The Blind Man's Eyes Read online

  Produced by Al Haines

  Cover art]

  [Frontispiece: "Until I come to you as--as you have never known meyet!"]

  THE BLIND MAN'S EYES

  By WILLIAM MACHARG & EDWIN BALMER

  With Frontispiece

  By WILSON C. DEXTER

  A. L. BURT COMPANY

  Publishers ---- New York

  Published by Arrangements with LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY

  _Copyright, 1916,_

  BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

  _All rights reserved_

  To

  R. G.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I A FINANCIER DIES II THE EXPRESS IS HELD FOR A PERSONAGE III MISS DORNE MEETS EATON IV TRUCE V ARE YOU HILLWARD? VI THE HAND IN THE AISLE VII "ISN'T THIS BASIL SANTOINE?" VIII SUSPICION FASTENS ON EATON IX QUESTIONS X THE BLIND MAN'S EYES XI PUBLICITY NOT WANTED XII THE ALLY IN THE HOUSE XIII THE MAN FROM THE TRAIN XIV IT GROWS PLAINER XV DONALD AVERY IS MOODY XVI SANTOINE'S "EYES" FAIL HIM XVII THE FIGHT IN THE STUDY XVIII UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS XIX PURSUIT XX WAITING XXI WHAT ONE CAN DO WITHOUT EYES XXII THE MAN HUNT XXIII NOT EATON--OVERTON XXIV THE FLAW IN THE LEFT EYE XXV "IT'S ALL RIGHT, HUGH"--AT LAST

  THE BLIND MAN'S EYES

  CHAPTER I

  A FINANCIER DIES

  Gabriel Warden--capitalist, railroad director, owner of mines andtimber lands, at twenty a cow-puncher, at forty-eight one of thepredominant men of the Northwest Coast--paced with quick, uneven stepsthe great wicker-furnished living room of his home just above Seattleon Puget Sound. Twice within ten minutes he had used the telephone inthe hall to ask the same question and, apparently to receive the samereply--that the train from Vancouver, for which he had inquired, hadcome in and that the passengers had left the station.

  It was not like Gabriel Warden to show nervousness of any sort; Kondo,the Japanese doorman, who therefore had found something strange in thistelephoning, watched him through the portieres which shut off theliving-room from the hall. Three times Kondo saw him--big, uncouth inthe careless fit of his clothes, powerful and impressive in hisstrength of feature and the carriage of his well-shaped head--go to thewindow and, watch in hand, stand staring out. It was a Sunday eveningtoward the end of February--cold, cloudy and with a chill wind drivingover the city and across the Sound. Warden evidently saw no one as hegazed out into the murk; but each moment, Kondo observed, hisnervousness increased. He turned suddenly and pressed the bell to calla servant. Kondo, retreating silently down the hall, advanced againand entered the room; he noticed then that Warden's hand, which wasstill holding the watch before him, was shaking.

  "A young man who may, or may not, give a name, will ask for me in a fewmoments. He will say he called by appointment. Take him at once to mysmoking-room, and I will see him there. I am going to Mrs. Warden'sroom now."

  He went up the stairs, Kondo noticed, still absently holding his watchin his hand.

  Warden controlled his nervousness before entering his wife'sroom,--where she had just finished dressing to go out,--so that she didnot at first sense anything unusual. In fact, she talked with himcasually for a moment or so before she even sent away her maid. He hadpromised a few days before to accompany her to a concert; she thoughthe had come simply to beg off. When they were alone, she suddenly sawthat he had come to her to discuss some serious subject.

  "Cora," he said, when he had closed the door after the maid, "I wantyour advice on a business question."

  "A business question!" She was greatly surprised. She was a number ofyears younger than he; he was one of those men who believe all businessmatters should be kept from their wives.

  "I mean it came to me through some business--discoveries."

  "And you cannot decide it for yourself?"

  "I had decided it." He looked again at his watch. "I had quitedecided it; but now--It may lead to some result which I have suddenlyfelt that I haven't the right to decide entirely for myself."

  Warden's wife for the first time felt alarmed. She could not welldescribe his manner; it did not suggest fear for himself; she could notimagine his feeling such fear; but she was frightened. She put herhand on his arm.

  "You mean it affects me directly?"

  "It may. For that reason I feel I must do what you would have me do."

  He seized both her hands in his and held her before him; she waited forhim to go on.

  "Cora," he said, "what would you have me do if you knew I had found outthat a young man--a man who, four or five years ago, had as much tolive for as any man might--had been outraged in every right by men whoare my friends? Would you have me fight the outfit for him? Or wouldyou have me--lie down?"

  His fingers almost crushed hers in his excitement. She stared at himwith only pride then; she was proud of his strength, of his ability tofight, of the power she knew he possessed to force his way againstopposition. "Why, you would fight them!"

  "You mean you want me to?"

  "Isn't that what you had decided to do?"

  He only repeated. "You want me to fight them?"

  "Of course."

  "No matter what it costs?"

  She realized then that what he was facing was very grave.

  "Cora," he said, "I didn't come to ask your advice without putting thissquarely to you. If I go into this fight, I shall be not only anopponent to some of my present friends; I shall be a threat tothem--something they may think it necessary to remove."

  "Remove?"

  "Such things have happened--to better men than I, over smaller matters."

  She cried out. "You mean some one might kill you?"

  "Should that keep me from going in?"

  She hesitated. He went on: "Would you have me afraid to do a thingthat ought to be done, Cora?"

  "No," she said; "I would not."

  "All right, then. That's all I had to know now. The young man iscoming to see me to-night, Cora. Probably he's downstairs. I'll tellyou all I can after I've talked with him."

  Warden's wife tried to hold him a moment more, but he loosed himselffrom her and left her.

  He went directly downstairs; as he passed through the hall, thetelephone bell rang. Warden himself answered it. Kondo, who from hisplace in the hall overheard Warden's end of the conversation, made outonly that the person at the other end of the line appeared to be afriend, or at least an acquaintance, of Warden's. Kondo judged thisfrom the tone of the conversation; Warden spoke no names. Apparentlythe other person wished to see Warden at once. Warden finished, "Allright; I'll come and get you. Wait for me there." Then he hung up.

  Turning to Kondo, he ordered his limousine car. Kondo transmitted theorder and brought Warden's coat and cap; then Kondo opened the housedoor for him and the door of the limousine, which had been broughtunder the porte-cochere. Kondo heard Warden direct the chauffeur to adrug store near the center of the city; the chauffeur was PatrickCorboy, a young Irishman who had been in Warden's employ for more thanfive years; his faithfulness to Warden was never questioned. Corboydrove to the place Warden had directed. As they stopped, a young manof less than medium height, broad-shouldered and wearing a mackintosh,came to the curb and spoke to Warden. Corboy did not hear the name,but Warden immediately asked the man into the car; he directed Corboyto return home. The chauffeur did this, but was obliged on the way tocome to a complete stop several times, as he met streetcars or othervehicles on intersecting streets.

  Almost immediately after Warden had left the house, the door-bell rangand Kondo answered it. A young man with a quiet and pleasant bearinginquired for Mr. Warden and said he came by appointment. Kondo usheredhim into the smoking room, where the stran
ger waited. The Jap did notannounce this arrival to any one, for he had already received hisinstructions; but several times in the next half hour he looked in uponhim. The stranger was always sitting where he had seated himself whenKondo showed him in; he was merely waiting. In about forty minutes,Corboy drove the car under the porte-cochere again and got down andopened the door. Kondo had not heard the car at once, and thechauffeur had not waited for him. There was no motion inside thelimousine. The chauffeur looked in and saw Mr. Warden lying backquietly against the cushions in the back of the seat; he was alone.

  Corboy noticed then that the curtains all about had been pulled down;he touched the button and turned on the light at the top of the car,and then he saw that Warden was dead; his cap was off, and the top ofhis head had been smashed in by a heavy blow.

  The chauffeur drew back, gasping; Kondo, behind him on the steps, criedout and ran into the house calling for help. Two other servants andMrs. Warden, who had remained nervously in her room, ran down. Thestranger who had been waiting, now seen for the first time by Mrs.Warden, came out from the smoking room to help them. He aided intaking the body from the car and helped to carry it into the livingroom and lay it on a couch; he remained until it was certain thatWarden had been killed and nothing could be done. When this had beenestablished and further confirmed by the doctor who was called, Kondoand Mrs. Warden looked around for the young man--but he was no longerthere.

  The news of the murder brought extras out upon the streets of Seattle,Tacoma, and Portland at ten o'clock that night; the news took the firstpage in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York papers, in competitionwith the war news, the next morning. Seattle, stirred at once at themurder of one of its most prominent citizens, stirred still further atthe new proof that Warden had been a power in business and finance;then, as the second day's dispatches from the larger cities came in, itstirred a third time at the realization--for so men said--that this wasthe second time such a murder had happened.

  Warden had been what was called among men of business and finance amember of the "Latron crowd"; he had been close, at one time, to thegreat Western capitalist Matthew Latron; the properties in which he hadmade his wealth, and whose direction and administration had brought himthe respect and attention of other men, had been closely allied with oreven included among those known as the "Latron properties"; and Latron,five years before, had been murdered. The parallel between the twocases was not as great as the newspapers in their search for thestartling made it appear; nevertheless, there was a parallel. Latron'smurderer had been a man who called upon him by appointment, andWarden's murderer, it appeared, had been equally known to him, or atleast equally recommended. Of this as much was made as possible in thesuggestion that the same agency was behind the two.

  The statement of Cora Warden, indicating that Warden's death might havebeen caused by men with whom he was--or had been at onetime--associated, was compared with the fact that Latron's death hadoccurred at a time of fierce financial stress and warfare. But in thiscomparison Warden's statement to his wife was not borne out. Men ofhigh place in the business world appeared, from time to time during thenext few days, at Warden's offices and even at his house, coming fromother cities on the Coast and from as far east as Chicago; they feltthe need, many of them, of looking after interests of their own whichwere involved with Warden's. All concurred in saying that, so far asWarden and his properties were concerned, the time was one of peace;neither attack nor serious disagreement had threatened him.

  More direct investigation of the murder went on unceasingly throughthese days. The statements of Kondo and Corboy were verified; it waseven learned at what spot Warden's murderer had left the motorunobserved by Corboy. Beyond this, no trace was found of him, and thedisappearance of the young man who had come to Warden's house andwaited there for three quarters of an hour to see him was also complete.

  No suspicion attached to this young man; Warden's talk with his wifemade it completely clear that, if he had any connection with themurder, it was only as befriending him brought danger to Warden. Hisdisappearance seemed explicable therefore only in one way. Appeals tohim to come forward were published in the newspapers; he was offeredthe help of influential men, if help was what he needed, and a moneyreward was promised for revealing himself and explaining why Warden sawinevitable danger in befriending him. To these offers he made noresponse. The theory therefore gained ground that his appointment withWarden had involved him in Warden's fate; it was generally creditedthat he too must have been killed; or, if he was alive, he saw inWarden's swift and summary destruction a warning of his own fate if hecame forward and sought to speak at this time.

  Thus after ten days no information from or about this mysterious youngman had been gained.