The Dead Letter · Part I · Chapter 1 9 (1/2)

IX

The Spider and the Fly

“Come,” said my cicerone, “we are already very late.”

A rapid walk of a few minutes brought us to the entrance of a handsome house, having the appearance of a private residence, and standing on a fashionable street.

“Why,” said I, inclined to draw back, as he ascended the steps, “you surely would not think of disturbing the people here at this hour of the night? There is not a light to be seen, even in the chambers.”

Mr. Burton’s low laugh made me blush at my own “greenness.” His ring at the bell was followed by a knock, which I was quick-witted enough, in spite of my verdancy, to perceive had something significant about it. The door immediately swung a little open, my friend said a few words which had the effect to unclose the mysterious portals still wider, and we entered a modest hall, which a single gas-burner, half-turned off, dimly illuminated. The manservant who admitted us was sable as ebony, muscular, much above the medium size, dressed in a plain livery, and with manners as polished as his own shining skin⁠—an African leopard, barring the spots, smooth and powerful.

“Is Bagley still here?” asked my companion.

“Yes, sir. In de library, jus’ where you lef’ him.”

“Very well. You need not disturb him. I’ve brought my young friend in to introduce him to the house, in view of further acquaintance.”

The ebony man smiled respectfully, bowing for us to pass into the parlor. I thought I saw in that quiet smile a lurking ray of satisfaction⁠—a gloating, as it were, over my prospective intimacy at this respectable house. He had probably been usher to the maelstrom long enough to know that those whose feet were once caught in the slow, delightful waltz of the circling waters never withdrew them, after the circle grew narrow and swift, and the rush of the whirlpool sounded up from the bottomless pit.

We entered a suit of rooms in no manner differing from the parlors of a private house. They were richly furnished and well lighted, close inner blinds, hidden by heavy silk curtains, shutting in the light from the observation of the street. There were three rooms in this suit; the two first were now deserted, though the odor of wine, and scented hair and handkerchiefs, showed that they had been recently occupied. In these two the chandeliers were partially obscured, but the third room was still brilliantly illuminated. We walked toward it. Magnificent curtains of amber silk depended from the arch which separated it from the parlors. Only one of these curtains was now drawn back, the others trailing on the carpet, and closing the apartment from our observation. Mr. Burton placed me in the shadow of the curtains, where I could see⁠—myself unseen. The room was furnished as a library, two of its walls being covered with books; I particularly noticed a marble bust of Shakespeare, very fine. A severe, yet liberal, taste marked the choice and arrangement of everything. A painting of Tasso reading his poems to the Princess, hung between the two back windows.

It was a well-arranged library, certainly; yet the four occupants were engrossed in a study more fascinating than that of any of the books by which they were surrounded. If Mephistophiles could have stepped from his binding of blue and gold, and made the acquaintance of the company, he would have been quite charmed. Two couples sat at two tables playing cards. All the other visitors to the establishment had gone away, some of them to theft or suicide, perhaps, save those four, who still lingered, wrapped up in the dread enchantment of the hour. The two at the table I first glanced at, were both strangers to me; at the second, I could not see the face of one of the players, whose back was toward me; but the face of the other was directly in front of me, and under the full light of the chandelier. This person was James Argyll. My astonishment was profound. That I had never fraternized with him, I considered partly my own fault⁠—there are persons so naturally antagonistic as to make real friendship between them impossible⁠—and I had often blamed myself for our mutual coldness. But, with all my dislike of some of his qualities⁠—as, for instance, his indolent acceptance of his uncle’s bounty, which, in the eyes of a person of my disposition, took away half his manliness⁠—with all my unfriendly aversion to him, I had never suspected him of absolutely bad habits.

I had to look twice to assure myself of his identity. And having looked, I could not take away my eyes from the strange attraction of a countenance transformed by the excitement of the gaming-table. His dark complexion had blanched to a sallow paleness; cheeks and lips were of the same color; his nose seemed to have sharpened, and was drawn in about the face with a pinched look; his eyebrows were very slightly contracted, but fixed, as if cut in marble, while underneath them the lids were drawn together, so that only a line of the eye was visible⁠—a narrow line, letting out a single steady ray from the lurid world within. The lids appeared as if the eyeballs had shrunken in the intensity of their gaze.

Silently the cards were dealt and played. It was evidently the closing game, upon which much depended⁠—how much, for James, I could only guess by the increasing pallor and absorption of his countenance.

“I wish I could see his opponent’s face,” I whispered to my companion.

“You would see nothing but the face of the devil coolly amusing himself. Bagley never gets excited. He has ruined a dozen young men already.”

The last card was thrown down; the two players arose simultaneously.

“Well, Bagley,” said James, with a desperate laugh, “you will have to wait for the money until I⁠—”

“Marry the young lady,” said the other; “that is the agreement, I believe; but don’t consent to a long engagement.”

“I shall find some means to pay these last two debts before that happy consummation, I hope. You shall hear from me within a month.”

“We will make a little memorandum of them,” said his opponent; and as they went together to a writing-desk, Mr. Burton drew me away.

I could hardly breathe when we got into the street, I was so suffocated with rage at hearing the reference made by those two men, under that unholy roof, to the woman so revered and sacred in my thoughts. I was certain that Miss Argyll was the young lady whose fortune was to pay these “debts of honor,” contracted in advance upon such security. If his strong hand had not silently withheld me, I do not know but I should have made a scene, which would have been as unwise as useless. I was thankful, afterward, that I was prevented, though I chafed under the restraint at the time. Neither of us spoke until we were in the house of my host, where a fire in the library awaited us. Before this we seated ourselves, neither of us feeling sleepy after our night’s adventures.

“How did you know that Argyll was at that house? I had no idea that he intended coming to the city today,” I said.

“He had no intention until he learned of your sudden departure. He came down in the next train, to see what you were about. He is uneasy about you, Mr. Redfield, didn’t you know it? As he could ascertain nothing satisfactory about your doings, or mine, he had nothing better on his hands, this evening, than to look up his friend Bagley.”

“How do you know all this?”

The detective half smiled, his piercing eyes fixed reflectively on the fire.

“I should be poorly able to support my pretensions, if I could not keep the circle of my acquaintance under my observation. I was informed of his arrival in town, upon my return from Brooklyn, and have known of his whereabouts since. I could tell you what he had for supper, if it would interest you.”

The uneasy feeling which I had several times experienced in Mr. Burton’s society, came over me again. I spoke a little quickly:

“I wonder if you have your secret agents⁠—spirits of the air, or electricity, they might almost seem to be⁠—hovering always on my steps.”

He laughed, but not unpleasantly, looking me through with those steel-blue rays:

“Would it trouble you to fancy yourself under surveillance?”

“I never liked fetters, of any kind. I yield my choice of will and action to nobody. However, if anyone finds satisfaction in playing the part of my shadow, I don’t know that I shall suffer any restraint upon that account.”

“I don’t think it would disturb you seriously,” he said.

“No one likes to be watched, Mr. Burton.”

“We are all watched by the pure and penetrating eye of the All-seeing One, and if we are not fearful before Him, whom need we shrink from?”

I looked up to see whether it was the secret-police-agent who was preaching to me, or whether my host, in his power of varying the outer manifestations of his character, had not dropped the mystic star for the robe of the minister; he was gazing into the fire with a sad, absorbed expression, as if he saw before him a long procession of mortal crimes, walking in the night of earth, but, in reality, under the full brightness of infinite day. I had seen him before in these solemn, almost prophetic moods, brought on him by the revelation of some new sin, which seemed always in him to awaken regret, rather than the exultation of a detective bent on the successful results of his mission. So soft, so gentle he appeared then, I inwardly wondered that he had the sternness to inflict disgrace and exposure upon the “respectable” guilty⁠—which class of criminals he was almost exclusively employed with⁠—but I had only to reflect upon the admirable equipoise of his character, to realize that with him justice was what he loved best. For those who prowled about society in the garb of lambs and shepherd-dogs, seeking whom they might devour, and laying, perhaps, the proofs of guilt at the doors of the innocent, he had no mercy of the “let us alone” type. A little time we were silent; the dropping of an ember from the grate startled us.

“Why do you think that James watches me? What does he watch me for?”

I asked this, going back to the surprise I had felt when he made the remark.

“You will know soon enough.”

It was useless for me to press the question, since he did not wish to be explicit.

“I did not know,” I continued, “I never dreamed, that James had bad associates in the city. I know that his uncle and cousins do not suspect it. It pains me more than I can express. What shall I do? I have no influence over him. He dislikes me, and would take the most brotherly remonstrance as an insult.”

“I do not wish you, at present, to hint your discovery to him. As for your not suspecting his habits, those habits themselves are recent. I doubt if he had ever ventured a dollar on cards three months ago. He had some gay, even dissolute companions in the city, of whom the worst and most dangerous was Bagley. But he had not joined them in their worst excesses⁠—he was only idle and fond of pleasure⁠—a moth fluttering around the flames. Now he has scorched his wings. He has not spent more than three or four nights as he spent this; and the only money he has lost has been to the person you saw him with tonight. Bagley is one of the vampires who fatten on the characters and purses of young men like James Argyll.”

“Then ought we not to make some earnest effort to save him before it is too late? Oh, Mr. Burton, you who are wise and experienced⁠—tell me what to do.”

“Why do you feel so much interest in him? You do not like him.”

“I could not see the merest stranger go down toward destruction without stretching forth my hand. There is no great friendship between us, it is true; but James is nearly connected with the happiness and reputation of the family I honor most on earth. For its sake, I would make the utmost endeavor.”

“For the interests of justice, then, it is well that I am not related to the Argylls by the personal ties which affect you. I will tell you one thing⁠—James does not gamble so much from weakness of will to resist temptation, as he does to forget, for a time, under the influence of the fascinating excitement, an anxiety which he carries about with him.”

“You’re a close observer, Mr. Burton. James has, indeed, been deeply troubled lately. I have noticed the change in him⁠—in his appetite, complexion, manners, in a thousand trifles⁠—a change which grows upon him daily. He is gnawed upon by secret doubts⁠—now raised by hopes, now depressed by fears, until he is fitful and uncertain as a light carried in an autumn wind. But I can tell you that he is all wrong in indulging this vain hope, which creates the doubt. I know what it is, and how utterly without foundation. It is weakness, wickedness in him to allow a passion which ought only to ennoble him and teach him self-control, to chase him to such ruin as I saw tonight.”

“That is your way of viewing the matter, Mr. Redfield. We all see things according to the color of the spectacles we happen to wear. Then you think it is a growing certainty that Miss Argyll, even under her present relief from past vows, will never favor his suit, nor that of any man, which is driving her cousin to these reckless habits?”

I was half-offended with him for mentioning her name in that manner; but I knew that mine was an extreme, if not a morbid sensitiveness, where she was concerned, and I swallowed my resentment, answering,

“I fear it is.”

“That may explain his disquiet to you⁠—so be it.”

Still Mr. Burton was keeping something back from me⁠—always keeping something back. I did not feel at all sleepy. I was full of eager thought. I reviewed, with a lightning glance, all that he had ever said⁠—all James had recently done or said⁠—and, I swear, had it not been for the almost affectionate kindness of his general manner to me, and my belief in his candor, which would not allow him to play the part of a friend while acting the part of an enemy, I should have felt that Mr. Burton suspected me of that appalling crime which I was so busily seeking to fix upon the head of a frail, frightened woman! Again the idea, and not for the first time, crept through my veins, chilling me from head to foot. I looked him full in the eyes. If he had such a thought, I would pluck it out from behind that curtain of deception, and make him acknowledge it. If he had such a thought, James had introduced it to his mind. I knew that James had had some interviews with him, of which I was only cognizant by casual observations dropped by my host. How many more conclaves they may have held, was left to my imagination to conjecture. What was this man before me playing this double part for?⁠—a friend to each, but never to both together. The reader may smile, and answer that it is the very calling and existence of a detective to play a double part; and that I ought not to be chagrined to find him exercising his fine talents upon me. Perhaps James also had reason to fancy himself this man’s confidant and friend, who was playing us, one against the other, for purposes of his own. It was the thought that Mr. Burton, before whom more than any other person in this world, except my mother, I had been wiled to lay open my soul, could suspect me of any hidden part in that dark tragedy, which chilled me to the marrow.

But no!⁠—it was impossible! I saw it now in the frank and smiling eyes which met my searching and lengthy gaze.

“There!” he cried, gayly, “there is a ray of actual sunrise. The fire is out; the room is chilly⁠—the morning has come upon us. We have sat out the night, Richard! Let me show you to your room; we will not breakfast until nine o’clock, and you can catch a couple of hours’ repose in the meantime.” He took up a lamp, and we ascended the stairs. “Here is your chamber. Now, remember, I bid you sleep, and let that clock in your brain run down. It is bad for the young to think too deeply. Good⁠—morning.”