Ruggles hurried to the front of our house and I followed him.
Chapter IX
Despair Reigns
It was young Hathaway. He introduced himself immediately, and Ruggles said that we were friends of Lemuel Stevenson, and that we were visiting him over the week-end.
“I am sorry,” said young Hathaway, “that my father and I have made you, in a way, sharers in the unfortunate occurrence which took place at our house last night.” He was tall and fair-haired and held himself in a simple, manly way, looking us frankly in the eyes in a way which commended him to us at once.
He did not seem over twenty-five, nor overvigorous, but with a resolute will for all that. He was clearly ill at ease over the fact of the body of his father’s dead servant lying in the house which, as Stevenson’s guests, we occupied. “If I could have avoided the situation in any way—” he went on.
“Please do not think of it again,” Ruggles said cordially. “Mr. Stevenson has been called to the city and will not return until to-morrow, but he told us—”
For the first time young Hathaway’s face showed more than embarrassment. He was anxious on the instant: “What did Mr. Stevenson tell you?” young Hathaway asked nervously.
For a moment Ruggles hesitated. Then he said earnestly, “I will tell you more than you may expect to hear. I am, as I have said, a friend of Mr. Stevenson; but he asked me to come here because I have had the good fortune to be able to help, in some cases, those who were threatened with danger beyond their own power to escape.”
Hathaway’s frank manner had gone, as I have said; but now his nervousness gave way to almost hostile aversion. “Are you a detective?” he asked bluntly.
“Perhaps you might call me one,” my companion said quietly. “My name is Ruggles.”
Young Hathaway’s expression did not change. “I have not the honor of your acquaintance,” he said haughtily. “You may be well known in New York; but my father and I do not go to the city. Since coming here, three weeks ago, we have kept wholly to ourselves.”
“Do you prefer this country to Europe?” Ruggles asked, careless in manner now, as Hathaway was tense and alert. “I imagine that, to any one who has lived, for example, in India—”
“I am afraid,” young Hathaway interrupted, “that you are not showing much skill, just now, as a detective, Mr. Ruggles; neither my father nor I have ever set foot in India.”
“It is an interesting country,” said Ruggles lightly. “The people native there have their own way of doing things. I was just speaking to my friend, Crane, about it. The subject came up from something I found here in Mr. Stevenson’s house just now.” Ruggles slowly took from his pocket the garlic bulb.
“But if Ruggles or I expected any confession from young Hathaway’s face, we were disappointed; he showed only fierce anger.
“I might have known,” he said bitterly, “that Stevenson would tell you what any gentleman would have realized was to be kept a matter of confidence; I mean, of course, my father’s — visit — to Mr. Stevenson’s property last evening. I hope that Mr. Stevenson told you that my father is very old, a sick man, a victim of an illness of long standing—”
“A victim,” Ruggles interrupted sternly, “of a danger which you obviously know nothing about. We lose time, Mr. Hathaway!”
“We do, indeed, lose time,” cried young Hathaway, turning away from us. “I may as well tell you that, when you speak of danger threatening my father, you are acting impertinently and are talking nonsense! I have come to look once more at the servant who died last night—”
“You mean, who was killed, last night,” said Ruggles evenly.
“I must refer you to the doctor,” said Hathaway insolently. “The man died a natural death.”
“With terror written, even in death, on his face!”
Hathaway, who had turned away, swung back and faced us.
“I remember you now, Mr. Ruggles,” he said, less scornfully. “Though I do not go to the city and have been in this country only a few weeks, I read some of the newspapers, and I recall some of the stories printed about your ability. But I must tell you that in this case you are wrong.”
“Wait a moment,” Ruggles said earnestly; “believe, if you will, that your servant died a natural death. Yet his face, as I have just said, shows the uttermost terror. He was a fearless man, accustomed to danger. You admit that?”
Hathaway inclined his head. “Yes,” he said.
“Have you not thought yourself that it was strange for his face, in death, to bear the expression it has?” Again young Hathaway bowed. “He died in terror,” Ruggles went on, “and your father knows the cause. Your father will die as his servant died unless—”
Young Hathaway shook himself free of the spell of Ruggles’s strange words. “I will not believe it,” he cried obstinately. “If danger threatened my father, he would have told me! If poor Tom” — young Hathaway with a gesture indicated the rear wing of the house — “had died of a wound or—”
“Look at his body again,” Ruggles said slowly. “Press back the right hand and look at the skin high up on the neck against which the hand presses. You will see there two small punctures, where the tiny fangs set the poison in. Then go back to your house and realize your father’s deadly danger and his — despair.
“Then if your father and you will let my friend and me help you against the enemy who means to kill both of you as he has already killed your servant, come back and tell us that we can be by your side when that enemy tries to strike again.”
For a moment young Hathaway seemed about to speak. Then, with a baffled gesture, he turned and left us, and we saw his tall, slender form pass with lagging steps to the rear wing of the house.
A few minutes later we saw him descend the drive on the way back to his home, his shoulders slumped, his head drooping forward on his breast.
Chapter X
The Killer Stalks the Killer
“In half an hour, perhaps less,” said Ruggles, “we shall have their decision.”
“What if—” I began.
“Let’s not cross any bridges before we come to them. By the way, it’s only fair to let this little fellow have his supper now. I’d wanted old Hathaway to meet him that way; but I shan’t wait any longer. The ichneumon has had nothing to eat since early morning and is probably ravenous. A piece of raw meat is what he needs, and there’s probably some in Stevenson’s icebox.”
“I know where it is,” I said; “I noticed it when we talked in the kitchen this morning with Mrs. Hollifield.” Then, as I led the way, I said: “I don’t know much about the habits of the ichneumon, how often he should be fed, or much of anything about him. What part do you expect him to play in this present situation?”
“I should have gone into that more with you; the ichneumon is more dreaded by snakes than any other animal in the world. Small as he is, he will take on an eighteen-foot cobra as quickly as he will a garter snake. He’s one of the quickest things there is in the animal world and one of the most fearless.
“Though he looks so harmless, he is really a natural killer, and snakes are his specialty. That’s what I mean when I say that if this little creature had been in the Hathaway house last night, Tom, the servant, would not have died.
“For the ichneumon’s sense of smell is enormously developed, and he would have smelled out that karait in time to spring on it before it could bite; or if, as I am sure was the case, the karait was lifted by its savage keeper, to where it could reach Tom’s neck, this little ichneumon would still have saved Tom, for he would have made such a fuss, having smelled the karait from a distance, that he would have warned Tom to be on his guard.