"He's come back!" George whispered.
CHAPTER XI
Mathison undressed slowly. He was still hypnotized to a certain extent by the several amazing events of the night. From the shadowy corners of the compartment the woman's face persisted in appearing, now in all its warm loveliness, now in terror, and again like chiseled marble. It would be a long time before he would be able to stamp out completely the impression. It did not seem possible that any woman could be so lovely outside and so ugly within. The venom in her glance, just before she stepped out of the window!
The thought of Hallowell hurt more than anything else. Unavenged! Bob would lie in his island grave unavenged. But before God, he, John Mathison, would take a double tithe from the Hun. No mercy. Never would he hear the word Kamerad. Soon the number on his free-board would spell Terror.
He uncovered Malachi and knelt beside the cage. "Mat!... Malachi!" he said. "Mat!... Malachi!" But the only sign from the bird was a ruffling of the neck and topknot feathers, a quick dilation of his yellow eyes. Two or three minutes earlier in getting into that room, while the bird's fright was at full! No way to make him understand; he was only a parrakeet, an echo. "Mat!... Malachi!" It was Bob calling; the little bird was only an echo.
Suddenly Mathison stood up, his face eager. A real idea! And it never would have entered his head but for the startling revelation of what suggestion might accomplish. If the woman's tempestuous actions had awakened the bird's recollection, what might a reconstruction of the crime do? Men apparently in desperate conflict, tables and chairs threshed about, tumult, cries! How would these react upon Malachi's memory?
Of course no jury would convict a man of a crime upon evidence furnished by a talking parrakeet; but if, by reconstructing the tragedy, Malachi could be made to repeat the name Hallowell had called out, it would serve to give the authorities a handhold. Trust them to dig up the truth eventually. For Mathison was obsessed with the idea that Hallowell had spoken a name for Malachi to repeat.