appreciative glance at Peter, "figured out the whole affair. His knowledge of it came to me like a bolt from the blue. I'd never seen him, you know, till you introduced him to me in Fennimore Park, and you can, perhaps, imagine my surprise when he told me who he was, and what he was doing. I was startled nearly out of my wits, and when, without more ado, he plunged into the very middle of the situation, and announced, in a whisper that would have done credit to Henry Irving: 'Mrs. Rutherford, there has never been, in that apartment in New York, but one person—and her name is Anne Curwood,' I was simply taken completely off my feet."

She glanced about to note the effect of these lines, dramatically uttered, then she went on:

"I told him, after that, what I'm going to tell you all now—you who know some of the facts.... It was all my fault.... I found Anne slaving her youth away in menial tasks—and I found out that she was the daughter of my old friend, Winthrop Curwood."

"Winthrop Curwood of the old Athenæum Company?" asked Donald, with keen interest. "Why, I've heard my mother speak of him often. She knew his people in England."

"Yes, Don. That's the man. But please don't interrupt. I want to get the whole thing off my mind. My conscience has been worrying me so, in the last few days, that I must clear it, and take all the blame.... This is how it was—I discovered, almost at once, that Anne had inherited her father's wonderful gifts, and that he had given her a perfectly marvellous training.... He had become blind, stone blind, poor, poor Win—and teaching her had been his one pleasure and recreation. He'd done wonders for her, and probably had great hopes for her future. He never knew—Anne told me all this. With tears in her eyes, she said that she could never bring herself to tell him that there would be no possible chance for her on the stage.... When she told me that—I had a great idea. I took her up to my room, and I made her up with my own hands. Nobody was ever more skilful at that than Kate Rohan." There was pride in the deep old voice. "I made her look at herself in the glass. You could see the birthmark in the bright daylight a little, not very much. But when I drew the blinds and turned on the electric lights, there wasn't a trace—not a trace.

"Then I thought it all out.... She couldn't be seen in the daytime, in a bright light, without the defect being discovered. And if it was once known, it would be talked about, and I could see that Anne would never be able to stand the kind of notoriety it would bring her. She was too terribly sensitive about it.... I was at my wits' end for quite a while, and then—suddenly—I saw a way out....

"I was determined that her wonderful gifts should not be lost to the world, and I got Arthur Quinn to come up to Fennimore Park. I made Anne act for him, after I'd made her up as she ought to look on the stage. He was crazy—mad about her, and when I saw how he felt, I told him everything, including my plan—which was that she should be two persons instead of one.... I even picked out a name for her—Mary, for my own mother, and Blake, which was part of her mother's name—Blakeslie.... So—as Mary Blake she was to astonish and delight the world; and as Anne Blake she was to pursue her daily round, without any subterfuge other than the change of name, to agree with that of her 'sister.' And, too, I suggested that she play the part, while she was about it—play Mary with spirit and pride, standing tall and straight, as she always did when she was taken out of herself—and let Anne be as she was: plainly dressed, timid, quiet, retiring; stooping a little as she walked or stood.... To me, it was an added touch to the dramatic possibilities of the situation, but Anne looked at the whole thing with distaste and it took some time to persuade her—but, at last, she yielded.

"I arranged everything for her with Arthur Quinn, contracts and all. We even managed to have her photographed so that the photographer didn't suspect. That was rather ticklish business, for the camera sometimes sees what the eye doesn't. But we took care of the lighting, and the results were perfectly satisfactory.

"In the meantime, I found the apartment in Waverly Place, and we furnished it together."

"And had special lighting installed," put in Peter, eagerly.

"Ah, you noticed that, did you, Mr. Clancy?" The old, young eyes flashed him a quick look. "Yes. You see, she had to make up for 'Mary Blake' at home, and we were taking no chances with the gas, which was already there. Anne was staying at my hotel, as my companion, so all that was easily accomplished.... Then, when she began making money, we had to get banking accommodations for her. Arthur Quinn managed that. He took her to the Scoville Bank, where he had an account, and introduced her."

"Twice?" asked Peter, quickly.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Rutherford, giving him a keen glance. "He waited for a cloudy day, when there would be artificial light in the bank, and then he took 'Mary Blake,' and helped her open an account. That was just in case of emergency. We'd planned that Anne should be the one who would make deposits, as a general thing, and draw out money."

"So you made the account subject, under all conditions, to the order of either of the sisters," said Peter, eagerly. "I found that out almost the first thing; and it did give me a fearful jolt, let me tell you." He did not think it necessary to explain why, and went on at once—"I saw the signature card at that time, and there was something about the appearance of the two names which struck me as being peculiar. Miss Mary's writing was large and—fluent—sort of—while Miss Anne's was small, and slanted the wrong way. At the first glance they didn't look a bit alike, but——Well, I didn't think so much about it at the time, but later I happened to see a letter written by Anne Curwood to an old friend of hers named Walter Lord, up in Hobart Falls. I—I made an opportunity to examine it carefully, and I found that, while it was signed 'Anne,' the writing was, unmistakably, Mary's.... Then I began to sit up and take notice....

"Here were twin sisters, who, in childhood—I had seen photographs of both—looked almost exactly alike—save for one thing.... I learned, from this Walter Lord, that both children had exceptional dramatic talent; but also, to my surprise, that Anne was much the cleverer of the two.... I knew that Rosamond had disappeared when the girls were about eighteen years old, and had never been heard of since, but that Anne had gone away, later, with a Mrs. Rutherford. That's how I first got hold of your name, Mrs. Rutherford."

All were following Peter's recital with breathless interest. Kate Rutherford nodded at the mention of her name, and Peter continued:

"And, on top of all this, I found that letter to Walter Lord, and knew—yes, I was absolutely certain, that the two signatures at the bank had been made by the same hand.... Well, I thought to myself, what in the world does that mean?

"Then I went carefully over the facts we'd turned up in New York.... Mary Blake was a brilliant, successful actress, but she knew no one, personally, so far as we could find out, except Mr. Morris and, to quote the Italian janitor, 'a fine, grand lady' who sometimes came to the apartment. There was, too, her present manager, Frederick Jones. But he didn't appear to know her, except professionally.... From him I found out that she associated with none of the members of the company—and something else, which came back to me later—the curious fact that she always rehearsed in costume—with a full make-up.... She went out only in the daytime when it was absolutely necessary, was always heavily veiled, and always took a cab....

"But, on the other hand, Anne was well known to the janitor, to various tradesmen in the neighbourhood, and to the people at the bank. They all described her to me, and the descriptions were practically identical.

"I remember that no one had ever spoken of the two sisters as if they had been seen at the same time.... That only one of them, Anne, had left the least trace when (as we all thought at the time) both of them disappeared.... That there were many of Mary's clothes left in the apartment and practically none of Anne's....

"And always, and everywhere, I heard of Anne's fearful handicap.... I thought of it this way and that.... And there was only one theory that would exactly fit all the facts. It seemed absurd to me when it first flashed into my mind—and that was at the time when I realized that only one person had signed at the bank. You will remember, Mr. Morris, that I had seen part of a letter to you signed 'Mary', but the writing was identical with that of Walter Lord's letter from 'Anne'—and then it came back to me that I had noticed a remarkable similarity in the two signatures at the bank, and I was sure—sure!"

"It seemed impossible, but I figured it all out that day, on my way from Hobart Falls to Fennimore Park.... And when I heard Mrs. Rutherford's voice, downstairs, there at your sister's house, Mr. Morris, you remember—and realized that it was the same voice that had called Anne Blake on the morning of our discovery in Waverly Place—and that the name was the same as that of the lady who had taken Anne Curwood away from Fennimore Park—well, you can imagine my feelings!"

"And it was only on guess-work, young man, that you made me disclose a secret I'd kept for years!" said Kate Rutherford, severely. "If I'd known that——"

"No you wouldn't, Mrs. Rutherford," Peter interposed, eagerly. "You wouldn't have kept it to yourself. You know you were too much alarmed by Mr. Morris's appearance to keep the matter secret any longer."

"And, after all, Anne," said Kate Rutherford, holding out her hands in a gesture almost of supplication, "it was my secret, in a way. At least I was responsible. It was my fault altogether. You would never have gone into it at all but for me. I had such a hard time persuading you——"

"And I never would have been persuaded, Donald," a soft voice interrupted. "I think I would never have been persuaded but for one thing, which Mrs. Rutherford never knew." For a moment Mary Blake looked into the eyes of her lover. Then she went on: "You don't remember, dear, I know. It was long, long ago, that first time I saw you——"

"At my sister's house in Gramercy Park," said Donald.

"No, dear. Long before that. You were riding through Hobart Falls with someone—a lady—on horseback.... You stopped at old Walter Lord's, you and she, to have him take your pictures.... I remember it well." Her voice was very quiet, full of restrained emotion. "The sunlight on the trees, and on your face.... I was there, on the steps, and you saw me—I saw the quick shiver of disgust when you caught sight of my poor face. You closed your eyes for a second—and I went quickly away.... You would not remember, but it seared deep into my soul——"

Peter Clancy rose abruptly, and quietly passing over to the window, stood with his back turned to the room. Doctor Stevens unobtrusively joined him, and the two men stood looking out with unseeing eyes. Mrs. Rutherford sat very still. Her great, dark, youthful eyes were full of tears. The two fine young creatures at the other end of the room were oblivious of all save each other. Anne Curwood was still speaking:

"Afterward, Donald, when I was employed by your sister, in Fennimore Park, I saw you often, but I kept out of sight. I watched you, from behind the curtain at the door, working in your studio there. You were rapt, absorbed. I had little fear that you would ever think of the poor girl who came in to do cleaning.... But every line of your face grew familiar to me in those days; in those brief moments that I could snatch from my work—I learned to read your face—I knew when your work was going well, and rejoiced with you—I saw the light in your eyes—your smile——It was the thought of making something of myself, of being someone—someone you would not shudder to look at, that induced me——"

He turned, and caught her in his arms.

"Mary," he whispered upon her lips. "Mary!"

THE END

BOOKS BY LEE THAYER

That Affair at "The Cedars"

The Mystery of the Thirteenth Floor

The Sinister Mark

The Unlatched Door