ISABEL OSTRANDER: Mystery & Western Classics: One Thirty, The Crevice, Anything Once, The Fifth Ace & Island of Intrigue. Isabel Ostrander
rich, rounded, pulpit tones, which were habitual with him. “‘Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another; before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and world were made—’”
A low knocking upon the door interrupted him, and the butler appeared.
“Mr. Rockamore and Mr. Mallowe,” Anita Lawton read aloud from the cards he presented. “Oh, I can’t see them now. Tell them, Wilkes, that my minister is with me, and they must forgive me for denying myself to them.”
The butler retired, and the Rev. Dr. Franklin, at the mention of two of the most prominent and influential men in the city since the death of Lawton, turned bulging, inquiring eyes upon the girl.
“My dear child, is it wise for you to refuse to see two of your father’s best friends? You will need their help, their kindness—a woman alone in the world, no matter how exalted her position, needs friends. Mr. Mallowe is not one of my parishioners, but I understand that as president of the Street Railways, he was closely associated with your dear father in many affairs of finance. Mr. Rockamore I know to be a man of almost unlimited power in the world in which Mr. Lawton moved. Should you not see them? Remember that you are under my protection in every way, of course, but since our Heavenly Father has seen fit to take unto Himself your dear one, I feel that it would be advisable for you to place yourself under the temporal guidance of those whom he trusted, at any rate for the time being.”
“Oh, I feel that they were my father’s friends, but not mine. Since mother and my little sister and brother were lost at sea, so many years ago, I have learned to depend wholly upon my father, who was more comrade than parent. Then, as you know, I met Ramon—Mr. Hamilton, and of course I trust him as implicitly as I must trust you. But although, on many occasions, I assisted my father to receive his financial confrères on a social basis, I cannot feel at a time like this that I care to talk with any except those who are nearest and dearest to me.”
“But suppose they have come, not wholly to offer you consolation, but to confer with you upon some business matters upon which it would be advantageous for you to inform yourself? Your grief and desire for seclusion are most natural, under the circumstances, but one must sometimes consider earthly things also.” The minister’s evidently eager desire to be present at an interview with the great men and to place himself on a more familiar footing with them was so obvious that Anita’s gesture of dissent held also something of repugnance.
“I could not, Dr. Franklin. Perhaps later, when the first shock has passed, but not yet. You understand that I like them both most cordially. Those whom father trusted must be men of sterling worth, but just now I feel as must an animal which has been beaten. I want to creep off into a dark and silent place until my misery dulls a little.”
“You have borne up wonderfully well, dear child, under the severe shock of this tragedy. Mrs. Franklin and I have remarked upon it. You have exhibited the same self-mastery and strength of character which made your father the man he was.” Dr. Franklin arose from his chair with a sigh which was not altogether perfunctory. “Think well over what I have said. Try to realize that your only consolation and strength in this hour of your deepest sorrow come from on High, and believe that if you take your poor, crushed heart to the Throne of Grace it shall be healed. That has been promised us. Think, also, of what I have just said to you concerning your father’s associates, and when next they call, as they will, of course, do very shortly, try to receive them with your usual gracious charms, and should they offer you any advice upon worldly matters, which we must not permit ourselves to neglect, send for me. I will leave you now. Mrs. Franklin will call upon you to-morrow. Try to be brave and calm, and pray for the guidance which will be vouchsafed you, should you ask it, frankly and freely.”
Anita Lawton gave him her hand and accompanied him in silence to the door. There, with a few gentle words, she dismissed him, and when the sound of his measured footsteps had diminished, she closed the door with a little gasp of half relief, and turned to the window. It had been an effort to her to see and talk with her spiritual adviser, whose hypocrisy she had vaguely felt.
If only Ramon had come—Ramon, whose wife she would be in so short a time, and who must now be father as well as husband to her. She glanced at the little French clock on the mantel. He was late—he had promised to be there at four. As she parted the heavy curtains, the telephone upon her father’s desk, in the corner, shrilled sharply. When she took the receiver off the hook, the voice of her lover came to the girl as clearly, tenderly, as if he, himself, stood beside her.
“Anita, dear, may I come to you now?”
“Oh, please do, Ramon; I have been waiting for you. Dr. Franklin called this afternoon, and while he was here with me Mr. Rockamore and Mr. Mallowe came, but I could not see them. There is something I feel I must talk over with you.”
She hung up the receiver with a little sigh, and for the first time in days a faint suspicion of a smile lightened her face. As she turned away, however, her eyes fell upon the great leather chair by the hearth, and her expression changed as she gave an uncontrollable shudder. It was in that chair her father had been found on that fateful morning, about a week ago, clad still in the dinner-clothes of the previous evening, a faint, introspective smile upon his keen, inscrutable face; his eyes wide, with a politely inquiring stare, as if he had looked upon things which until then had been withheld from his vision. She walked over to the chair, and laid her hand where his head had rested. Then, all at once, the tension within her seemed to snap and she flung herself within its capacious, wide-reaching arms, in a torrent of tears—the first she had shed.
It was thus that Ramon Hamilton found her, on his arrival twenty minutes later, and without ado, he gathered her up, carried her to the window-seat, and made her cry out her heart upon his shoulder.
When she was somewhat quieted he said to her gently, “Dearest, why will you insist upon coming to this room, of all others, at least just for a little time? The memories here will only add to your suffering.”
“I don’t know; I can’t explain it. That chair there in which poor father was found has a peculiar, dreadful fascination for me. I have heard that murderers invariably return sooner or later to the scene of their crime. May we not also have the same desire to stay close to the place whence some one we love has departed?”
“You are morbid, dear. Bring your maid and come to my mother’s house for a little, as she has repeatedly asked you to do. It will make it so much easier for you.”
“Perhaps it would. Your mother has been so very kind, and yet I feel that I must remain here, that there is something for me to do.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, dearest?”
She turned swiftly and placed her hands upon his broad shoulders. Her childish eyes were steely with an intensity of purpose hitherto foreign to them.
“Ramon, there is something I have not told you or any one; but I feel that the time has come for me to speak. It is not nervousness, or imagination; it is a fact which occurred on the night of my father’s death.”
“Why speak of it, Anita?” He took her hands from his shoulders, and pressed them gently, but with quiet strength. “It is all over now, you know. We must not dwell too much upon what is past; I shall have to help you to put it all from your mind—not to forget, but to make your memories tender and beautiful.”
“But I must speak of it. It will be on my mind day and night until I have told you. Ramon, you dined with us that night—the night before. Did my father seem ill to you?”
“Of course not. I had never known him to be in better health and spirits.” Ramon glanced at her in involuntary surprise.
“Are you sure?”
“Why do you ask me that? You know that heart-disease may attack one at any time without warning.”
Anita sank upon the window-seat again, and leaned forward pensively, her hands clasped over her knees.
“You will remember that after you and father had your coffee and cigars