CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE TOILS OF THE CONSPIRATORS.
Lester Armstrong had no sooner stepped to the pavement than he was accosted by a man who stepped suddenly up to him.
"Mr. Armstrong?" he said, interrogatively, touching his hat respectfully.
"Yes," responded Lester, "what can I do for you?"
"I am here on a deed of mercy. A friend of mine, an employee of yours, sir, has met with a serious accident and calls for you repeatedly. I am a hackman, and I volunteered to come for you and ask you to let me take you to him. It is not very far. My cab stands right here."
"I will go to the poor fellow, certainly," responded Lester, hurrying to the vehicle in question and hastily entering it.
In a moment the driver had mounted the box and was off like the wind. It did not occur to Lester until he was well under way that he had not thought to inquire who the injured man was.
As the cab rolled swiftly along over the crowded thoroughfare, Lester leaned back and gave himself up to his own thoughts.
Wealth had come to him, and with it honors had crowded thick and fast upon him. The world of society held out its arms eagerly to him. Lovely young girls, matrons of the house, offered their congratulations to him with the most bewitching of smiles, and mothers with marriageable daughters from all over the city opened an account with the great dry goods house, whose sole owner was a young and handsome bachelor.
But for all this there seemed to be something sadly missing in his life, a want which he could hardly define, and it seemed to take the shape of something which he was striving to remember, but could not.
Only that morning he had been talking with some one in the office about it, and had been laughingly informed that there was a method that could bring back to his memory that which he desired so ardently to recollect. "If you will tell me how to unravel this tangle that is in my brain, you will have my everlasting gratitude," declared Lester, earnestly.
"It takes people with nerves of steel to accomplish it. A person who is nervous to the slightest degree would not dare to try it, for fear of turning suddenly insane from the terrible mental struggle. Do you still wish to know what it is?"
"Yes," responded Lester, "and I can use my judgment whether I dare try it or not."
"Very good," replied the gentleman, "then here it is: Counting five thousand backward will either restore your loss of memory, or, as I have taken care to warn you gravely in advance, cause you to go insane. It must be done rapidly, and in a given space of time. In my belief the remedy is by far worse than the malady. I feel, somehow, as though I ought not to have told you about it."
"Nonsense," said Lester. "You need have little fear of my trying it."
He thought of it, however, as the cab rolled rapidly along.
"I wonder if harm would result from my trying it?" he mused. "I have unusually strong nerves, and—and, if anything disastrous should come of it, there is not one soul on the wide earth that would be injured. There is no mother to weep, no fair young sister to grieve, no father or brother to be bowed down with sorrow. I am alone in the world. My foolhardiness would injure only myself—only myself."
He had been thinking so deeply that he had not noted the flight of time, nor that the street lamps had grown fewer and far between, at last ceasing altogether, and that they were traveling a country road. Suddenly the vehicle came to a stop. The driver jumped from his box and opened the door with a jerk, remarking:
"This is the place."
Lester alighted, looking about him in a rather mystified manner, but before he could make the inquiry that rose to his lips the driver hastened to say:
"The path that leads to the house, which is just beyond that clump of trees, is so narrow that we cannot drive there. We will have to walk. It is but a short distance. You will see the house at the first turn in the path."
And as the man uttered the words he gave a peculiar cough.
"Who is the person who sent for me?" Lester queried, stopping short. The man made an evasive answer, which aroused his suspicions that all was not as it should be.
"Why do you not answer my question? I refuse to proceed a step farther until you have satisfied me on this point," declared Lester, haughtily.
"That's your opinion. I think differently, my fine fellow," answered the man insolently. "I'd advise you to come along quietly."
Lester Armstrong saw at once that he had been lured into a trap. It was natural for him to jump to the conclusion that it was for robbery, owing to the fact of his coming into possession of the great Marsh fortune so recently, and a sudden sternness settled upon his face. He was not used to broils, but this fellow should see that he was not quite a stranger to the manly art of self-defense, and that he had an adversary worthy of his steel.
"Are you coming along peaceably with me, or shall I be obliged to call upon my pals for assistance?" he asked, grimly.
"I propose to defend myself against all odds," answered Lester, more than angry with himself for falling so easily into the trap that had been so cunningly set for him.
He had but a few dollars in money about him, and the disappointment of his assailant in not finding a large roll of bills would in all probability cause the man to take desperate chances in trying to make away with him. If he was armed he was at the fellow's mercy. There might be half a dozen accomplices in collusion with him, he had little doubt.
Again the cabby uttered that peculiar cough which was half a whistle, and in response two men, whose features were covered by black masks, sprang from the adjacent bushes.
Our hero put up a splendid defense, but the united strength of his three antagonists at length overpowered him.
What was there in the figure of one of the men that seemed so familiar to him? he wondered, and just as they were bearing him to the ground by their united efforts, he suddenly reached forward and tore the mask from his assailant's face.
One glance, and the horror of death seemed to suddenly freeze the blood in his veins. His eyes dilated and seemed to nearly burst from their sockets. The face into which he gazed was that of Clinton Kendale, his cousin.
"You!" he gasped, quite disbelieving the evidence of his own senses.
Kendale laughed a diabolical laugh, while his features were distorted into those of a fiend incarnate.
"I haven't the least hesitation in admitting my identity," he said, coolly. "Yes, you are in good hands, if you give us no trouble, and come along quietly, without compelling us to use further force."
"What is the meaning of this outrage?" cried Lester, white to the lips.
"That you shall learn all in good time, cousin mine," replied Kendale, mockingly.
In struggling out of their grasp to better protect himself, Lester fell headlong on the icy ground, striking his head heavily against the gnarled, projecting root of a tree and lying at their feet like one dead.
"He will give us little enough trouble now," said Kendale, grimly. "Lend a hand there, both of you, and get him into the house quickly. I am almost frozen to death here."
In less time than it takes to narrate it, Lester Armstrong was hurriedly conveyed into the house.
The place consisted of but two rooms, and into the inner one Lester was thrust with but little ceremony, and tossed upon a pallet of straw in the corner.
He had not entirely lost consciousness, as they supposed, but was only stunned, realizing fully all that was transpiring about him.
"Your scheme has worked like a charm, Halloran," said Kendale. "We have bagged our game more easily than I imagined we would. Now there is nothing in the way between me and the fortune that liberal old fool Marsh willed to my amiable cousin."
"Everything rests with the shrewdness with which you play your part," answered the man addressed as Halloran.
"You ought not to have any scruples on that score," exclaimed Kendale, boastfully. "After leaving my amiable cousin on the night of the accident, did I not go immediately to the pretty little heiress, Faynie Fairfax, and successfully pass myself off as the lover she was waiting to elope with? And the little beauty never knew the difference."
"I must own that you played your cards successfully in that direction," was the response, "but this will be a far different matter from hoodwinking a young, unsophisticated girl."
"Within a month from to-day I shall have the Fairfax fortune and the Marsh millions added to it," said Clinton Kendale, emphatically.
"I would put an eternal quietus upon my fortunate cousin here, did I not need his assistance in one or two matters concerning the method of running the business, which was known only to old Marsh and himself."
"Are you fool enough to think that he will divulge those secrets to you?" said Halloran, impatiently.
"They can be forced from him. I know how," returned Kendale, with a brutal laugh. "Come," he said, turning on his heel.
His companion followed him from the apartment, and the door closed with a resounding bang, and Lester lay there too horror-stricken to move hand or foot, fairly spellbound by the disclosures he had overheard as they stood over him, believing him unconscious.
All in an instant a great wave of awakened memory swept over him, opening out the flood-gates of recollection like a flash. He remembered his interview with his sweetheart, his darling Faynie, and how he was arranging to hurry back to marry her when the fatal accident occurred, and how, believing himself dying, he had confided all to his treacherous cousin, bidding him take the message to his darling, that even in death his only thought was of her.
Oh, merciful God! how horribly had his treacherous cousin betrayed that sacred trust, because of his fatal resemblance to himself! He cried out to God and the listening angels:
"Heaven help my beautiful darling and save her from the machinations of that desperate villain!"
He knew that Clinton Kendale would stop at nothing to gain his end, and his agony at the thought that he might be unable to prevent it in time almost drove him to the verge of madness.
He felt that they would hold him there until they tortured from him whatever secret he held which they wished to learn; then they would deliberately make away with him. Clinton Kendale would step into his place, personating himself so cleverly that the great world, under whose very eyes the terrible tragedy had taken place, would never know the difference. Even Faynie would not know how she had been tricked and cheated, and the last thought almost drove him to the point of frenzy, nearly succeeding in turning his tortured brain.