CHAPTER XI
THE SHOT
IT WAS in the evening of this same day, at dinner, that the element of tragedy was first injected into the situation. In addition to Mrs. West and her daughter, May Thurston, and the four young men, there was present Hartley Masters. He had been invited frequently to dine at the cottage, and had for a time accepted every invitation. Latterly, however, the evidences of strained feeling between him and the other men had become so pronounced that he had usually offered some excuse for declining the kindly hospitality of Mrs. West. Another reason that influenced him in this was his own lack of confidence in his self-control, since the incident at the boat-house, which he had had some difficulty in explaining satisfactorily to May. Nevertheless, tonight, he had chosen to rely on his powers of self-restraint, and had accepted at once when Mrs. West suggested his remaining for the evening meal.
The construction of the cottage was such that the dining-room was at the back of the house. On the left, as one entered the hall, was the large music-room, which occupied the entire ground floor of the added wing. On the right, the first room was that which had served Abernethey as an office. Beyond this came the dining-room, with one window at the back, and one on the north side. Mrs. West sat at the head of the table, in such a position that she faced the window to the north. Margaret sat opposite her, while Saxe was placed at her right hand. Beyond him was May Thurston, and beyond her Roy. Billy Walker was beside the hostess on the left, and then David Thwing, while Masters filled the place next to Margaret.
The conversation at the table went pleasantly enough, despite the latent hostility between the engineer and the other men. The antipathy of Saxe and his friends was certainly not shared by either Margaret or her mother, unless they concealed their feeling with much skill, for the daughter addressed herself to Masters much of the time, and Mrs. West often included him in the conversation. By tacit agreement the subject of the miser’s gold was not touched on by anyone, and the desultory talk ran the usual gamut of art, literature, the drama, and those innumerable topics that serve as the transient vehicles for individual wit and seriousness.
It chanced that a decanter stood on the table, close to the edge, just by Billy Walker’s right elbow. As he turned to address David on his left, his right arm was moved carelessly, and the decanter was jolted from its place. It poised for a second, balanced on its bottom edge, then fell over the side of the table toward the floor. But the time, brief as it was, had been sufficient for action on the part of Saxe. Naturally of exceeding rapidity of movement, although he held this under restraint ordinarily, so that he appeared rather languid than otherwise, an instantaneous responsiveness of his body to any command of the will had been cultivated by the years of exercise at the piano. So, now, on the instant when he perceived the touch of Billy’s elbow to the decanter, he darted in a single step from his seat to a position behind Mrs. West’s chair with arm outstretched, and in the same second, his nimble fingers had closed on the neck of the falling decanter, to which they clung tenaciously. Before he could again straighten himself, there came a thud against the east wall of the dining-room—with it the sharp crack of a rifle, fired from close at hand.
Saxe stood erect—stared dumbfounded at the others. They stared back at him, wordless for the moment, stupefied. Each looked at first one and then another, unable to surmise as to what had come upon them. It was Masters who finally broke the oppressive silence. The engineer’s face was of a dead white, and as he spoke he tugged nervously at the luxuriant mustache:
“Some hunter’s been mighty careless,” he declared; and he smiled, rather feebly, on Margaret, who had looked up at the sound of his voice.
“He sure was some careless,” agreed David who, at times, relapsed into an early dialect. “Shootin’ promiscuous-like!” He goggled at the startled company through his thick lenses.
Forthwith, a babel broke forth, a confusion of exclamations, in which were voiced alarm, wonder and anger. It was Saxe, still on his feet, who first bethought himself of the thud heard from the direction of the east wall. At once, he went to the sideboard, which was against the wall on that side. Only a brief search was necessary to reveal the hole which the bullet had pierced in the top drawer of the sideboard. Saxe uttered an ejaculation that brought the others crowding about him. He exhibited the opening left by the bullet’s passing, then pulled out the drawer, and found the missile itself imbedded in the back. Roy and David, who had become familiar with deadly weapons on the frontier of the Northland, dug out the bullet, and immediately proceeded to learned discourse anent its character and the caliber of the rifle from which it had been sent. Billy Walker took no interest in this discussion, and, having stood on his feet for a longer time than was his custom, returned to his seat at the table, where he disposed himself with a sigh of relief. The ladies, too, went back to their places, but Saxe, David and Roy, with Masters, ran out of the cottage to search for the person who had fired the shot. From the place in which the bullet had lodged, it was evident that the rifle had been fired from some point on the ridge back of the cottage, and up this the four took their way, scattering as they went to cover a line of considerable length. They made a pretty thorough examination, but came on nothing to indicate who the culprit might have been. The underbrush was thick along the slope, yet the range of space shown by the direction of the bullet was so small that they were enabled to beat the coverts with completeness. In the end, it was the general agreement that some hunter had fired at a squirrel on the slope, probably in ignorance that a dwelling lay beyond the screen of foliage. Afterward, he had gone on his way, without any realization of possible peril from the shot.
The dusk was falling ere they abandoned the hunt, and started on their return to the house. It was just before they reached the cottage that David, who was blest with more humor than are most, threw back his head, and laughed long and heartily with the mellow peals that made those who heard him usually laugh for sheer sympathy before inquiring the cause of his mirth. At the sound, Saxe and Roy smiled expectantly; but Masters only looked on curiously.