The news spread quickly through the city. Newspaper extras appeared with startling headlines. For a time excitement quickened the most feeble pulse. On all sides, one heard this question—“But where is Wilbur Huntington?”
On the following day the rumor was verified. Martin’s tailor, a little Russian Jew who had made his clothes for many years, visited the morgue and identified the corpse’s water-soaked suit by his own initials which he had sewed into the sleeve. After this there could no longer be any doubt; it was indeed Burgess Martin’s body.
But if Martin had been murdered, as the wounds on his face and head evinced, what had become of his companion, Wilbur Huntington, on the night when they had both disappeared? Had Huntington killed Martin and then fled? If he were innocent, would he not come forward and prove it?
Questions like these appeared in all the papers. But the missing man still remained missing; the mystery was no nearer its solution than before. No doubt the chief of police at this time was pestered daily by hundreds of letters from cranks who had worked themselves up into a frenzy over this insoluble riddle. At last he wrote an article for the Gazette which ended in these words:
“It is not possible that Wilbur Huntington, after saving the world from a thousand crimes, failed to take his own cure and fell a victim to that brain malady from which he had rescued so many others?”
After this opinion was published, there could be but one verdict. The world regarded my friend as a murderer and a madman.
XVI
Several years passed and the mystery still remained unsolved. It was as though Wilbur Huntington had vanished into thin air. Although many of the leading criminal experts had taken up the search, no clue to his whereabouts was forthcoming. One by one these detectives acknowledged themselves beaten and went back to the solving of less difficult problems. Meanwhile new sensational mysteries arose to attract the attention of the public; soon the affair was practically forgotten.
During that time, I prospered exceedingly. Each year brought me greater wealth, a larger circle of acquaintances, and more material luxuries of every kind. I had won the respect of a great many people who envied me my position in the world—people who little guessed what I had sacrificed in order to climb.
I soon learned that the respect of the mob was of small value. The world, as a whole, judges an artist as it judges a business man—not by the excellence of his work, but by the size of his bank account. I was a symbol to them of the golden image and they prostrated themselves accordingly. Little guessing the bitter irony their words conveyed, they called me to my face “the painter who had made good.” Sometimes it gave me a kind of brutal satisfaction to realize how completely I had sold the public. But now and then another thought would steal into my brain—the thought that I had not sold the public but had, in reality, sold myself. On these occasions, I was far from a happy man.
Ten years after Wilbur Huntington’s disappearance, I laid my brush aside for the last time. I was now forty and had amassed a comfortable fortune. It seemed to me that I had earned the right to play. But those years of drudgery at the easel had taken away all youthful buoyancy. My health was not what it should have been. I consulted a physician and he advised me to take a vacation in the wilds of Florida.
“Why not come along with me to Naples?” Dr. Street suggested. “I’m going to make the trip, as usual, on the fifteenth. You’ll want someone with you who knows the ropes.”
I agreed to his proposition with pleasure. I had known him long enough to realize that he would make an excellent camping companion. But, unfortunately for our plans, when the day arrived Doctor Street was detained in New York much against his will. As all my preparations were made, I decided not to wait for him. He was careful to point out the exact locality of the hotel where I should meet him a week later.
“By the way,” he said as we parted, “don’t forget to hire Bill Pete when you get to the hotel. He’s the best guide in all Florida. Make him take you over to his hut on the other side of the bay and give you some fishing. What you need is exercise and fresh air.”
The trip to Florida was uneventful. I got off the train at Fort Myers and engaged a dilapidated Ford to take me to Naples. The driver gave me a hand with my numerous belongings, climbed back on his seat, and we were off.
It was a forty mile drive from Fort Myers over a road sadly needing repair. Two hours later I caught sight of the wooden structure which my driver assured me was the hotel. In spite of my natural fatigue, I warmed to the majestic scene which had appeared with the startling suddenness of a vision.
There, stretching away as far as the eye could see, was the Gulf of Mexico, now reflecting on its slightly agitated bosom the last scattered rays of the setting sun. Already the dark shadows of approaching night stole out from the palm trees which lined the beach. The melancholy call of an owl suddenly rose on the still air and was thrown to and fro by a multitude of echoes before it was allowed to die away.
Naples was known to only a limited number of sportsmen. There were not more than a dozen people at the hotel when I arrived. I felt fairly certain that I could secure the services of Bill Pete. After dinner I inquired about him at the desk.
“No, he’s not here now,” the clerk informed me. “But he generally paddles over for his newspaper about eight o’clock. I’ll let you know when he arrives.”
I nodded and, lighting a cigar, strolled out on the veranda. The moon, by now, was slowly rising over the treetops—a blood-red moon which, as it ascended, gradually lost its vivid coloring and became a pale silver. Under its magic touch, the surface of the water was transformed into a sea of drifting sparks. The wind had risen. Now and then the crest of a wave was illumined, becoming for an instant a curling, foam flecked lip. It was a night of ebony and silver.
“How beautiful it is,” I murmured half-aloud.
“It may be beautiful,” said a voice at my elbow, “but it is horrible as well!”
I started, for I had thought myself alone. Now I could see the tall, dark figure of a man leaning against the railing of the veranda within arm’s reach of me. How was it that I had not heard his footsteps? He had not been there a moment before; of that I was certain.
“Horrible?” I repeated slowly. “Why is it horrible?”
“Look!” he cried, pointing at the sky with a dramatic gesture. “What do you see? That is no smile on the moon’s face, although there are fools who think it is. No, it is a grimace of despair like one sees on a death’s head when the jaw drops down. And how white she is, how ghastly white! True, the moon has a round face; but it is the more terrible for that. She has the bloated look of decomposing flesh. And what have become of her eyes? Have the vultures picked out her eyes?”
I moved my feet uneasily. What an unpleasant imagination this fellow had! How could people turn such a beautiful night into a charnel house? Probably this man was some crack-brained poet or other. There was something familiar about his voice—something which I could not account for and which irritated me.
“It is though Nature had placed that death’s-head in the heavens as a warning to all mankind,” he continued solemnly. “Oh perhaps She hung it there to kindle the imagination, to beckon us on to unparalleled achievement, to blow into flame a glowing spark of curiosity. What is death and what are the sensations of death? Who can answer? And yet mankind is unwilling to learn. They hide the truth from themselves, disguising it under many different masks. They play with the moon as a baby might play with the face of its dead mother. They even write songs about her, calling her the jolly, smiling moon! And all these years that great, white face has looked down upon them in frozen horror!”