The Destroying Angel

by Louis Joseph Vance

Wearying at length of the lunar spectacle, and quite as weary of the sedulous attentions of a cloud of famished mosquitoes, Whitaker lounged disconsolately indoors to a pipe and a book by candle-light. But the one needed cleaning, and the other was out of tune with his temper, and the flame of the candle excited the amorous interest of a great fluttering fool of a moth until Whitaker blew it out and sat on in darkness, not tired enough to go to bed, too tired to bestir himself and seek distraction from a tormenting train of thought.

A pool of limpid moonlight lay like milk upon the floor beneath a window and held his dreaming gaze while memory marshalled for his delectation a pageant of wasted years, infinitely desolate and dreary in his vision. A life without profit, as he saw it: an existence rendered meaningless by a nameless want—a lack he had not wit to name.... The romance of his life enchanted him, its futility furnished him a vast and profound perplexity. To what end?—this was the haunting burden of his complaint....

How long he sat unstirring, preoccupied with fruitless inquiry, he did not guess. But later he reckoned it could not have been long after ten o'clock when he was disturbed. The sound of a footfall, hushed and stealthy on the veranda, roused him with a start, and almost at the same instant he became aware of a shadow that troubled the pool of moonlight, the foreshortened shadow of a man's head and shoulders. He sat up, tense, rigid with surprise and wonder, and stared at the silhouetted body at pause just outside the window. The fellow was stooping to peer in. Whether he could distinguish Whitaker in the shadows was debatable, but he remained motionless through a long minute, as if fascinated by the undeviating regard returned by Whitaker. Then the latter broke the spell with a hasty movement. Through the feeling of surprised resentment there had filtered a gnawing suspicion that he was acquainted with the pose of that head and the set of those shoulders. Had Drummond hunted him down to this isolate hiding-place? On the thought he leaped up, in two strides slammed out through the door.

"I say!" he cried loudly. But he cried, apparently, to empty air. The man was gone—vanished as strangely and as quietly as he had appeared.

Whitaker shut teeth on an oath and, jumping down from the veranda, cast wildly about the bungalow without uncovering a single sign of the trespasser. In transit from his chair to the door, he had lost sight of the fellow for no more, certainly, than half a second; and yet, in that absurdly scanty space of time, the trespasser had managed to effect an absolute disappearance. No conjuring trick was ever turned more neatly. There one instant, gone the next!—the mystery of it irritated and perplexed more than did the question of identity. It was all very plausible to suspect Drummond—but whither could Drummond have juggled himself in the twinkling of an eyelash? That it was no trick of an idle imagination, Whitaker was prepared to swear: he was positive he had seen what he had seen. And yet.... It was, on the other hand, impossible to say where in the plantation of pines the man might not then be skulking. Whitaker instituted a narrow search, but fruitless.

Eventually pausing and glaring round the clearing in complete bewilderment, he detected or else fancied a slight movement in the shadows on the edge of the encompassing woodland. Instantly, heedless of the risk he ran if the man were indeed Drummond and if Drummond were indeed guilty of the assault now four nights old, Whitaker broke for the spot. It proved to be the entrance to one of the woodland paths, and naturally—whether or no his imagination were in fault—there was nobody waiting there to be caught.

But if any one had been there, he had unquestionably fled along the trail. Whitaker in a rage set himself to follow, sticking to the path partly through instinct, mainly thanks to a spectral twilight manufactured in the forest by moon-beams filtered thin through innumerable leaves and branches. Once or twice he paused to listen, then again plunged on: misled perhaps by the mysterious but inevitable noises of the nocturnal woodland. Before he realized he could have covered half the distance, he emerged abruptly into the clearing of the Fiske place.

Here he pulled up, for the first time alive to the intrinsic idiocy of his conduct, and diverted besides by the discovery that his impression of the early evening, that the cottage was tenanted, had been well founded.

The ground floor windows shone with a dim but warm illumination. There was one quite near him, a long window opening upon the railed veranda, through which he could see distinctly part of a living-room rather charmingly furnished in a summery way. At its farther end a dark-haired woman in a plain black dress with a short apron and lace cap sat reading by lamplight: evidently a maid. Her mistress—judged by appearances—was outside on the lawn below the veranda, strolling to and fro in company with a somewhat short and heavy man who wore an automobile duster and visored cap. By contrast, her white-clad figure, invested with the illusion of moonlight, seemed unusually tall. Her hair was fair, shining like a head-dress of palest gold as she bent her head, attentive to her companion. And Whitaker thought to discern an unusual quality in her movements, a quality of charm and a graciousness of mien rarely to be noticed even in the most beautiful of the women he had known.

Of a sudden the man paused, produced a watch from beneath his duster, consulted it briefly and shut the case with a snap. He said something in a brusque tone, and was answered by what sounded like a pleasant negative. Promptly, as if annoyed, he turned and strode hastily away, disappearing round the house.