The Blind Spot, Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall [books to read for 13 year olds txt] 📗

It is rather unfortunate. In the natural delicacy of the situation Jerome could not crowd too closely. He had no certainty of trouble; no proof whatever; he was known to the professor. The best he could do was to keep aloof and follow their movements. At the ferry building they hailed a taxi and started up Market Street. Jerome watched them. In another moment he had another driver and was winding behind in their wheel tracks. The cab made straight for Chatterton Place. In front of a substantial two-story house it drew up. The two men alighted. Jerome's taxi passed them.

They were then at the head of the steps; a woman of slender beauty with a wonderful loose fold of black hair was talking. It seemed to the detective that her voice was fearful, of a pregnant warning, that she was protesting. Nevertheless, the old men entered and the door slammed behind them. Jerome slipped from the taxi and spoke a few words to the driver. A moment later the two men were holding the house under surveillance.

They did not have long to wait. The man called Rhamda had asked for fifteen minutes. At the stroke of the second the front door re-opened. Someone was laughing; a melodious enchanting laugh and feminine. A woman was speaking. And then there were two forms in the doorway. A man and a woman. The man was Rhamda Avec, tall, immaculate, black clad and distinguished. The woman, Jerome was not certain that she was the same who opened the door or not; she was even more beautiful. She was laughing. Like her companion she was clad in black, a beautiful shimmering material which sparkled in the sun like the rarest silk. The man glanced carelessly up and down the street for a moment. Then he assisted the lady down the steps and into the taxi. The door slammed; and before the detective could gather his scattered wits they were lost in the city.

Jerome was expecting the professor. Naturally when the door opened he looked for the old gentleman and his companion. It was the doctor he was watching, not the other. Though he had no rational reason for expecting trouble he had still his hunch and his intuition. The man and woman aroused suspicion; and likewise upset his calculation. He could not follow them and stay with the professor. It was a moment for quick decision. He wondered. Where was Dr. Holcomb? This was the day he was to deliver his lecture on the Blind Spot. He had read the announcement in the paper on the way back, together with certain comments by the editor. In the lecture itself there was mystery. This strange one, Rhamda, was mixed in the Blind Spot. Undoubtedly he was the essential fact and substance. Until now he had not scented tragedy. Why had Rhamda and the woman come out together? Where was the professor?

Where indeed?

At the end of a half-hour Jerome ventured across the street. He noted the number 288. Then he ascended the steps and clanged at the knocker. From the sounds that came from inside, the place was but partly furnished. Hollow steps sounded down the hallway, shuffling, like weary bones dragging slippers. The door opened and an old woman, very old, peered out of the crack. She coughed. Though it was not a loud cough it seemed to the detective that it would be her last one; there was so little of her.

“Pardon me, but is Dr. Holcomb here?”

The old lady looked up at him. The eyes were of blank expressionless blue; she was in her dotage.

“You mean—oh, yes, I think so, the old man with the white whiskers. He was here a few minutes ago, with that other. But he just went out, sir, he just went out.”

“No, I don't think so. There was a man went out and a woman. But not Dr. Holcomb.”

“A woman? There was no woman.”

“Oh, yes, there was a woman—a very beautiful one.”

The old lady dropped her hand. It was trembling.

“Oh, dear,” she was saying. “This makes two. This morning it was a man and now it is a woman, that makes two.”

It seemed to the man as he looked down in her eyes that he was looking into great fear; she was so slight and frail and helpless and so old; such a fragile thing to bear burden and trouble. Her voice was cracked and just above a shrill whisper, almost uncanny. She kept repeating:

“Now there are two. Now there are two. That makes two. This morning there was one. Now there are two.”

Jerome could not understand. He pitied the old lady.

“Did you say that Dr. Holcomb is here?”

Again she looked up: the same blank expression, she was evidently trying to gather her wits.

“Two. A woman. Dr. Holcomb. Oh, yes, Dr. Holcomb. Won't you come in?”

She opened the door.

Jerome entered and took off his hat. Judicially he repeated the doctor's name to keep it in her mind. She closed the door carefully and touched his arm. It seemed to him that she was terribly weak and tottering; her old eyes, however expressionless, were full of pitiful pleading. She was scarcely more than a shadow.

“You are his son?”

Jerome lied; but he did it for a reason. “Yes.”

“Then come.”

She took him by the sleeve and led him to a room, then across it to a door in the side wall. Her step was slow and feeble; twice she stopped to sing the dirge of her wonder. “First a man and then a woman. Now there is one. You are his son.” And twice she stopped and listened. “Do you hear anything? A bell? I love to hear it: and then afterward I am afraid. Did you ever notice a bell? It always makes you think of church and the things that are holy. This is a beautiful bell—first—”

Either the woman was without her reason or very nearly so: she was very frail.

“Come, mother, I know, first a bell, but Dr. Holcomb?”

The name brought her back again. For a moment she was blank trying to recall her senses. And then she remembered. She pointed to the door.

“In there—Dr. Holcomb. That's where they come. That's where they go. Dr. Holcomb. The little old man with the beautiful whiskers. This morning it was a man; now it is a woman. Now there are two. Oh, dear; perhaps we shall hear the bell.”

Jerome began to scent a tragedy. Certainly the old lady was uncanny; the house was bare and hollow; the scant furniture was threadbare with age and mildew; each sound was exaggerated and fearful, even their breathing. He placed his hand on the knob and opened the door.

“Now there are two. Now there are two.”

The room was empty. Not a bit of furniture; a blank, bare apartment with an old-fashioned high ceiling. Nothing else. Whatever the weirdness and adventure, Jerome was getting nowhere. The old