Bill Pete burst out into an unpleasant laugh. “Why do the masses believe that a murderer must be insane?” he cried. “Surely to kill is the natural instinct of man. You say that Huntington was a fine fellow. Well, what has that got to do with it? How can anyone gain the fineness and fullness of living without first feasting on the lives of others?”
“I disagree with you,” I said with a yawn; “but I’m too tired to argue. I think I’ll turn in.”
“Don’t let me keep you up,” he muttered.
I took a last look at the shadows which played under the trees and entered the cabin. As I moved about, getting ready for bed, I could see Bill Pete’s dark figure silhouetted against the firelight. Like a carved idol of wood, he sat perfectly motionless.
It did not take me long to fall asleep that night. Hardly had I crawled between the blankets and closed my eyes, before I was swept far out on the sea of dreams. And in these dreams, I was conscious of something which was approaching steadily and relentlessly—something which threatened my very existence. I felt that I must escape. I tried to struggle but I was held down by bands of steel. Nearer and nearer that relentless presence approached. Now I could feel its warm breath on my cheek.
I awoke, bathed in perspiration, to a sensation of supernatural dread. The oil lamp on the table was lit. I could see every object distinctly. There, with his back toward me, stood Bill Pete. What was he doing at this hour of the night?’ Why, he was shaving! He was standing before the small mirror I had hung on the wall and was shaving! He held one of my razors; I could see the blade glimmer faintly as he lowered his arm for an instant.
Still in a mental daze of sleep, I stared at his back. Then I glanced at the shaving glass. What I saw there, will live in my memory always. I tried to rise, but I could not; I tried to cry out, but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth.
“Who are you?” I gasped.
And now the tall figure was turning toward me. I saw that well-remembered face, thin, ascetic, with lips that curled upward like a cat’s; I saw those cold, gray eyes which held in their depths a speculative stare; I saw the man, himself, approaching with a stealthy, noiseless tread. The mirror had not lied. It was Burgess Martin!
XVIII
There is no fear which man can experience so gripping, so subduing, as fear of the supernatural. When the mind cannot explain, when all the rivers of thought are frozen at their source, we become children again in the imagination, children who people the dark with living phantoms. Life is then no longer the familiar highway, brightly lighted, with the kindly signposts of convention at every crossing, but a shadowy cave of horrors through which we must grope blindly. What lies waiting for us in the gloom? We do not know, we cannot guess—and therein lies the fear. Such a sensation is indeed terrible.
Here, in this dimly lighted cabin, far from all the reassuring realities, of life, I was looking into the face of a man whom I had every reason to believe dead and buried years ago! Was it any wonder that I could neither move nor cry out, that I stared silently at this apparition like a terror stricken child?
Although my brain was spinning dizzily like a top, although Burgess Martin’s steadfast eyes held mine like magnets, I was instinctively aware of the objects immediately surrounding me. For instance, I knew that a blanket had been fastened securely across the doorway to keep out the wind which now howled in baffled fury about the cabin; and yet I had not even glanced in that direction.
The long-threatening storm had risen. Now the first drops of rain were pattering on the roof like tiny fingers tapping for admittance. Suddenly there came a blinding flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a deafening peal of thunder. Again there was silence. Nature seemed to hold her breath.
“Why do you fear me, Smithers?” said a voice which I knew only too well. “I am no ghost.”
By now Burgess Martin was standing beside my bunk, looking down on me with a gleam of derision in his eyes. Mustering all my courage, I attempted to sit up. Then, for the first time, I realized that I was tied hand and foot with strong leather straps which a giant could scarcely have broken.
“It is useless to struggle, Smithers,” Martin continued coldly; “not only useless but dangerous. My patience is worn thin. When I think of what I have suffered, when I think of what art has suffered, I can have no more tolerance for stupidity.”
“Then you weren’t murdered after all?” I muttered through dry lips.
“Most assuredly not,” he answered with one of his catlike grimaces. Seating himself on the side of the bunk, he regarded me with a speculative stare. “Why is man invariably blinded by the obvious?” he continued. “A chain of circumstantial evidence can so easily be forged by a master mind that one should test it thoroughly before one believes. Why should you think that Wilbur Huntington murdered me?”
“I never thought so,” I muttered.
“Ah, but you did, Smithers,” he said lifting one of his long, thin hands in expostulation. “You did and the world did. And why? Simply because a body was found floating in the East River—a decomposing, unrecognizable body which wore my ring and clothes. And because he visited me that night, because he disliked my works, because he disappeared—you, his best friend, branded him a murderer. What a trifling thing I renounced when I sacrificed friendship on the altar!”
He paused as another reverberating peal of thunder” shook the cabin. For an instant his sallow face was illumined by a sickly flash of lightning; I saw a tiny, pendulous drop of blood on his chin -where the razor had slipped and nicked the flesh. Strange to say, the sight of this single crimson bead of blood was reassuring; it spurred my flagging courage. If he could bleed, surely he was human.
“And what became of Wilbur Huntington,” I asked.
“Why, it was his body which was floating down the river,” Martin answered coldly. “He wore my clothes and ring, and the water had changed him somewhat—that was all.”
Once more horror overmastered me. I caught a glimpse of the truth. “Who murdered him?” I cried. “Good God, Martin, did you?”
He bowed and I saw a smile crease his cheek like a scar. “Of course, Smithers. Wasn’t it the natural outcome of his visit to me that night? This man stood in my path—in the path of art. I had to destroy him, or else my ambition was doomed. He had become an insurmountable obstacle in my path. I could go no further until I had forcibly removed him. How simple, how true! Why, even Tie had a premonition of the truth. He came to my rooms as a hero goes to battle. He was a brave man, Smithers.”
Once more Martin paused and stroked his chin. I saw the pendulous drop of blood stain his fingertips. And now this blood was no longer reassuring. It revolted me. Those vibrating crimson finger tips were a symbol—a symbol of the stealthy assassin who slays by night. Soon they might be fastened about my throat —or, perhaps, they would grasp the hilt of the hunting knife suspended from his belt. No matter how death came, those finger tips would play their part in it.
I felt that life and I were soon to part. Like a fallen tree trunk, I was at the mercy of this forester of lives. He confided in me so readily because he judged me as one already dead. It amused him to play on my emotions before he cut the thin thread which held me to existence. He was confessing to me now as a cat might confess to the mouse between its paws.
But I would keep a stiff upper lip! I was afraid—yes, deadly afraid—but he should never know it. He had laughed at me many times. He had called me a weakling. He had held me up to ridicule. But I would show him that I could face death. Perhaps I did not have the courage to brave life, but I had the courage to brave death. I would show him that—I would show him that even a weakling knew how to die.