The Marathon Mystery/Part 4/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
A Thread Breaks
IT was not until the Sunday evening following Tremaine’s departure that I found myself alone with Cecily and in a position to begin that conversation from which I hoped so much.
In the morning I had taken her to mass at the cathedral, where she had listened with rapt countenance. In the afternoon, the weather being very pleasant, we drove out to the Bronx to see the animals and the conservatories, in which she was as interested as any child. In fact, I found myself treating her more and more as a child. She was essentially one in character—self-willed, easily downcast and as easily elated; and though she was religious to a degree amounting almost to superstition, it seemed never to have occurred to her that there was anything wrong or irregular in her manner of life. She was frankly Tremaine’s mistress, evidently cherished a deep affection for him, and, I doubt not, would have been faithful to him under any but the most extraordinary temptation.
She had arrayed herself, that Sunday evening, in the same garments she had worn the first night I had met her—the gorgeous costume of the belle affranchie, in which she was most at home—but I had grown more accustomed to her and sat down near her without any great bedazzlement. She was lying on the couch, engaged in rolling cigarettes with remarkable skill and celerity, and had quite a pile on the tabouret beside her. I sat and watched the supple fingers and the red, red lips, and the dark face, changing with every wave of feeling.
“There,” she said, at last, in that queer, chipped soft Creole which defies transcription, and she pushed away papers and tobacco. “That will do for this evening. Take one, chè.”
I took one and lighted it. I knew that the term of endearment had no meaning.
“My friend,” she said suddenly, turning to me with intent gaze, “do you know where doudoux has gone?”
“No,” I answered, “he did not tell me. He said only that his business was calling him away.”
“Business! Ohé! And you believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t I believe it, Cecily?”
“If it were merely business, he could have taken me along. Tambou! I would have hidden in some little, little corner! I would not have been in the way.”
She flung her cigarette from her with a swift fury, not looking to see where it struck. I got up and stamped it out. She burst into sudden laughter as she watched me—the mirth of the careless South at the careful North.
“All the same,” she said, with conviction, “he is growing weary of me; I annoy him; I can see it. It was, of course, inevitable. Soon he will be sending me away. Ohé!” and she stretched her arms above her head with that gesture I had seen before. “Ah well! d’amour, de rires, et d’oublis!” and she laughed, but I fancied there was a sob beneath the laughter. “At least, I shall be again at St. Pierre.”
“And you still long for it?”
“Oh, long for it! So would you, chè, if you had ever lived there.”
A line from Mandalay flashed into my head—
“If you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’, why, you don’t ’eed nothin else”
and looking at her, I caught a glimpse of that compelling fascination. Preachers and lecturers are fond of pointing out that no great nation ever came from the tropics—but the people who live there have their compensations.
Suddenly there came a soft hissing from the little cage over the radiator.
“Ah, I must feed Fê-Fê—she is calling me,” she cried, and she sprang up, ran to the next room, and came back with a little wine in a glass.
I stood and watched her without being greatly impressed. Fê-Fê seemed very harmless and lethargic—evidently the climate of New York, even though mellowed by the radiator, did not agree with her.
“She is not at all well,” said Cecily, as she put her back into her cage. “It is only the warmth of the wine that keeps her alive. I shall take her back to St. Pierre with me—there she will again be happy. Tambou! and so shall I! One is always shivering here—the whole world is so cold—the sky, the sea, even the sun!”
“Of course Tremaine will go back with you,” I assured her; I was wondering if she really suspected his intention.
“No, he will not,” she said decidedly; “but,” she added, with an electric flash of the eyes, “he may come in time.”
I lighted another cigarette.
“Where did you meet him, Cecily?”
“He came to St. Pierre three, four years ago. He saw me one day standing at the door of my house in the Rue Peysette.”
“Do you know where he came from?”
“No; it mattered nothing to me.”
“He never talked about his past?”
“His past? No, no. What was it to us? We had a pretty, pretty place at Fond-Corré. Tambou! I wish I was there now!”
“You were happy there?”
“Yes—except for the times doudoux was in his black spells.”
“His black spells?”
“Yes—oh, then everyone ran from him—even I. He was terrible-raving and cursing Missié Johnson.”
“Johnson?” I repeated, with a sudden leap of the heart. “Who was he, Cecily?”
“He was doudoux’s zombi,” she anwered with conviction, and crossed herself.
“Then he didn’t live at Fond-Corré?”
“At Fond-Corré? Oh, no! He was a zombi—in the air, in the earth, everywhere. Doudoux would fight with him an hour at a time. Oh, it was terrible!”
I leaned back in my chair and watched the smoke from my cigarette circling upwards. I remembered the letter that had been tattooed on the arm of the man killed in suite fourteen. So Tremaine had some cause to hate him—he had helped him, had supplied him with whiskey, with money, through fear and not through friendship. To establish that was to take another step forward.
“Did he have those spells often, Cecily?” I asked, at last.
“Oh, no; sometimes not for months. Then, phut! the zombi would charm him.”
“Charm him?”
“With a little scrap of paper, yes. There would come a letter; doudoux would open it; always in it there would be a little piece of paper. Sometimes it had writing on it, sometimes printing, as though it had been cut from a newspaper. Then, tambou! doudoux‘s face would grow black, he would tear the paper into little, little bits, uttering curses the most terrible, and we would all run!”
Clippings from a newspaper! Here was a coincidence. But I cudgelled my brain vainly—I could form no theory as to why a clipping should cause those fits of rage.
“The last one, though, did not give him a spell,” she added, after a moment… “We were watching the sun set out across the water when Dodol brought the letter to him. This time it was printing and writing both; I got up, ready to flee, for I thought that would be twice as bad; but no. He sat reading it and his eyes glistened; then he sent me running for his hat and hurried away to St. Pierre. When he came back, he told me that we were to come at once to New York.”
It was exasperating. I felt that the secret lay just under my hand, and yet I could not grasp it. I seemed to be revolving round and round about it, without getting any nearer. What could the message be which brought Tremaine hot foot to New York?
That was the question to which there seemed no possibility of finding the answer at present; besides I thought it well to lead the talk away from Tremaine for a while, or even Cecily, unsuspecting as she was, might guess my purpose. So I turned to another point.
“You have some very pretty jewelry, Cecily,” I said, touching the great brooch of gold that gleamed at her throat.
She laughed like a pleased child.
“Yes—are they not pretty, chè? Let me show you,” and springing from the couch, she ran into her bedroom. In a moment she was back again, a box of inlaid ebony in her hands.
“See!” she cried, and threw back the lid.
Indeed they were worth seeing, and it was not wholly to disarm her suspicions, if she had any, that I lingered over them. At last, I came to the piece I wanted.
“Here is a beautiful pin,” I said. “An opal in a circle of diamonds,” and I held it up to the light. “But see, Cecily; one of the diamonds is missing. Have you lost it?”
“Doudoux lost it,” she answered. “He wore it sometimes as a pin for his scarf. Tambou! I was angry when I found it gone. You should have heard me!”
“I have a diamond,” I said, getting out my pocket-book, “that might do to replace it. Let us see if it will fit.”
I unwrapped the little brilliant and applied it to the break in the circle. Then my heart fell. It was evident in an instant that it had not come from there—it was much smaller than the other stones,—differently cut…
I have seldom experienced a more poignant pang of disappointment. I seemed to have lost more than I had gained. Where, then, had this diamond come from? Who was it had dropped it in suite fourteen? I was lost, confused, utterly at sea. And a moment before, I had been so confident! Well, it was right; it was just! This would be the fate of the whole silly, flimsy fabric we were trying to build against Tremaine.
“No, it will not do,” I stammered, at last. “It is too small,” and I returned it to my pocket. “I shall have to get you another trinket, Cecily.”
She thanked me with a child’s exuberance, then put away her jewels and came back to the divan, talking of many things. But my attention wandered; I answered her mechanically, or not at all; I felt the need of being alone and setting my discoveries in order; of finding out whether I had gained or lost ground. In any event, we should have to take a fresh start—the trail we had been following led nowhere—ended in a swamp.
Cecily perceived my indifference in a moment—she had a temperament which seemed to scent instinctively every change of feeling—and she threw her arms above her head with that gesture of weariness which I had seen before.
“Adié, chè,” she said abruptly.
“Good-night, Cecily,” I answered, rising, smiling in spite of myself at my curt dismissal, at her change of tone.
“Bon-Dié ké beni ou!”
“And you, Cecily.”
As I turned to the door, I heard the rustle of her gown as she arose from the couch. My hand on the knob, I glanced around, expecting to find her at my elbow. Instead, she was kneeling, with bowed head, before her Virgin.