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And to prove this I picked out an instrumental piece which we had not played all the evening. It was the finale of the overture to “Faust”; a selection, by the way, which was a great favourite of Harry's and is one of mine. Ariadne listened in silence to the end.

“I seem to have heard something like it before,” she decided slowly. “The melody, not the—the instrumentation. But it reminds me of something that I like very much.” Whereupon she began to sing for us. But this time her voice was stronger and more dramatic; and as for the composition—all I can say is it had a wild, fierce ring to it, like “Men of Harlech”; only the notes did not correspond to the chromatic scale. SHE SANG IN AN ENTIRELY NEW MUSICAL SYSTEM.

“By George!” when she had done. “Now we HAVE got something! For the first time, we've heard some genuine, unadulterated Blind Spot stuff!”

“You mean,” from Charlotte, excitedly, “that she has finally recovered her memory?”

It was the girl herself who answered. She shot to her feet, and her face became transfigured with a wonderful joy. At the same time she blinked hurriedly, as though to shut off a sight that staggered her.

“Oh, I remember!”—she almost sobbed in her delight—“it is all plain to me, now! I know who I am!”







XXIII. — THE RHAMDA AGAIN

I could have yelled for joy. We were about to learn something of the Blind Spot—something that might help us to save Harry, and Chick, and the professor!

Ariadne seemed to know that a great deal depended upon what she was about to tell us. She deliberately sat down, and rested her chin upon her hand, as though determining upon the best way of telling something very difficult to express.

As for Charlotte, Jerry, and myself, we managed somehow to restrain our curiosity enough to keep silence. But we could not help glancing more or less wonderingly at our visitor. Presently I realised this, and got up and walked quietly about, as though intent upon a problem of my own.

Which was true enough. I had come to a very startling conclusion—I, Hobart Fenton, had fallen in love!

What was more, this affection of the heart had come to me, a very strong man, just as an affection of the lungs is said to strike such men—all of a sudden and hard. One moment I had been a sturdy, independent soul, intent upon scientific investigation, the only symptoms of sentimental potentialities being my perfectly normal love for my sister and for my old friend. Then, before my very eyes, I had been smitten thus!

And the worst part of it was, I found myself ENJOYING the sensation. It made not the slightest difference to me that I had fallen in love with a girl who was only a step removed from a wraith. Mysteriously she had come to me; as mysteriously she might depart. I had yet to know from what sort of country she had come!

But that made no difference. She was HERE, in the same house with me; I had held her hands; and I knew her to be very, very real indeed just then. And when I considered the possibility of her disappearing just as inexplicably as she had come—well, my face went cold, I admit. But at the same time I felt sure of this much—I should never love any other woman.

The thought left me sober. I paused in my pacing and looked at her. As though in answer to my gaze she glanced up and smiled so affectionately that it was all I could do to keep from leaping forward and taking her right into my arms.

I turned hastily, and to cover my confusion I began to hum a strain from the part of “Faust” to which I have referred. I hummed it through, and was beginning again, when I was startled to hear this from the girl: “Oh, then you are Hobart!”

I wheeled, to see her face filled with a wonderful light.

“Hobart,” she repeated, as one might repeat the name of a very dear one. “That—that music you were humming! Why, I heard Harry Wendel humming that yesterday!”

I suppose we looked very stupid, the three of us, so dumbfounded that we could do nothing but gape incredulously at that extraordinary creature and her equally extraordinary utterance. She immediately did her best to atone for her sensation.

“I'm not sure that I can make it clear,” she said, smiling dubiously, “but if you will use your imaginations and try to fill in the gaps in what I say you may get a fair idea of the place I have come from, and where Harry is.”

We leaned forward, intensely alert. I shall never forget the pitiful eagerness in poor Charlotte's face. It meant more to her, perhaps, than to anyone else.

At the precise instant I heard a sound, off in the breakfast room. It seemed to be a subdued knocking, or rather a pounding at the door.

Frowning at the interruption, I stepped through the dining-room into the breakfast room, where the sounds came from. And I was not a little puzzled to note that the door to the basement was receiving the blows.

Now I had been the last to visit the basement and had locked the door—from force of habit, I suppose—leaving the key in the lock. It was still there. And there is but one way to enter that basement: through this one door, and no other.

“Who is it?” I called out peremptorily. No answer; only a repetition of the pounds.

“What do you want?”—louder.

“Open this door, quick!” cane a muffled reply.

The voice was unrecognisable. I stood and thought quickly; then shouted:

“Wait a minute, until I get a key!”

I motioned to Charlotte. She tip-toed to my side. I whispered something in her ear; and she slipped off into the kitchen, there to phone Miss Clarke and warn her to notify her colleagues at once. And so, as I unlocked the door, I was fortified by the knowledge that I would be assisted by the combined mind-force of a score of highly developed intellects.

I was little surprised, a second later, to see that the intruder was Rhamda Avec. What reason to expect anyone else?

“How did you get down there?” I demanded. “Don't you realise that you are liable to arrest for trespass?”

I said it merely to start conversation but it served only to bring a slight smile to the face of this professed friend of ours, for whom we felt nothing but distrust and fear.

“Let us not waste time in trivialities, Fenton,” he rejoined gently. He brushed a fleck of cobweb from his coat. “By this time you ought to know

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