“By the way,” I said, “I noticed something, which of course you did: Stevenson has a small foot, much smaller than his housekeeper’s.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Ruggles agreed, “but it’s equally true that the man who left those muddy tracks on the kitchen floor is flat-footed; and it’s equally true that Stevenson isn’t. There’s no good in following that clew; Dan Stevenson didn’t make those muddy footprints.”
“Yes, I should have noticed that.” Then, because I was a little chagrined at having made such a blunder just when I made what I thought was a telling discovery, I went on: “You have accounted for your thinking him one who would eagerly repair a wrong he had done to any one; but what makes you think he has such notable courage?”
“For one thing, he has been haunted by a nightmare, out here in this lonely house, and yet, until he appealed to us this morning, he had called in no one to help him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking at Ruggles in surprise.
“This,” said my friend, whose strangely keen eyes missed nothing. He went to the nearest window and indicated what I had not seen: “This lock is not the ordinary one: this small wire, which you see now, is so cunningly adjusted that no one can raise this sash either from the inside or from the outside without—”
Ruggles slipped the lock and lifted the sash of the window a short inch, and instantly the room was flooded with light from the chandelier; so was the hall; so, from as much as I could see, was every room in the huge old house; and from every room came the ringing of bells — more than that, a sustained alarum, which did not cease until Ruggles had shut and locked the window.
“The unnecessary precautions of a nervous old bachelor,” I scoffed.
“No,” Ruggles corrected me; “the wise precautions of a man as free from nerves as I have ever known a man to be.”
“You call these precautions wise?” I reminded him. “Do you mean you think Stevenson was actually in danger here?”
“I have every reason to think so. Yes, I am sure of it.”
“What threatened him?” I was irritated by an increasing conviction that Ruggles was speaking very guardedly.
“Whatever it was,” Ruggles said thoughtfully, “it was enough to worry him, for all his precautions. Unquestionably he saw death staring at him through every one of these windows; and this must have been going on for some little time too, for you observe that these effective window locks and these wires were not put on yesterday.”
I examined the locks and the staples which held the wire which descended from the window frame to the floor. “They’ve been there several days at least,” I had to admit.
“During which,” Ruggles went on, “Stevenson remained here when he could have taken refuge in New York or fled for further safety to the most remote part of the world. To face it here as he did, even for a matter of only a few days, required cool courage.”
“I admit all that,” I said obstinately. “But still you don’t speak out. Why can’t you be frank with me?”
“I shall let things speak for themselves,” said Ruggles quietly. “We shall see Lemuel Stevenson again, and, when that time comes, he himself will answer your questions.
“It’s a strange world that we live in, Dan, and a strange fate that is mapped out for some of us: a chance slip, made at a critical period, the sudden development of an over-mastering passion, some such thing takes the tiller of a man’s life and steers him into what he has never planned for.
“And a fine life is wrecked with little chance of salvage; and not the one life alone — that’s the pity of it: the wrecked life wrecks the life of others. But,” coming out of the almost sad reverie into which he had fallen, “of that, later! We must dismiss Stevenson from our minds for the time and follow close on the trail of the murderer of Hathaway’s servant: there’s enough to require all our energies there, and the need of immediate action is desperate.
“That is the house of death over there, Dan,” he said, indicating the Hathaways’, “and this house we’re in is equally dangerous. I wish you’d go back to New York now, and let me face this through alone.”
“You are sure that that snake killed old Hathaway’s servant?” I asked, ignoring his suggestion that I quit the field.
“There can be no doubt about it. And it is equally sure that to-night or to-morrow night, or on the next night at the very latest, the deadly karait will be turned upon Hathaway himself.”
“But Stevenson said the doctor examined the servant’s body and found not the least sign of any wound.”
“The doctor didn’t look in the right place,” said Ruggles obstinately. “Come, I’ll show you.”
He led the way to the rear wing of the house where lay the powerful body of the man from whom the life had gone. Ruggles moved the rigid right hand.
“There,” Ruggles said, “look there under where that hand pressed — that hand which, even in death, remained pressed against his neck. Let others believe that this man died of fright! Let his secret die with him! But we know that he died of a tiny wound, high up there on his neck where the snake’s poison proved almost instantly fatal! Bend down a little and you will see it.”
I did so, and there, as Ruggles had said, high up on the neck, were two punctures so tiny that scarcely a drop of blood had oozed through.
“You realize,” said Ruggles, allowing that rigid hand to return to its former position, “that there can be no doubt of what caused this man’s death.”
“But just a moment,” I objected. “How could a snake, as small as you say this one is, reach to a man’s neck even when, as in this case, the man was sitting down?”
“The snake was lifted to the man’s neck by human hands.”
“You can’t mean that this servant held the snake, in fact committed suicide! No man would have selected such a terrible way to die!”
“No,” Ruggles said. “Human hands directed the snake; but they were the hands of the half crazed fiend whom the snake serves.”
“Who and what is this fiend, Ruggles?”
“There’s no time to go into that now. But I’ll tell you this: many years ago, Hathaway wronged this man or the man thinks Hathaway did. It’s the same, for our purposes. And now this ancient enemy has come, like a living nightmare, to wreak his vengeance on Hathaway.
“You remember that the description which the servants gave us of him tallies exactly with what I said before that: he was short and slight, black haired and black eyed, of a dark tan skin. It is from India that he has come here with his deadly little snake as executioner; and it is to India that they will return with the errand completed unless we save Hathaway from them.
“Once I am in that house,” Ruggles said, looking from the window across to the looming house on the edge of the marsh, “once there, Dan, I shall be able to defy these two demons successfully. But, though I bring the safety which Hathaway longs for, I am by no means sure he will let me enter his house.”
He stopped abruptly. “A young man has just unlocked the high gate in front of the Hathaway house, locked it after him, and — yes, he’s coming this way. He has no coat or hat on. It must be young Hathaway. We’ll manage it! Good; he’s turning in this driveway.”
As he went out to meet the newcomer Ruggles said to me, confidently: “He’ll take us back to his house with him when he goes; and, after his father and I have had a moment in private together, our course will be clear.
“Make it a point, Crane, to give me a private audience with the older man as soon as possible after the son takes us to the house. Occupy this young fellow’s attention, and leave his father to me! I don’t believe the son has been told of the danger his father—”