He threw an anxious glance about his solidly furnished, comfortable living room. “You make me feel as if anything might happen here, any time, and I want to get out of it.” He hesitated again, then relighted his cigar nervously, then began again:
“So, I’ve decided to go to New York and put up at a hotel there for a few days. You and Mr. Crane stay here, in this house of mine if you want to. I’ll be glad to have you do it, honest! But I’m going to a New York hotel and stay there until what’s about to happen here has — happened.
“I’ll be at the Melbourne on West Forty-Fourth Street. You know the place.” Ruggles nodded. “Drop me a line there when things have stopped — happening out here, and I’ll be glad to come back.” He smiled in a simple, honest way on both of us.
“Don’t think I’m a coward. I’m not. But I’ve reached a time in life when a man, who likes things quiet, wants them — quiet, especially in the house he lives in and expects to be taken out of, when his time comes. But you and your friend will stay on here, won’t you?”
“Yes, we’ll accept your hospitality and be grateful for it,” said Ruggles; “and I promise to let you know just as soon as things have — stopped out here.”
“Good,” said Stevenson with evident relief. “And, as soon as I get to the Deersdale station — that ’ll be in half an hour about — I’ll tell that policeman there in the village you’re up here and would like to have him help you.”
“No, don’t tell him anything,” said Ruggles. “I’ve no doubt he’s a good man, as you say he is; but he wouldn’t know anything about — a ichneumon, or mongoose, which is another name for him.”
“About a mongoose or garlic bulbs? Is that what you mean?” Stevenson asked.
“Yes, that’s what I mean. But put it another way: Mr. Hathaway, who would be the natural one to call on the police for help, has not done so. Doesn’t it look as if Hathaway didn’t want the police brought into his troubles?
“Look at it in still another way: if you knew that a relentless enemy was lying in wait for you, day and night after coming a very long distance to find you, would you want that enemy to be just driven away for the time, or would you want him to be captured?”
“Do you mean,” Stevenson asked, “that it was an enemy of old Hathaway that killed that man last night?”
“I mean just that,” said Ruggles. “The servant was not the one the killer was after, but the servant was Hathaway’s most effective protector, so the killer had to put him out of the way.”
“But where does old Hathaway’s son come in? Wouldn’t he be the one you’d think would protect his father best?”
“Yes,” Ruggles admitted, “on the face of it, but it is possible that the father has a chapter in his life of which he has never told his son — something he does not want his son to know about — something the father thought had been forgotten — until suddenly this implacable enemy appeared.
“Suppose that the father, now an old man and a loved and loving father, after having thought himself safe for many years, is suddenly confronted by his all but forgotten enemy who is seeking his blood payment for an ancient wrong. Driven distracted by fear, the father lacks the courage to confide the facts to his son.”
“Fear for himself, you mean?” said Stevenson hoarsely.
“Fear for his son first and for himself next,” said Ruggles. “It was not the son but the servant whom old Hathaway selected as his bodyguard, the post of danger.”
“Danger from what?” Stevenson demanded, his face pale. “That’s what I want to know. Tell me this before I go down to New York. Tell me one thing, Mr. Ruggles, and I won’t tell a living soul or ask you anything more: what was it that killed that poor fellow that lies in back there?” Stevenson indicated the rear wing of the house with a gesture. “You say he was killed. What killed him?”
“It was a karait, a dusty brown snake, a native of India. The karait is very small, but his bite is as deadly to its victim as a cobra’s.”
Stevenson said nothing. His face, so memorable though its features were so indistinctive, showed amazement but no incredulity. “Are you sure it’s a — what did you say it was, this snake?”
“A karait,” said Ruggles quietly. “There can be no doubt of it.”
“You speak as if you knew.” It was more of a question, though, than a statement indicating agreement.
“I know,” said Ruggles, “because I once made a particular study of snake venom, and, in the course of that study, I spent some months in India. I know this snake and the precautions the natives of India take against it.”
For a long moment none of us spoke. Then Stevenson said slowly, “I’m going to get away from here, Mr. Ruggles, as I said I would. I’m going to New York. I’m — going.”
Strangely enough, those last two words were the ones the housekeeper had used. And it was almost as true in this case: after standing a moment, rigid and tense, he staggered slightly, and Ruggles’s strong arm eased him to the nearest chair.
It was a good half hour before his dilated eyes had recovered their normal and he was sufficiently his rugged self to justify us in letting him start for the Deersdale railroad station.
Just before he left us he thrust his hand into one of his pockets and brought out a small, pearl-white, pear-shaped object and handed it to Ruggles, saying: “Here, I shan’t need this where I’m going. You take it!”
“For old Hathaway?” asked Ruggles, taking the garlic bulb from Stevenson’s hand.
“For old Hathaway — or for yourself, whichever of you needs it most,” said Stevenson.
Chapter VIII
The Snake from India
As we watched Stevenson’s car glide down the drive and swing out into the country road, then disappear in the direction of Deersdale, Ruggles turned to me thoughtfully:
“He believed what I said of the karait, and he’s left the field of danger. Do you think him a coward?”
“No,” I said instantly.
“You’re coming along, Dan,” Ruggles said approvingly. “Mr. Lemuel Stevenson is no coward: I would even go so far as to say that he is one of the most determined men I have ever known — a man of the most conspicuous courage. You agree with me?”
I nodded.
“Then,” asked Ruggles, “has it struck you that if Lemuel Stevenson ever did turn from the straight and narrow path into a crooked way, we should have a foeman worthy of our very best efforts? What do you think his past life has been?
“What was he before he turned into almost a recluse and decided to make his home in this ancient house in this remote and isolated wilderness? He’s getting along: I should set his age as well on in the fifties.
“Yet, as you see, he’s as solid as an oak: one of those quiet, unobtrusive men who is capable of forcing to any end a relentless purpose, a generous friend and an unforgiving enemy, yet a man who, if he forgave at last, would take prompt measures to make full restitution.”
“What evidence have you of this?”
“Of his quick desire to atone, if he found himself in the wrong? Why, look back a little: you saw how sternly he reproved his housekeeper for trying to escape blame for making those muddy tracks on the floor of the kitchen. He was convinced, let us assume for the moment, that the housekeeper had made the tracks herself or that the maid had.
“But as soon as I had suggested the impossibility of the servant making them, I mean the housekeeper, her feet being much larger than the muddy tracks on the floor, you saw how quickly his manner changed and how kindly he addressed her.”