The Blind Man's Eyes, William MacHarg [ebook audio reader txt] 📗

you must have taken it to attack me, or to protect me from attack; to learn something from me, or to inform me of something; and I eliminated as incompatible with the facts, the second of these—I said you could not have taken it to protect me."

"Yes."

"Very well; the reason I have sent for you now is that, having eliminated to-day still another of those possibilities,—leaving only two,—I want to call your attention in a certain order to some of the details of what happened on the train."

"You say that to-day you have eliminated another of the possibilities?" Eaton asked uneasily.

"To-day, yes; of course. You had rather a close call this morning, did you not?"

"Rather, I was careless."

"You were careless?" Santoine smiled derisively. "Perhaps you were—in one sense. In another, however, you have been very careful, Eaton. You have been careful to act as though the attempt to run you down could not have been a deliberate attack; you were careful to call it an accident; you were careful not to recognize any of the three men in the motor."

"I had no chance to recognize any of them, Mr. Santoine," Eaton replied easily. "I did not see the car coming; I was thrown from my feet; when I got up, it was too far away for me to recognize any one."

"Perhaps so; but were you surprised when my daughter recognized one of them as having been on the train with us?"

Eaton hesitated, but answered almost immediately:

"Your question doesn't exactly fit the case. I thought Miss Santoine had made a mistake."

"But you were not surprised; no. What would have been a surprise to you, Eaton, would have been—if you had had a chance to observe the men—to have found that none of them—none of them had been on the train!"

Eaton started and felt that he had colored. How much did Santoine know? Had the blind man received, as Eaton feared, some answer to his inquiries which had revealed, or nearly revealed, Eaton's identity? Or was it merely that the attack made on Eaton that morning had given Santoine new light on the events that had happened on the train and particularly—Eaton guessed—on the cipher telegram which Santoine claimed to have translated? Whatever the case might be, Eaton knew that he must conceal from Harriet the effect the blind man's words produced on him. Santoine, of course, could not see these effects; and he had kept his daughter in the room to watch for just such things. Eaton glanced at her; she was watching him and, quite evidently, had seen his discomposure, but she made no comment. As he regained possession of himself, her gaze went back intently to her father. Eaton looked from her back to the blind man, and saw that Santoine was waiting for him to speak.

"You assume that, Mr. Santoine," he asserted, "because—" He checked himself and altered his sentence. "Will you tell me why you assume that?"

"That that would have surprised you? Yes; that is what I called you in here to tell you."

As Santoine waited a moment before going on, Eaton watched him anxiously. The blind man turned himself on his pillows so as to face Eaton more directly; his sightless, motionless eyes told nothing of what was going on in his mind.

"Just ten days ago," Santoine said evenly and dispassionately, "I was found unconscious in my berth—Section Three of the rearmost sleeper—on the transcontinental train, which I had taken with my daughter and Avery at Seattle. I had been attacked,—assailed during my sleep some time in that first night that I spent on the train,—and my condition was serious enough so that for three days afterward I was not allowed to receive any of the particulars of what had happened to me. When I did finally learn them, I naturally attempted to make certain deductions as to who it was that had attempted to murder me, and why; and ever since, I have continued to occupy myself with those questions. I am going to tell you a few of my deductions. You need not interrupt me unless you discover me to be in error, and then in error only in fact or observation which, obviously, had to be reported to me. If you fancy I am at fault in my conclusions, wait until you discover your error."

Santoine waited an instant; Eaton thought it was to allow him to speak if he wanted to, but Eaton merely waited.

"The first thing I learned," the blind man went on, "was the similarity of the attack on me to the more successful attack on Warden, twelve days previous, which had caused his death. The method of the two attacks was the same; the conditions surrounding them were very similar. Warden was attacked in his motor, in a public street; his murderer took a desperate chance of being detected by the chauffeur or by some one on the street, both when he made the attack and afterward when he escaped unobserved, as it happened, from the automobile. The attack upon me was made in the same way, perhaps even with the same instrument; my assailant took equally desperate chances. The attack on me was made on a public conveyance where the likelihood of the murderer being seen was even greater, for the train was stopped, and under conditions which made his escape almost impossible. The desperate nature of the two attacks, and their almost identical method, made it practically certain that they originated at the same source and were carried out—probably—by the same hand and for the same purpose.

"Mrs. Warden's statement to me of her interview with her husband a half-hour before his murder, made it certain that the object of the attack on him was to 'remove' him. It seemed almost inevitable, therefore, that the attack on me must have been for the same purpose. There have been a number of times in my life, Eaton, when I have known that it would be to the advantage of some one if I were 'removed'; that I do not know now any definite reason for such an act does not decrease its probability; for I do not know why Warden was 'removed.'

"I found that a young man—yourself—had acted so suspiciously both before and after the attack on me that both Avery and the conductor in charge of the train had become convinced that he was my assailant, and had segregated him from the rest of the passengers. Not only this, but—and this seemed quite conclusive to them—you admitted that you were the one who had called upon Warden the evening of his murder. Warden's statement to his wife that you were some one he was about to befriend—which had been regarded as exculpating you from share in his murder—ceased to be so conclusive now that you had been present at a second precisely similar attack; and it certainly was no proof that you had not attacked me. It seemed likely, too, that you were the only person on the train aside from my daughter and Avery who knew who I was; for I had had reason to believe from the time when I first heard you speak when you boarded the train, that you were some one with whom I had, previously, very briefly come in contact; and I had asked my daughter to find out who you were, and she had tried to do so, but without success."

Eaton wet his lips.

"Also," the blind man continued, "there was a telegram which definitely showed that there was some connection, unknown to me, between you and me, as well as a second—or rather a previous—suspicious telegram in cipher, which we were able to translate."

Eaton leaned forward, impelled to speak; but as Santoine clearly detected this impulse and waited to hear what he was going to say, Eaton reconsidered and kept silent.

"You were going to say something about that telegram in cipher?" Santoine asked.

"No," Eaton denied.

"I think you were; and I think that a few minutes ago when I said you were not surprised by the attempt made to-day to run you down, you were also going to speak of it; for that attempt makes clear the meaning of the telegram. Its meaning was not clear to me before, you understand. It said only that you were known and followed. It did not say why you were followed. I could not be certain of that; there were several possible reasons why you might be followed—even that the 'one' who 'was following' might be some one secretly interested in preventing you from an attack on me. Now, however, I know that the reason you feared the man who was following was because you expected him to attack you. Knowing that, Eaton—knowing that, I want to call your attention to the peculiarity of our mutual positions on the train. You had asked for and were occupying Section Three in the third sleeper, in order—I assume and, I believe, correctly—to avoid being put in the same car with me. In the night, the second sleeper—the car next in front of yours—was cut off from the train and left behind. That made me occupy in relation to the forward part of the train exactly the same position as you had occupied before the car ahead of you had been cut out. I was in Section Three in the third sleeper from the front."

Eaton stared at Santoine, fascinated; what had been only vague, half felt, half formed with himself, was becoming definite, tangible, under the blind man's reasoning. He was aware that Harriet Santoine was looking alternately from him to her father, herself startled by the revelation thus passionlessly recited. What her father was saying was new to her; he had not taken his daughter into his confidence to this extent.

Eaton's hands closed instinctively, in his emotion. "What do you mean?"

"You understand already," Santoine asserted. "The attack made on me was meant for you. Some one stealing through the cars from the front to the rear of the train and carrying in his mind the location Section Three in the third car, struck through the curtains by mistake at me instead of you. Who was that, Eaton?"

Eaton sat unanswering, staring.

"You did not realize before, that the man on the train meant to murder you?" Santoine demanded.

"No," said Eaton.

"I see you understand it now; and that it was the same man—or some one accompanying the man—who tried to run you down this morning. Who is that man?"

"I don't know," Eaton answered.

"You mean you prefer to shield him?"

"Shield him?"

"That is what you are doing, is it not? For, even if you don't know the man directly, you know in whose cause and under whose direction he murdered Warden—and why and for whom he is attempting to murder you."

Eaton remained silent.

In his intensity, Santoine had lifted himself from his pillows. "Who is that man?" he challenged. "And what is that connection between you and me which, when the attack found and disabled me instead of you, told him that—in spite of his mistake—his result had been accomplished? told him that, if I was dying, a repetition of the attack against you was unnecessary?"

Eaton knew that he had grown very pale; Harriet must be aware of the effect Santoine's words had on him, but he did not dare look at her now to see how much she was comprehending. All his attention was needed to defend himself against Santoine.

"I don't understand." He fought to compose himself.

"It is perfectly plain," Santoine said patiently. "It was believed at first that I had been fatally hurt; it was even reported at one time—I understand—that I was dead; only intimate friends have been informed of my actual condition. Yesterday, for the first time, the newspapers announced the certainty of my recovery; and to-day an attack is made on you."

"There has been no opportunity for an attack on me before, if this was an attack. On the train I was locked up under charge of the conductor."

"You