Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, January 19, 1923, Image 2
Rl ee —————— LLM». HR ph pm ET —— PRIA, : imagined, unnerved Eaton. He “Because vor weie in such a situa- | as he realized this. his mind was | feigned recognition as he gave him started up. then eonk hack for her. | tion that, if Mr. Warden defended | full of what he Lad to do in San- | his name in return. SYNOPSIS CHAPTER 1.—Gabriel Warden, Seattle capitalist, tells his butler he is expecting a caller, to be admitted without question. He informs his wife of danger that threatens him if he pursues a course he considers the only honorable one. War- den leaves the house in his car and meets man whom he takes into the machine. en the car returns home, Warden is found dead, murdered, and alone. The caller, a young man, has been at War- den’s house, but leaves unobserved. CHAPTER I11.—Bob Connery, conductor, receives orders to hold train for a party. Five men and a girl board the train The father of the girl, Mr. Dorne, is the Poison for whom the train was held hilip D. Eaton, a young man, also boarded the train. Dorne tells his daugh- ter and his secretary, Don Avery, to find out what they can concerning him. CHAPTER III.—The two make Eaton's acquaintance. The train is stopped by snowdrifts. CHAPTER IV.—Eaton receives a tele- gram addressed to Lawrence Hillwara, which he claims. It warns him he is being followed. CHAPTER V.—Passing through the car, Connery notices Dorne’s hand hanging outside the berth. He ascertains Dorne’s has recently rung. Perturbed, he investigates and finds Dorne with his skull crushed. He calls a surgeon, Dr. Sinclair, on the train, CHAPTER VI.—Sinclair recognizes the injured man as Basil Santoine, who, al- though blind, is a peculiar power in the financial world as adviser to ‘big inter ests.” His recovery is a matter of doubt CHAPTER VIIL.—Eaton is practically placed under arrest. He refuses to make explanations as to his previous move- ments before boarding the train, but its he was the man who called on arden the night the financier was mur ed. CHAPTER IX.—Eaton riet Santoine to withhold judgment, tell- ing her he is in serious danger, though johocent of the crime against her father feels the girl believes him, (Continued from last week), Her color deepened, and for an in- stant, he thought he saw full belief in him growing in her eyes; but if she could not accept the charge against him, neither could she consciously deny it, and the hands she had been pressing together suddenly dropped. “I—I'm afraid nothing I could say would have much effect on them, knowing as little about—about you as I do!” They dashed the door open then— silenced and overwhelmed him; and leads with Har- They Dashed the Door Open, Then— they took her from the room and left him alone again. But there was something left with him which they could not take away; for in the moment he had stood alone with her and passionately pleading, something had passed between them—he could give no name to it, but he knew that Harriet Santoine never could think of him again without a stirring of her pulses which drew her toward him. The following morning the relieving snowplows arrived from the Fast, and Eaton felt it was the beginning of the end for him. He watched from his window men struggling in the snow about the forward end of the train; then the train moved fwrward past the shoveled and trampled snow where rock and pieces of the snowplow were piled beside the track—stopped, waited; finally it went on again and began to take up its steady progress. The attack upon Santoine having taken place in Montana, Eaton thought that he would be turned over to the police somewhere within that state, and he expected it would be done at the first stop; but when the train slowed at Simons, he saw the town was nothing ore than a little hamlet beside a side-track. They surely could not deliver him to the village authorities here. It made no material difference to him, Eaton realized, whether the pu Uece took him in Mentana or Chi- cago, since In either case recogni. tion of him would be certain in the end; but in Chicago this recognition must be immediate, complete, and ut- terly convincing, The train was traveling steadily and taster than its regular schedule; fit evidently was running as a special, © DLIND MANS EYES BY WILLIAM MACHARGEDWIN BALMER. Mustrations by R.H.Livingstone COPYRIGHT BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. ec eome other train taking the ordinary traffic; it halted now only at the largest cities. In the morning it crossed inte Minnesota; and in the late afternoon, slowing, it rolled into some large city which Eaton knew must be Minneapolis or St. Paul. The car here was uncoupled from the train #nd picked up by a switch engine; as dusk fell, Eaton, peering out of his window, could see that they had been left lying in the railroad yards; and about midnight, awakening in his berth, he realized that the car was still motionless. He could account for this stoppage in their progress only by some change in the condition of Santoine. Was Santoine sinking, so that they no longer dared to travel? Was he, perhans—dead? No sounds came to him from the car to confirm Eaton in any con- clusion; there was nothing to be learned from anyone outside the car. Eaton lay for a long time, listening for other sounds and wondering what was occurring—or had occurred—at the other end of his car. Toward morning he fell asleep. CHAPTER X Publicity Not Wanted. “Basil Santoine dying! Blind mil- lionaire lawyer taken ill on train!” The alarm of the cry came to answer Llaton's question early the next morning He threw up the curtain and saw a vagrant newsboy, evidently passing through the railroad yards to sell to the trainmen. Eaton, hail- ing the boy put out his hand for a paper. He spread the news-sheet be fore him and read that Santoine’s con- dition was very low and becoming rapidly worse. But below, under a Montana date-line, Eaton saw it pro- claimed that the blind millionaire was merely sick; there was no suggestion anywhere of an attack. stated only that Basil Santoine, re- turning from Seattle with his daugh- ter and his secretary, Donald Avery, had been taken seriously ill upon a | days in the snow in Montana. The column ended with the statement that Mr. Santoine had passed through Minneapolis and gone on to Chicago under care of Dr. Douglas Sinclair. Eaton stared at the newspaper with- out reading, after he saw that. He had not realized, until now that he was told that Harriet Santoine had | gone—for if her father had gone on. of course she was with him—the ex- tent to which he had felt her fair- ness, almost her friendship to him. At least, he knew now that, since she had spoken to him after he was first ac- cused of the attack on her father, he had not felt entirely deserted or friendless till now. But why, if Santoine had been taken away, or was dead or dying, had they left Eaton all night in the car in the yards? Since Santoine was dying, would there be any longer an object in concealing the fact that he had been murdered? He dressed and then paced back and forth the two or three steps his compartment allowed him, He stopped now and then to listen; from outside came the noises of the yard; but he made out no sound within the car. If it had been occupied as on ‘he days previous, he must have heard some one coming to the washroom at his end. Was he alone in the car now, or had the customary moving about taken place before he awoke? Finally, to free himself from his nervous listening for sounds which never came, he picked up the paper again. He read: “The news of Mr. Santoine’s visit of a week on: the Coast, if not known already in great financial circles, is likely to prove interesting therc. For years he has been the chief agent in keeping peace among some of the great conflicting interests, and more than once he has advised the declar- ing of financial war when war seemed to him the correct solution. Thus, five years ago, when the violent death of Matthew Latron threatened to pre- cipitate trouble among western capitalists, Santoine kept awder in what might very well become financial chays. If his recent visit to the Pacific coast was not purely for personal reasons but was also to adjust antagonisms such as charged by Gabriel Warden before his death, the loss of Santoine at this time may orecipitate troubles which, living, his advice and information might have been ahle to prevent.” Having read and reread this long paragraph, Eaton thrust the sheet out the window. As he sat think- ing, with lips tight closed, he heard for the first time that morning foot- <ieps at his end of the car. The door of his compartment was un- locked and opened, and he saw Doc- ‘or Sinclair. “Mr. Santoine wants to speak te ou,” the surgeon announced quietly, This startling negation of all he The paper . tor coupe SOre «Mr. Santoine is here, then?” “Here? Of course he's here?” “And he's conscious?” “He has been conscious for the hetter part of two days. Didn't they tell you?” Eaton looked toward the window, breathing hard. “ I heard the news. boys—" Sinclair shrugged. “The papers aint what they can get and in te way which seems most affective tuem,” was his only comment. The surgeon led Eaton to the sngr of the drawing room, showed him in and left him. Harriet Santoine was sitting on 'ne ittle lounge opposite the berth where ter father lay. She was watching the face of her father, and as Eaton étood in the door, he saw her lean NN 2) 1 YA en. Ss 72 Harriet Santoine Was Sitting on the Little Lounge Opposite the Lurih Where Her Father Lay. forward and gently touch her fatlers hand; then she turned and saw Euton. “Here Is Mr. Eaton, Father,” uhe said. » “Sit down,” Santoine directed. The blind man was very weak aud must stay quite still; and he recog: nized it; but he knew too that his strength was more than equal to the task of recovery, and he showed that he knew it. His mind and will were, obviously, at their full activity, and he had fully his sense of hearing. Harriet’'s lips trembled as sue turned to Eaton; but she did mot speak directly to him yet; it was Basil Santoine who suddenly inquired: “What is it they call you?” “My name is Philip D. Eaton.” Eaton realized as soon had been unnecessary, and Santoine had asked only to hear Eaton's voice. The blind man was silent for a moment, as he seemed to consider the voice and try again vainly to place it in his memories. Then he spoke to his daughter. “Describe him, Harriet.” Harriet paled and flushed. “About thirty,” she said, “—under rather than over that. Six feet or a little more in height. Slender, but muscular and athletic. Skin and eyes clear and with a look of health. Com- plexion naturally rather fair, but darkened by being outdoors a good deal. Hair dark brown, straight and parted at the side. Smooth shaven. Eyes blue-gray, with straight lashes. Eyebrows straight and dark. Fore: head smooth, broad and intelligent. Nose straight and neither short nor long; nostrils delicate. Mouth straight, with lips neither thin nor full. Chin neither square nor pointed, and with. out a cleft. Face and head, in gen- eral, of oyal Anglo-American type.” “Go on,” said Santoine. Harriet was breathing quickly. “Hands well shaped, strong but with- out sign of manual labor; nails cared for but not polished. Gray business suit, new. Soft-bosomed shirt of plain design with soft cuffs. Medium- height turn-down -hite linen collar. Four-in-hand tie, tied by himself. Black shoes. No jewelry except watch-chain.” “In general?’ Santoine suggested. “In general, apparently well-edu- ated, well-bred, intelligent young American. Expression frank. Manner self-controlled and reserved. Seems sometimes younger than he must be, sometimes older. Something has happened at some time which has had a great effect and can’t be for- gotten.” While she spoke, the blood, rising with her embarrassment, had dyed Harriet’'s face; suddenly now she looked away from him and out the window. “He would be called, I judge, a rather likable-looking man?” Santoine sald tentatively; his question plainly was only meant to lead up to some- thing else; Santoine had judged in that particalar already. “Mit Eaton"—Santoine addressed him suddenly—*I understand that you have admitted that you were at the house of Gabriel Warden the eve- ning he was killed while in his car. Is that so?" “Yes,” sald Eaton. “You are the man, then, of whom Gabriel Warden spoke to his wife?” “I believe s0.” “You believe so?” “I mean,” Eaton explained quietly. “that I came by appointment to cull on Mr, Warden that night. I believe that it must have been to me that Mr. Warden referred in the conversation with his wife which has since been quoted in the newspapers.” as he hie yt train which had been stalled for two | spoken that both question. and answer | you, he wouid himself meet danger?” “TI did not say that,” Eaton denied guardedly. “What, then, wa- your position in regard to Mr. Warden?” Eaton remained silent. “You refuse to answer?’ Santoine inquired. “T refuse.” “In spite of the probability that Mr. Wardes met his death because of his Intention to undertake sowie thing for you?” “I have not been able to fix that as a probability.” “Mr. Eaton, have I ever injured you personally—I don’t mean directly. as man to man, for I should remember that; have I ever done anything which indirectly has worked injury on yo© or your affairs?” “No,” Eaton answered. “Who sent you aboard this train?” “Sent me? No one.” “You took the train of your own will because I was taking it?” “I have not said 1 took it because you were taking it.” “That seems to be proved. You can accept it from me; it has been proved. Did you take the train in order to attack me?” “No.” “To spy upon me?” “No.” Sanrcine was silent for an instant. “What was it you took the train te tell me?” 417? Nothing.” “Thut is al, Mr. Eaton.” Eaton started back to his compart ment. As he turned, Harriet Santoine looked up at him and their eyes met; and her look confirmed to him what he had felt before—that her father, now taking control of the investigation of the attack upon himse!f, was not con- tinuing it with prejudice or predis- posed desire to damage Eaton, ex- cept as the evidence accused him. And her manner now told, even more plainly than Santoine’s, that the blind man had viewed the evidence as far from conclusive against. Eaton; and as Harriet showed that she was glad of that, Eaton realized how she must have taken his side against Avery in reporting to her father, Eaton had barely finished breakfast when a bumping against the car told him that it was being coupled to a train. The new train started, and now the track followed the Mississippi river. Eaton, looking forward from his window as the train rounded curves, saw that the Santoine car was now the last one of a train—pre- sumably bound from Minneapolis to Chicago. At nine o'clock in the eve- ning, some minutes after crossing the state line into Illinois, the train stopped at a station where the last car was cut off. A motor-ambulance and other limousine motor-cars were waiting in the light from the station. Eaton, seated at the window, saw Santoine carried out on a stretcher and put into the ambulance. Harriet Santoine, after giving a direction to a man who apparently was a chauffeur, got into the ambulance with her father. The surgeon and the nurses rode with them. They drove off. Avery entered another automobile, which swiftly dis- appeared. Conductor Connery came for the last time to Eaton's door. “Miss Santoine says you're to go with the man she’s left here for you.” The porter appeared with his over- coat and hat. Eaton put them on and stepped out of the car. The conductor escorted him to a 1:mousine car. “This is the gentleman,” Connery said to the chauffeur to whom Harriet San- toine had spoken. The man opened the door of the limousine; another man, whom Eaton had not before seen, was seated in the car; Eaton stepped in. Connery extended his hand—*“Good-by, sir.” “Good-by.” The motor-car drove down a wide, winding road with tall, spreading trees on both sides. The man in the car with Eaton, whose duty plainly was only that of a guard, did not speak to Eaton nor Eaton to him. The motor passed other limousines occasionally; then, though the road was still wide and smooth and still bounded by great trees, it was lonelier; no houses ap- peared for half a mile; then lights glowed directly ahead; the car ran un- der the porte-cochere of a great stone country mansion; a servant sprang to the door of the limousine and opened it; another man seized Eaton's hand-bag- gage from beside the chauffeur. Eaton entered a large, beamed and paneled hallway with an immense fireplace with logs burning in it; there was a wide stairway whg'h the servant, who had appointed himself Eaton's guide, ascended. Eaton followed him and found another great hall upstairs. The servant led him to one of the doors opening off this and into a large room, fitted for a man’s occupancy, with dark furniture, cases containing books on hunting, sports and adventure, and smoking things; ff this was a dress- ing room with the bath next; beyond was a bedroom. “These are to be your rooms, sir,” the servant said. A valet appeared and unpacked Eaton’s traveling bag. Eaton went to bed, but amazement would not let him sleep. He was in Santoine’s house; he knew it could be no other than San- toine’s house. It was to get into San- toine’s house that he had come from Asia; he had thought and planned and sshemed all through the long voyage on the steamer how it was to be done. He would have been willing to cross | the continent on foot to accomplish it; no labor that he could imagine would have seemed too great to him if this had been its end; and here it had been done without effort on his part, naturally, inevitably! Chance and circumstance had done it! And ‘| awake, toine’s house. For many days he had not thought about that; it had seemed impossible that he could have any op- portunity to act for himself. And the return to his thoughts of pos- sibility of carrying out his original plan brought before him thoughts of his friends—those friends whe through his exile, had been faithtul to him but whose identity or exisrence he had been obliged to deny, when questioned, to protect them as well as himself. As he lay on his bed in the dark, he stared upward to the ceiling, wide thinking of those friends whose devotion to him might be justi- fied at last; and he went over again and tested and reviewed the plan he had formed. But it never had pre- sumed a position for him—even if it was the position of a semi-prisoner— inside Santoine’s house. And he re- quired more information of the strue- ture of the house than he as yet had, to correct his plan further. But he could not, without too great risk of losing everything, discover more that night; he turned over and set himself to go to sleep. x1 CHAPTER The Ally in the House, The first gray of «dawn roused Eaton, { and drawing on trousers and coat | over his pajamas, he seated himself | By the open window to see the house ptt 1) Ee 2 The First Gray of Dawn Roused Eaton, and Drawing on Trousers and Coat Over His Pajamas, He Seated Himself by the Open Window to See the House by Daylight. by daylight. As it grew lighter, he could see it was an immense struc- ture of smooth grav stone. Eaton was in its central part, his windows look- ing to the south. As he watched, one of the two nurses who had been on the train came to a window of the farthest room on the second floor of the south wing and stood looking out; that, then, must be Santoine’s room; and Eaton drew back from his window as he noted this. The sun had risen, and its beams, reflected up from the lake, danced on his ceiling. Eaton, chilled by the sharp air off the water—and knowing now the locality where he must be— pulled off his coat and trousers and jumped back into bed. He realized that circumstamces had given him time for anything he might wish to do; for the night’s stop at Minneapolis and Santoine’s unexpected taking him into his own charge must have made Eaton's disappearance complete; for the present he was lost to “them” who had been “following” him, and to his friends alike. His task, then, was to let his friends knoa where he was without letting “them” learn it; and thinking of how this was to be done, he fell asleep again. At nine he awoke with a start; then, recollecting everything, he jumped up and shut his windows. There was a respectful, apologetic knock at the door; evidently a servant had been waiting in the hall for some sound within the room. “May I come in, sir?’ “Come in.” The man who had attended him the evening before entered. “Your bath, sir; hot or cold in the morning, sir?” “Hot,” Eaton answered. “Of course, sir; I'd forgotten you'd just come from the Orient, sir. I shall tell them to bring breakfast up, sir; or will you go down?’ the man asked. Eaton considered. The manners of servants are modeled on the feelings of their masters, and the man’s defer- ence told plainly that, although Eaton might be a prisoner, he was not to be treated openly as such. “T think I can go down,” Eaton re- plied. He found the hall and the rooms below bright and open but un- occupied; a servant showed him to a blue Delft breakfast room to the east. He had half finished his bacon and greens before anyone else ap- peared. This was a tall, carefully dressed man of more than fifty, with hand- soma, well-bred features—plainly a man of position and wealth but with- out experience in affairs, and with- out power. He was dark haired and wore a mustache which, like his hair, was beginning to gray. As he ap- rzared in the hall without hat or over- coat, Eaton understood that he lived in the house; he came directly into not breakrfasted. “I am Wallace Blatchford,” the stranger volunteered as Eaton looked up. He gave the name in a manner which seemed to assume that he now must be recalled; Eaton therefore “Basil Santoine is better this morn- ing,” Blatchford announced. “I understood he was very comfort- able last evening,” Eaton said. "1 have not seen either Miss Santoine or Mr. Avery, this morning.” “I saw Basil Santoine the lust thing last night,” the other boasted. “He was very fired: but when he was heme, of course be wished me to de beside him for a time.” “Of course,” Eaton replied, as the other halted. There was a humility in the boast of this man's friendship for Santoine which stirred sympathy, almost pity. Eaton finished his breakfast but re- mained at the table while Blatchford, who scarcely touched his food, con- vinued to boast, in his queer humility, of the blind man and of the blind man’s friendship for him. He checked himself only when Harriet Santoine appeared in the doorway. He and Eaton at once were on their feet. “My dear! He wants to see me now?” the tall man almost pleaded. “He wants me to be with him this morning?” “Of course, Cousin Wallace,” the girl said gently, almost with com- passion. “You will excuse me then, sir.” slatchford said hastily to Eaton and hurried off. The girl gazed after him, and when she turned the pext instant to Eaton her eyes were wet. = “Good morning, Miss Santoine. You are coming to breakfast?” “Oh, no; I've had my breakfast; I was going out to see that things out- side the house have been going on well since we have been away.” “May I go with you while you do that?” Eaton tried to ask casually. Important to him as was the plan of the house, it was scarcely less es- sential for him to know the grounds. She hesitated. “T understand it’s my duty at pres- ent to stay wherever I may be put; but I'll hardly run away from you while inside your own grounds.” This did not seem to be the ques- tion troubling her. “Very well,” she said at last. She was abstracted as they passed through the hall and a man brought Eaton’s overcoat and hat and a maid her coat. Harriet led the way out to the terrace. The day was crisp, but the breeze had lost the chill it had had earlier in the morning; the lake was free from ice; only along the little projecting break- waters which guarded the bluff against the washing of the waves, some ice still clung, and this was rapidly melt Ing. A graveled path led them around the south end of the house, Eaton saw at a little distance a powerful, strapping man, half-con- cealed—though he did not seem tc be hiding—behind some bushes. The man might have passed for an under- gardener; but he was not working: and once before during their walk Eaton had seen another man, power: fully built as this one, who had looked keenly at him and then away quick: ly. Harriet flushed slightly as she saw that Eaton observed the man; Ifaton understood then that the man was a guard, one of several, probably who had been put about the house to keep watch of him, Had Harriet Santoine understood his interest in the grounds as pre paratory to a plan to escape, and had she therefore taken him out to show him the guards who would prevent him? He did not speak of the men and neither did she; with her, he went on, silently, to the gardeners cottages, where she gave directions concerning the spring work being done on the grounds. Then they went back to the house, exchanging—for the first time between them—ordinary inani ties. She left him in the hall, saying she was going to visit her father. , As Eaton stood, undecided where to go, a young woman crossed the main part of the hall, coming evi- dently from outside the house—she had on hat and jacket and was gloved ; she was approaching the doors of the room he just had left, and so must pass him. He stared at sight of her and choked; then he controlled him: x NV! i R\/¢ I¥/ Wi 1, | un in ‘She Halted Suddenly As She Saw Him, : and Grew Very Pale. self rigidly, waiting until she should see him, (To be Continued.) the breakfast room and evidently had | —OQur world is certainly in a decid- edly topsy-turvy condition, In the United States conditions have been improving very rapidly during the past few days and there is reason to hope that contentment may soon be- come 2 general possession.