The Four Stragglers

by Frank L. Packard

"Oh, please, guardy!" she faltered out. "I—I—please turn off the light."

"Of course!" he said quietly—and it was dark in the room again.

He had caught a glimpse of a little figure crouching just inside the door—a little figure with white, strained face, with great, wondrous masses of hair tumbling about her shoulders, with hands that clasped some filmy drapery tightly across her bosom, and small, dainty feet that were bare of covering. And as he moved toward her now across the room, another mood took precedence over the savagery he had just been nursing—a mood no holier. It might be queer, this visit of hers; but that glimpse of her, alluring, intimate, of a moment gone, had set his blood afire again—and far more violently than it had on that first occasion when he had seen her here on the island two nights ago. It brought again to the fore the question that, through a cursed nightmare of happenings, had almost since that time lain dormant. Was he going to let Locke have her—or was he going to keep her for himself? How far had she gone with Locke? They had been a lot together. Well, that mattered little—if he wanted her for himself he would make the way to get her, Locke and hell combined to the contrary! The woman—against her potential value as somebody else's wife! Damn it, that was the wonder of her—that she could even hold her own when weighed on such scales. There were lots of women.

He had reached her now, and touched her, found her hand and taken it in his own. "What is it, Polly?" he asked gently. "What's the matter?"

"It's—it's mother," she whispered brokenly. "The telephone in my room rang a few minutes ago, and some one—a man—and, oh, guardy, I'm sure it was the same voice that we heard when we were in the woods the night before last—asked me why I didn't wear black for my mother. It—it couldn't mean anything else but—but that mother is dead. Oh, guardy, guardy! How could he know, guardy? How could he know?"

Captain Francis Newcombe made no movement, save to place his arm around the thinly clad shoulders, and draw the little figure closer to him. It was dark here, she could not have seen his face anyway, but it was composed, calm, tranquil. Perhaps the lips straightened a little at the corners—nothing more. But the brain of the man was working at lightning speed. Here was disaster, ruin, exposure if he made the slightest slip. Again, eh? This was the fourth time this devil from the pit had shown his hand! The reckoning would be adequate! But how was he to answer Polly? Quick! She must not notice any hesitation. Tell her that Mrs. Wickes was dead? He had a ready explanation on his tongue, formulated days ago, to account for having withheld that information. Seize this opportunity to tell her that Mrs. Wickes was not her mother? No! Impossible! He had meant to use all this to his advantage, and in his own good time. It was too late now. He was left holding the bag! If he admitted that Mrs. Wickes was dead, he admitted that there was some one on this island whose mysterious presence, whose mysterious knowledge, must cause a furor, a search, with possible results that at any hazard he dared not risk. Polly would tell Locke—Dora—everybody. It was impossible! But against this, sooner or later, Polly must know of Mrs. Wickes' death, and— Bah! Was he become a child, the old cunning gone? He would keep her for a while from England—travel—anything—and, months on, the word would come that Mrs. Wickes was dead, and found in the old hag's effects would be Polly's papers. The one safe play, the only play, was not alone to reassure the girl now, but to keep her mouth shut. Above all to keep her mouth shut! But—how? How? Yes! He had it now! His soul began to laugh in unholy glee. His voice was grave, earnest, tender, sympathetic.

"He couldn't have known, Polly," he said. "That is at once evident on the face of it. How could any one on this little out-of-the-way island possibly know a thing like that when I, who am the only one who could know, and who have just come direct from England, know it to be untrue. Don't you see, Polly?"

He had drawn her head against his shoulder, stroking back the hair from her forehead. She raised it now quickly.

"Yes, guardy!" she said eagerly. "I—I see; and I'm so glad I came to you at once. But—but it is so strange, and—and it still frightens me terribly. I don't understand. I—I can't understand. Why should any one ring the telephone in my room at this hour, and—and tell me a thing like that if it were not true?"

"Or even if it were true—at such an hour, or in such a manner," he injected quietly. "Tell me exactly what happened, Polly."