LITMIR.BIZ

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Listen. I got into trouble in New York a little while ago—serious trouble. There was a woman in it. I thought it was all hushed up. The day after I came down here for a visit last week I received a letter—and the whole cursed business was in it. I lost the letter, Varge. Father found it, and without saying anything to me investigated the whole thing. To-night he called me into the library after mother had gone to bed—he said he hadn't dared to tell her anything. He opened one of the little square cupboards in the wall at the side of the fireplace, you know the one, the one on the right hand side, where he keeps his books, papers and money, and took out the ​letter with a lot of others he had received about it and showed them to me. He was in a fearful rage. We quarrelled. But there was no noise—we were afraid of awakening mother. Then I don't know just what happened. I was standing by the fire poking it with that long fender bar. I think he meant to snatch it from my hand, just with angry impetuosity. We struggled and—it wasn't cold blood, Varge. We—we'd been quarrelling. I didn't know what I did. I struck him on the side of the head with the bar and he—he fell."

      Merton paused, and in the silence came the sound as of hands hard-wrung together till the finger joints crackled.

      Varge moved away from the bed, back to the little washstand and resumed his dressing.

      "Go on," he said.

      "I tore up the letters and burned them in the grate"—Merton's voice was a low moan now. "And then, I don't know why, I went to the window and drew up the blind, and looked out onto the lawn. It was all snow, white, white, white, and not a mark in it. I was trying to think what to do, when I heard a sound back of me from where—where It lay. It startled me and turned my blood cold. I whirled around and jumped back across the room, and—and bent over father before I realised what had made the noise. It was only a piece of coal falling in the grate, only a piece—" Merton broke off jerkily, and a short, sobbing laugh of hysteria came from him.

      "Go on," said Varge again.

      "I—I bent over father then. I—I was cool again. ​The thought came to me that he might be only stunned—but, but he was dead. I was perhaps three minutes, perhaps longer, I don't know how long, bending over him, and then I looked up—there was a face pressed close against the window pane and the eyes were glaring in at me. Something held me still—I couldn't move. I must have taken my eyes away instantly, so I am sure he didn't know I saw him. When I looked again the face was gone. Then I got up, it seemed at once, though I suppose it must have been another minute, and went to the window. There was no one in sight, but there were footprints in the snow and the trees hid the road. I jerked down the blind, and then—and then—I thought of you. I turned off the light, crept out of the room and stole up here. I wanted to get you to run away—it was my only chance. I wanted to get you to run away, to make them think you did it, and I—I had a story all ready to tell that would account for my being seen in the room as I was. I would say that I had been reading late upstairs and heard your voice and father's in the library; then silence. That I had kept on reading, and after a while, wondering why father hadn't come up to bed, I went downstairs softly so as not to awaken mother and found him dead—and that then I went for you and you had disappeared. It was Mart Robson's face at the window—he's never liked me anyhow. I suppose the MacGregors must have sent him from the farm for a doctor, and he saw the light and instead of ringing the bell and waking up the house he went first to the window. I know what he's done now—he's gone on to the town to tell the sheriff what he's seen. Varge, do you hear, he's on his way there now!"

      ​Varge's mind was working quickly—mapping, planning out his course of action—weaving the finer threads of detail into the web that was to enmesh himself and free the other. His coat was on now, and he turned to face Merton through the darkness. It was all clear, all plain, even to that one thing that had troubled him—to lessen, to soften the shock to her.

      "Listen," he said. "I am dressed. I am going. You must make no mistake now. You should not have turned off the light nor drawn down the shade again—you did not do either—I will attend to them. You did not see any one at the window. For the rest, you can tell your story as you intended—but there are two things you must do. First, you must telephone the sheriff; if you cannot get him, do not waste time over it—you must have tried, that is the important thing. Then you must go at once for Mrs. MacLaughlin, your mother's friend, and bring her back here before Mrs. Merton is awakened—that should not take you more than fifteen minutes, and you must not be longer. When you come back, go into that room again and fix each detail as you find it then in your mind, and be careful that your story agrees in every particular. Do you understand?"

      "Yes, yes"—Merton struggled from the bed to his feet—"I will telephone at once, and then—"

      "Wait," said Varge sharply. "Two of us on the stairs at once may make a noise. Wait until I have gone down." He moved across the room, felt for the door and opened it.

      "Yes; but, Varge, money"—Merton was whispering wildly—"you can't get away without money, and ​everything depends on your getting away, you've got to get away—here, take—"

      "I shall have no need of money," Varge answered, as he stepped out into the passage.

      ​

      CHAPTER III IN WHICH THE WEB IS WOVEN

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      SWIFTLY, with sure, light, noiseless tread, Varge made his way along the short passage and down the stairs. It was a fight now with and against time—with it, physically, to accomplish what must be done without the loss of a moment; and, still more important, against it mentally, to coordinate the discrepancy that already existed.

      Robson, MacGregor's farmhand, could have done but one of two things—gone on to town, or to the nearest neighbour. Varge's mind had already weighed the alternatives—and, discarding one, agreed with Harold Merton. He had known Robson all his life—Robson was of that type, illiterate, sensational, full of cheap bluster, to whom notoriety would be as the breath of life—he would lose none of the importance attaching to the discovery of a crime, none of the opportunity of being the central figure in the affair by sharing his discovery with any one, who, later on, participating in the furor and excitement, would detract from his own prominence—Robson would tell his tale to the authorities and to no one else. Any feeling Robson might have against Harold Merton; the fact that in all probability he was seeking medical assistance and the other doctors lived in the town itself, which would have an added tendency to take him there; the fact that no one had as yet come, as might have been the case had Robson ​stopped at the next house, though there was still time for that yet—all these were extraneous considerations to Varge. It was on the man's temperament, an intimate appraisal of the man himself, as Varge appraised all men with whom he came in contact, that his conclusion was based.

      The roads were heavy. There had been a fall of snow during the previous afternoon and evening. Robson could not cover the two miles to the town at best under twenty minutes. It would take him some time to arouse the sheriff, for the sheriff to dress, hear the story, secure a deputy perhaps, and start back—just how long it was impossible to judge specifically; it might be half an hour, or twice that. Then there was the return trip. In all, at the closest calculation, not less than an hour. Debited against this was the time that had elapsed since Robson had looked in at the window; say, five minutes for Merton to creep upstairs, and then the scene in the little chamber—how long had that been? What was the difference between the seemingly limitless time that it had occupied and reality? Varge's mind, eliminating impression, with lightning rapidity rehearsed every act that had taken place, every word that had been spoken—fifteen minutes, it could not have been more. And fifteen and five were twenty. It would be another half-hour, then, before the sheriff would start back.

      Varge had reached the bottom of the stairs now and crossed the kitchen. Between the kitchen and the front hall was a small crockery pantry from which swinging doors led, one to the dining room directly in the rear of the library, and one to the hall itself.

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