Eleanor stared dumbly, remembering that this was the woman who had helped her to bed and had administered what had presumably been a second sleeping draught.

“Thought I heard you moving around upstairs. How be you? Hungry? I’ve got a bite ready.”

“I’d like a drink of water, please,” said Eleanor – “plain water,” she added with a significance that could not have been overlooked by a guilty conscience.

But the woman seemed to sense no ulterior meaning. “I’ll fetch it,” she said in a good-humoured voice, going to the sink.

While she was manipulating the pump, the girl moved nearer, frankly taking stock of her. The dim impression retained from their meeting in the early morning was merely emphasised by this second inspection; the woman was built on generous lines – big-boned, heavy and apparently immensely strong. A contented and easy-going humour shone from her broad, coarsely featured countenance, oddly contending with a suggestion of implacable obstinacy and tenacious purpose.

“Here you are,” she said presently, extending a glass filmed with the breath of the ice-cold liquid it contained.

“Thank you,” said Eleanor; and drank thirstily. “Who are you?” she demanded point blank, returning the glass.

“Mrs. Clover,” said the woman as bluntly, if with a smiling mouth.

“Where am I?”

“Well” – the woman turned to the stove and busied herself with coffee-pot and frying-pan while she talked – “this was the Wreck Island House oncet upon a time. I calculate it’s that now, only it ain’t run as a hotel any more. It’s been years since there was any summer folks come here – place didn’t pay, they said; guess that’s why they shet it up and how your pa come to buy it for a song.”

“Where is the Wreck Island House, then?” Eleanor put in.

“On Wreck Island, of course.”

“And where is that?”

“In Long Island Sound, about a mile off ’n the Connecticut shore. Pennymint Centre’s the nearest village.”

“That means nothing to me,” said the girl. “How far are we from New York?”

“I couldn’t rightly say – ain’t never been there. But your pa says – I heard him tell Eph once – he can make the run in his autymobile in an hour and a half. That’s from Pennymint Centre, of course.”

Eleanor pressed her hands to her temples, temporarily dazed by the information. “Island,” she repeated – “a mile from shore – New York an hour and a half away …!”

“Good, comfortable, tight little island,” resumed Mrs. Clover, pleased, it seemed, with the sound of her own voice; “you’ll like it when you come to get acquainted. Just the very place for a girl with your trouble.”

“My trouble? What do you know about that?”

“Your pa told me, of course. Nervous prostration’s what he called it – says as you need a rest with quiet and nothing to disturb you – plenty of good food and sea air – ”

“Oh stop!” Eleanor begged frantically.

“Land!” said the woman in a kindly tone – “I might ’ve known I’d get on your poor nerves, talking all the time. But I can’t seem to help it, living here all alone like I do with nobody but Eph most of the time… There!” she added with satisfaction, spearing the last rasher of bacon from the frying-pan and dropping it on a plate – “now your breakfast’s ready. Draw up a chair and eat hearty.”

She put the plate on the red table-cloth, flanked it with dishes containing soft-boiled eggs, bread and butter and a pot of coffee of delicious savour, and waved one muscular arm over it all with the gesture of a benevolent sorceress. “Set to while it’s hot, my dear, and don’t you be afraid; good food never hurt nobody.”

Momentarily, Eleanor entertained the thought of mutinous refusal to eat, by way of lending emphasis to her indignation; but hunger overcame the attractions of this dubious expedient; and besides, if she were to accomplish anything toward regaining her freedom, if it were no more than to register a violent protest, she would need strength; and already she was weak for want of food.

So she took her place and ate – ate ravenously, enjoying every mouthful – even though her mind was obsessed with doubts and fears and burning anger.

“You are the caretaker here?” she asked as soon as her hunger was a little satisfied.

“Reckon you might call us that, me and Eph; we’ve lived here for five years now, taking care of the island – ever since your pa bought it.”

“Eph is your husband?”

“That’s him – Ephraim Clover.”

“And – doesn’t he do anything else but – caretake?”

“Lord bless you, he don’t even do that; I’m the caretakeress. Eph don’t do nothing but potter round with the motor-boat and go to town for supplies and fish a little and ’tend to the garden and do the chores and – ”

“I should think he must keep pretty busy.”

“Busy? Him? Eph? Lord! he’s the busiest thing you ever laid your eyes on – poking round doing nothing at all.”

“And does nobody ever come here …?”

“Nobody but the boss.”

“Does he often – ?”

“That’s as may be and the fit’s on him. He comes and goes, just as he feels like. Sometimes he’s on and off the island half a dozen times a week, and again we don’t hear nothing of him for months; sometimes he just stops here for days and mebbe weeks, and again he’s here one minute and gone the next. Jumps round like a flea on a griddle, I say; you can’t never tell nothing about what he’s going to do or where he’ll be next… My land o’ mercy, Mr. Searle! What a start you did give me!”

The man had succeeded in startling both women, as a matter of fact. Eleanor, looking suddenly up from her plate on hearing Mrs. Clover’s cry of surprise, saw him lounging carelessly in the hall doorway, where he had appeared as noiselessly as a shadow. His sly, satiric smile was twisting his thin lips, and a sardonic humour glittered in the pale eyes that shifted from Eleanor’s face to Mrs. Clover’s, and back again.

“I wish,” he said, nodding to the caretaker, “you’d slip down to the dock and tell Eph to have the boat ready by seven o’clock.”

“Yes, sir,” assented Mrs. Clover hastily. She crossed at once toward the outer door. From her tone and the alacrity with which she moved to do his bidding, no less than from the half-cringing look with which she met his regard, Eleanor had no difficulty in divining her abject fear of this man whom she could, apparently, have taken in her big hands and broken in two without being annoyed by his struggles.

“And, here!” he called after her – “supper ready?”

“Yes, sir – quite.”

“Very well; I’ll have mine. Eph can come up as soon as he’s finished overhauling the motor. Wait a minute; tell him to be sure to bring the oars up with him.”

“Yes, sir, I will, sir.”

Mrs. Clover dodged through the door and, running down the pair of steps from the kitchen stoop to the ground, vanished behind the house.

“Enjoying your breakfast, I trust?”

Eleanor pushed back her chair and rose. She feared him, feared him as she might have feared any loathly, venomous thing; but she was not in the least spiritually afraid of him. Contempt and disgust only emphasised the quality of her courage. She confronted him without a tremor.

“Will you take me with you when you leave this island tonight?” she demanded.

He shook his head with his derisive smile. She had discounted that answer.

“How long do you mean to keep me here?”

“That depends on how agreeable you make yourself,” he said obscurely.

“What do you mean?”

“Merely that … well, it’s a pleasant, salubrious spot, Wreck Island. You’ll find it uncommonly healthful and enjoyable, too, as soon as you get over the loneliness. Not that you’ll be so terribly lonely; I shall be here more or less, off and on, much of the time for the next few weeks. I don’t mind telling you, in strict confidence, as between father and child, that I’m planning to pull off something pretty big before long; of course it will need a bit of arranging in advance to make everything run smoothly, and this is ideal for a man of my retiring disposition, not overfond of the espionage of his fellow-men. So, if you’re docile and affectionate, we may see a great deal of one another for some weeks – as I said.”

“And if not – ?”

“Well” – he waved his hands expressively – “of course, if you incline to be forward and disobedient, then I shall be obliged to deny you the light of my countenance, by way of punishment.”

She shook her head impatiently. “I want to know when you will let me go,” she insisted, struggling against the oppression of her sense of helplessness.

“I really can’t say.” He pretended politely to suppress a yawn, indicating that the subject bored him inordinately. “If I could trust you – ”

“Can you expect that, after the way you treated me last night – this morning?”

“Ah, well!” he said, claw-like fingers stroking his lips to conceal his smile of mockery.

“You lied to me, drugged me, robbed me of the necklace, brought me here…”

“Guilty,” he said, yawning openly.

“Why? You could have taken the necklace from me at the hotel. Why must you bring me here and keep me prisoner?”

“The pleasure of my only daughter’s society…”

“Oh, you’re despicable!” she cried, furious.

He nodded thoughtfully, fumbling with his lips.

“Won’t you tell me why?” she pleaded.

He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand,” he added in a tone of maddening commiseration.

“I shan’t stay!” she declared angrily.

“Oh, I think you will,” he replied gently.

“I’ll get away and inform on you if I have to swim.”

“It’s a long, wet swim,” he mused aloud – “over a mile, I should say. Have you ever swum over a hundred yards in your life?”

She was silent, choking with rage.

“And furthermore,” he went on, “there are the Clovers. Excellent people, excellent – for my purposes. I have found them quite invaluable – asking no questions, minding their own business, keen to obey my instructions to the letter. I have already instructed them about you, my child. I trust you will be careful not to provoke them; it’d be a pity … you’re rather good-looking, you know …”

“What do you mean by that?” she stammered, a little frightened by the secret menace in his tone. “What have my looks to do with …?”

“Everything,” he said softly – “everything. Not so far as Ephraim is concerned; I’ll be frank with you – you needn’t fear Ephraim’s hurting you, much, should you attempt to escape. He will simply restrain you, using force only if necessary. But Mrs. Clover … she’s different. You mustn’t let her deceive you; she seems kindly disposed enough; she’s pleasant spoken but … well, she’s not fond of pretty women. It’s an obsession of hers that prettiness and badness go together. And Ephraim is fond of pretty women – very. You see?”

“Well?”

“Well, that’s why I have these people in so strong a hold. You see, Ephraim got himself into trouble trying to pull off one of those bungling, amateurish burglaries that his kind go in for so extensively; he wanted the money to buy things for a pretty woman. And he was already a married man. You can see how Mrs. Clover felt about it. She – ah – cut up rather nasty. When she got through with the other woman, no one would have called her pretty any longer. Vitriol’s a dreadful thing…”

He paused an instant, seeming to review the case sombrely. “I managed to get them both off, scot free; and that makes them loyal. But it would go hard with anyone who tried to escape to the mainland and tell on them – to say nothing of me… Mrs. Clover has ever since been quite convinced of the virtue of vitriol. She keeps a supply handy most of the time, in case of emergencies. And she sleeps lightly; don’t forget that. I hate to think of what she might do if she thought you meant to run away and tell tales.”

Slowly, step by step, guessing the way to the outer door, the girl backed away from him, her face colourless with horror. Very probably he was lying to frighten her; very possibly (she feared desperately) he was not. What she knew of him was hardly reassuring; the innate, callous depravity that had poisoned this man beyond cure might well have caused the death-in-life of other souls. What he was capable of, others might be; and what she knew him to be capable of, she hardly liked to dwell upon. Excusably she conceived her position more than desperate; and now her sole instinct was to get away from him, if only for a little time, out of the fœtid atmosphere of his presence, away from the envenomed irony of his voice – away and alone, where she could recollect her faculties and again realise her ego, that inner self that she had tried so hard to keep stainless, unspoiled and unafraid.

He watched her as she crept inch by inch toward the door, his nervous fingers busy about his mouth as if trying to erase that dangerous, evil smile.

“Before you go,” he said suddenly, “I should tell you that you will be alone with Mrs. Clover tonight. I’m going to town, and Ephraim’s to wait with the boat at Pennymint Point, because I mean to return before morning. But you needn’t wait up for me; Mrs. Clover will do that.”

Eleanor made no reply. While he was speaking she had gained the door. As she stepped out, Mrs. Clover reappeared, making vigorously round the corner of the house.

Passing Eleanor on the stoop, she gave her a busy, friendly nod, and hurried in.

“Eph’ll be up in half an hour,” she heard her say. “Shall I serve your supper now?”

“Please,” he said quietly.

The girl stumbled down the steps and blindly fled the sound of his voice.

XIV
THE STRONG-BOX

Her initial rush carried Eleanor well round the front of the building. Then, as suddenly as she had started off, she stopped, common-sense reasserting itself to assure her that there was nothing to be gained by running until exhausted; her enemy was not pursuing her. It was evident that she was to be left to her own devices as long as they did not impel her to attempt an escape – as long as she made herself supple to his will.

She stood for a long minute, very erect, head up and shoulders back, eyes closed and lips taut, her hands close-clenched at her sides. Then drawing a long breath, she relaxed and, with a quiet composure admirably self-enforced, moved on, setting herself to explore and consider her surroundings.

The abandoned hotel faced the south, overlooking the greater breadth of Long Island Sound. In its era of prosperity, the land in front of it to the water’s edge, and indeed for a considerable space on all sides had been clear – laid out, no doubt, in grassy lawns, croquet grounds and tennis courts; but in the long years of its desuetude these had reverted to the primitive character of the main portion of the island, to a tangle of undergrowth and shrubbery sprinkled with scrub-oak and stunted pines. In one spot only, a meagre kitchen-garden was under cultivation.

Southward, at the shore, a row of weather-beaten and ramshackle bath-houses stood beside the rotting remnants of a long dock whose piles, bereft of their platform of planks, ran out into the water in a dreary double rank.

Westward, a patch of woodland – progenitor by every characteristic of the tangle in the one-time clearing – shut off that extremity of the island where it ran out into a sandy point. Eastward lay an extensive acreage of low, rounded sand dunes, held together by rank beach-grass and bordered by a broad, slowly shelving beach of sand and pebbles. To the north, at the back of the hotel, stretched a waste of low ground finally merging into a small salt-marsh. Across this wandered a thin plank walk on stilts which, over the clear water beyond the marsh, became a rickety landing-stage. At some distance out from the latter a long, slender, slate-coloured motor-boat rode at its moorings, a rowboat swinging from its stern. In the larger craft Eleanor could see the head and shoulders of a man bending over the engine – undoubtedly Mr. Ephraim Clover. While she watched him, he straightened up and, going to the stern of the motor-boat, began to pull the dory in by its painter. Having brought it alongside, he transshipped himself awkwardly, then began to drive the dory in to the dock. Eleanor remarked the fact that he stood up to the task, propelling the boat by means of a single oar, thrusting it into the water until it struck bottom and then putting his weight upon it. The water was evidently quite shallow; even where the motor-boat lay moored, the oar disappeared no more than half its length.

Presently, having gained the landing-stage, the man clambered upon it, threw a couple of half-hitches in the painter round one of the stakes, shouldered the oars and began to shamble toward the hotel: a tall, ungainly figure blackly silhouetted against the steel-blue sky of evening.

Eleanor waited where she was, near the beginning of the plank walk, to get a better look at him. In time he passed her, with a shy nod and sidelong glance. He seemed to be well past middle-age, of no pretensions whatever to physical loveliness and (she would have said) incurably lazy and stupid: his face dull and heavy, his whole carriage eloquent of a nature of sluggish shiftlessness.

He disappeared round the house, and a moment later she heard Mrs. Clover haranguing him in a shrill voice of impatience little resembling the tone she had employed with the girl.

For an instant Eleanor dreamed wildly of running down to the dock, throwing herself into the rowboat and casting it off to drift whither it would. But the folly of this was too readily apparent; even if she might be sure that the tide would carry her away from the island, the water was so shallow that a man could wade out to the motor-boat, climb into it and run her down with discouraging ease. As for the motor-boat – she hadn’t the least idea of the art of running a motor; and besides, she would be overhauled before she could get to it; for she made no doubt whatever that she was being very closely watched, and would be until the men had left the island. After that … a vista of days of grinding loneliness and hopeless despair opened out before her disheartened mental vision.

She resumed her aimless tour of inspection, little caring whither she wandered so long as it was far from the house, as far as possible from … him.

Sensibly the desolate spirit of the spot saturated her mood. No case that she had ever heard of seemed to her so desperate as that of the lonely, helpless girl marooned upon this wave-bound patch of earth and sand, cut off from all means of communication with her kind, her destiny at the disposal of the maleficent wretch who called himself her father, her sole companions two alleged criminals whose depravity, if what she had heard were true, was subordinate only to his.

She could have wept, but wouldn’t; the emotion that oppressed her was not one that tears would soothe, her plight not one that tears could mend.

Her sole comfort resided in the fact that she was apparently to be let alone, free to wander at will within the boundaries of the island.

Sunset found her on a little sandy hillock at the western end of Wreck Island – sitting with her chin in her hands, and gazing seawards with eyes in which rebellion smouldered. She would not give in, would not abandon hope and accept the situation at its face value, as irremediable. Upon this was she firmly determined: the night was not to pass unmarked by some manner of attempt to escape or summon aid. She even found herself willing to consider arson as a last resort: the hotel afire would make a famous torch to bring assistance from the mainland. Only … she shrank from the attempt, her soul curdling with the sinister menace of vitriol.

The day was dying in soft airs that swept the face of the waters with a touch so light as to be barely perceptible. With sundown fell stark calm; the Sound became a perfect mirror for the sombre conflagration in the west. The slightest sounds reverberated afar through the still, moveless void. She could hear Mrs. Clover stridently counselling her Ephraim at the house, the quarter of a mile away. Later, she heard the hollow tramp of two pair of feet, one heavy and one light, on the plank-walk; the creak of rowlocks with the dip and splash of oars; and, after a little pause, the sudden, sharp, explosive rattle of a motor exhaust, as rapid, loud and staccato as the barking of a Gatling, yet quickly hushed – almost as soon as it shattered the silences, muffled to a thick and steady drumming.

Eleanor rose and turned to look northward. The wood-lot hid from her sight both dock and mooring – and all but the gables of the hotel, as well – but she soon espied the motor-boat standing away on a straight course for the mainland: driven at a speed that seemed to her nearly incredible, a smother of foam at its stern, long purple ripples widening away from the jet of white water at the stem, a smooth, high swell of dark water pursuing as if it meant to catch up and overwhelm the boat and its occupants. These latter occupied the extremes of the little vessel: Ephraim astern, beside the motor; the slighter figure at the wheel in the bows.

Slowly the girl took her path back to the hotel, watching the boat draw away, straight and swift of flight as an arrow, momentarily dwindling and losing definite form against the deepening blue-black surface of the Sound…

Weary and despondent, she ascended the pair of steps to the kitchen porch. Mrs. Clover was busy within, washing the supper dishes. She called out a cheery greeting, to which Eleanor responded briefly but with as pleasant a tone as she could muster. She could not but distrust her companion and gaoler, could not but fear that something vile and terrible lurked beneath that good-natured semblance: else why need the woman have become his creature?

“You ain’t hungry again?”

“No,” said Eleanor, lingering on the porch, reluctant to enter.

“Lonely?”

“No…”

“You needn’t be; your pa’ll be home by three o’clock, he says.”

Eleanor said nothing. Abruptly a thought had entered her mind, bringing hope; something she had almost forgotten had recurred with tremendous significance.

“Tired? I’ll go fix up your room soon ’s I’m done here, if you want to lay down again.”

“No; I’m in no hurry. I – I think I’ll go for another little walk round the island.”

“Help yourself,” the woman called after her heartily; “I’ll be busy for about half an hour, and then we can take our chairs out on the porch and watch the moon come up and have a real good, old-fashioned gossip…”

Eleanor lost the sound of her voice as she turned swiftly back round the house. Then she stopped, catching her breath with delight. It was true – splendidly true! The rowboat had been left behind.

It rode about twenty yards out from the end of the dock, made fast to the motor-boat mooring. The oars were in it; Ephraim had left them carelessly disposed, their blades projecting a little beyond the stern. And the water was so shallow at the mooring that the man had been able to pole in with a single oar, immersing it but half its length! An oar, she surmised, was six feet long; that argued an extreme depth of water of three feet – say at the worst three and a half. Surely she might dare to wade out, unmoor the boat and climb in – if but opportunity were granted her!

But her heart sank as she considered the odds against any such attempt. If only the night were to be dark; if only Mrs. Clover were not to wait up for her husband and her employer; if only the woman were not her superior physically, so strong that Eleanor would be like a child in her hands; if only there were not that awful threat of vitriol …!

Nevertheless, in the face of these frightful deterrents, she steeled her resolution. Whatever the consequences, she owed it to herself to be vigilant for her chance. She promised herself to be wakeful and watchful: possibly Mrs. Clover might nap while sitting up; and the girl had two avenues by which to leave the house: either through the kitchen, or by the front door to the disused portion of the hotel. She need only steal noiselessly along the corridor from her bedroom door and down the broad main staircase and – the front door was not even locked. She remembered distinctly that he had simply pulled it to. Still, it would be well to make certain he had not gone back later to lock it.

Strolling idly, with a casual air of utter ennui – assumed for the benefit of her gaoler in event she should become inquisitive – Eleanor went round the eastern end of the building to the front. Here a broad veranda ran from wing to wing; its rotting weather-eaten floor fenced in by a dilapidated railing save where steps led up to the front door; its roof caved in at one spot, wearing a sorry look of baldness in others where whole tiers of shingles had fallen away.

Cautiously Eleanor mounted the rickety steps and crossed to the doors. To her delight, they opened readily to a turn of the knob. She stood for a trifle, hesitant, peering into the hallway now dark with evening shadow; then curiosity overbore her reluctance. There was nothing to fear; the voice of Mrs. Clover singing over her dishpan in the kitchen came clearly through the ground-floor corridor, advertising plainly her preoccupation. And Eleanor wanted desperately to know what it was that the man had hidden in the socket of the newel-post.

Shutting the door she felt her way step by step to the foot of the staircase. Happily the floor was sound: no creaking betrayed her progress – there would be none when in the dead of night she would break for freedom.

Mrs. Clover continued to sing contentedly.

Eleanor removed the knob of the post and looked down into the socket. It was dark in there; she could see nothing; so she inserted her hand and groped until her fingers closed upon a thick rough bar of metal. Removing this, she found she held a cumbersome old-fashioned iron key of curious design.

It puzzled her a little until she recalled the clang of metal that had prefaced the man’s appearance in the hall that afternoon. This then, she inferred, would be the key to his private cache – the secret spot where he hid his loot between forays.

Mrs. Clover stopped singing suddenly, and the girl in panic returned the key to its hiding place, the knob to its socket.

But it had been a false alarm. In another moment the woman’s voice was again upraised.

Eleanor considered, staring about her. He had come into sight from beneath the staircase. She reconnoitred stealthily in that direction, and discovered a portion of the hall fenced off by a railing and counter: evidently the erstwhile hotel office. A door stood open behind the counter. With some slight qualms she passed into the enclosure and then through the door.

She found herself in a small, stuffy, dark room. Its single window, looking northwards, was closely shuttered on the outside; only a feeble twilight filtered through the slanted slats. But there was light enough for Eleanor to recognise the contours and masses of a flat-topped desk with two pedestals of drawers, a revolving chair with cane seat and back, a brown paper-pulp cuspidor of generous proportions and – a huge, solid, antiquated iron safe: a “strong-box” of the last century’s middle decades, substantial as a rock, tremendously heavy, contemptuously innocent of any such innovations as combination-dials, time-locks and the like. A single keyhole, almost large enough to admit a child’s hand, and certainly calculated to admit the key in the newel-post, demonstrated that this safe depended for the security of its contents upon nothing more than its massive construction and unwieldy lock. It demonstrated something more: that its owner based his confidence upon its isolation and the loyalty of his employees, or else had satisfied himself through practical experiment that one safe was as good as another, ancient or modern, when subjected to the test of modern methods of burglary.

And (Eleanor was sure) the Cadogan collar was there; unless, of course, the man had taken it away with him; which didn’t seem likely, all things considered. A great part of the immense value of the necklace resided in its perfection, in its integrity; as a whole it would be an exceedingly difficult thing to dispose of until long after the furore aroused by its disappearance had died down; broken up, its marvellously matched pearls separated and sold one by one, it would not realise a third of its worth.

And the girl would have known the truth in five minutes more (she was, in fact, already moving back toward the newel-post) had not Mrs. Clover chosen that moment to leave the kitchen and tramp noisily down the corridor.

What her business might be in that part of the house Eleanor could not imagine – unless it were connected with herself, unless she had heard some sound and was coming to investigate.

In panic terror, Eleanor turned back into the little room and crouched down behind the safe, making herself as small as possible, actually holding her breath for fear it would betray her.

Nearer came that steady, unhurried tread, and nearer. The girl thought her heart would burst with its burden of suspense. She was obliged to gasp for breath, and the noise of it rang as loudly and hoarsely in her hearing as the exhaust of a steam-engine. She pressed a handkerchief against her trembling lips.

Directly to the counter came the footsteps, and paused. There was the thump of something being placed upon the shelf. Then deliberately the woman turned and marched back to her quarters.

In time the girl managed to regain enough control of her nerves to enable her to rise and creep out through the office enclosure to the hall. Mrs. Clover had resumed her chanting in the kitchen; but Eleanor was in no mood to run further chances just then. She needed to get away, to find time to compose herself thoroughly. Pausing only long enough to see for herself what the woman had deposited on the counter (it was a common oil lamp, newly filled and trimmed, with a box of matches beside it: preparations, presumably, against the home-coming of the master with a fresh consignment of booty) she flitted swiftly to and through the door, closed it and ran down the steps to the honest, kindly earth.