FHE DIE MA 51335


ELIZABETH -J^ R D AN




UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SI QUERIS-PENINSULAM-AMCENAM
IBTZ
SCIENTIA
ARTES
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
TUEBOR
N
INTRO
CIRCUMSPICE
WO01003
BEQUEST OF
ORMA FITCH BUTLER, PH.D., '07
PROFESSOR OF LATIN


828
18224
1932





32.8
Jg22
Z932.











The DEVIL and
THE DEEP SEA


Books by Miss Jordan
RED RIDING HOOD
WINGS OF YOUTH
THE BLUE CIRCLE
BLACK BUTTERFLIES
MISS BLAKE'S HUSBAND
MAY IVERSON HER BOOK
THE LADY OF PENTLANDS
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR
ISS NOBODY FROM NOWHERE


THE DEVIL AND
THE DEEP SEA
By ELIZABETH JORDAN

A. L. BURT COMPANY
"PUBLISHERS
New York Chicago
Published by arrangement with The Century Oe.
Printed In U. S. A.


Copyright 1929, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1928-1929, by
The Extension Magazinb


TO
C. M. L.
FOR MANY YEARS MY FAITHFUL FRIEND
AND SECRETARY





CONTENTS
OHAPTKB PAGE
I A HOUSE OF MOURNING 3
II LONG HAS A SHOCK 31
III DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 59
IV NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 75
V A LATE CALL 95
VI THE HOUSEWARMING 109
VII A PAJAMA PARTY 133
VIII GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 153
'IX THE STRANGER AT NAOMl's 177
\
X MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS 201
XI A NIGHT VISIT 215
XII MADAME DALMIER 236
XIII CARY'S SOBER SECOND THOUGHT . . . . 249
xrv "the bunch" confers 263
XV HANDSOME HARRY EXPLAINS 283
XVI THE LAST MESSAGE 301
XVII SIX MONTHS LATER 327
vii





THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA





CHAPTER I
A HOUSE OF MOURNING
NICHOLAS LONG returned the subdued greet-
ing of Miss Catherine Chandler's butler, gave
the man his hat and overcoat, rubbed his hands—for
the November day was cold—and glanced expectantly
toward the dining-room at the rear of the wide hall.
"Is any one in there, Johnson?" he asked.
"No, sir." Johnson was already leading the way
along the hall, with the air of a man who knew and
loved his duty. He escorted the new-comer into the
comfortable room, where logs were blazing in a huge
fireplace, drew a chair close to the fender, and then
busied himself at the sideboard.
Long did not take the chair. He stood by the fire
with his face turned toward the servant, and uttered
a warning "That's enough, thanks," when a small drink
had been poured from the old-fashioned decanter into
a waiting glass. Johnson added soda from a round-
bottomed bottle, put the glass on a tray, and sedately
brought it across to the waiting figure.
Long took a drink, with a wishful eye on the empty
chair. He was an ease-loving man and that chair elo-
quently called to him; but a combined sense of de-
3


4 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
corum and drama suggested that it was not seemly
to be too much at ease in this house of mourning.
"You know how to make a man comfortable, John-
son," he said; and added as the butler obviously lin-
gered, "If Stevens hadn't been with me so long I'd
offer you a job, now that Miss Chandler is gone."
"I'd like nothing better, sir," Johnson respectfully
assured him. "If I was thinking of a job, that is.
You've been coming here so many years and so regu-
lar that I know your ways. And there's no gentleman
I'd rather serve, if I may say so."
"But you're not looking for another place?"
"No, sir. That is—" Johnson cast a quick glance
at the other's face and decided that he could go ahead—
"Miss Chandler was good enough to tell me before
she died that she had made some provision for me."
He stopped, watching the lawyer's expression. No one
knew better than Johnson the vagaries and eccentrici-
ties of the late Catherine Chandler, and the uncertain-
ties of her conduct. "She did not go into details,"
he added as the hearer made no comment, "but I
gathered that she had left me enough to start a little
business, added to what I've saved. I hope she has, sir,
for I must say I'm a bit tired of service."
Long nodded sympathetically. Johnson had reason
for his weariness. Probably no other man would have
tolerated for more than twenty years the tyranny and
exactions of the imperious spinster who had lived alone
with her servants and had driven those servants with
such a heavy hand.


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 5
"I think you won't be disappointed," the lawyer
permitted himself to remark, and Johnson exhaled the
breath he had been holding. "The funeral is at eleven,
I understand," Long went on, setting the empty glass
on the mantel and glancing at his watch. "It's just
half-past ten. I'll go upstairs and freshen a bit. The
same room, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. You're not stopping over?"
"No. I'm motoring back to Waterford about half-
past four. That will allow plenty of time to read the
will to the family after luncheon. They're all here, of
course."
"Yes, sir. Mrs. Price and her two daughters came
out from Waterford as soon as Miss Chandler died,
and they've been back and forth ever since. So has
Miss Sabin. Mr. Hutchins and Mr. and Miss Dixon
didn't get here till this morning. Mrs. Price was quite
worked up because no one had been told Miss Chand-
ler was so near the end," Johnson went on. "I'd have
been glad enough to have some one here to share the
responsibility, but Miss Chandler's orders were strict.
Once before, when she had a bad turn, we sent for the
family, and she laid us out for it good and proper.
And of course her death was unexpected, in a way."
Long rested an elbow on the mantel and stared into
the fire. He was a fine type of family lawyer as he
stood there—tall, slender, dignified, erect, admirably
dressed. He was fifty-eight, but he looked fully ten
years younger. His dark hair was graying only at the
temples, and his smooth-shaven, benign face and smil-


6 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
ing mouth had a surprising look of youth, sharply
contradicted at times by a glance from his gray eyes
that was like a blade-thrust. Johnson had never seen
that look. There had been nothing in the association
of the two men to bring it out. Knowing the visitor
had forgotten him, the butler let his eyes rest on the
lawyer's thoughtful face. Here was a man, Johnson
admiringly reflected, who looked and acted to perfec-
tion his role in life. It was an ability which Johnson
respected more than any other. He had no interest in
misers in their garrets, in rich women who dressed
badly, in young girls who were not pretty and popu-
lar—in any one, in short, who did not play well the
part fate had assigned to him or her. Johnson played
his own lowly role after the manner of the highest
type he knew, that of a super English butler under
whom he had worked as footman before he entered
Miss Chandler's service. There had been hardly a day
of his life, since then, when he had not recalled and
acted upon some example or precept of this great model.
"She did die rather suddenly at the end," the lawyer
now said, musingly.
"Yes, sir, we were all surprised. I understood the
last specialists had given her another year or so."
Long nodded.
"But she seemed to know," Johnson went on. "She
had the air of getting ready, if I may say so. She
stopped seeing visitors after you were here last, three
months ago. She only saw the family and the nurses
and the brokers, Mr. Jackson and Mr. White, and


8 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
of his theme, had forgotten himself, but Long now
recalled the dignity of his position. It was one thing
to be on friendly terms with Johnson, after years of
social and professional visits to the house, and quite
another to gossip with the butler about the private
affairs of its late mistress. Nor would Johnson, Long
knew, have dropped so far below his own ideals save
for that taking way of Long's to which he had offered
homage. The lawyer smiled at him.
"I've got just time to freshen a bit," he repeated as
he crossed the threshold.
But he did not immediately go to his room. He
passed the broad central staircase of the house and
went on to a door at the right of the main entrance.
Instinct had told him that he would find the dead
woman beyond that door, and instinct was right. The
room was big and cold and dim and flower-filled. It
had the effect of a mortuary chapel, and the expression
of its occupant, lying on her side in a massive coffin
whose sinister outline was hidden with a blanket of
red roses, suggested that she did not approve of her
environment. Catherine Chandler, with all her faults,
had simple and correct taste. She avoided display. This
room had been decorated by a hired specialist, and
showed it.
Long stood looking down at the dark face of his
friend—for she had been his friend, and his best one
—noting the sardonic twist of the haughty lips and
wondering what final episode or reflection in the sick-
room had left it there. He and Johnson were, so far


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 9
as he knew, the only men who in late years had really
liked and admired Catherine Chandler; though both
had lived through intervals when they neither liked
nor admired her. To them she had still shown at sixty
flashes of the fire and brilliance she was known to have
possessed in her hot youth. She had hosts of acquaint-
ances but no close friends; and he had good reason
to believe that most of her servants had disliked her.
As to her nurses, it had been hard to persuade good
ones to remain with her during her illness. He recalled
now the strained look around the mouth of Miss Webb,
the day-nurse he had seen in the sick-room during his
final professional visits. Neither Miss Webb nor the
night-nurse—a Miss Connolly—had been there more
than six months. Poor Catherine had made things
terribly hard for them, for herself, for everybody. Now,
of all her household and her old circle, which had
once been large and gay, there was no one who
mourned her—no one, that is, save Johnson and him-
self.
Yet Johnson, he knew, was making optimistic plans
for that new business, while Nicholas Long, in these
last minutes with his friend, had merely pulled out a
drawer of dusty memories and was critically turn-
ing over its contents. He would attend the funeral
with decorum. He would eat a hearty luncheon after
that funeral. (Johnson and the cook could be trusted
to see that the luncheon was good.) He would read
the will to the waiting, eager heirs, and then he would
go back to town and try to forget Catherine. He would


1o THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
miss her, of course. A thirty-year habit of close associ-
ation is not easy to break. He would miss his runs out
to dinner, his week-end visits with her. Catherine had
never bored him. . . .
As to the reading of the will, that task would be
without strain. No one would be disappointed. The
unloved sister and nieces and nephews of his client
were getting as much as they could expect, and rather
more.
"Let them have it," she said wearily, in her final
business talk with him, three months before her death.
"When I sent for you I had about decided to change
the will, but now I won't. After all, they're the chil-
dren of my four sisters, and they came naturally by
their spendthrift habits. I was always the only one
in the family with any brains or judgment. Jane and
Carrie and Anne all married scoundrels who broke their
hearts and squandered their fortunes, and Mary's mar-
riage to Horace Hutchins was just as unfortunate in a
different way. He buried her in the country and buried
himself in his laboratory, and let her die of neglect
when she fell ill.
"When Jane and Carrie were killed in that motor
accident a few years ago," she continued thought-
fully, "I wondered at the time, and I've often won-
dered since, if the thing wasn't intentional. They were
both so damnably unhappy. Jane was at the wheel,
and it wasn't like them to go off alone together. Harry
Sabin's disgrace had just about finished Jane, anyway,
and she lived in hourly terror that he'd escape again


A HOUSE OF MOURNING n
from the penitentiary. He got out eight years ago for
a few days, you know. She may have thought Naomi
was clever enough to stand on her own feet. But
Carrie had those twins of hers to think of. They were
only seventeen then. It doesn't seem as if . . . Oh,
well, what's the use of thinking about it? I may be all
wrong."
Long listened to her wonderingly. He had never seen
Catherine Chandler in this mood before.
"If I hadn't been on the other side of the world,"
she added, "Jane and Carrie might have come to me
and told me their troubles. ... I lost some sleep over
that when I got the details. ... I had just been given
my own death sentence, and that cable was the turn of
the screw." She stopped, then broke out suddenly:
"Nicholas, tell me the truth! Has it ever occurred to
you that that accident wasn't an accident?"
"Never, Catherine." He spoke positively, marveling
over the strangeness of seeing his old friend off on
this tack. It wasn't like her to concern herself with
memories and regrets. She studied his face, and her
own brightened.
"I hope you're right. Anyway, there's no one left
now but the youngsters and my sister Anne Price. You
can see for yourself what a mess she's made of her
life. No brains, either—like all the rest of them, except
me.
"The others were all much younger than you," Long
somewhat restively pointed out. He had never learned
to enjoy Catherine's frequent tributes to herself.


12 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Oh, yes, but they wouldn't have gained any sense
if they had lived to be a hundred. However, I liked the
children when they were babies, and my sister Anne
was really adorable at three."
"She's rather charming still," Long suggested.
"She's a spineless jellyfish," Catherine Chandler con-
temptuously maintained, "and she has devoted her life
to spoiling those two brats of hers. They're the most
abominably selfish beasts I know of. I wish there were
some way I could leave the money to Anne for life
and cut them off; but I suppose that wouldn't do."
"Certainly not." The lawyer spoke with such de-
cision that the sick woman uttered a short laugh. "That
would ruin all her comfort in the legacy," he added
more mildly.
"And I suppose she'd spend most of the income on
them, and some of it might even go to that wretch she
divorced," Miss Chandler mused aloud. "So let it
stand," she added indifferently. "As to Carrie's twins,
George will soon gamble away his share and then live
on Ethel's. Henry Hutchins will buy a few more first
editions and blink over them with his myopic eyes.
That's all money will mean in his life. He's like his
father. Naomi Sabin—What's she doing now?" she
broke off to ask. "I suppose she told me, but I've
forgotten."
"She had a little farm and was trying chicken-raising
the last I heard," Long reported. "You really ought to
have helped that girl more, Catherine."


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 13
"I ought to have helped them all more," his client
unexpectedly admitted.
"Especially Naomi. She's the only one of the lot
who hasn't had a cent of income beyond what she could
earn, and she's shown herself very plucky," the lawyer
pointed out. "She's mighty easy to look at, too."
"She's pretty, but I loathe that new type of inde-
pendent, hard-as-nails American girl," the invalid mut-
tered. "When I said I ought to have helped them more,
I wasn't speaking of financial help. I suppose I should
have given them some personal attention—shown some
personal interest in them. After all, I'm their aunt, the
head of their family, and the guardian of Naomi and
George and Ethel." She uttered a mirthless cackle. "As
a guardian I've been a good joke."
"The intelligent bystander would say you are mak-
ing it up to them now, in this."
Long tapped with a forefinger the will he was hold-
ing.
"Financially, yes. How you men harp on money! I
tell you, I'm beginning to think that it isn't enough.
I haven't been sleeping well; and when I do drop off,
I have the most infernal dreams about those young-
sters. Perhaps it's because they all seem queer lately
when they come to see me. They act as if they were
rather desperate. Perhaps it's just because I'm hipped
and I have too much time to think."
"That's it, of course. You're getting morbid."
"I wonder." She was half reclining on a chaise


i4 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
longue by the window in her sick-room, while he sat
beside her. She did not look at him, but stared down
at her still beautiful hands, clasped together on the
silk rug that covered her.
"Am I morbid?" she went on. "Or am I perhaps
seeing things a little more clearly? There are moments
when the selfishness and uselessness of the life I've
lived appal me, Nick."
Long stirred restlessly. The dialogue was becoming
a strain. He could not reassure her. She had been all
she said—and worse.
"I wish I knew more about the lives they live and
what sort of natures they really have," she brought
out. "I wonder if there's any way I could find out. I
don't even know anything about my sister Anne's pri-
vate life. As a matter of fact, Nicholas, I've never
taken enough interest to get more than a surface knowl-
edge of them. But I suppose they're simply morons."
"They are not morons, my friend. They're just
reasonably normal and attractive young people—as
young people go to-day!"
"'As young people go to-day'!" his friend mocked.
"One needn't know that bunch well to realize that
they're all going to the devil as fast as they can. But
much you care about it, you ease-loving old bachelor.
As to attractiveness, there isn't a real charm in the lot
of them, if you ask me. The girls are the slang-talking,
face-painting, rank-natured individuals of this hideous
period, and George is worse. Henry seems merely
a white worm."


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 15
She shook off the mood that held her.
"However, they're my kin—unless I've been grossly
deceived," she added with her sardonic grin. "So let
them have what's coming to them. I suppose they'd
go to law if I didn't leave them my money," she ended
in a different tone. "I have a horror of suits and legal
tangles and gossip about our family. That has always
been an obsession of mine, as you know. It was really
that scandal about Sabin that exiled me for years. See
that there's no more scandal, Nicholas. If they get into
trouble, hush it up."
He promised, and he recalled that promise as he
looked down at Catherine Chandler's scornful lips. It
should be an easy promise to keep. Everything was so
simple. Every one would be satisfied. No reason why
any of them should get into trouble.
The mortuary chapel was chill and close. He felt a
sudden desire to be out of it, to be out of the house, to
be motoring back to the city through the cold, crisp
air. Even when she was a dying woman, his friend's
amazing vitality had permeated her home like an at-
mosphere. Now the whole place seemed an exhausted
receiver. . . . He laid a farewell glance on the dark,
cynical face, on the soft white hair that so beautifully
and incongruously framed it. For just one moment old
memories came to him, like strains of far-away music.
Then he sighed depressedly, and left the room. He
would not look at Catherine again.
Johnson was waiting in the hall. That was like the
good chap. He would be.


16 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Another drink, sir, before you go upstairs?" he
sympathetically suggested.
But Long shook his head. He was a temperate man
and one drink a day was his limit. When he came down-
stairs twenty minutes later he found the family as-
sembled in the living-room—a sun-filled and cheerful
apartment across the hall from the library, and with no
suggestion of an exhausted receiver about it. Here,
as in the dining-room, an open fire burned, and Cath-
erine Chandler's nieces and nephews were grouped
around it in lounging positions from which they only
half aroused themselves to greet him. He knew them
all and was interested in none, save possibly Naomi
Sabin and Mrs. Price.
Even those two he thought of only when they crossed
his line of vision. He had listened to stories of George
Dixon's gambling and drinking propensities, and he
knew of the utter devotion felt for her brother by
George's twin sister, Ethel. The Price girls, ultra-
modern to their painted finger-tips, he disapproved of
almost as much as Catherine had done. He knew they
were the types who impulsively open every door of
life. They went in for excessive smoking, excessive
drinking, all-night cabaret dancing; and he had reason
to believe that all their views as to standards of human
conduct were what he considered "peculiar."
For Naomi Sabin, dark, slender, really lovely to
look upon, but tragic-eyed and smoldering of soul,
he had the admiration a normal man feels for beauty
and courage. Naomi was alone, and she asked no help


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 17
from any one. She had a definite air of remoteness,
as if she arrogantly looked out over life as a mere
spectator from the watch-tower of her youth. He knew
nothing about her interests aside from the chicken
farm, but that look in her eyes showed that she was
not happy, and he suspected that she was bitter. Being
a kindly man, he hoped the quarter of a million she
would now inherit from her aunt might open a new
world to her.
The young folks immediately resumed their languid
discourse on the general rottenness of existence, which
had been so briefly interrupted by his entrance. He sat
down beside Mrs. Price, who seemed the only person
in the room fully aware of his presence. He was a
trifle piqued. He was not used to being ignored. But
Mrs. Price made up for the bad manners of the
younger generation. She was a charming woman,
though, as her sister Catherine had said, a weak one.
She had a livid pallor that betrayed ill health, but her
manner was surprisingly animated, and she looked
at Long with her faded eyes as if his presence filled
the room. She talked, however, in a soft and husky
voice, on the one topic that seemed to her appro-
priate.
"Didn't you think dear Catherine looked beautiful?"
she asked.
"No," Long candidly admitted, "I didn't."
One of the Price girls—Catherine, he decided it was,
and namesake of the dead woman—proved that she had
not been really interested in the general conversation.


18 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
She uttered the hard little yelp that was her nearest
approach to a laugh.
"That chapel effect they've arranged for Aunt C. C.
is simply awful," she threw at Long over her shoulder.
"It's just what they'd have done in one of those 'neat,
complete and tasty funerals' you see advertised. Mother
and Lil and I don't know a thing about arranging
flowers for such occasions, so we had to let Wallace
and Green do their worst. And all they thought of was
to run up a big bill. They'd have banked the old girl in
greenbacks if they dared."
"Catherine!" Mrs. Price sighed.
"I could have made a better job of it, and I told
you I could," Lily Price snapped. The sisters always
disagreed, but they were rarely apart.
"You'd have made it look like a pink tea," Cather-
ine retorted; and Mrs. Price again sighed, "Hush,
Catherine." Mrs. Price was always saying, "Hush,
Lily," or "Hush, Catherine," but neither of her
daughters ever hushed. Catherine went on now, speak-
ing with the high-pitched voice and insolent indif-
ference of her type:
"Aunt C. C. would have loathed it, of course. She
really knew what was what, even if she did let her
house remain the mid-Victorian horror it was when
her father and mother died. But she always dressed
beautifully, and her garden is a dream. How the devil
she could stand for this stuff gets me," she ended,
glancing around the room.
-


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 19
"That was sentiment, dear," her mother pointed out.
"If it was, it was the only streak of sentiment in
Aunt C. C," Ethel Dixon contributed. "I think it was
just laziness. She hated bother. And she was abroad so
much, till she got sick, that it didn't seem worth while
to do the place over. I suppose after she was sick she
thought any place was good enough to die in; and so it
is."
"It's nothing of the sort. How can you talk such
rot?" George Dixon broke in. "I've put in the odd
moments of a misspent life trying to teach you what
beauty is, Ethel," he went on discontentedly. "You've
had me to look at, too, not to speak of Naomi. Yet
with all your advantages you haven't learned a thing.
If you expressed your innermost thoughts—which I
hope to God you won't do, for they're usually appalling
—you'd probably say you thought this was a pretty
room."
"Well, it is comfortable," Ethel muttered; and
George threw up his hands with a groan. He was a
fair youth with broad shouders, the closed face of a
dreamer, and a really charming smile. His twin sister's
bobbed head and fair face strikingly resembled his,
but she lacked his sweetness of expression. From the
neck up the twins looked like two perfect copies of the
same boy.
"One ought to die among beauty," George insisted;
"among ravishing beauty. I think I'd like to have you
hold my hand, Naomi, when I pass away."


20 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"There have been times, George, when I'd have
loved doing it," Naomi said with a tolerant smile at
him, and Catherine Price yelped again.
"Beauty ought to be the last thing to meet the eye,"
George went on, unperturbed. "How does one know
what one's going to strike next?"
Johnson appeared at the door as a majestic intima-
tion that the grief of the mourners was now to be as-
suaged by the uplift of the services. At the request of
their central figure, these services were private. The
only persons assembled in the library, in addition to the
family procession which filed into it, ending with the
lawyer, were the household servants, the two nurses
who had cared for Miss Chandler in her last illness,
a minister, a quartette from a church Miss Chandler
had occasionally visited, and old Doctor Stephen Cary,
seventy-three, and family physician to the Chandlers
for forty years. He had attended the late Catherine
whenever that erratic patient permitted him to do so,
which was not often.
"None of you doctors knows anything," she had bit-
terly remarked during one of his final visits. "I went
to half a dozen of you in the first stages of this devilish
thing. If you had known anything, some of you might
have saved me at that time. If you couldn't help me
then, you certainly can't help me now."
Doctor Cary, who was irascible of manner himself,
had not taken kindly to such candor. Neither had he
pressed his services upon the patient, and he had bluntly
informed the two specialists she permitted him to call


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 21
in six weeks before her death, that he was not very
familiar with the case. Even at that, old Cary re-
membered as he passed the coffin and cast a last glance
at its tenant, they had given her a year or more. . . .
The hymns sung by the quartette were really beauti-
ful. The faces in the room—some of them very hard—
took on a softer look. The minister was tactfully non-
committal in his few remarks. The dead woman had
lived a supremely selfish and self-centered life. He
could not praise her, but he assumed that her going had
left a void in the hearts of his hearers. Behind his back
Catherine Price solemnly winked at George Dixon, and
George choked and turned red, confirming the min-
ister's conviction.
It was a subdued group, however, that stood around
Catherine Chandler's grave a little later and heard the
first clods fall into it. There is something in the sight
of an open grave, and in the sound of earth falling
upon a coffin, which makes for reflection. It brought
seriousness even to the faces of the dead woman's
nieces and nephews. In that moment most of them laid
on her coffin the tribute of a moment's sincere regret.
They might have called on her oftener, might have
been nicer when they did call. Tears came to George
Dixon's eyes. He wished the old girl were still alive,
that he might have a chance to treat her better. In the
automobile going home he expressed this regret to Lily
Price, who administered brisk consolation.
"If she had seen any more of you, she'd have cut
you off with fifty cents," Lily suggested. "Even as it


22 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
is, she has probably cut us all off—careful as we were
not to get too near her."
The reflection sobered still further the six young
faces in the automobile. Mrs. Price and Long and the
doctor were returning in another car.
Luncheon was a relief to every one. It was as good
as Long had expected it to be, and Johnson, humbly
assisted by the parlor-maid, served it to perfection.
"Isn't there a drink in the house?" young Dixon
anxiously inquired; but Johnson's prompt negative was
as firm as it was respectful. Long was glad his old
friend had provided generously for Johnson. He also
experienced a fresh regret that he could not avail him-
self of the services of that incomparable person. John-
son would be a comfort around a man's apartment.
Still, Stevens, though he was a little slow, wasn't really
bad. Nothing was bad—except the manners and gen-
eral conduct of the Price girls, who had begun to smoke
the moment they sat down at the table and who had
already littered the lace centerpiece with cigarette stubs.
Long was almost at peace with the world.
His characteristic benignity and charm were much in
evidence when, after luncheon, he again faced the ex-
pectant group for the reading of Catherine Chandler's
will. They were back in the living-room now, with the
doors guarded against interruption, and he made the
atmosphere as informal as he could. It was difficult.
The servants sat in a stiffly expectant row. Even John-
son, who could recall no precedent set by his great
model for meeting such an occasion as this, was ob-


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 23
viously ill at ease; and the features of every member of
the family were sharpened by a tense expectancy.
Long made short work of preliminaries. He briefly
stated that though the writer of the will he was about to
read had exacted much from others, she had also
shown on occasions a finely generous spirit. This spirit
she had again manifested in the making of her last will
and testament, and he had every reason to believe that
those for whom she had provided would be satisfied
with the provisions. He adjusted his reading-glasses
on his well-shaped nose and entered upon his task.
The early clauses of the will gave legacies to various
charities—a bequest to the local Old Men's Home in
memory of the testator's father, and to the local Old
Ladies' Home in memory of her mother; funds for
beds in various hospitals; a contribution to the min-
ister's pet charity fund which might have made his
funeral sermon more eloquent had he known of it in
time; various scholarships in a near-by college in mem-
ory of the testator herself.
Next the servants were provided for. Six thousand
dollars to her faithful butler, Emory Johnson, who
had been in her service for almost a quarter of a
century. Four thousand to her cook, Elizabeth Jenks,
who had been with her for twenty years. Two thou-
sand to her personal maid, Nora Smith, who had been
with her for nine years, and who, though she had
borne with fortitude the blow of her mistress's death,
now gulped emotionally as the legacy was mentioned.
"She also gave me," Long stopped to interpolate,


24 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"though she does not provide for them in her will, a
special gift of five hundred dollars for each of the
two nurses who attended her at the time of her death.
Very generous provisions, all these," he thoughtfully
repeated, taking off his glasses to wipe them with a
spotless handkerchief he unfolded for the purpose;
"very generous indeed."
Judging by the shining faces in the servants' row,
the opinion was shared. Long readjusted the glasses
and went on:
"The provisions for the family of the late Miss
Chandler are on a relatively generous scale, and I
think you will appreciate the fact that they are ham-
pered by no conditions."
He read aloud, solemnly:
"To my sister, Anne Chandler Price, I give and be-
queath five hundred thousand dollars. I make no special
provisions for her two daughters, knowing that, follow-
ing the dictates of her generous nature, she will share her
income with them and that the principal will revert to them
at her death.
"To my niece, Naomi Sabin, I give and bequeath two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
A slight gasp came from Naomi Sabin. Long
glanced up, surprised by her lack of self-control, but
she sat silent now, with downcast eyes. He read on:
"To my niece, Ethel Dixon, the same amount. To my
nephews, George Dixon and Henry Hutchins, I give and


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 25
bequeath one hundred thousand dollars each. Being ment
they should be able to make more money if they desire
it."
A ripple passed over the small audience—a ripple
of quiet amusement, proving that the gathering was
now in a mood to take a joke. The lawyer smiled and
continued the reading. There were further directions
and provisions which did not affect the principal lega-
cies. At the end he laid down the document and beamed
on the alert assemblage.
"It isn't often," he told his audience, "that one
has the pleasure of reading a will which is so sane,
so balanced, and so satisfactory to the majority of the
heirs."
He stopped in surprise. He had been conscious of
the unobtrusive departure, from the room, of the
admirable Johnson. He now became aware of that
servitor's return. Johnson, indeed, was standing di-
rectly in front of him, presenting a note on a tray.
"I beg pardon, sir," he murmured, "but Miss Webb
assures me that this matter is urgent." He added
humbly, as Long gave him for the first time one of
the sudden eye-thrusts for which he was famous in
legal circles: "I understand it has to do with final
orders from Miss Chandler herself. Otherwise I could
not have allowed myself this interruption."
Long took the note from the tray and with a mur-
mured apology to his audience opened it, still frown-
ing. Its contents did not clear his brow. Instead they


26 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
gave him a definite sense of uneasiness. He read and
re-read the note:
My Dear Mr. Long:
Following the instructions of the late Miss Chandler,
I am asking you to come to me in the library after the
reading of the will—but not till it is finished—to receive
certain documents from her.
It is also her wish that the heirs—with the exception of
the servants—shall remain where they are till you return
to them.
Sincerely yours,
Hope Webb.
Long's glance swept over the group before him. Its
members were.silent and watchful now, as if they, too,
realized that only an important message would have
been permitted to interrupt the proceedings. In the
interval before he spoke the lawyer's brain did some
quick work. Should he slip out of the room with
merely a murmured excuse for a few moments' ab-
sence? The note might mean anything or nothing. As
representing Catherine Chandler, whose nature was
erratic and whose impulses were sudden, it might mean
a great deal. It would be well, he decided, to give
those before him a hint of the nature of his call. It
might prepare them—but the rest of the thought was
absurd. He banished it and smiled at the serious faces,
which smiled back with quick relief.
"I'm told in this note," he cheerfully announced,


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 27
"that Miss Chandler left some final instructions which
are to be given to me now. She evidently meant the
family to hear them, for I am to ask you to stay here
till I get back. That ought to be in about five minutes.
The servants may leave now."
He added the last sentence from the threshold as
he left the room. The servants, in a decorous line
headed by Johnson, followed him into the hall. Re-
assured by Long's manner, those who remained im-
mediately began to talk. As the living-room door closed,
Long heard the sudden upgush of speech, with Ethel
Dixon's clear voice dominating. Most young folks, he
had observed, spoke far too loudly nowadays.
"Never mind, Georgie darling," she was saying.
"You can have half of mine. And won't it be simply
wonderful . . ."
He went into the library, where only a few hours
before its mistress had lain in what the undertaker
had described as "state." Now the center of the big
room was empty and the extra chairs in it had been
pushed back against the walls. The funeral flowers
were still there, and their increasingly heavy odor
greeted him as he crossed the threshold. He closed the
door behind him and cast a rather inquisitorial glance
at the waiting nurse who rose to meet him.
He remembered Miss Webb as the tight-lipped,
sometimes resentful-eyed, but handsome young woman
he had seen in the invalid's room during the last six
months of his client's life. She had fine features and a


28 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
complexion of the pleasing texture that goes with
auburn hair and brown eyes. She was still in her im-
maculate white uniform, but she was no longer tight-
lipped and resentful. Her face bore evidence of grief—
the only such evidence he had seen that day. Her
manner was nicely keyed to the quiet harmonies of a
house of mourning. She was not in awe of lawyers or
of any one else. She was merely performing a task
that lay somewhat outside her province.
"I'm afraid you will think this is a nuisance, Mr.
Long," she said, professionally. "But Miss Chandler's
instructions to me were very clear. Johnson was to
let me know as soon as you finished reading the will,
out there. Then I was to send for you and give you
this."
She handed him a long envelop which he opened at
once. It held two inclosures—a second long envelop,
smaller than the first, and a letter. The long envelop
bore a sentence which leaped up to meet his eyes:
"Not to be opened. Await later instructions." The
letter's envelop bore the line: "To be opened after read-
ing the will."
He raised his eyes and met those of Miss Webb. She
spoke as if she had read his thoughts.
"I'm afraid it's something unpleasant," she said in
a low voice.
"What makes you think that?"
Absently but methodically Long had put the larger
envelop into an inside pocket of his coat and inserted


A HOUSE OF MOURNING 29
a firm forefinger under the flap of the envelop con-
taining the letter he was to read. Her words checked
the action:
"Several things. Among them, her expression when
she gave me the instructions." As the hearer's eyebrows
rose, Miss Webb hurried on, with her first evidence
of nervousness: "It was the look she always wore
when she was going to do something unexpected. A
sort of grim 'Make-the-best-of-this' attitude. Probably
you know it. You have seen it."
Long nodded. He had seen it often enough. He
walked to the door, opened it, and held it ajar for
Miss Webb.
"Thank you very much," he said, and with an effort
threw in his best smile. "There was nothing else, was
there?"
The nurse accepted her dismissal and moved across
the threshold.
"Nothing at present," she said. She stopped on the
other side of the door and looked up at him. He again
observed her obvious depression, and now he saw the
telltale redness of her eyes. "But there's another matter
I'd like to talk over with you before you leave the
house," she added. "Can you spare the time?"
Long thought he understood. Probably she had heard
of that five-hundred-dollar gift. Possibly Miss Chand-
ler had told her of it as she had told Johnson of his
legacy.
"I'm due in town for an early dinner," he said,


30 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"and it's almost four now. But probably you won't
need more than a few minutes?"
The last sentence was a question and Miss Webb
answered it as such.
"I'll let you judge of that," she said quietly, as
she left him.


CHAPTER II
LONG HAS A SHOCK
EFT alone, Long noiselessly turned the key in the
I j lock of the door and sat down in the nearest
chair. For some reason which would have been hard
to explain, he could not have opened that letter under
the eyes of Miss Hope Webb. He inwardly admitted
that he dreaded opening it now. He completed the
finger-thrust and drew out many sheets of thin paper,
dated four days before Catherine Chandler's death
and filled with her cramped but clear script.
My Dear Old Friend [he read]:
It's a shabby trick I'm playing you—or at least you
will think it is. It isn't, really. True, I've made another
will, and I've made it through another lawyer, and I've
had it witnessed by Miss Webb and the new parlor-maid.
You won't approve of the action nor of the will. I have
also evolved a certain policy and written out certain in-
structions and conditions to be followed by my expectant
heirs. You won't approve of these either. But you will
continue to act for me just the same. The man Sloan, of
Stanton, Harding and Sloan, understands that his interest
in my affairs began and ended with the drawing of the new
document. It is for you, as executor and trustee, to see
that its provisions are carried out. I had to have some one
else draw it, because I wasn't up to the fierce debate you


32 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
would have started if I had called you in. You are very
opinionated, Nicholas, and you sometimes talk too much!
All these changes I am making have come as a result of
my talk with you three months ago, the last time we dis-
cussed my will. I became obsessed by the idea that I must
know more about my family than I did. I took measures
to learn more; and God knows I've found out more than
I bargained for!
I've learned many things; horrible things some of them,
things they do not dream that any one suspects. They
are in some ways infinitely worse than I thought them; in
some ways better. I can't feel that they are beyond hope.
And—you will smile at this, Nicholas, if you are not too
furious at the moment to smile at anything—I not only
have a wish to help them, but a conviction that I can do it.
To leave them a lot of money now, with authority over
it, would be to complete their destruction.
They have got themselves into an appalling impasse.
Perhaps from my grave I can do more for them than I
ever did in life. At least I must try, though I realize that
I have very little time. You must help me. You will be
able to relieve Namoi of her burden, and to handle the
matter of Anne and Lily, and to take up other issues as
they appear. I shall let you discover the conditions for
yourself. I want you to approach the whole question with-
out prejudice and with an open mind.
I let you read the original will to them because I wanted
them to know what they'd have had if they had run
straight. They will know better than you do why I have
changed that will. I shall seem heartless and cruel, but
that will not surprise them. They will understand it only
too well.


34 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
deal. I wish I'd had the nerve to talk all this over with
you, but my courage is gone! I shall not outlive it very
long.
There were more sheets. No doubt they contained
the plan and instructions to be read.
Long laid the letter on a chair beside him, took
out his handkerchief, and wiped his handsome, whole-
some face. There had been a time, many years ago,
when he had almost asked Catherine Chandler to
marry him. Since then he had frequently congratu-
lated himself on not having done so. He now congrat-
ulated himself again. He took up the remaining sheets
and deliberately read them. At the end of the reading
his face was very stern. He re-folded the pages, slipped
them into the envelop which he retrieved from the
floor, and after a few moments of reflection slowly
made his way back to the living-room.
There the formal ranks of the earlier meeting had
broken up. Mrs. Price, her worn face for once flushed
with excitement, was in a big chair by the fire, a
daughter perched on each broad arm of it. George and
Ethel Dixon sat side by side on the floor, facing the
flames, while Henry Hutchins, looking for once almost
animated, stood with his back to them, an elbow on
the mantel, talking to Naomi Sabin, who listened from
her place in a deep wing-chair. Young Dixon, who had
been splashing conversation over the rest with his
usual inconsequence, alone heard the lawyer reenter.
He greeted him buoyantly.


LONG HAS A SHOCK 35
"Welcome back to your Sunday-school class, dear
teacher," he called out. "Observe that we're smiling
from east to west." He grinned exaggeratedly. "For
weeks we've only smiled from north to south, like
this." He curved his lips downward in a sanctimonious
burlesque. "In short, we're behaving pretty well when
you remember that the present impulse of our untamed
natures is to dance a cancan. But that wouldn't be
pretty, would it?"
"No; and it would be a little premature." Long ap-
proached them slowly, glad that George had given
him so good a cue.
Naomi Sabin was the only one in the group who
grasped the significance of his reply.
"Premature?" she quoted. "What do you mean by
that?"
"I mean—" Long spoke heavily, but he had decided
to let them have it straight—"I mean that another
document has just been handed to me. The will read
to you has been in existence for several years, and
was again formally approved by Miss Chandler only
three months ago. Naturally I had every reason to
assume that it represented her final wishes. But it ap-
pears that last week Miss Chandler made another
will." He watched the color drain from the faces of
Mrs. Price and Naomi Sabin, and took in the stupe-
fied, incredulous stare of the rest. "I'm afraid you may
find it disappointing," he ended. "But we shall not
know its financial provisions for some time."
For a moment a deep silence hung over the room.


LONG HAS A SHOCK 37
"Do you know anything about the provisions of this
second will, Mr. Long?"
"Very little. As I've said, it's not to be opened at
once. I'm to have instructions later. But there's a
definite plan to be followed in the interval. I am to put
that before you and to see that it's carried out."
"Then why not let us have the plan?"
Naomi had the brains of the group, the lawyer de-
cided. Moreover, she was getting herself in hand.
Every remark she made had been to the point, and now
she had the air of deliberately coming to his assistance.
"I will read it at once," he said, with a grateful
glance at her.
The second document began with a concise state-
ment that the bequests to charities and to the servants,
made in the first will, were repeated in the second with
slight modifications, which were mentioned. Johnson
would be relieved, Long reflected. No doubt Johnson
had been disturbed, feeling something unexpected in
the atmosphere. The lawyer raised his eyes from the
closely written pages and looked around the motionless
semicircle.
"I think I'll just give you the gist of the rest of
this," he said, his agreeable voice hardening a trifle
under the strain of his task. "I am given considerable
latitude, it appears, and I rather think it will be easier
for you to have, first of all, a brief summary of Miss
Chandler's general plan. We'll have plenty of time
to go into details later."
He talked for five minutes, but he did not look at


38 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
individuals as he spoke. He had cast one glance at the
leaden, desperate face of Mrs. Price, who was quiet
again but sat crouching forward, staring before her with
unseeing eyes. He had taken in, in that same glance,
the suddenly old look on the face of Naomi, and the
despair of the Dixons. Those revelations were enough.
Both the Prices and the Dixons, he knew, were at the
end of their financial tether. Mrs. Price had been
drawing on her small capital for years. George Dixon
had long since squandered the patrimony their mother
had left the twins, and had been borrowing heavily
at ruinous rates of interest on his "expectations." The
new plan spelled nothing short of tragedy to the Prices
and Dixons.
As he approached the end of his resume, however,
he found courage for another eye-flash at Naomi. She
was still in the wing-chair, her silk-clad legs crossed
and showing to the knees, her bobbed black head with
its shining high lights resting against the chair's high
back. Her dark, lovely face wore a look of smoldering
intensity. Her blue eyes, the bluest eyes Long had
ever seen, were fixed on the blazing logs. But there was
no detachment in her easeful pose. He knew that she
was following every word with strained attention.
Coming down to brass tacks, he ended, what the plan
meant was that they were all to be on some sort of
probation for six months, during which time they
would receive nothing from the estate. However, they
would be under no expense for shelter or food. They
were to spend that interval in Miss Chandler's home,


LONG HAS A SHOCK 39
as her guests. Any of them who refused to live in the
house during the stipulated period, or who, having
consented to do so, should be absent from it or break
its rules, automatically yielded by such absence or con-
duct his or her claims to any future benefit.
"This indicates that the new will provides for you
in some degree at least," the lawyer interpolated, and
went on to outline the conditions. The table would be
supplied on a scale suited to a family of nine, but for
any entertaining individuals wished to do they them-
selves must pay. No tobacco or liquor would be allowed
the family during the period of probation.
"Why, the old whited sepulcher!" George Dixon
cried, startled out of his usual calm. "She smoked, her-
self, like a chimney! I've seen her at it, every time I
came here."
"The clause means," Long patiently explained, "that
the household budget will not include allowance for
these things. It does not forbid them to those who can
afford to buy them as individuals, from their private
purses."
"I'll spend all I've got on 'em," George cheerfully
announced, and Naomi turned on him an enigmatic
glance. "I don't know any place where one would need
'em more than in this family tomb," he sulkily observed
in response to her look.
"Mr. Long, what does she mean by the family of
nine?" Catherine Price asked. "There are only seven of
us."
"That appears to be the little joker in the pack,"


LONG HAS A SHOCK 41
room every night during the first week we're here, and
sitting there for half an hour," Catherine ironically
murmured.
Mrs. Price sprang to her feet.
"The whole thing is terrible," she cried, with the
note of hysteria in her voice which had been there
when she last spoke. "It's a monstrous joke she's play-
ing on us, and I, for one, won't stand it!"
"Sit down, Mother. Don't let her get your goat,"
Lily Price coolly advised. "She'd enjoy doing that,
even from her grave."
"I can't tell you what my late client's object was,"
Long repeated. "She was sure you would all understand
without telling. And certainly I think you realize that
she didn't see fit to take me fully into her confidence.
But in the course of my thirty years of professional
relations and friendship with Miss Chandler I dis-
covered that, however erratic her actions seemed at
times, she usually had sound reasons for them. I don't
know why Miss Webb is in this. Perhaps she herself
doesn't know. But you can safely assume that Miss
Chandler was very sure of herself and her object when
she made a new will and all these plans, and as we go
on we shall understand them better. The sensible thing
to do in the meantime is to take a cheerful view of the
matter.
"We're going to be somewhat inconvenienced, I
fear," he added with an irrepressible sigh. He had
never realized until this moment how much he had
enjoyed the peaceful separateness of the unmarried.


42 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"It will be hard for me to leave my bachelor quarters,
where I've been pretty comfortable for fifteen years.
For a few moments I felt that I couldn't do it. And
Miss Chandler didn't give us much time to turn
around. She wants us all here within a week. Fortu-
nately, the house is big, so we needn't be under one
another's feet. Miss Chandler's own room, I see, is to
be left unoccupied, as well as the store-room on the
floor above it. Aside from those two rooms, we can
spread ourselves as we please. The present household
staff will remain, and, as you know, it's excellent. I
dare say we'll be very comfortable," he bravely ended.
"After all, it's only for six months. Let's consider it a
country-house visit and a new experience."
"I suppose there's no way of breaking that second
will—of proving undue influence or unsound mental
powers or anything of the kind?" Catherine Price sug-
gested.
"No. Miss Chandler has provided against that. Any
one who starts an action loses out all along the line."
"Then wouldn't it be a good idea to make the best
of things?" Catherine abruptly brought out. "As we're
all together now, why don't we go over the house
and select our quarters?"
"That would be an excellent plan."
Long rose, thinking better of Catherine Price; and
the others, slightly intrigued by the prospect of "prowl-
ing through the mausoleum," as George expressed it,
followed his example. Long summoned Johnson, and,


LONG HAS A SHOCK 43
when the butler came, addressed him cheerfully. He
had recovered his poise. Despite thirty years in the
law, Nicholas Long was still an optimist. No doubt
everything would work out all right. This was merely
one of Catherine's eccentric notions. He didn't attach
much importance to her discoveries. Of course any dis-
coveries she had made about the Dixons and the Price
girls would be startling to her.
"Johnson," he said, "I suppose you've heard that
there are to be some radical changes around here."
"I had suspected as much, sir." Johnson's voice
shook a trifle. The great Briggs had given him no
blue-print for such a moment as this.
"Don't be disturbed. You'll get your legacy; in fact,
you are to have seven thousand dollars instead of
six."
"That's very gratifying, sir." Johnson was relieved
but dazed.
"There's a little string to it," Long went on. "You're
to stay on in Miss Chandler's service another half-
year, and we're all to live here. We're still to look on
Miss Chandler as the head of the family, and we're
not to forget that she is our hostess."
Johnson was now sure that the whole thing was a
hoax. His plump body had a collapsing look.
"All to live here, sir?" he faltered, and tried to
smile at the joke.
"Yes. It's one of Miss Chandler's original ideas.
She had a lot of them, you know. We must make the


44 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
best of this one. We're going to select our new quarters
right now. Have you time to go over the house with
us?"
"Certainly, sir." Johnson was reassured. If this was
a dream, it was a realistic one. Mr. Long's manner
had never been more convincing.
"All right then, lead the way. I suppose the general
idea," Long added as the entire party left the room,
"is to give the ladies their choice of the quarters on the
second floor, while we bachelors camp out on the
third."
"Yes, sir. Do I understand, sir, that you yourself
are to be with us?"
"Yes, and Miss Webb, too."
Johnson led the way with buoyant steps. He was to
have seven thousand dollars at the end of six months.
The new business could wait. Meantime Mr. Long,
whom he greatly admired, would doubtless be the head
of the house. That was a little bit of all right.
"Would you care to see the late Miss Chandler's
rooms first, sir?" he asked as the procession reached
the upper landing.
"We'll have a look at them. But we must not refer
to her as 'the late Miss Chandler.' She's supposed to be
still among us. No one will use the room where she
died. It's to be left just as it is; but kept in perfect
order, of course, as if she were occupying it."
"Certainly, sir."
Johnson threw open a door at the right of the front
hall, and Catherine Chandler's guests crowded about


46 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"I suppose I oughtn't to have said it," she mut-
tered. "Just the same, she's played us a rotten trick;
and if she's where she knows about it, I'll bet she's
glad she did it."
"That'll be about all from you, Lil," Catherine Price
said evenly. "See what you're doing to Mother!"
Long saw the eyes of the two girls meet and hold.
Then Lily shrugged her thin shoulders with a gesture
of surrender and was silent. Mrs. Price, obviously
struggling for self-control, moved away from the rest
and across the hall. The lawyer was interested in that
brief eye-duel between the sisters. He knew now that
Catherine Price was the ruling spirit of her family.
Off Miss Chandler's chamber was a good-sized dress-
ing-room, used for the past two years as a bedroom
for nurses, and between the two rooms was a large
bathroom, with up-to-date tub and equipment.
"I suppose Miss Webb will prefer to keep the dress-
ing-room and bathroom," Long mused aloud as his
eye took in these details. "She's used to them, and I see
there's an exit into the hall from the dressing-room.
The connecting door into Miss Chandler's room could
be kept locked."
"Very well, sir."
Johnson accepted the suggestions as an order, and
the others appeared to approve them. The party fol-
lowed Mrs. Price across the hall, to a door opposite
Miss Chandler's. The room they entered was very
similar to hers, its side windows looking out on the


LONG HAS A SHOCK 47
vista of another lawn and distant rows of dolorous
pines and cedars.
"Would this suit you, Mrs. Price?" Long was quietly
taking charge, but no one resented his leadership. "It
occurs to me that if it would, your daughters could
take the connecting dressing-room—I assume that
they're in the habit of rooming together—and you
could all three use the bathroom. Then you'd have a
little suite to yourselves."
"It will do nicely, thank you." But the voice of
Mrs. Price held the flat tones of utter depression.
"That seems to solve the whole problem," Long said.
"As I remember it, there are two large rear rooms,
looking over the back garden and with a bathroom
between them, which might do for Miss Dixon and
Miss Sabin. Let's go and look at them."
He spoke with almost his normal cheerfulness. His
mind had now accepted the personal upheaval before
him. Surely there was no tragedy in being made com-
fortable for six months in a fine old house like this.
Ethel Dixon and Naomi Sabin inspected their rooms
indifferently, and both approved them with a word.
Johnson led the pageant up the staircase to the third
floor.
"I'm used to quick decisions," Long said as they
all stopped on the upper landing. "If you lads don't
mind, I'll take the big front room over Miss Chand-
ler's, because I'm an older man and a selfish one. You
young chaps can have the two rear rooms just above


48 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Miss Sabin's and Miss Dixon's. In return for my
superior accommodations I'll put in a new bathroom
for the three of us, as there's none on this floor. It
will be an up-to-date one, I promise you, with a good
shower. I dare say there's a big old linen closet or
something of that sort that will make over into an
excellent bathroom." To Johnson he added, "There
are no quarters here for Stevens, I suppose?"
"I'm afraid not, sir."
"H-m-m. I might give him a six-months leave of
absence," Long mused. "I happen to know he's very
anxious to go back to Scotland for a visit. Could you
look after me?"
"It would be a'pleasure, sir." Johnson spoke eagerly,
seeing a generous addition to his income.
"Then that's settled."
"Long's methods are the subtle ones of a steam-
roller," George murmured to Henry Hutchins. "But
fortunately his ideas are pretty good, and certainly
he's quick on the trigger."
Unconscious of this compliment, Long beamed mildly
upon his companions. It was absurd to get upset over
unexpected happenings. With a little patience and judg-
ment one could usually shape events. . . . And prob-
ably they'd all be as well off in six months as they had
thought themselves after the will was read. By this
time he was almost convinced of that. Yes, things
were sure to work out satisfactorily. . . .
His sense of well-being lasted while they were de-
scending the two flights of stairs. He stopped in the


LONG HAS A SHOCK 49
front hall, at a point where hats and coats could be
reached without delay.
"Then I think there's nothing else?" He glanced
from one to the other of the group, eager to be off.
"Everything's quite understood, isn't it? A week from
to-day finds us all settled here." He turned to the wait-
ing butler, hovering in the background. "I'll have the
plumbers at work on that new bathroom early to-
morrow morning. They must make a rush job of it."
"What I'd like to know," Lily Price suddenly
brought out, "is where we're going to get money for
our other expenses during those six months."
She had voiced what all of them were thinking save
Henry Hutchjns, who was earning a living wage. Every
eye in the group steadfastly fixed itself on Long's
face.
"Oh," he said, in some embarrassment. "Oh, well,
the expenses of the move into this house will be met by
the estate. Miss Chandler has provided for that. Here,
in the matter of lodging, food and service, weill be
guests. Unfortunately, no provision has been made for
other expenses. You'll have to go on as you've been
doing."
"Then how can we pay our debts?" Ethel Dixon
wanted to know. As Long did not answer this poignant
cry, her brother did it for him.
"We won't pay them," he ruled. "We've no money
to waste on debts. That's nothing new. What interests
me—
"Then I'll say good afternoon," Long interrupted.


50 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"I have to meet an early dinner engagement in town."
He did not meet that engagement. He had forgotten
Miss Webb and her appointment, but Miss Webb had
not forgotten him. As he hurried past the library
door, it opened and the nurse stood waiting, still
garbed in her white uniform. By this time Long's
hat was in his hand, his overcoat was on his arm. She
read the meaning of these things, but her manner
was unhurried.
"I'm afraid what I have to say may be a shock
to you," she began when he had followed her into
the library and taken a chair near the one in which
she seated herself. He still carried his hat and coat,
and she glanced at them as she spoke; but the glance
was the type that dismisses the object it rests upon.
"I owe you an apology," he confessed. "I'm ashamed
to say that I forgot—"
"I know. You had reason enough." She was ac-
tually trying to put him at his ease, and the lawyer
smiled dryly. "It has been a hard day," she went on.
"I know you're in a hurry, too. But I think you'll
find that what I have to say is important."
Long sighed and waited. It had been a hard day.
It was still a hard day. As soon as one began to feel
a slight lessening of its tension, something else came
along to tighten that tension again.
"Yes?" he said rather wearily. He had been loung-
ing a trifle in his chair because the chair happened
to be comfortable. Miss Webb's next words brought
him upright.


LONG HAS A SHOCK 51
"Mr. Long," she said, "I think it is my duty to
tell you that I am not sure Miss Chandler's death
was a natural one."
He turned, and the look he gave her was as men-
acing as an upraised blade. "What's that you're say-
ing?"
"I _ think—in fact, I'm almost sure—that Miss
Chandler was poisoned." She let this sink in before
she made her next remarkable statement: "I believe
she thought so, too."
For a moment the lawyer studied her in frowning
silence. He realized that the young woman, wild
though her statements were, was speaking with con-
viction.
'"If you thought these things, why did you wait
till now to report them?" he curtly demanded.
"For two reasons. The first is that I'm not sure
I'm right. The second is that I am sure Miss Chandler
wanted it done this way."
"What makes you think that?"
"Her change of will only a few days before her
death, and the fact that she is herding us all together
in this house."
"You know about that?"
"Yes, I do. Four days before her death, the day
she made the new will, she told me a little about her
plans. You see, Jennie and I witnessed the will. She
ordered us both to say nothing about it to any one.
When she and I were alone again she talked to me.
She asked me to stay on, at double wages. She wants


52 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
us all herded here together till some scheme she made
works out—"
Long shook off the sense of unreality that was
stealing over him.
"Why in God's name should any one kill her?"
he muttered. "She had to die soon, anyway."
"Not soon enough, perhaps, to suit some one who
was in a hurry for her money. You know, only six
weeks ago the specialists gave her another year, per-
haps even two years."
"Have you given a hint of this notion of yours
to any one else?"
"Only to Doctor Cary."
"Ah!" Long leaped at the admission. "What did
Cary say to it?"
"He simply jeered." Miss Webb's firm lips set re-
sentfully. For a moment she looked as Long remem-
bered her. "He thought I was worn out. Doctor Cary is
not modern, you know, and he isn't especially ob-
servant, either. He didn't come often, and he wasn't
in close touch with the case. I doubt if he even knows
anything about the new slow-acting poison I now sus-
pect was used. But I admit that it's only a suspicion;
I have no proofs."
"Wouldn't an autopsy have shown?"
"Of course. But the poison's very subtle. It works
slowly and leaves less trace than most others. Its final
symptoms—paralysis of the legs, abdominal pains, and
all that—are the usual symptoms of Miss Chandler's
disease in its last stages."


LONG HAS A SHOCK 53
"How do you happen to know so much about it?"
"I once had a case in which it figured."
"All right. We won't go into that now."
"I have no intention of going into it." Miss Webb's
tone suggested that she was speaking to him from the
hinterlands of space. "I merely answered your ques-
tion."
Long got up and stood before her, looking down
into the brown eyes she raised to meet his.
"Miss Webb," he said quietly, "I beg your pardon.
I shouldn't have spoken as I did. But I needn't tell
you that what you have just said has been a shock
to me. Even yet I can't take it in. A suspicion like
that, expressed by the patient's nurse . . ."
Miss Webb nodded understandingly, but she said
nothing and Long turned and walked toward the
window, hands deep-thrust in his trousers' pockets and
shoulders bent a little as if under an unexpected
weight.
"Hadn't she perhaps exhausted herself with
all the business and dictation and letter-writing I un-
derstand was going on?" he asked at last, over his
shoulder.
"She would have if she had done it often. But the
last few weeks she saw almost no one except the
family. Of course they continued to trail in and out.
I had persuaded her to drop most of the daily business
interviews she had been having with Jackson and
White."
"If she died of poison—assuming for a moment


54 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
that you're right—mightn't she have taken it her-
self?"
"Never! She wasn't that kind." The nurse's head
rose in scornful repudiation of the suggestion. "Be-
sides, she couldn't possibly have done it, even if she
had wanted to. She had completely lost the use of her
legs. Her bed was made two or three times a day, so
she couldn't have hidden anything. And her medicine
tables with their drawers and boxes were all on the
other side of the room. She wouldn't have anything
of the kind near her. She loathed the atmosphere of
a sick-room, poor dear, and all the paraphernalia that
went with it—including her nurses, some days," she
ended with a sigh.
The lawyer wheeled toward her and expressed the
thought he was clinging to:
"You say Cary doesn't take any stock in this sus-
picion of yours."
"That's true, but I've told you why. A younger
doctor might have looked at it differently. Of course
it is merely a theory," she added, and was silent again,
plainly giving him time to reflect. "I didn't think of it
seriously, myself, till she died and I began to wonder
why she went so much sooner than we had expected.
Then I found myself putting two and two together,
and I've been doing it ever since.
"The point is that I wasn't alone in my suspicions,"
she went on as he stood thoughtfully regarding her.
"I am convinced that Miss Chandler was suspicious.
I had realized for weeks that she was afraid of some-


LONG HAS A SHOCK 55
thing—that she was getting nervous and frightened.
That wasn't like her. Four days before her death she
began to comment on her symptoms and to talk about
family scandals and crimes, and her horror of pub-
licity. She said if anything scandalous came up in her
case, no matter what it was, she'd know how to meet
it without calling in the police. And she added that if
there was anything going on I didn't understand, I
was to keep my mouth shut. That's exactly the way
she put it. You know how brusque she was. Right
after that, the same morning, she made me telephone
for the new lawyer. Then she wrote a long letter to
some one—to you, I suppose."
A sudden memory came to Long. Catherine Chand-
ler had said: "Work with Miss Webb. She under-
stands a good deal." His shoulders sagged lower. He
realized in that moment that he was no longer a
young man.
"All this may be pure imagination,"" he asserted.
"Yours and hers. Or, more likely, you imagined hers."
"It may be. Doctor Cary thought it was nerves,
and he advised me to have a rest. Of course when I
saw how he was taking it I dropped the subject. I'm
sure he'll never recommend me for another case." She
went on in a different tone: "Miss Chandler did a lot
of thinking the last weeks of her life. There were
things going on I didn't understand, but I knew she
was frightened and worried. She would lie staring at
the wall for hours. . . ."
The woman was actually impressing him, though


56 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Long fought hard against the mental admission.
"Do you think she suspected any particular per-
son?" he asked after another brief silence.
"No, that's just the point. It's to solve that ques-
tion that she's . . ."
"Herding us all together." He hastened to* supply
the words, feeling that he could not endure hearing
them again from her lips. "If it's all guesswork, as it
appears to be, what was your object in telling me
now?"
"I think she expected you and me to work it out,
without police aid or publicity at any time. Besides,
she told me to tell you."
"What!"
Miss Webb seemed startled by his vehemence. "She
tacitly told me to. She said I was to consult you during
our six months here whenever I needed advice. But of
course we've got to proceed with the utmost tact.
We've no case at all as the thing stands now. And
Doctor Cary is definitely against us."
"Definitely against you, you mean. You're assuming
entirely too much. You haven't convinced me that
there's anything in this."
"I think time will convince you." The nurse spoke
with calm conviction. She had shot her arrow into
the air and seemed sure it would find its mark. "Time
. . . and other things."
Long walked stiffly to the chair where he had left
his hat and coat and put on the coat.
"Well, you've relieved your mind," he brought out.


LONG HAS A SHOCK 57
Then, his gloves forgotten in his hands, he stood look-
ing at her uncertainly. "I'm not at all sure that there's
anything in this," he sternly repeated. "I believe it's
a mare's nest. Of course you won't mention it to any
one else."
"She told me not to; that is, she said not to confide
in any one else."
It was all so like Catherine. Given the conditions
the nurse suspected, it was just the sort of thing
Catherine would have done. This was the reflection
that persisted, that disturbed him.
"It takes some thinking over," he admitted at last.
"Meantime I must get back to town. I'll be out again
to-morrow or the next day." He turned to the relief
of practical details. "I suppose you're to act as a sort
of super-housekeeper here, and get the place ready for
our invasion."
"That was what Miss Chandler told me to do."
"Good-by, then; I'm off," he said, and started.
He wouldn't even wait for Johnson to open the
car door, though that willing servitor had followed
him down the front steps. Waterford was twenty miles
away and he made the run back in half an hour. He
wanted to get as far as he could from Catherine
Chandler's house. He had taken care not to see any
of the family again before he left—that family in
which Catherine Chandler had perhaps imagined there
was a killer. A nice six months he'd have, shut up
with that group . . . with that suspicion in his mind
. . . for of course it was in his mind. . . .


i58 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
The fresh November air braced him up, but he
drove as though pursued by something tangible and
malignant. Fast as he went, however, the thing he
feared kept up with him. Nothing in the woman's
notion, of course. But one can't ignore even the slight-
est hint of murder. . . . Herded together ... A nice
six months . . .


CHAPTER III
DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS
THE following day brought the efficient Johnson
a soul-shattering disappointment.
"By the way," Long informed him in the late after-
noon, when he had inspected and approved the plans
for the new bathroom, "I've decided that I must drop
my hope of any upstairs service from you. It wouldn't
be fair to you, nor to the rest. You'll have all you can
handle. We must rig up some sort of quarters for
Stevens. I'll be enough of a nuisance to you down-
stairs," he added kindly, as Johnson's facial disk
showed his chagrin. "Can you find a room on the
fourth floor for Stevens? That would be more con-
venient for us—if the women servants wouldn't mind.
Stevens is a middle-aged man and very conventional,"
he smilingly ended.
The smile cheered Johnson. "We can manage it,
sir. There's the fourth-floor room of Miss Chandler's
maid, Nora. She'll be leaving, I suppose, unless the
ladies want to keep her."
Long reflected briefly. The finances of the guests
would not allow them to run to maids. Better let the
girl go, but remain in touch with her for future use.
Miss Chandler had somewhat conspicuously failed to
59


6o THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
provide for Nora in her plans, though she had so
generously remembered the girl in her will.
"I don't think they'll need her," he decided aloud.
"And Nora's room will do nicely for Stevens. See
to that end of it, will you, Johnson?" A bank-note
passed from hand to hand and Johnson's manner mel-
lowed still more. Mr. Long had always shown a gener-
ous disposition.
"I'll tell Miss Webb you said to give Nora a month's
wages and let her go," Johnson volunteered. "Then
we'll be ready for Mr. Stevens whenever he comes."
"I'll speak to Miss Webb, myself," Long amended.
"I must see that we have Nora's address, wherever
she is."
After that, of course, he had to send for Miss
Webb, and he dreaded the interview. However, it
passed off smoothly enough. The attractive face of the
nurse wore an expression reminding him that she had
done her duty, but she also made it clear that she
had no intention of bringing up the subject which was
in the foreground of their thoughts. He had to do that,
himself, after they had indulged in a little verbal fenc-
ing.
"I suppose there's no reason why we should keep
Nora any longer," he tentatively advanced.
"None whatever, unless there's some work for her
to do."
"Is there?"
"Not that I know of, though a houseful of women
can usually keep a maid busy."


DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 61
"The women in this house can't afford a personal
maid at present," Long ruled. Then, as Miss Webb
waited in silence, he had to go to the point: "Is there
any reason, connected with your suspicions, why we
should keep Nora under observation?"
"None at all. Nora is a stupid and well-meaning
girl, and her job had been a sinecure for six months.
She's the sort of personal maid who is excellent in
health but no good in sickness. She made Miss Chand-
ler horribly nervous, so W/e kept her out of the sick-
room. She'll be much better off away from this
menagerie."
"All right. Give her a month's wages, warn her to
keep us informed of her address, and tell her to come
to my office if she needs any advance on her legacy."
"Very well, Mr. Long. Is there anything else?"
"Nothing just now, thanks."
He heard her go, heard the door close behind her.
Then, strolling over to a window, he stared unseeingly
at the outer world. The longer he looked forward to
the coming half-year, the more, in one way, he dis-
liked the vista. His impression that life was a pleasant
affair was fading. Yet of course this whole poison
scare might be the delusion old Cary considered it.
However, he himself dared not assume that it was a
delusion. Cary had no further responsibilities. Long
had. He had made his decision after another reading
of Catherine Chandler's letter.
Read in the light of Miss Webb's statement, that
letter had impressed him. The new will lay sealed in


62 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
his office safe, and he had shaped his course of con-
duct on the letter. There was some satisfaction in the
knowledge, a satisfaction now momentarily blurred
by the suspicion that his first assistant, the highly effi-
cient Miss Webb, had no flattering impression of his
gifts as a leader. Well, he was not a criminal lawyer.
If one were needed, Catherine should not have selected
a conservative person whose specialty was the handling
of estates.
Perhaps it was the brief interview with the nurse
that had caused the phenomenon, but mingled now with
his depression and the dread he could not shake off
was a new-born sensation. He did not analyze it
clearly, but there was excitement and a certain thrill
in this situation. It had been a long time since any-
thing out of the ordinary had interrupted the placid
routine of his existence. It was good to know that he
was still human enough, still sufficiently warm-blooded
and mentally elastic, to feel that tingle of the senses
at the prospect of action, perhaps even of danger.
Yet back of it all, like a substantial prop, stood his
faith in Cary. Surely the doctor must be right. Long
did not mean to let his nerves get the better of him
as the woman's nerves had done. There had been inner
excitement in her manner that morning, though she
had been outwardly so cool. The excitement was under-
standable, of course. Catherine had kept all those
around her under a heavy nervous strain, and Miss
Webb had borne the worst of the tension. He under-
stood that the night-nurse, Miss Connolly, had been


DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 63
more fortunate, as the patient had usually had quiet
nights. But he must look into that detail more closely,
and right now. He had forgotten Miss Connolly. He
rang the bell, and when Johnson responded, which he
did with an alacrity suggesting that he had been linger-
ing outside the door, he sent Miss Webb a message ask-
ing her to return to the library for a moment.
The room was now normal. It had been swept and
aired, and through its windows the cold sunshine of
a frosty day pierced its way. But to Long its atmos-
phere was still reminiscent of the heavy scent of
flowers, of the presence of the silent figure that had
lain there. He was glad when the opening door purred
along the polished floor and Miss Webb came in again.
He watched her as she crossed the room, taking the
opportunity to give her a closer scrutiny than he had
yet turned on her.
His first impression was one of surprise. She was
really a superb-looking creature. He decided that she
could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, but she
combined with her professional manner an air of entire
sophistication. She held herself well, too, walking with
head and shoulders back and the stride of a college
girl on the golf-links. Possibly she had been a college
girl. Her quiet assurance and her vocabulary suggested
it. She still wore her white uniform. It was a becoming
one and the small cap sat at an almost jaunty angle on
her copper-colored hair. She had a taking little mole
at the right of her left eyebrow.
He did not understand a sudden change in her till


64 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
he realized that she was smiling as she came toward
him and that the smile was as friendly as it was
brilliant. He experienced a surprising sense of relief
as he returned the smile. The suggestion of tension in
her had departed.
"Sorry to call you back," he apologized when they
were seated, and there was a new note of cordiality in
his agreeable voice. "I forgot to ask you some ques-
tions I had in mind about Miss Connolly. Has she
left?"
"Oh, yes. She came back for the funeral, but she
left, professionally, the morning after Miss Chandler
died."
Miss Webb stopped smiling and became profes-
sional again, as if the question had been an invocation.
"Was that wise?"
"It's customary. There's no reason why the trained
nurse should stay on. I should have left the next morn-
ing, myself—perhaps even that night—if it hadn't
been for Miss Chandler's instructions."
He put his next question almost reluctantly:
"Had you reason to think that Miss Connolly sus-
pected anything was wrong?"
Hope Webb's auburn eyebrows rose.
"Miss Connolly," she said succinctly, "would hardly
have suspected that anything was wrong if some one
had entered the room and killed her patient with an
ax. She was married two days after she left here,
and she hasn't thought of anything but that marriage
for months. If Miss Chandler had been restless and


DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 65
uncomfortable at night, I shouldn't have dared leave
her to Miss Connolly. But fortunately she needed very
little attention then, so Miss Connolly sat beside her
bed and no one was the worse for it."
"What time did Miss Connolly go on duty?" Long
asked.
"At six. She gave the patient her supper, and then
read aloud to her till Miss Chandler took her sleeping
powder, usually about half-past nine, and dropped off.
Miss Connolly is a nice girl," Miss Webb added, "and
she comes from one of our best training-schools. I'm
not criticizing her at all. I suppose her state of mind
was natural in such conditions. She went through the
motions of looking after her patient, and she did them
well enough from force of habit. But she has been
living in a dream, and the only time I saw her really
awake was when she heard that Miss Chandler had
left her five hundred dollars. It seems that five hun-
dred dollars will just furnish her new living-room."
Long laughed softly and rose. "We must see that
she gets it without delay."
The nurse rose, too, and he faced her with a sug-
gestion of friendly interest. She was far more human
in this interview than he had yet seen her, and the
phenomenon interested him.
"You haven't changed your mind?" he tentatively
inquired. "You seem so alert and cheerful all of a
sudden that I wondered—"
"Not a bit of it." Miss Webb spoke crisply. Then
she smiled again. "But I'm not going to go around
s


66 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
looking and acting like a sleuth in fiction," she con-
fided. "I made that decision after my first talk with
you. Another thing is certain, too. I'm not going to
let this situation get on my nerves. It might, very
easily, if one thought too much about it."
Long nodded. He had discovered that himself. "I
see you're still clinging to your uniform."
"Yes. And I want to keep on doing it. It's the outfit
I'm used to, and I feel most comfortable in it. But
Miss Chandler told me to take all my meals with the
family—she made a strong point of that—and I'm
wondering about dinner dress. I suppose I ought to
change at night. That will mean a few evening
gowns."
"And you haven't them? Then I think we ought
to supply them. That certainly shouldn't be part of
your expenses." His look sharpened as he watched her
face. He must be cautious in the matter of expenses.
"How many evening gowns shall you need?" he asked
in a severely businesslike tone. "Two or three?"
"Three will be enough. You'd better tell me how
much I can spend on them and I'll keep within the
amount."
"I'm not an authority on the subject. What would
you suggest?"
"Two hundred dollars. I'll get very simple gowns,
but I'll need slippers and silk stockings to match them,
and a scarf or two."
"Two hundred will be satisfactory. Shall I give
you a check?"


68 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
and he hoped the old chap wouldn't forget it. He,
Long, would keep his roadster in the Chandler garage
and drive back and forth to Waterford. ... It might
take more time than the express-trains, but it would
be more comfortable. He loathed trains. . . . He was
justified in making himself physically as comfortable
as possible during the coming six months, since every
indication pointed to considerable mental discom-
fort. . . .
And this job would play the mischief with his law
practice. He wouldn't be able to keep his mind on
anything else. However, he need not bother about that.
Catherine herself had fixed his retainer, and it was far
in advance of what he would have asked her. He could
turn a lot of his own work over to a legal friend. He
must earn Catherine's big fee, and there was only
one way to do that. ... A deep sigh broke from the
lips of the harassed lawyer. The sound startled him
and he uttered a mirthless laugh.
"If I'm like this now, I wonder what I'll be six
months from now," he muttered, and grimaced at the
thought.
He found Doctor Cary waiting in his office and
looking impatient. Long was ten minutes late, and
Cary mentioned this with pain as they perfunctorily
shook hands. Long apologized and went at once to
the point of his visit.
"I wanted to ask you a few questions about Miss
Chandler's death," he began. "It was rather unex-
pected at the end, wasn't it?"


DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 69
"It was, and it wasn't." Cary irritably shook his
big white head. "She might have lived on for awhile,
or she might have died sooner than she did. One never
knows how it's going to be in those cases."
"But wasn't it a fact, Doctor, that you and the
specialists you called in had practically given her an-
other year or two?"
"We held out hopes of it. She had amazing vitality.
At the same time, none of us was surprised when she
went. Look here!" He leaned forward in his swivel
chair and put a wrinkled forefinger with a swollen
first joint on Long's knee. His office hours were over,
but the two men were in Cary's book-lined consulting
room, the doctor at his office desk, Long before him
on the anxious seat so many patients must have oc-
cupied. "Has that fool nurse said anything to you
that's made you ask these questions?" the doctor
brusquely demanded.
Long met steadily the keen old eyes.
"Is she a fool nurse?" he asked, and something in
the tone and the quiet courtesy of the younger man
steadied the older one and banished his momentary
irritation. He sat back in his chair and his expression
changed.
"I shouldn't have said that," he admitted. "She's
a good nurse, one of the best I've seen in a sick-room.
She's all right as long as she sticks to her job. But
when she gets away from that and goes in for sus-
picions and diagnosis, she loses her head like the rest
of them."


70 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Then you're convinced, Doctor, that Miss Chand-
ler's death was due to her disease and to no other
cause?"
"Of course I am."
"And there was nothing—no incident or incidents
at any time, except Miss Webb's report to you—that
suggested anything wrong, unusual, criminal?"
"Of course there wasn't." But now the absolute cer-
tainty had left Cary's manner. His big face looked
confused. "You don't mean that you are taking that
stuff seriously," he added.
"I'm inclined to think, from her actions and a letter
she wrote me, that Miss Chandler herself may have
shared Miss Webb's suspicion," Long confessed.
"Nonsense!"
"It may be nonsense. I hope to God it is. But it's
what brought me here to-day." As Cary did not reply
to this, the lawyer added: "Certainly she was worried
about something a few days before her death, and you
know she changed her will and all her plans almost
at the last minute. How long before Miss Chandler's
death did you last see her?"
"About two hours."
"Was she conscious?"
"No."
Long rose. He was getting nowhere, and he had an
irritating suspicion that the old doctor was keeping
something from him.
"There's a simple way of settling the question," he
said, slowly. "Any dose strong enough to cause her


DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 71
death would certainly leave some trace, though Miss
Webb thinks there wouldn't be much if the poison
she suspects was used. I suppose you'd have no ob-
jections to a post mortem, even at this late date."
Doctor Cary's big body moved irritably in the
roomy swivel chair.
"No, but she would," he jerked out.
Long sat down again. "What do you mean by that?"
"The last time I saw Miss Chandler conscious,"
said Cary, with a sudden air of making a clean breast
of it, "was twenty-four hours before her death. She
told me she didn't want any post mortem. Her disease
was an interesting one, and I thought she was afraid
we'd want some exploratory cutting. Of course we
hadn't considered any such thing, as I pointed out
to her. I decided when I thought it over that possibly
she had heard something about p.m.'s. Any layman
who knows anything about them has a horror of them,
and quite justifiably, too. Bodies aren't handled as
the families would handle them," he added grimly,
"and there isn't much of them left when the doctors
get through. I know one trained nurse who was
knocked out for days by seeing an autopsy. But that's
neither here nor there. It's quite on the cards that
Catherine Chandler had a horror of post mortems.
She isn't the first patient I've had who has ruled
against being cut up. On the other hand . . ."
"Yes?" Long prompted. Probably the tone was too
official, too eager. Certainly it changed Cary's mood,
"Perhaps the Webb woman frightened her," he


72 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
snapped. "In the condition Catherine Chandler was in,
the mental state of some one close to her all the time
might easily have affected her."
"Then you would oppose a post mortem now?"
"I'd consider it damn foolishness, as well as strictly
against the wishes of my patient," the old doctor ended
more mildly.
Long got up again, this time with finality.
"Doctor," he said emphasizing every word, "forgive
me for my persistence, but this matter seems to me
important. Are you absolutely convinced that Cath-
erine Chandler died from disease and not from poison-
ing?"
Cary rose, but he did not face his visitor. Instead
he looked past him, as if considering the question.
Nevertheless he answered it in a tone of entire con-
viction:
1 am.
"That's very reassuring," Long said with a quick
breath of relief. "But why did she think something
unusual was going on? Why did she tell Miss Webb
to keep her mouth shut?"
Cary snorted.
"That was good advice to give the Webb woman al-
most any time," he said. "She talks too damn much.
See what she's done to you!"
"She has simply made me wonder why Miss Chand-
ler was suspicious and afraid. I wish you'd explain
that. Or do you even admit that she was?"
"She may have been suspicious," Cary conceded.


DOCTOR CARY SIDESTEPS 73
"I can see that her request to me suggests that. She
must have known we'd never dream of holding a
p.m. without her permission. But if she had any sus-
picion," he added firmly, "it was put into her mind,
in one way or another, by the Webb girl. And you
can take my word that no one poisoned her."
"That's your final conclusion?"
"It is."
"Would she . . . could she . . . have poisoned
herself?"
"Do you really think, knowing her as you did, that
that's possible?"
"No."
"Neither do I."
"But, Doctor, just for the sake of argument, what
do you think of this theory: Is it possible that Cath-
erine Chandler suspected that she was poisoned, and
decided that since she had to die anyway in a year
or so it wasn't a matter to make a sensation over?"
Cary laughed shortly.
"You and I have known the late Catherine for a
good many years," he dryly reminded his visitor. "Did
she strike you as the type of woman who'd let some
one poison her and get away with it?"
"No. But she might have had her own way of
handling the matter. She was capable of that."
"She was capable of anything," Cary conceded.
"But in this case you're barking up the wrong tree."
The interview ended with this tribute to their late
friend, and Long returned to his roadster and drove


CHAPTER IV
NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE
MISS CHANDLER'S guests were dining. It
was their first evening together in their new
home, and though the dinner was perfect, representing
the combined efforts of four master minds, the occa-
sion could hardly be considered a social success. Long
admitted this as he looked around the table.
Concerning the matter of the meal itself, he had
taken a definite stand with Miss Webb.
"I'm not sure how much you know about food aside
from its dietetic value," he began with his usual
suavity, "but it seems to me important that this family
should have good meals. We have an excellent cook
here and a superfine butler, and all we need is a little
imagination in the ordering. If, in the beginning, you
will let me make some suggestions—or Johnson can
do it if you prefer—" he added as Miss Webb's ex-
pression subtly changed, "you'll soon get the right idea
of what we want and then you can go on alone. I'm
assuming," he added with his likable smile, "that plan-
ning the meals in a house like this is a little outside
of your experience."
Miss Webb had admitted that it was. She had also
proved hospitable to suggestions. The menu he gave
75


76 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
her was a good one and the cook had done justice to
it. But there was constraint at the table, due largely,
Long realized, to that eloquently empty chair at its
head, partly to the fatigue and excitement of packing
and moving, and most of all to a nerve tension that
obviously existed among the guests.
Only Mrs. Price seemed at ease. Long suspected
that when she had taken time to think, it had been a
definite relief to her to be assured of good food and
lodging for herself and her daughters for half a year.
He was greatly relieved by her change of manner, and
decided that he understood it. In addition to the pros-
pect of living without much expense for six months,
Anne Price, worldling to her finger-tips, probably loved
an atmosphere of wealth and luxury. Despite its mid-
Victorian setting the heavy affluence of the Chandler
dining-room appealed to her, and her beauty-loving
senses basked in the aesthetic values of its soft lights,
its flowers, and the blazing logs in its big fireplace. She
ate none of the perfect dinner, but she was obviously
calling on all her social gifts to amuse Long.
Seated at the end of the table opposite Miss Chand-
ler's empty chair, and with Mrs. Price at his right, the
lawyer met her overtures more than half-way. He had
always liked and admired Anne Price, and to-night
her rather faded blond beauty had quickened into
something that almost stirred his pulses. He remem-
bered that she had married very young. She could not
be more than forty now and in this hour she looked


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 77
thirty. There was even color in her cheeks—possibly
rouge, but it was very becoming.
Naomi Sabin also was a lovely thing to see, and
Miss Webb, seated between Henry Hutchins and
George Dixon, was almost flamboyantly handsome in
a water-green evening gown that did not suffer by
comparison with the clothes of the women around her.
Thus far, however, she plainly felt no obligation
to contribute to the gaiety of the occasion, and the rest
of the young folks were silent and almost sullen. With
the exception of Catherine none of them spoke often
save Henry Hutchins; and when Henry spoke Long
rather wished he wouldn't. The young man had a
ponderous manner, an appalling lack of humor, and
an obsession on first editions. He discoursed to Naomi
on this pet topic, but Long suspected that the girl
hardly heard what he said, though she answered him
courteously enough.
The men did not linger in the dining-room after
the women left. There was nothing to drink, and they
had not yet grown used to that empty chair. They
knew they could smoke in the living-room, where
already the girls were setting the example.
"Thank God there's no empty chair standing around
in here," George muttered as he lit his first cigarette.
Long sighed.
"There is," he confessed, "and I forgot to speak
of it. It's the big Chinese chair you're sitting in,
Naomi. It was brought down from Miss Chandler's


78 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
room, by her orders, and it's to stand at the right of
the fireplace, empty from now on. Evidently she
wanted us to have a strong sense of her presence
whenever we are together," he ended, his eyes on
Naomi's paling face as she sprang from the chair.
"I beg Aunt C. C.'s pardon," Naomi said breath-
lessly, and dropped into the wing-chair Henry hastened
to offer her, as if it were a refuge. There was a mo-
ment of silence, which George Dixon broke.
"This passion of Auntie's for our society is some-
thing new," he said quietly. "Every time Ethel drove
me here to see her I got the feeling that the old girl
wanted to turn the hose on me, and the last time I
called—Gee! I wish I hadn't thought of that now!"
he added with a shiver. Catherine broke in so suddenly
that Mrs. Price's thin body jerked in its chair.
"Mr. Long," she began in her vibrant young voice,
"there's something we all want to know. And now
that we're comfortably smoking together around the
fire, it seems a good time to ask about it. The family,"
she added with a smile, "has asked me to be spokes-
man."
"Speak on, my dear," Long invited. His dinner had
been perfect and his cigar was good. His mood was
peaceful. He had expected questions and though he
would have preferred to answer them a little later,
this was probably as good a time as any.
"We've been talking things over among ourselves,"
Catherine confessed. "Of course you knew we'd do
that. It's clear enough that we're here on probation,


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 79
all of us. Evidently we're to follow some plan of
Aunt C. C.'s and to stand some sort of tests. But don't
you think that in simple fairness we ought to know
what the tests are? And if there are rules and regula-
tions, as I suppose there must be, oughtn't we to know
them, too?"
Long nodded, looking thoughtfully at the burning
end of the cigar he had taken from his lips and was
holding in his fingers. He knew that the eyes of every
one in the room were on him, but he could not look
around that expectant circle, could not meet those
searching eyes. In that moment Catherine Chandler's
plan seemed to him monstrous, a hideous travesty of
justice. She was subjecting seven persons to a six-
months inquisition based solely on what might be
wholly unfounded suspicion that one of them was a
criminal. It was an atrocious thing to do.
He forced himself to the issue before him.
"I wish I could answer as frankly as you've just
spoken, Catherine," he began. He had decided that it
would simplify matters and promote a friendly infor-
mality if he addressed all the young things by their
first names. "But the truth is," he went on, "I'm al-
most as much in the dark about this business as the
rest of you. I've told you about all I know, and we'll
have to use our imaginations on the remainder. It will
give them something to work on," he added with a
pinched smile.
No one made any comment on this and he con-
tinued:


8o THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"You are here on probation. Life here is a test. And
(I've got to talk straight if I talk at all) it's plain
enough that Miss Chandler changed her will because
in the last three months of her life she had discovered
facts about some or all of you that disturbed her. You
must know what these discoveries were."
The hush in the room was painful. He hurried on:
"Keep in mind that Miss Chandler made the change
of plan as easy for you as she could. You are her
guests for six months. Your household expenses will
be met. You will be very comfortable physically. She
made generous appropriation for the running cost of
the establishment, and left it to my discretion to in-
crease the estimate if it proves insufficient. All that is
satisfactory, assuming that you're willing to give half
a year of your lives to her experiment; and you evi-
dently are, for you're here. On the other hand we've
got to admit that in a way you're somewhat like
prisoners. Since you ask for the rules, I may as well
tell you now that according to the set of rules accom-
panying her letter, and which I wasn't to give you till
we were settled, no one is allowed to spend a single
night out of the house except in case of serious illness
which calls for hospital treatment."
"May I ask, sir," George Dixon said with sudden
gravity, "if that last rule applies to you and Miss
Webb as well as to us?"
"It does, coming in the form of a request."
"And to the servants?"
"No. The servants can come and go as they like.


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 81
They'll all be on double salary, and all except Nora
lose their legacies if they leave before the six months
are up."
"I suppose," Catherine Price ironically murmured,
"we're allowed our evenings out."
"Certainly; but only till midnight. Every one must
be in by twelve."
"Just like Cinderella."
"That rule is going to cramp your style a bit, Cath,"
George Dixon grinned, trying to play up to her.
"A lot of bartenders will have an easier time from
twelve to three every morning if you're not at large,
George," Lily Price muttered. Mrs. Price said, "Lily!"
in an absent voice. Her eyes were on Long's face.
"What's the penalty if one isn't in by twelve?"
Catherine Price asked, abruptly dropping the effort
at cheerfulness.
Long tried to answer lightly, but his voice showed
tension. He was increasingly annoyed with Catherine
Chandler.
"Outer darkness," he told them. "Johnson will lock
up at midnight. No one can enter the house after that,
and any one who is late more than three times is
dropped from the group and must go and live else-
where at his or her own expense."
George Dixon whistled softly. He was entirely
sober, a condition, Long assumed, not frequent with
him at this hour.
"Mr. Long—" it was Henry who asked this ques-
tion, and for once the lawyer welcomed the sound of his


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 83
older, and speaking so sharply that Long looked at her
in surprise, "we ought to know what it is."
There was a definite tension in the circle, and he
decided to put an end to it. He knocked the ashes from
the end of his cigar, restored the cigar to his lips,
leaned back, and drew in a satisfying mouthful of
smoke.
"See here," he said cajolingly when he had exhaled
it: "why not be philosophical about this business? We
know that Catherine Chandler had her own way of
doing things. We know that she was impulsive and at
times erratic. It seems clear that she thought a quiet
half-year would be an extremely good thing for most
of you. She knew—again I must be very frank—that
many of you were burning the candle at both ends.
She had heard about heavy drinking among you. She
knew that some of you danced most of the night and
slept most of the day. She didn't approve of that sort
of thing.
"Perhaps she thought you'd make ducks and drakes
of her money. Perhaps she thought you'd disgrace the
family. She appears to have discovered a lot of things
about you she didn't like. She may have decided that
six months of quiet living and early hours might
pull you up and make you over—to say nothing of
the suggestion of her own continued presence and the
beautiful example of plain living and high thinking
Miss Webb and I are here to furnish," he ended
grimly, for by this time Mr. Long was very sorry for
himself.
s


84 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"That's all right," Henry Hutchins unexpectedly
observed, "but how about me? I don't drink all night.
I've got a regular job and I work at it. And how about
Naomi? She was running a chicken farm. That's a
fairly innocent occupation, and she tells me she was
usually in bed by ten and up by six. How about Aunt
Anne?"
Miss Webb spoke for the first time, her eyes on a
handkerchief in the corner of which she was em-
broidering a small monogram. She was sitting a little
distance from the circle, in a chair beside a reading-
lamp, but it was now clear that she had missed none
of the talk around her.
"Mrs. Price," she said quietly, "has had to keep
very late hours. Miss Chandler often spoke of that.
She was very much disturbed lately by the condition
of Mrs. Price's health."
Anne Price cast a look at the speaker so vindictive
that it actually made Long catch his breath. Then she
leaned forward in her chair and extended her thin
hands toward the fire. The hands shook and she drew
them back.
"I am very nervous," she said in a choked voice.
"I admit it. I don't think it's much of a secret from
any of you."
Henry Hutchins followed the line of his argument
like the self-centered young man he was.
"Admitting that," he persisted again, "how about
Naomi and me? In many ways I don't mind this ar-
rangement in the least. It saves me a lot of money that


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 85
I can spend on my collection. And," he added as an
obvious afterthought and with a glance at Naomi
which she did not meet, "I'll enjoy the company. But
I object to being put into a position I don't under-
stand. I hate to 'go it blind' as we're all doing. And
Naomi—"
"Naomi," that young person interrupted concisely,
"will speak for herself. Thank you very much, Henry,
but I don't in the least mind leaving my chicken farm
and living here. The farm wasn't paying, anyway. I
shall be glad to have myself off my hands for six
months. As to this experiment, I think I know per-
fectly well what it means."
Henry immediately asked what she meant by that,
and Mrs. Price straightened in her chair and turned
a strange look on the girl.
Naomi shook her head. "I'm not saying any more
about it. Perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway, the guess of
any of you is as good as mine."
"All that's that," Ethel Dixon said, trying to speak
indifferently. "How about giving us the rest of the
rules?"
"There aren't many," Long said. "The important
one, next to the midnight rule, is the one requiring
each of you to make a visit to Miss Chandler's room
this week and sit there alone for half an hour. That's
not so odd as it may seem. It's evidently merely a part
of her plan to have you all feel in close personal touch
with her. Naturally, you will feel her influence more
strongly there than anywhere else."


86 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"And it will give me a chance to paste in some new
book-plates," Henry Hutchins suggested.
"No, it won't," Long smiled. "You're expected to
give the time to your hostess, and to quiet thought."
"I wonder what Lil's brain will do," George Dixon
mused aloud, "when it tries to think."
"Funny," said Catherine, with her hard little yelp
of laughter. "Every one else was just wondering what
George would do when thinking time came."
"Children," sighed Mrs. Price. The temporary
vivacity of the dinner hour had wholly left her. She
drooped wearily in her chair, her fair graying hair
against its high back, her face livid, her dark-circled
eyes on the blazing logs. An hour ago she had looked
thirty. Now she was an astringent prophecy of what
her daughter Lily might be thirty years hence.
"Why the devil did Aunt C. C. want us to go to her
room and sit there in solitary state?" George mut-
tered. "With all due respect to the old girl, that's
going to be an infernal nuisance."
Miss Webb spoke again.
"Seeing guests one at a time was one of Miss
Chandler's fixed ideas," she said. "As long as I was
with her I never knew her to have several visitors in
the room, except once, and that was a matter of busi-
ness. She usually said it tired her too much, but once
she confessed that it was really because she never 'got
at' more than one person."
"What the devil did she want to get at?" George
almost groaned. "She was always trying to get at


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 87
something in me that wasn't there. Do you and Mr.
Long have to make these calls too, Miss Webb?"
"No."
Long amplified the terse admission:
"Only members of the family make that pilgrimage.
As to why she wanted it, which was your first ques-
tion, perhaps your aunt felt that you weren't .thinking
enough, weren't communing with your own souls, as
the phrase goes. Or perhaps she wanted you to under-
stand her better, as you may do if you think about
her more. By the way, she seems to have planned to
have each of you get some kind of message from her
during the visit. Miss Webb knows more about that
than I do." He saw them exchange glances and he
looked at his watch, eager to get away from the sub-
ject. "Any one ready for a game of billiards?" he ten-
tatively inquired.
There was a moment's silence, which Henry broke:
"I'll play, sir, if you'll make allowances. I'm pretty
bad at it."
"No, I'll play; and I'm pretty good at it," Ethel
Dixon briskly announced.
As she and Long started toward the door the voice
of Miss Webb stopped them.
"How about the little upstairs pilgrimage?" the
nurse was asking. "I suppose some one ought to go
to-night. Which one is it to be?"
The group hesitated, its members again glancing
uncertainly at one another. There was a long silence,
broken only by the fretful whir of an old clock pre-


88 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
paring to announce the hour. Then Naomi stood up.
"I'm perfectly willing to go first and get it over,"
she crisply announced.
Miss Webb folded the handkerchief and rose with
a purposeful air.
"I'll go with you," she told Naomi.
"And turn on the lights? Thanks. I'm not sure I
know just where they are."
"There won't be any lights," Miss Webb placidly
mentioned. "That's why I suggested going up and
getting you settled."
"Oh ... I didn't know that." Naomi spoke blankly
and the rest looked startled.
"Do you mean to say," Lily Price jerked out, "that
we've got to go up into that vault and sit there with-
out a blim?"
"Yes. Didn't you know that?"
"No. I don't think any of us did. What's the big
idea? It's . . . it's . . ." Miss Price's vocabulary
was not large. She drew on it now with the usual
result. "It's simply beastly!" she finished.
"Does 'urns guilty conscience prick 'um in the dark?"
George asked with a hollow effort at lightness.
"No, it doesn't. But the thing is so damned weird."
Miss Webb and Naomi left the room. Long went
with Ethel to the billiard room, which was across the
hall from the dining-room. He did not speak of the
little vagary of his client which had just been dis-
cussed. Neither did Ethel refer to it as the two chalked
their cues, but he knew her mind was full of it.


90 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Sorry I frightened you," said the nurse.
"You didn't."
The other waived the point.
"It's just five minutes past ten," she mentioned in
her cool voice. "If you will get into the chaise longue
and make yourself comfortable, I'll close the door
and come back for you in half an hour. Naturally,
you won't be able to follow the time."
"Do I have to sit in that particular chair?"
"Yes."
"There will be some light from somewhere, won't
there?—through the windows, or a transom?"
"No, the transoms are covered and the windows have
thick curtains. It will be pretty black in here," the
nurse said cheerfully. "Evidently Miss Chandler didn't
want anything to distract you while you are getting
the message. You won't mind?" she added, with a
sudden keen look at the girl's face.
"No . . . not really. But I don't pretend to like it.
However, of course I understand it. Aunt Catherine
thought that if we had a light here we'd read instead
of thinking about her."
"Which is exactly what most of you would have
done," Miss Webb agreed. "You heard Mr. Hutch-
ins's remark about his book-plates. Now, make the
best of it. I'll be in my room, on the other side of
the bathroom, so I'll hear you if you call."
"Why should I call?" Naomi's shining black head
was high. She flushed hotly.
"You might be nervous."


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 91
"I shan't be; but thanks very much, just the same.
I'll make myself comfortable."
The girl crossed the threshold into the room, dimly
illumined by the hall light entering through the still
open door, and settled down into the chaise longue,
which stood directly facing her. Her manner was al-
most defiant. Miss Webb passed into the hall.
"All right?" she asked from the threshold.
"All right, of course . . . thanks."
The door closed, and blackness settled upon the room
and its occupant. Naomi stared into that blackness
with a shaking heart. She had a horror of intense dark-
ness. The room was as quiet as it was dark . . . save
for a slight purring sound. Then a voice spoke so
abruptly that she half leaped from the chair.
"My dear Naomi," it began. "It isn't often that
I've had the pleasure of talking to any of you when
you were unable to interrupt. I have it now, and I'm
going to make the most of it."
Naomi relaxed in the chaise longue, exhaling a
shaken breath. Aunt C. C.'s voice. A record, of course
—a phonograph record! And the little purring, scratch-
ing sound was the needle on the disk, the disk Aunt
C. C. had had especially made for this half-hour. How
amazing the reproduction was—that deep familiar
voice, with its unmistakable modulations, its incisive-
ness, its occasional rasping quality! . . .
"Listening is about the hardest thing you young
folks do nowadays," the voice went on. "I haven't
often been allowed to finish a sentence addressed to


92 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
any one of you, though I admit that you and Henry
are not so bad in that respect as the rest of them.
Still, I rather like the idea of a short monologue which
none of you can interrupt. Perhaps it isn't quite fair.
Perhaps some other things I'm doing are not quite
fair. I'm past worrying about that. I had thought I
was past worrying about anything except my health,
but lately I've had reason to change my mind. I'm
worrying about you, and about the rest of the hap-
less clan that have my blood in their veins. I'm worry-
ing about you all. But it's you I'm worrying about
when I dictate this record, Naomi. Pull yourself up
to it, child, for I'm going to tell you why. . . ."
At the end of a little more than half an hour Nicholas
Long was summoned from the billiard room into the
hall. The summons came from Miss Webb, who was
waiting outside. She motioned him to close the door
behind him as he emerged, and then stood looking
at him with an odd expression.
"That girl fainted in there," she brusquely an-
nounced.
"What girl? Where?" Long's mind was on the
billiard game from which he had been called away
at an interesting moment. Ethel Dixon had demon-
strated that her tribute to her own skill was justified.
He blinked uncertainly at the nurse.
"Miss Sabin, of course. She fainted in Miss Chand-
ler's room. I found her unconscious when I went in
there just now to tell her the time was up."


NAOMI GETS A MESSAGE 93
Long stared at her. "Fainted! But why?"
"Nervousness, I suppose. Some folks can't stand
pitch-darkness very long, and that room is as black as
a pocket. She's all right now," she added as his look
changed.
"Did she say anything?"
"She was a trifle hysterical; accused me of having
forgotten her. Thought she had been there for hours.
Then she begged me not to tell the others about the
faint. I told her I'd have to mention it to you, but
of course I am not going to speak of it to any one
else."
She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her.
"I don't approve of this sort of thing," he brought
out heavily.
Her eyes met him. "You want the truth, don't you?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then we've got to keep on looking for it, and it
won't help the situation for us to lose our nerve at
the start. Will it?"
"No," he said slowly. "No, I suppose it won't."
She left at that, but Long did not immediately go
back to resume his game. Instead he stood motionless,
watching the nurse as she swung along the hall. He
had made some more discoveries about Miss Webb.
She had said that she would not go around looking
like a sleuth, but she was not keeping that vow. She
was looking like a sleuth to-night—like a shining-
eyed and triumphant amateur sleuth who had just
discovered a clue. His second discovery had followed


94 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
close on the first. She was not trusting him with her
clues.
Long nodded to her retreating back. All right, let
her keep them to herself. He had one or two things
up his own sleeve.


CHAPTER V
A LATE CALL
NAOMI did not immediately return to the group
in the living-room, though Miss Webb had
urged her to do so.
"They're playing bridge," the nurse added, "and it
will occupy your mind and help to calm you before
you go to sleep."
"Why should I need calming?" Miss Sabin coldly
inquired. "I am simply tired and run down. It hasn't
been an easy thing to wind up a chicken farm and
move to another home inside of a week . . . not to
speak of readjusting one's life."
"Do you think fatigue would account for your
faint?"
"Why wouldn't it? I've fainted before."
"Oh, have you? If it's a habit, perhaps that ex-
plains it," the nurse agreed. "But as it evidently wasn't
a pleasant experience, don't you think it would be a
good plan to have a rubber of bridge before you go
to bed?"
Naomi hesitated.
"They'll ask all sorts of questions," she muttered.
"Why should they? And if they do, you needn't
95


96 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
tell them anything. But probably they aren't attach-
ing any importance to this visit. They have no reason
to think it was unpleasant, aside from the uncanny
sensation one might have in a dead person's room in
the dark. Besides, they're interested in the game."
"How many of them are in there?"
"Five. Mrs. Price and her daughters and Mr. Dixon
are playing, and Mr. Hutchins is looking on."
"Then they don't need me, and my appearance would
turn on Henry's conversational spigot. Later I may
go in and watch them," and Naomi strolled away.
When she appeared in the living-room ten minutes
later, the four at the card-table merely glanced up at
her entrance and did not speak. It was an exciting
moment. George Dixon, who was a brilliant but rather
erratic player, had just doubled a no-trump bid by
Mrs. Price, and now, under Naomi's rather vague ob-
servation, he triumphantly vindicated his action. Then
he jumped up and offered Naomi his chair.
"You play and I'll watch," he suggested. Naomi
shook her head.
"I'll watch another game or so. Then I'll see how
they're getting on in the billiard room, and after that
I'll go to bed," she decided. "I'm getting sleepy."
The question she had dreaded came.
"How did you enjoy your call on Aunt C. C.?"
Lily Price asked, while she was dealing the cards.
"Lily! Please don't speak in that way!" Mrs. Price
said with sudden sharpness.
"I should have preferred some light in the room,"


A LATE CALL 97
Naomi had decided to tell them as much as she could.
Lily stopped dealing. All the eyes around the table
were immediately fastened on Naomi.
"By Jove, that's so! How did it feel to sit there
in the dark and meditate on Aunt C. C.'s virtues?"
Lily asked with interest.
"I'll bet some of them escaped her memory," Cath-
erine remarked; -and Lily, whose laugh was like her
sister's, yelped perfunctorily as' she resumed the deal.
"Tell us as much as you can about it, Naomi,"
Catherine urged.
"Oh, well—" Naomi watched them closely as she
spoke—"it really amounts to half an hour in a dark
cell. Miss' Webb trots off and leaves one in a room
without a ray of light and then comes back and plucks
one like a lovely flower when the time is up."
George whistled softly, but the faces of the others
were masks. Mrs. Price put down the hand she had
just picked up.
"I wish you'd finish the rubber for me, Naomi,"
she said faintly. "I've had a hard day, and if you
children will excuse me I'll go to bed."
Naomi slipped into the vacant chair as her aunt
rose, and Henry hastened to open the door for the
older woman.
"You upset her, Naomi," he reproached her, as he
returned to the card-table, and George added:
"It's time we realized that the plans our dear aunt
has made for our enjoyment here won't stand the test
of general family' conversation."


98 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"I suppose we oughtn't to be discussing my experi-
ence up there, anyway. But Aunt Anne's got to go
through something like it in a few days," Naomi said.
"You all have, so you might as well know that it isn't
pleasant."
"Mother won't mind the darkness," Catherine Price
philosophically contributed. "She loves it. Her own
bedroom is pitch-black at night. Miss Webb may find
Mother peacefully asleep when she comes for her,
and as Lily likes the darkness- too, she'll probably get
in some pleasant naps. But I'd like to know," she added
abruptly as she sorted her hand, "just what Aunt
C. C.'s idea was."
"I think I know," Naomi muttered.
"So do I," said George, with a sudden edge on
his pleasant voice. "And a damned nasty idea it is.
But for God's sake don't let's talk about it. Let's play
cards."
No one around the table had ever before heard
George Dixon speak in that tone, but no one com-
mented on the phenomenon. The game went on. Henry
Hutchins laid down the book in which he had seemed
absorbed while the little discussion continued.
"I think I'll watch the billiards a while," he mur-
mured and strolled out of the room.
In the billiard room a little later Nicholas Long
revised his first judgment of Henry Hutchins. That
young man was a trifle heavy, but he was neither
slow nor unintelligent and the game Ethel persuaded
him to play and of which he himself had spoken so


A LATE CALL 99
slightingly was very nearly as good as her own. Both
the young things were skilful and imperturbable play-
ers, and Long, who had begged for a rest on the plea
that his old bones were getting stiff, enjoyed watching
them. The episode in- Miss Chandler's room, he had
dismissed from his mind with one reservation. Some
persons, he knew, had a horror of entire darkness. If
Naomi belonged to* that type he must save her from
another such strain. An "executor and trustee" had to
show some common sense even if a client had none.
He must see to it that on Naomi's next visit to Cath-
erine's room, if she went again, there was at least a
blim of light from somewhere. . . .
The reflection started his brain on a now familiar,
dreary round. What had Catherine meant by writing
that anything that happened was "up to" her and not
to the young folks? Probably it was merely a repeti-
tion of the fear she had tacitly expressed in their last
long interview—that the present condition of her nieces
and nephews was due to her lifelong neglect of them.
What help did she think she could give them now?
And—this last was the most persistent question of all
—why had Naomi fainted to-night? Emphatically he
told himself she was not the fainting type.
He straightened irritably. A modest rap at the door
was followed by the head of his man Stevens, who
humbly projected it around the door-jamb.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said hurriedly, "but might I
have a word with you?"
Long followed him into the hall and closed the door.
s


1oo THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
This was the second interruption of the evening, but
probably they'd all shake down into a fairly normal
life after a few days more. In the meantime his ex-
pression conveyed to Stevens a sense of the value of
time.
"Sorry to interrupt," the man said in a different
tone, "but something has just happened that I think
you ought to know about."
"Yes? What is it?"
"Mrs. Price has left."
"Left? What do you mean?"
"She left six or seven minutes ago. I think she's
gone for the night."
"What nonsense is this?" Long spoke sternly, glanc-
ing at his watch. "It's not quite eleven. She may have
gone to post a letter in the box at the gates."
"No, sir. That is, I'm sure she didn't. She took
a small suitcase and got into a taxicab out on the
highway and offered the driver double fare to hurry."
As the listener took this in silence, Stevens went on:
"It was only by chance I saw her, slipping down the
stairs with a suitcase in her hand. She knew the family
was playing cards and billiards, and I guess she thought
the coast was clear. She had the air of wanting it to
be."
"You're taking too much for granted," Long said
coldly. "We're not prisoners here."
"I know that. But the house is locked at twelve,
and it certainly doesn't look as if Mrs. Price intends
to be back by that time."


A LATE CALL
101
"Just the same, she may be."
Stevens played his trump card.
"I doubt it," he said respectfully but firmly. "I left
the house after her and followed her through the
grounds, keeping back of the shrubbery till she got
out on the road. Then I saw her pick up the cab. I
heard the address she gave the driver. It was the Wel-
lington Arms,, in Waterford."
Long nodded. "That's her apartment-house—the one
she left, to-day, to come here. Her lease hasn't expired,
so she still has the use of her apartment till it's sublet.
She may have gone back to get something."
"Yes, sir, she may." Stevens's tone was doubtful.
"Just the same, she's left herself mighty little leeway
to be back by twelve."
"Get out my roadster," Long decided. "Have it out*
side the gates, not at the door—understand?"
"Yes, sir." Stevens hurried away and Long opened
the billiard-room door and spoke to the players.
"I'll leave you youngsters now," he told them.
"Thanks for some pleasant games; and good night."
He closed the door without waiting for their ex-
pressions of regret and hastened out of the house,
taking his coat and hat from the hall rack and put-
ting them on as he went. There was a delay of five
minutes before his car appeared. When it came he
asked another question:
"You said Mrs. Price seemed anxious to slip away
without being seen. What made you think that?"
"She seemed very nervous; quite upset."


102 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Long entered the roadster and grasped the wheel.
It was now eleven. He ought to be able to reach the
Wellington Arms in twenty-five minutes. That, he
reflected, would allow him ten minutes there and
twenty-five more for the return before midnight. He
made good time. It was exactly twenty-five minutes
past eleven when he entered the dim vestibule of the
big building and approached the clerk at the night
desk.
"Mrs. Price has just returned, hasn't she?" he sug-
gested.
"Yes, sir, a few minutes ago."
"Has she gone up to her apartment?"
"Yes, sir."
"Get her on the telephone, please. You needn't say
there's a caller. I'll speak to her as soon as the con-
nection is made."
A moment later he put through his message:
"Mrs. Price? This is Nicholas Long. I've followed
you here. Of course I've got to see you, at once. May
I come up?"
There was a long silence. Then Mrs. Price spoke
in a voice almost unrecognizable:
"Why . . . yes, Mr. Long ... of course ... if
you think it's necessary."
Long replaced the instrument on its hook.
"Mrs. Price expects to be here a day or two, I take
it," he said casually. But the clerk had begun to think
he had spoken too hastily in the initial conversation
with this urbane stranger.


A LATE CALL 103
"She didn't say anything about her plans," he re-
motely informed the visitor.
Long hurried to the elevator, left it at the third
floor, and, following the directions of the night ele-
vator operator, tapped lightly at the door of Suite 38.
Mrs. Price opened it and faced him in a speechless
anger she seemed vainly trying to control. She made
no move to let him in, but he took permission for
granted and passed her, going through the dim vesti-
bule into her sitting-room.
"You'll forgive my zeal," he said cheerfully, ig-
noring her manner, "but I was afraid you had for-
gotten that absurd Cinderella rule of ours and wouldn't
get back in time, so I took the liberty of following you.
I have my roadster, and I can get you home with a
few minutes' leeway if you're ready to start at once.
Are you ill?" he added quickly. Through an open door
at the other end of the room he had seen another
figure, a tall woman in a nurse's uniform. Miss Webb?
He was sure it was not she. Yet was it?
Mrs. Price gave him an odd, measuring glance and
her face quivered convulsively. When she finally spoke
it was in a rough, unnatural voice.
"No, I'm not sick," she said. She added with an
effort: "It's kind of you to come for me. I hated to
come alone, but I didn't want to disturb any of the
children and I simply had to have something I'd for-
gotten. Give me two minutes and I'll throw it into
my case and be with you."
She disappeared into an inner room as she spoke,


104 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
remembering to take with her the case she had dropped
in a corner. She was wearing no hat or coat, but she
might have thrown those things off for the momentary
relief of their disuse. Certainly she would have cast
aside her heavy fur coat, for the dimly lighted sitting-
room was overheated. Long stood at the window with
his back to the room and frowned out into the dark-
ness. Three things were clear to him: she was clever,
she was furious, and she was afraid. He wondered
what she was afraid of. She was gone so long that
the delay put him on the edge of his nerves. Then
she hurried back into the room still carrying the suit-
case, which he hastened to take from her.
"I suppose it was silly of me to start so late," she
fluttered, and he was aware of a surprising change in
her voice and manner. She was calm again. She had
forgiven him and the eight cylinders of her social
charm were working, though not so smoothly as usual.
"But I was sure I could just make it, even if I was
cutting it rather fine," she added as they hastened to
the elevator; "and I really had to have the thing I
forgot. It was my thermolite that I bake my bad knee
with every night. My comfort the next day depends
on it. It was so important that I put it all by itself
on the window-seat in my bedroom here. Then, be-
cause it was away from the other things, it was over-
looked. That's the way we women do, you know. Of
course you're too systematic to have anything like
that happen to you—"
"I'm too systematic to let Stevens have it happen."


1o6 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
he went to the dining-room, where in the sideboard
he kept a bottle of his favorite whisky. As he took
out the bottle he suspected that young Dixon had
visited it before him, and he remembered that here-
after he must not leave temptation in the boy's way.
Not that it would make much difference. Dixon un-
doubtedly had a supply in his own room.
The electric lights in the dining-room had been turned
out and he did not take the trouble to turn them on
again. There was sufficient illumination for his pur-
pose, from the last slowly burning log in the fireplace.
He poured out a small drink, filled the glass with soda,
and dropped in a lump of ice from a bowl Johnson
or perhaps young George had thoughtfully left on the
sideboard. Then he sank into a chair before what re-
mained of the fire and meditatively sipped his whisky
while he reviewed the events of the evening.
. But it was Naomi he thought of and not Mrs.
Price. It was natural enough that every one should be
on the edge of his or her nerves. The week had been
a strenuous one for the family. That in itself might
explain Naomi's faint in Miss Chandler's room. Just
the same, if he had been asked for an opinion before
she went in, he'd have bet his hat that she'd go through
whatever was before her, without turning a hair. He
must again talk the matter over with Miss Webb
and try to convince his efficient aide that a common
showing of hands was advisable. With each of them
working independently, as they were obviously doing,


A LATE CALL 107
they might easily ball things up. But he wouldn't show
his hand until she did. . . .
He heard Johnson lock the big front door and then
move along the hall, presumably turning out the lights.
The butler passed the open door of the dim dining-
room, went on to the rear hall, and apparently de-
scended the back stairs to the servants' quarters, for
the sound of his footsteps ceased.
Long finished his modest drink, rose and stretched
wearily. Then he set down the glass and left the dining-
room. But his feet stopped on the hall side of the
threshold. He swiftly closed the door behind him and
stared into the darkness. Was some one else leaving
the house?
The lights on the second floor were still burning
and their reflection lent a dim glow to the lower hall.
Through this he saw two figures, passionately inter-
locked, at the foot of the central staircase. The man's
figure was George Dixon's. He could not be sure of
the girl's till she spoke. Then her words were muffled,
for her face was crushed against George's shoulder,
her arms held him almost frantically, and she was
sobbing. They were tragic sobs, strangled and desper-
ate and interspersed with gulps like those of a fright-
ened child. George seemed trying to calm her. She
could have been heard by any one passing through
the upper hall, but it was clear that she had lost all
thought of others. The scene appeared to be the cul-
mination of one in the living-room, where the two
s


10S THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
must have remained behind the rest. But at last words
came clearly to the unseen listener, words uttered in
Naomi Sabin's voice.
"Oh, George!" she moaned, "how in God's name
can we go through with it?"
George kissed the top of her black head.
"I don't know whether we can go through with it
or not," he muttered, "but one thing's sure. We mustn't
let that precious pair of spies know that we're on to
what they're looking for!"


CHAPTER VI
THE HOUSEWARMING
NICHOLAS LONG had slept badly. That made
him as nearly irritable at breakfast as he ever
permitted himself to be. But the meal and the atmos-
phere of the room soothed him. A brilliant sun brought
out the high lights on cut glass, old brass, and silver
The young folks around him seemed in better spirits.
Even Naomi Sabin was smiling her sophisticated little
smile at something Henry was saying to her. She did
not look at George during the meal, Long observed.
He remembered now that she rarely looked at George
and almost never spoke to him. It was hard to believe
that last night he had seen that passionate embrace,
had heard that desperate outburst. . . .
The breakfast was perfect. Miss Webb, in her im-
maculate uniform, was an almost radiant figure at the
table. She seemed in some way to belong to the glory
of the morning. Mrs. Price alone was missing. One
of her daughters remarked casually that Mother usu-
ally breakfasted in her room.
Long drove to his Waterford office feeling uplifted.
His content lasted throughout the day and even re-
mained undimmed when Catherine Price, meeting him
in the hall when he got home in the late afternoon,
109


THE HOUSEWARMING 1n
from the burning last night?" Catherine abruptly
asked.
"You'll have to be less cryptic with me. I'm only
a simple lawyer." He decided to switch her back to
the main subject: "Is your sister really interested in
the youth who is dining with us to-night?"
"The Troubadour?"
"I mean young Bryce, if that's really his name."
"You don't like him, do you?"
"Frankly, he strikes me as a combination of leech
and windbag. I can't quite see how a nice girl can
stand having him around."
"Lil isn't a nice girl," said Lil's sister, simply. "She's
about the limit herself, you know. And of course
Dick's an awfully dim bulb in some ways. But he
fias his points, and we're all used to having him under
our feet. One kicks a footstool out of one's way, and
there's Dick. I suppose," she added, giving her mind
to the problem, "one of the reasons he's around so
much is that he hasn't any home, himself, except an
attic somewhere."
"Does he work?"
"Of course he doesn't. How could he work and be
tagging after Lil sixteen hours a day?"
"How does he live?"
"I've wondered about that, myself, sometimes. We
usually feed him, but I don't know who dresses him.
You can ask him all these things if you're really in-
terested. He loves to talk about himself." Catherine


112 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
was thoughtfully regarding the buckles on her satin
slippers.
"I may if I happen to think of it. By the way,
who's going to make the upstairs pilgrimage to-night?"
"I am. I settled it with Miss Webb this afternoon."
"Are you apt to be nervous in the darkness?"
"Not unless the darkness embraces me, as they say
it does, sometimes." But despite her flippancy Cath-
erine showed that she did not care to pursue this topic.
"You haven't answered my question yet," she hastily
reminded him. "How did you persuade Mother to
come back last night?"
"She didn't need any persuasion," Long said with
dignity. "She had merely gone back to the city to get
something she'd forgotten."
Catherine nodded.
"I suppose that would do as well as any other stall
she could give you," she conceded. Then, as her com-
panion's expression changed, she jumped down from
the newel-post and gave him a nod of farewell.
He lingered. "What did you mean by that?"
"I may tell you soon. I know I'll have to, though
I almost never tell the story of our lives to any one.
But not yet. At present you're dismissed. . . . You'll
lose some of your charming manners in this stage
setting, Uncle Nicholas," she called after him as he
went on upstairs. "I actually begin to think you're
losing them already," she added. "Stop at George's
room on your way to dinner. He's mixing some cock-
tails, and he's invited us all to a housewarming."


THE HOUSEWARMING 113
"Thanks." Long threw back the word without turn-
ing, and went on to his room, looking thoughtful.
Just what did the child mean by that remark about
her mother? The prospective housewarming also an-
noyed him. The meaning of that was clear enough.
It was a gesture of defiance of "that precious pair of
spies" and of the whole situation. But when he had
dressed and was ready for dinner he hesitated only
an instant at George's door before tapping and going
in. He was given an exuberant greeting, in the midst
of which George demanded and collected a dollar from
Lily. Lily, it appeared, had made a bet that "Uncle
Nicholas" would not grace the function.
The big room with its open fire and its two win-
dows overlooking the rear garden had been made into
a really charming sitting-room, with easy-chairs, smok-
ing-tables, reading-lamps, heavy-silk curtains and a
broad cushioned davenport adding to its effect of lux-
urious comfort. George explained this as he pocketed
his dollar.
"Welcome to our citadel," he said. "Henry and I
decided to put both our beds into one room and make
this our common sitting-room. That is, I decided it
and Henry gave in after I'd got him down on the
floor and bounced on his stomach a while. It's a grand
idea. Henry can put me into my crib when I come
home drunk, and the rest of the time I can give him
lessons in the social graces. He's a trifle heavy at
present. I need hardly introduce you to this happy
band," he added with an expansive wave of the cock-


114 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
tail shaker he had been manipulating. "Heave Ethel
out of that chair and be comfy."
Long took in the circle as he repressed Ethel's
tentative move and sat down on a cushioned window-
seat. They were all there except Miss Webb—Mrs.
Price and her daughters, Henry, Ethel, Naomi, and a
large, fair young man with a round face, yellow hair
rather like the down on a newly hatched chicken, and
very round light-blue eyes, set in the unwinking stare
of an interested infant, who now, with amazing light-
ness of movement, skipped across the room to shake
hands. Long gave Dick Bryce four limp fingers and
turned from him to take in the details of the party.
Every one was formally dressed for dinner, and
even Mrs. Price, who held a half-emptied cocktail
glass in her hand, was again flushed and animated.
He suspected that there had been a round or two of
drinks before his arrival. The Price girls and Ethel
Dixon were holding out their glasses to be refilled.
Mrs. Price also permitted George to "cool" her cock-
tail by a fresh libation from the shaker.
"You've almost let the poor little thing get a tem-
perature," he reproached her. Long observed that Na-
omi and young Bryce had not touched their glasses,
and now Bryce explained the phenomenon.
"I never need cocktails when I'm with Lily," he
sentimentally sighed. "She always goes to my head!"
It was one of the remarks that made Long want to
kick him.
George Dixon, care-free and buoyant, was plainly


THE HOUSEWARMING 115
enjoying his combined role of host and bartender. He
had put on a white-linen coat and was expertly mixing
more drinks at a well-equipped and beautiful old Sher-
aton sideboard in the corner. A dozen different bottles
stood impressively before him, and the variety of
liqueurs and syrups he poured into his decoctions made
Long raise his eyebrows. The cocktail shaker held two
quarts.
There was a piano in the room, and Dick Bryce,
whose parlor tricks included the constant display of
a genuine musical gift, now drifted toward it and softly
began to play the leading airs from a current musical
comedy. Nobody listened. Occasionally he sang, in a
high, sweet tenor voice. He played facing away from
the piano, his round blue eyes on Lily, making it plain
that he was playing and singing only to her; that*
notwithstanding the noisome presence of others, he con-
sidered her alone with him in the universe.
"Come over here and sit beside me and look into
my eyes and forget these sodden beasts around you,"
he urged Lily, who was still revealing a vague con-
sciousness of the presence of others; and Lily came,
carrying her latest cocktail in an unsteady hand. George
Dixon suddenly set down the shaker and struck an
attitude depicting remorse.
"Gee whiz, Henry!" he cried. "We forgot to invite
Miss Webb to our housewarming!"
Henry Hutchins rose at once, with a shocked ex-
pression. "Of course I thought you had; I'll go down
and get her now."


THE HOUSEWARMING 117
something. The malignant glance Mrs. Price had given
Miss Webb last night had meant definite enmity. Her
sole acknowledgment of the nurse's entrance had been
a curt nod, and her manner now was in sharp con-
trast to the offhand cordiality of the others.
The dinner-gong sent up a second mellow summons.
No one had heeded its first notes, but now Miss Webb
rose at once.
"I happen to know that the dinner is too good to be
kept waiting," she said after a word of appreciation
to her hosts; and George, tucking her hand under his
arm, impressively led her down to the dining-room.
As the others trooped after them Long, glancing
back from his place near the head of the procession,
reflected that it ought to be rather jolly for an old
bachelor to have so much youth around him. He was
amused by his own shuttlecock attitude. Even the
Troubadour seemed almost unobjectionable now,
though he had a firm arm around Lily's waist and was
explaining in his high drawling voice that her little
feet were far too tender to descend the steps without
its aid. At the bend of the staircase the pair stopped
short and exchanged a long kiss.
"Lily!" Mrs. Price said patiently.
Ethel Dixon, finding her path blocked by the ab-
sorbed couple, promptly swung herself astride of the
mahogany stair rail and slid the rest of the journey,
incidentally revealing the fact that her entire wardrobe
for the evening consisted of her gown, her slippers, a
pair of long silk stockings and what is optimistically


n8 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
described by haberdashers as "step-ins." George Dixon
and Catherine Price followed her example with open
enthusiasm. Naomi and Henry unobservantly walked
around the "necking party," as George described it,
and continued their progress downstairs. At their lei-
sure Lily and Bryce also slid down the stair rail, but
when they reached the lower hall the Troubadour took
occasion to rebuke Ethel severely.
"Old stuff," he told her. "Why didn't you walk
downstairs on your hands?" And Ethel was so eager
to oblige then and there that Long had to take her
arm and urge her toward the dining-room.
There, one of the sudden changes of mood one could
never foresee struck Miss Chandler's nieces and neph-
ews. In turn and with entire deference they bowed to
the empty chair of their hostess as they passed it. Long
saw that the Troubadour had set the example, and,
tight-lipped, the lawyer stood waiting for a look or
action he could resent. There was none. The little cour-
tesy seemed as natural and instinctive as if Catherine
Chandler sat there in person, and Long could almost
see the slow inclination of the haughty white head
with which she would have acknowledged it. Moreover,
it established a precedent. The courtesy was never
again omitted, and thereafter Mrs. Price, Miss Webb
and Long took part in it.
The dinner itself was actually gay, and there was
no longer in the lawyer's mind a doubt that youth
had its place and its charm. The increasing badinage
in which the youngsters engaged was amusing and


THE HOUSEWARMING 119
harmless, and Dick Bryce was too much absorbed in
his dinner to indulge in his usual outspoken love-
making. Despite Catherine's testimony, he revealed a
good appetite and Long inferred that it was several
days since he had dined well. The young man revived,
however, during the dessert and showed a sudden de-
sire to climb Miss Webb's family tree.
"Do you come from the Bradford Webb branch?"
he wanted to know.
"There are some Bradford Webbs in the family,"
Miss Webb admitted without enthusiasm.
"Then you must be the Hope Webb that went to
school in Paris with my sister Maud," Bryce persisted.
George Dixon's sudden exclamation checked Miss
Webb's reply.
"Great Scott, Dick! I didn't suppose you had any-
thing as respectable as a sister in your life," he com-
mented.
"Naturally I couldn't have her meet the likes of
you," Bryce retorted with some spirit. "She married
in France and she's living there, with the ocean safely
between you."
George remarked rather absently that of course a
girl who was Dick's sister would have to do some-
thing like that about it, and the topic apparently lost
its interest for all but three persons at the table. Long
was impressed. So, obviously, was Mrs. Price. He
caught her quick, sharp look at the nurse—a look that
conveyed her intense dislike. It disturbed him. He
could imagine no cause for such an emotion, and cer-


120 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
tainly there was every reason why the two women
should get on amicably; or, if they couldn't, why they
should not at least simulate a cordiality they did not
feel.
But neither made the pretense. Mrs. Price frankly
ignored the nurse, and the latter accepted the attitude
with a quiet dignity tinged with watchfulness. She was
evidently conscious of every word and action of the
older woman, and Long suspected that Mrs. Price
knew this, too. A little later he was sure she did. He
also observed that George's sudden glance at Naomi
was not returned. Naomi was listening to Henry—
she must be well up in first editions by now, the lawyer
grimly reflected—and she appeared not to have heard
the interchange between Bryce and the nurse.
After dinner the young folks danced in the billiard
room, to the music of a phonograph George borrowed
from the servants' quarters. With the rugs pushed
into a corner the big room, with its polished floor,
was an excellent setting for an impromptu dance,
though the dance itself, in Long's opinion, was in the
worst possible taste. The mistress of the house had
been in her grave less than ten days, and already the
present extemporized affair had some of the earmarks
of a small orgy.
The dances, for instance—the Charleston and the
Black Bottom and an exaggerated five-step, to mention
only three of them. Even Naomi and Henry Hutchins
were dancing the Black Bottom—surely the most un-
couth and suggestive dance ever indulged in by sup-


THE HOUSEWARMING 121
posedly decent young creatures. Early in the action
George had sprinted upstairs, returning a few mo-
ments later with a tray holding glasses and his refilled
cocktail shaker. . . . George and his sister and Lily
Price were the only guests who drank, but they drank
often. . . .
Long watched them for a little while and then went
off to the living-room. Miss Webb, he observed, had
seated herself in a corner of the billiard room, under
a wall light, and was again working on the handker-
chief that threatened to be a permanent institution. He
admired her courage. Of course the young things
didn't want her there, but there she was, for reasons
which doubtless seemed good to her. Her manner held
no disapproval, but within half an hour of Long's
departure she proved that she was not lost to the duties
of her position.
"We mustn't forget the little visit to Aunt C. C.,"
Henry casually observed during one of the intermis-
sions for refreshments, and while Catherine was out
of the room for a moment. "Which of us is going
to-night?"
The dancers looked at one another, and the Trouba-
dour followed their exchange of glances with a slight
additional rounding of his blue eyes. He had not heard
of this feature of the new program.
"I'll go," George volunteered. "It'll be a jolly ex-
perience compared with the last visit I made Auntie.
Whew! What the devil made me think of that now?"
He shrugged as if to cast off a physical weight, and


THE HOUSEWARMING 123
in song, Long soon discovered, was the best thing
young Bryce did. If there was a piano in the room
with him, he played and sang. If there was not, he
sang anyway. His singing and playing became a steady
undercurrent of the new life they were all living to-
gether.
"And it's the only business he's got, so he has to
work hard at it," George contributed. George's hand-
some face was flushed and his mouth sagged loosely,
but otherwise he showed no effects of the steady drink-
ing in which he was indulging. Every member of the
group was smoking now and Henry Hutchins opened
a window, absently letting the cold November wind
blow over the nurse's bare shoulders. She rose.
"If you're going up," she said to Catherine, "why
not go now?"
Catherine nodded, rather sulkily. She had no idea
of being ordered around by Miss Webb. But she fol-
lowed her out of the room, and the others resumed
their dancing.
In the living-room Nicholas Long had drawn a big
chair close to that of Mrs. Price. They sat side by
side before the open fire, with a misleading effect of
coziness and companionship, but the remarks they ex-
changed were desultory and absent-minded. His com-
panion's brief animation had left her. She was jerkily
nervous and cast frequent glances at the door. At last
Long spoke in a tone of quiet determination.
"Mrs. Price," he said, "I'm going to ask your ad-
vice."


124 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Yes?" She showed no interest.
"Of course you know what it's about," he went on.
"I don't want to seem a kill-joy or a grouch, but,
frankly, I don't think this sort of thing is right."
"'This sort of thing'?" She looked at him as if
wondering what he meant. He could have shaken the
woman.
"Yes—this dancing and drinking. And the noise
they're making out there is in atrocious taste."
"Oh, that!" she said, and he had an impression that
she was relieved.
"I've no doubt the servants are talking their heads
off about it this minute," he went on.
"But don't you think," she said vaguely, as if her
mind were on something else, "that it's better for
the children to be doing it here than in cabarets? We
know what they're about and where they are."
She was not interested, but she was at least speak-
ing as one human being to another, and he saw her
point. He saw, too, that her attitude toward the pres-
ent situation was wholly different from his own. She
had the vast indifference of her type toward the opin-
ions of servants. She knew there were no neighbors
near enough to hear and be shocked by the jazz and
the other noises. For the rest, he told himself, she was
so used to what was going on, she was so saturated
with its familiar atmosphere and so stifled by the re-
strictions of the "modern" parent, that it had no mes-
sage for her. She had lost her sense of values. She
sat before him, a weary, disillusioned woman, trying


THE HOUSEWARMING 125
to make the best of the stale adventure she called life.
But she must still be a devoted mother and he thought
he knew how to reach her.
"I'm not such an old fogy as to object to dancing,"
he said more lightly, "or even to a reasonable amount
of drinking. But those youngsters are not doing a
reasonable amount of it. George and Ethel and, if
you'll forgive me for saying so, your two daughters,
have all had much more than is good for them already.
But I've just heard George slip upstairs again and I
don't doubt he'll be back with another supply. Haven't
you thought of the effects of this thing on the health
and nerves of your girls?"
She nodded, then yawned widely. An expression of
acute boredom settled over her face like a mask.
"What can I do?" she asked indifferently. "We're
living in an age when the average mother in my set
has no more authority over a child than a stranger has.
Lookers-on are apt to forget that."
"Then don't be an average mother. And whether
you have authority or not, you must certainly have
influence."
But he spoke without hope. He realized now that
she would do nothing.
"Not a particle," she said and yawned again. "The
lightest word of any young friend of my girls has
more weight with them than any arguments of mine."
She leaned forward abruptly and held out her hands
to the fire—a trick of hers, he had already learned,
when her nerves threatened to get the better of her.


126 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
It was a revealing trick, for the thin hands were shak-
ing.
"You don't understand," she suddenly brought out.
"I suppose nobody could understand the hell I've
gone through for years—getting deeper into debt every
season, hounded by creditors, worried to distraction
by my children, and knowing all the time that my sister
Catherine could have made life decent and . . . and
. . ." she felt for the word and produced it with bit-
terness: "and possible, and could do it without turning
a hair, and yet wouldn't do it. Toward the last I saw
that she enjoyed watching my misery. It made me hate
her, at times."
She broke off and crouched farther forward in her
chair, still holding to the blaze those shaking hands.
He looked at her with concern. It was clear enough
that she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Be-
fore he could speak she turned to him with another
abrupt change of manner.
"How much longer have we got to endure that
woman?" she imperiously asked.
"That woman . . . you mean Miss Webb?"
"Of course I mean Miss Webb. Whom else could
I mean?"'All her suavity, all her charm, were gone.
"You don't like her?" Long grasped at^jhe possible
chance to get at the bottom of the feeling between the
women.
"Like her! I loathe her! Surely you see what she is!
She's Catherine's hired spy. She's a cat at a mouse-
hole, and we're the mice."


THE HOUSEWARMING 127
"I think you're letting your imagination run away
with you," Long said gently. "I hope the children don't
share this notion."
"It isn't imagination, and you know it. And the
children do share it; at least Lily and Naomi do, for
they've spoken to me about it. The rest will feel it
soon enough, if they don't already."
Long frowned into the fire. He had thought Miss
Webb rather tactless, to put it mildly, when she estab-
lished herself in the billiard room with the young folks.
He couldn't quite follow her object in doing that. But
even as the thought came, the thing was explained.
The door of the livingJroom flew open and Catherine
put her shining boyish head around the side of it.
"I'm going upstairs to make my call on dear Auntie,"
she announced. "So you needn't have that duty on
your mind to-night, Mater."
"I'll go. I had planned to go," Mrs. Price said
quickly.
"No, it's all settled. There was a lively competition
for the privilege, but I won out, and Miss Webb's
here waiting to go up with me. See you later," and
Catherine closed the door.
Mrs. Price moved her thin shoulders in a helpless
gesture and settled back into her chair.
"You see: she moves us around like pawns."
"A minute ago we were mice," Long smiled.
"We're both, and we're everything else that's help-
less. That woman's acting like a jailer and we're simply
her prisoners."


128 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Oh, come now! Your nerves are getting the better
of you. Miss Webb is simply trying to do her duty
in a very difficult position. She's both the housekeeper
and a member of the family, and we're almost stran-
gers to her. She's in a tight place, and we mustn't make
things any harder for her and for ourselves than they
need to be. I've no doubt she's carrying out Miss
Chandler's instructions to the best of her ability."
He decided, as he spoke, to mention to Miss Webb
the need of a little more tact in her relations with the
high-strung humans around her, and then remembered
that it would not be easy to make the suggestion. Miss
Webb had an air of seeing her way ahead and reso-
lutely following it.
"She seems to be a woman of good family," he went
on, under the effect of this reflection. "Did you notice
what young Bryce said at the table, about her be-
longing to the Bradford Webbs? And being at school
in Paris?"
"Yes. And she's supposed to have had most of her
hospital training there, too, not to speak of a few
other things she had. I happen to know some things
about Miss Webb's life in Paris that would surprise
you. Among others, I know that she goes in for drink
and worse."
"Really?" Long spoke with constraint. He was in-
tensely angry. His manner made her look at him. She
laughed.
"You don't like to have the paragon criticized, do


THE HOUSEWARMING 129
you? But, after all, I suppose she isn't any worse than
the rest of them. What are a few lovers more or less
to the independent young woman of to-day?"
"I think you have been misinformed," Long said
stiffly. He was amazed by his inner uprush of resent-
ment.
"Oh, no. I've heard a lot about her from a nurse
that worked with her in the Satterlee Hospital at
Waterford. But we won't say anything more about
it, since you have such faith in her."
"It's clear enough that your sister trusted her."
"What did Catherine know about her? I tried to
warn her," she added, "but she wouldn't listen. Oh,
well, let's drop the subject. You'll find her out soon
enough."
She obviously dropped the subject, but he could not
let it lie there.
"The Satterlee Hospital is one of the best in the
State," he pointed out. "Any one connected with
that—"
"She hasn't been connected with it for two years;
and she left it under a cloud. I haven't been able to
get to the bottom of the matter yet, but I'm going to."
He found no answer to that, and for a long time
they sat in a silence that separated them like a wall.
Shouts of laughter came from the billiard room, fol-
lowed by crashes of glass and another shout. A few
minutes later Naomi and Henry Hutchins entered the
living-room.


130 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"It's getting rather lively out there," Henry re-
proachfully mentioned to Long. The lawyer's lips set.
"Yes. We won't have any more such performances
after to-night. We'll call this a housewarming," he
grimly added, "and let it go at that."
Naomi had dropped into a chair on the other side
of the fire, and he was conscious of the steady gaze
of her vivid eyes.
"Why did you go in for this sort of thing, Naomi?"
he asked quietly. "I shouldn't have thought it would
appeal to you."
She raised her straight eyebrows.
"I'll try anything once," she indifferently admit-
ted. "Besides, I've never seen the whole bunch in
action before. I wanted to see what they'd do."
"And you were moved by the same high intellectual
curiosity, Henry?"
"Yes, sir, I was."
"What was it like, toward the end?"
"They were knocking the old glass pendants off the
chandeliers with billiard balls when we left," Henry
reported.
"Good Heavens! I can't believe it!" But Long
started to his feet.
"It was a contest in marksmanship," Naomi said.
"It's over now, and most of the pendants are down
and broken, and Miss Webb's there. So I think there
won't be any more of it."
"You bet there won't," Henry said with deep faith


THE HOUSEWARMING 131
in Miss Webb. "She hasn't got that red hair for noth-
ing. She was still laying them out when we came
away."
Long sank back in his chair and spoke to the listen-
ing fire.
"I'd had a dim hope," he told it, "that we could
live here together for six months like reasonable hu-
man beings, but I'm afraid I was too optimistic."
The door opened and Catherine entered. Her eyes
took in the little group, but she did not speak. Instead,
with a muttered word of apology or annoyance—it was
impossible to be sure which—she passed in front of
her mother and Long, dropped upon a floor cushion
before the fire, and crouched there in silence. Her
mother's question was an unexpected tribute to Long:
"Have you been gone a whole half-hour, dear?"
"Yes."
"How was the black cell?" Henry put in.
"Horrible!"
"Horrible!" Long and Henry echoed the word in
unison. Mrs. Price and Naomi looked at the girl with
sudden expressions of strained attention.
"What was horrible about it?" Long demanded.
Catherine's expression changed and she shrugged.
"Oh, the blackness, I suppose, and the atmosphere.
It's rather like a vault in there, you know," she said,
with an effort to speak casually. Then, glancing at the
faces around her she went on in a lower tone: "But
there was something else, too. Naomi—" her voice


132 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
sharpened—"you went there last night. Did you have
a feeling that some one was in the room with you?"
Naomi nodded.
"I knew some one was in the room with me," she
said quietly.


CHAPTER VII
A PA JAMA PARTY
« "V TONSENSE!" Long spoke so sharply that they
XA| all started. "Naomi," he said, "you're dis-
appointing me horribly. I thought you had some poise
and judgment."
"I hope I have, Uncle Nicholas." Naomi spoke with
an unusual flatness in the modulations of her voice.
"I wouldn't have confessed what I did if there had
been any one else here," she went on steadily. "But
surely we five can talk freely," she went on. "Every
one seems to know that each of us is to get certain
messages in Aunt C. C.'s room. I don't see why we
shouldn't speak of the whole experience in this little
group."
Long nodded. The girl was right. So far as he
knew, Naomi and Henry were the most dependable
members of the family. Mrs. Price, while nerve-racked
and a foolish mother, was at least a woman of the
world; and he had seen signs in Catherine of an un-
expected insight and intelligence. Moreover, he again
recalled the little staircase episode of the night before.
The lovely Miss Sabin might be trying to put some-
thing over on him.
"That's so," he agreed. "We may as well have this
133


134 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
out. Why don't you two girls tell us as much as you
can? Then if there's any strain there shouldn't be, or
anything of that sort—" he met Naomi's blue glance
again and finished rather lamely—"we'll try to put a
stop to it."
"There's no question of stopping it, I'm sure,"
Naomi said. And Catherine muttered, "So am I."
"Then what—"
"It's clear that everything has been very carefully
thought out," Naomi went on. "Miss Webb knows
just what she is to do, and she's as professional about
it as she'd be in a sick-room. She locks us in—"
"She what!" Long incredulously intercepted. His
eyes never left Naomi's face.
"Oh, didn't you know that? Yes, she locks us in;
that is, she locked me in. And I suppose Catherine
heard the key turn on the outside of the door to-night
just as I heard it last night."
"I did," Catherine confirmed. She was still sitting
on the floor cushion, with her back to the others and
her eyes on the fire. Now she turned her head toward
Naomi. "You talk first," she invited. "Afterward I'll
fill in my part of it, if there's anything I got that you
didn't."
"It won't sound much in the telling," Naomi began
after a moment's thought. "And I'm farther away from
it than Catherine is; it doesn't seem as . . . well,
as spooky to-night as it did last night. I've spent most
of the day trying to explain it to myself -in different
ways. On the face of it there's only the experience


136 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"I'll bet she did, too," Catherine interrupted. "I'll
bet she grinned like a Cheshire cat all the time she
was making those records."
"Just the same, that sort of thing might play the
mischief with sensitive nerves," Long muttered. "But
go on."
"I suppose I'd better go back to the beginning,"
Naomi reflected aloud, and followed her own sugges-
tion: "At first I had the little jolts of getting into
the chaise longue—it seems we have to sit in that—
and then of hearing the key turn. I hadn't expected to
be locked in and I was glad the chair was just opposite
the door. I thought I could open it and slip out of
the room if I got nervous. I don't like pitch-blackness."
"I don't mind it at all," Catherine said, "and I
didn't really mind hearing the key turn. I simply
thought it was silly to lock me in. Perhaps it was the
cocktails that made me so comfy. Anyway, I was
actually feeling dozy when the talking began. That
woke me up, all right. I got the jolt, and it was a
big one, for a minute. Go on, Naomi."
"As I've said, Aunt C. C.'s voice didn't frighten
me after the first minute or two," Naomi continued.
"I understood just how that was coming and it was
awfully interesting. Aunt C. C. talked exactly as she
always had, in that biting, sardonic fashion of hers.
She said she was doing this because'she couldn't get
in a word to us when she was alive. But I hated the
darkness more and more. I thought of the dark cells
in prisons, the ones we've heard about, where the most


A PA J AM A PARTY 137
hardened criminals weaken after they've been in them
a little while. I understood why they do. One begins
to fancy things in the dark."
"I didn't mind the dark," Catherine repeated. "I lay
back in the chair and got ready to listen comfortably.
I was awfully interested, too. I thought it was mighty
clever of the old girl to think of this way of getting
back at us. And it was easier to listen to her than to
sit still and think about our debts."
"Perhaps I imagined too much," Naomi said
thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to think I did."
"What did you imagine?"
"I began to hear sounds."
"Yes. Little, queer rustlings," Catherine underlined.
"The kind clothes make if one brushes against them.
Or the kind a mouse might make among soft papers.
At first I thought it was a mouse, in a closet, perhaps.
The sounds didn't last long."
"No," Naomi confirmed. "Then, all of a sudden,
I was perfectly sure some one was in the room. I
hadn't been frightened by the rustling, or perhaps I
had. Anyway, I told myself it was a mouse, and mice
don't worry me. Or it might have been the rustle of
a stiff curtain. I had a feeling that there was some-
thing large and . . . and . . ."
"Breathing," Catherine helped out. "Yes. I hated
that breathing. It was queer ... a little choked . . ."
"Yes. It went on for quite a while, and the more
it went on the more I hated it."
"I tried to think it was air stirring somewhere.


138 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Coming down the chimney, perhaps. There's a big
fireplace in the room," and Catherine laughed rather
shakily.
"All the time Aunt C. C.'s voice was going on, and
I didn't miss a word she said. But I began to be per-
fectly sure some one was in the room."
"I decided some one was putting something over
on me," Catherine broke in. "It came to me that it
might be one of the bunch playing a joke, so I got
up and moved around the room with my hands out in
front of me—"
"I'd never have dared to do that," Naomi shuddered.
"What else did you think happened?" Long asked
the question in a tone that made both girls look at him
curiously.
"Nothing; or if it did I didn't know it," Naomi
confessed. "The noises only came at intervals, just at
first, and they stopped as suddenly as they began. Aunt
C. C. was still talking, and all I could think of was
what she was saying. She was getting terribly serious.
I ... I can't speak of that. But the next thing I
knew the door was open and the light was shining in
from the hall, and Miss Webb was pressing my head
down to my knees. She said I had fainted. I don't
know why I did that. I told her some one had been
in the room and she laughed and gave me her word
that no one had been. That settled it, for I'm sure
she wouldn't lie about it."
"I'm not so sure of that," Mrs. Price said remotely.


A PAJAMA PARTY 139
"I am absolutely sure she would not," Long said.
"I didn't faint," Catherine broke out incisively. "I
moved around. I wanted to get on the sides of the
room where the windows were, and pull curtains apart
to see what else was in there. Miss Webb was annoyed
when I told her that. She said the order was to sit
still, and that she'd make it clear to the rest. She said
I had imagined the noises, and she gave me her word,
too, that no one else had been there. But I hadn't
imagined them.
"I didn't accomplish anything, though, by moving
around. I got to the other side of the room and felt
a door. I think it was the one leading into the bath-
room, but it didn't help me, for it was locked and
there was no key on my side. Then I struck another
door. That must have been the closet door, but it was
locked, too. That gave me my direction, though, and
I started over toward the place where the windows
ought to be. But there was a lot of furniture in the
way. I looked afterward, when the light came on,
and the big chairs and sofas were all in front of the
windows like a kind of barricade. I had kept bumping
my knees and ankles against them in the dark."
She stopped, but no one spoke and she went on
again:
"When I got to the fireplace I was glad, for then
I knew exactly where I was. The change of the furni-
ture had confused me awfully. But every time I moved
away from that door I always ran up against some


140 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
big chair or divan, so I stood for a long time with
my elbow on the mantel, listening to Aunt C. C. . . .
and to other things. . . ."
"Listening to what other things, dear?" Mrs. Price
spoke in a low voice. "All this is rather hard to follow,
you know."
"You bet I know it," her daughter admitted. "I
was listening to the breathing and the faint stirring.
Then I moved again and fell over Aunt C. C.'s chaise
longue, and I got back into it and stayed there. The
breathing seemed louder then, but of course that was my
imagination. . . . Miss Webb must have heard me
stumbling around, for she unlocked the hall door and
came in a few minutes ahead of time and gave me bally-
hoo for not sitting still."
"That woman—" Mrs. Price began hotly and then
stopped, plainly struggling for self-control. "You see
Mr. Long, how much she takes upon herself. What
can it matter to her whether we sit or walk during
those idiotic visits? It's enough that we're there, isn't
it? That was all Catherine required."
"Of course we can't be sure that it was," Catherine
said soberly. "I'm not doing very clear thinking to-
night, but it came to me very strongly that Aunt Cath-
erine wouldn't have wanted our attention distracted
from what she was saying. She must have given a
lot of thought to those records, and spent a lot of
money for them, as Naomi says. She'd want us to
listen and get what she was saying. That's what Miss


A PAJAMA PARTY 141
Webb thought, too. All that interested her was whether
we got the message."
"I didn't get quite all mine," Naomi admitted. "I
must have fainted toward the end of it."
"I got all mine," Catherine said, and she added, "I
think I'd rather have fainted."
Naomi rose quickly.
"Don't talk about the messages, Catherine. Let's
have a game of billiards," she suggested. "You and
I."
She hurried toward the door as she spoke, giving
them no time to refuse, and Catherine and Henry
followed her eagerly. All three, indeed, seemed in some
fear of being stopped by their elders. But Long and
Mrs. Price let them go without comment. Then Long
spoke, his eyes on the fire.
"This is a queer mess," he said.
"And in some way that woman's back of it," Mrs.
Price muttered.
"What woman?"
"You know whom I mean. The Webb person, of
course. I think she planted the whole scheme in Cath-
erine's mind, for some purpose of her own."
"My dear Mrs. Price!" At that trumpet-call to ac-
tion Long became his suave professional self. "Don't
you realize you're starting our association here in the
wrong spirit?" he went on kindly. "God alone knows
exactly what Catherine Chandler's purpose was. But
we've got to admit, from what we've seen going on


142 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
since dinner, that any one in her position might hesi-
tate to leave a fortune to these young wastrels. I don't
want to be uncharitable, but to-night they've shown us
pretty plainly what they are. Evidently Miss Chandler
knew a whole lot more about them than they thought
she did. Some revelation, a rather overwhelming one,
I'd say, must have come to her—suddenly, too—to
make her take such radical and unexpected action."
"I think you're right about that," Mrs. Price un-
expectedly admitted.
"You do? Have you any idea what it was?"
He spoke so eagerly that she turned toward him and
their eyes met and held. Long felt his heart drop a
beat. Those eyes held a look that frightened him. But
Mrs. Price removed her glance and spoke in her usual
tone, looking down at the ringed hands that now lay
quietly folded in her lap.
"I have an idea," she said. "Perhaps it would be
franker to say that I have a suspicion. I believe and
I think I'll be able to prove that Miss Webb started all
this by her slanders of us. But I can't talk it over
with you yet. Later I shall want your judgment and
help. But I must clear up certain things first."
Long nodded.
"To be frank with you," he said, "I think you're
doing Miss Webb a great injustice. Won't you try to
be more open-minded? She's merely carrying out Miss
Chandler's instructions. She hasn't been altogether
tactful about it and I shall caution her. But if you
and she continue at swords' points it will be a bad


A PA JAMA PARTY 143
example for the young folks, and it will make things
harder all around. Whatever your suspicions are, you
ought to give her the benefit of the doubt till you've
proved them to be well founded. You see that, don't
you?"
"I see that she's a snake," Mrs. Price hissed, with
a sudden lack of self-control that startled him. "The
mere thought of six months in the same house with
her drives me frantic."
It was an inopportune time for Hope Webb to enter
the room, but she came as if the other's words had
been an invocation. She walked in with her buoyant
college-girl stride, the incongruous bit of linen again
in her hands. At her appearance Mrs. Price rose as
if a spring in her had been touched, and Long, rising
also, saw the look that passed between the two women.
Then Mrs. Price turned to him with a rigid smile.
"Good night," she said, and with no other acknowl-
edgment of the presence of the nurse, she went toward
the door. Long followed her, and held it open while
she passed through. Then he returned purposefully
to his chair and fixed keen eyes on the face of the
nurse.
"Miss Webb," he began without preamble, "I'm
going to be very frank with you, if you don't mind."
The last four words were so obviously an after-
thought that the nurse smiled.
"I don't mind," she said.
The smile was disarming and the lawyer's tone
softened a trifle, but his purpose remained unchanged.


144 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"You are running the house beautifully," he said.
"The meals couldn't be better, and the domestic ma-
chinery moves to perfection. All that's to the good,
and it's also a great relief to my mind. It proves that
you can get on well with servants—a quality not so
common among trained nurses as it should be, I'm
told—and that you can make us all physically com-
fortable. You seem to get on fairly well with the
young people, too, though your manner is a little too
observant to be tactful. But when it comes to your
association with Mrs. Price, you're less successful.
It's important that you should get on with her—"
"I don't quite see why it is," Miss Webb mur-
mured.
"Then I'll tell you. We're here in a difficult posi-
tion, at the best. Great tact and adaptability are re-
quired in our association with every member of the
family. Now that Miss Chandler is gone, Mrs. Price
is the head of that family. She is accustomed to defer-
ence, she deserves it, and she should receive it from
all of us."
"I admit that she may be accustomed to it," Miss
Webb said quietly, her eyes on her work, her needle
slipping in and out of the delicate fabric in her hands.
She added deliberately, "I can't admit that she de-
serves it."
Long's face flushed with anger.
"Your personal opinion of Mrs. Price, and the
matter of your liking or disliking her, are not im-
portant," he pointed out. "But I must insist that while


A PAJAMA PARTY 145
you are under the same roof with her you will treat
her with the courtesy that is her due."
"There is no courtesy due Mrs. Price." Miss Webb
spoke in a low tone and with an air of deep regret.
Before he could speak she went on: "She has for-
feited the right to courtesy. Besides, she wouldn't let
me show it to her. She treats me with an abominable
rudeness no one could be expected to ignore. You don't
know much about Mrs. Price," she ended as he started
to his feet.
For a moment he towered above her, staring into
the brown eyes she raised to meet his. There was an
odd look in those eyes. He had seen it once before. He
did not understand it, but it made him pull himself to-
gether.
"Will you be good enough to explain what you
mean?"
"No, I can't do that, yet." She spoke with intensi-
fied regret. "But you'll understand very soon—within
a few weeks, I think, or perhaps even within a few
days." She rose, folding up the absurd little hand-
kerchief as she did so. "In the meantime, when you
see her rude to me just remember that she knows
that I know what she is."
Long stepped away from her so precipitately that
his heel hit the brass fender behind him. "You don't
mean—"
"I mean exactly what I say."
"You'll have to be more definite," he said between
his teeth. He saw her stiffen.


146 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Pardon me, Mr. Long, but I shall not have to be
anything of the kind. There is nothing in my instruc-
tions from Miss Chandler that requires me to tell
you any more than I choose. And I have no idea of
running to you every time I make a discovery. If we
are to be of any use here, in a position which is even
more difficult than you realize, we must work inde-
pendently and with cool heads. It's for you to keep
your eyes open and see what's before them."
Long's lips parted. Later, during a sleepless night,
he wondered what he should have said, what he could
have said. But, before he could speak, a sudden up-
roar came from the hall. The door was flung open
and four Bacchanalian figures danced into the room
to the accompaniment of the raucous music of the
phonograph, whose strident tones reached them clearly
from the billiard room.
Five minutes before, Long would have sternly
checked that reeling procession, would have ordered
its members to their rooms. Now, with the echo of the
nurse's words still in the air, he merely retreated to
the fire and with an elbow on the mantel stared silently
at the invaders. He had finally grasped the primer
lesson of his presence in that house. It was not for
him to check, modify or command the actions of others
there. It was merely for him to observe, and to learn
what he could from that observation. He heard Hope
Webb's voice in his ears.
"Don't mind them," she murmured. "They're


148 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
against a bit of carving on the chair and a small trickle
of blood stained her temple close to the right eye.
The Dixon twins, shocked into momentary silence by
the sight of this blood, stood staring stupidly at the
whimpering victim. Miss Webb, who had reached
Lily's side almost as soon as the Troubadour, gave
the little wound a brisk professional examination.
"No harm done," she said curtly. "It won't even
leave a scar. But sit down here and I'll give it some
antiseptic treatment."
She seated Lily by the fire as she spoke, wiped the
blood from the girl's temple with the handkerchief
she had been embroidering—Long was glad to see the
thing put to some use at last—and left the room, ob-
viously to get the remedies she thought necessary.
Lily waited in the easy-chair, alternately sopping the
injured temple and dully regarding the blood-stained
handkerchief. The Dixons blinked at her uncertainly,
clearly unable to understand just what had happened.
Long kept an unwinking gaze on the fire. He had
made an instinctive movement to .go to Lily's aid
when she fell, and had checked it when Bryce and
Miss Webb reached the girl. He realized that the
room was still a merry-go-round to the Dixons, who
had no clear idea where they were, and that Lily Price
was rapidly sobering. His final discovery interested
him more than the other two, and he continued to
consider it while Miss Webb, returning after a sur-
prisingly brief absence, sterilized and bound up Lily's
injury.


A PAJAMA PARTY 149
Long's effort to help in that little rhatter of first
aid was foiled by the Troubadour, who held basin,
linen and adhesive plaster and expertly supplied each
when it was required. His hand was steady, his round,
staring blue eyes were as clear as a child's. He was
wholly sober and had obviously been sober throughout
the evening's orgy. Seeing the lawyer's eyes on him, he
crossed to the mantel and smiled companionably.
"Awfully sorry we made such a row, sir," he cheer-
fully observed. "But the rest were determined to go
out on the highway and take the first taxi to town.
As it's after midnight, I thought it was better to let
them come in here."
"So you're familiar with the new rules?" Long
dryly observed.
"Yes, sir. They haven't talked of anything else all
evening—while they were able to talk at all."
Long sent a straight look into the round blue eyes.
In his rolled-up pajamas and absurd fur rugs the
Troubadour looked like a freshly bathed baby.
"I infer that you yourself haven't been drinking."
The Troubadour made an airy gesture. "No, sir.
I never drink."
"Then—" Long spoke with the first interest he had
felt in -the lad—"may I ask what attraction you find
in this sort of thing? Is it just the fascination of see-
ing others make beasts of themselves?"
The Troubadour's round gaze grew rounder.
"Oh, no, it isn't that," he said deprecatingly.
"Then what is it?"


150 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
The Troubadour hesitated. "Can't we call it friend-
ship? They're all my pals, you know."
Long forgot his newly formed resolution to be an
observer only.
"It's a queer way for a sober man to show friend-
ship," he sententiously remarked; "to encourage a mis-
guided bunch of ne'er-do-wells to let themselves go."
A shadow crossed the Troubadour's clear eyes.
"Does it seem that way?" he asked depressedly. "It
isn't, really. You see, Ethel and I are merely in this
to look after Lily and George. You mightn't think so,
but we can keep them from doing a whole lot of fool
things if we're right in it all with them."
Long's mobile lips curved. He glanced at the twins,
drooping side by side on the divan, and George met
the look with a vague gesture.
"'S'n't time to go home," he genially hiccoughed.
"I can imagine that Ethel's restraint is particularly
helpful to George," Long sardonically remarked.
The shadow over the Troubadour's blue eyes deep-
ened.
"All this is something new with Ethel," he ad-
mitted. "She's never done it till this year. She's al-
ways gone along, just to apply the brakes as much as
she dared. Lately something special has been worry-
ing her, and she says as George is bound to go to the
devil she'll go along with him. I can understand that,"
he added. "It's the way I feel about Lil. I thought
perhaps I could pull her up, but I'm beginning to think


A PAJAMA PARTY 151
perhaps it can't be done. So all I can do is to stick
'round." He turned a long look on Lily, now obedi-
ently drinking aromatic spirits of ammonia at Miss
Webb's order.
"She's all right now," he summed up, "so I suppose
I'd better go."
"I think you had."
Long spoke almost kindly. He waited till the
Troubadour had kissed Lily's eyes and ears and fresh
bandage, and then accompanied the lad out into the
hall and along it to the billiard room, where Bryce
mentioned that he had'left his clothes. Finally, after
the youth's five-minute toilet, from which he emerged
as fresh as if he were going to a ball, Long went with
him to the big front door and shot back its massive
bolt.
The Troubadour crossed the threshold and held out
a steady young hand. "Good night, sir. Thank you."
"I suppose you can get a street car to the station."
Long vaguely suggested as the boy was going down
the steps.
"Not now. They stop running at midnight and it's
after that. But the walk will do me good."
"Great Caesar's Ghost! come back here! Of course
you can't walk four miles to the station at this hour."
Long spoke disgustedly but resignedly. He had re-
membered that Bryce's purse would not run to cab
fares, even if a cab could be procured. Probably the
lad hadn't a cent in his pockets. "Go on up to George's


CHAPTER VIII
GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION
BREAKFAST the following morning was the
bleak function that might have been expected
after the debauch of the preceding night. No one but
Long, Miss Webb and the Troubadour had anything
but coffee and orange juice. Mrs. Price, who unex-
pectedly appeared, absently pulled a roll to pieces and
stared into vacancy, while George Dixon ostenta-
tiously held his head in his hands during the greater
part of the meal, uttering an occasional moan. Long
suspected that Mrs. Price had suddenly remembered
a rule concerning regular attendance at meals which
Catherine Chandler had included in their schedule for
the coming six months.
"If you feel like that, why the devil did you come
downstairs?" Lily Price irritably asked George after
the third moan.
"It's the triumph of hope over experience," George
assured her, reviving slightly under this provocation.
"I actually thought your society might divert my
mind."
Lily retorted that in such cases there had to be
something to divert, and Mrs. Price sighed, "Chil-
dren!"
153


154 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
The Troubadour, who had come downstairs with
his voice raised in song, was necessarily wearing his
evening clothes. He looked as immaculate as he al-
ways did; but the sharp accent lent to the breakfast
hour by this unseasonable attire added the final touch
to Long's irritation.
"I should think you could have borrowed a smoking-
jacket or a bath-robe or something from George or
Henry," he observed, eying the young man with strong
disfavor.
"So I could, sir, if the poor lads weren't so
pindling," the Troubadour cheerfully assured him.
"Neither of them has a garment that would go half-
way around a really manly figure like mine. I hope
it will be a lesson to them to exercise and develop their
muscles. How about some golf this morning, darling?"
he asked Lily. "I find there's a free course only two
miles away and it isn't half bad. I'll go home and
change and be back for you at eleven."
Lily and George groaned in unison.
"Don't you do it, Lil," George advised. "Stay
quietly at home and I'll let you hold my head all
morning."
Long felt that Lily would be ready at eleven. He
had already observed that she usually followed young
Bryce's suggestions.
George revived still further while he was finishing
his second cup of black coffee.
"Let me say right now, to prevent any discussion
later, that I'm nominated by acclamation to call on


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 155
Auntie to-night," he announced. "And I don't mind
adding," he gloomily finished, "that if I'm still feeling
the way I do now, it will take a hell of a message from
her to keep me awake."
"I think you'll keep awake," Miss Webb predicted.
She spoke pleasantly, but rather as if she were address-
ing a small boy. The Price girls exchanged glances and
even the sweet-natured George showed a sudden flash
of resentment.
"Now, just what do you mean by that?" he trucu-
lently demanded.
Miss Webb's eyebrows rose. "I think you'll be too
much impressed and interested to go to sleep."
George looked at her, his young face very serious.
"I thought you didn't know anything about those
messages, Miss Webb."
"I don't."
"Then why—"
"But when a woman who knows she must soon die
goes to the trouble and expense of preparing a set
of phonograph messages for her family, so that she
can deliver them in her own voice, it strikes me that
she must consider those messages vital. I don't know
whether you realize that your aunt made the journey
to and from the phonograph studio on a stretcher in
an ambulance and the strain almost killed her."
"The messages are vital, all right," Catherine Price
darkly contributed, with an effect of going over to the
enemy. "And I think," she thoughtfully added, "I'm
beginning to understand just why Aunt C. C. is send-


156 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
ing them this way. She knew that if she wrote to us,
we'd tear up the letters, and we'd probably do it before
we finished reading them. As it is, she's fixed things
so we've simply got to hear them. I didn't like my
message any more than Naomi liked hers, but I'm
sporting enough to give the old girl credit for turning
the trick on us."
"She isn't doing it in a very sporting way," Naomi
muttered.
"That's right, too, and she admits it. But we've
given her a pretty raw deal ever since we grew up.
George and Ethel and Lil and I were always active
thorns in her side, and you and Henry ignored her
as much as you dared to. Then we all turned up our
faces and expected her to kiss us good-by and give
us a wad of money when she left the world. Why the
devil should she do it? And if she felt that she must
do it in the end, why the devil shouldn't she have a
little fun with us first?"
"You might get up on the table at this point, Cath,"
George suggested with a wan grin. "The audience
could see you better. And perhaps a few sips of water
might refresh you. I've finished all that was in the
carafes, but I'm sure Johnson will get you some more.
It won't be wasted," he affably assured the butler.
"I'll drink all Miss Price doesn't want."
"I know," Catherine said wearily, "you think I'm
just drawing on my hot-air tank, and perhaps I am.
I don't know, myself, what makes me explode like
this. I suppose it's my hang-over. I never liked Aunt


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 157
C. C. when she was alive, and I never pretended to.
But—oh, well, laugh if you want to—I have a sort
of feeling that she's trying to help us 1"
"It's the time to laugh, all right," George grimly
commented. He was getting back to normal with a
rapidity to which he soon accustomed that family
circle. After a night of steady drinking and a per-
ceptible hang-over during the breakfast hour, George
could emerge at ten o'clock in the morning steady of
hand, fresh of complexion and reasonably clear of eye,
prepared to "play ball with the planets," as he ex-
pressed it.
"Catherine is right," Long said as he put down his
napkin and rose from the table. "I happen to know
from her own testimony that your aunt is trying to
help every one of you."
"Miss Webb doesn't think so," Naomi suddenly
remarked.
Long sent a quick look at the nurse and surprised
the end of a little smile at the corners of her mouth.
It irritated him.
"If Miss Webb knew as much as I do, she would
think so," he dryly observed; and as he left the room
he had the satisfaction of knowing that the remark
had gone home. He had further proof of this that
night when the nurse waylaid him in the hall after
dinner.
"Can you come into the library for a few minutes'
talk?" she asked with more diffidence than she had
yet shown, and he went with her willingly. The pro-
r


160 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
comfortable and happy for six months after giving
them that awful jolt about the will? And with the
conviction in her mind that one of them poisoned
her?"
"We have no proof that Miss Chandler had any
such conviction," the lawyer reminded her. "And Cary
scoffs at the idea."
"As I said he would." The full significance of his
last remark struck her. "You've seen him, then?"
"Of course I've seen him. You brought up an ap-
palling possibility, and such a suspicion in the mind
of a nurse who attended a patient must certainly re-
ceive attention. I mean to get to the bottom of it and
I went to Cary for help."
"Good!" she applauded. "So do I."
"But Cary says that if your patient had any such
suspicion, it was because you yourself planted it. And
there's a good deal to be said for that theory."
"I see," she murmured. "You're telling me that you
agree with him."
"I'm at least considering his point. And I'm con-
vinced that if your manner with Catherine Chandler
was as eloquent as it has been since her death, you
could suggest all sorts of things to her without say-
ing a word. That smile of yours at breakfast, for
example, when I ventured to testify that Miss Chand-
ler was trying to help her family. Her letter to me
contained a paragraph I can repeat almost word for
word. She said: 'They've got themselves into an ap-
palling impasse. Perhaps from my grave I can do more


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 161
for them than I ever did in life. At least I shall try.
You must help me.'"
Miss Webb interrupted him.
"Is it possible," she asked, "that you don't see what
that means?"
"I don't see that it means murder, and certainly
they can't all have poisoned her!" He added more
calmly: "I've given you first-hand testimony that
Catherine Chandler was trying to help these young
people. Yet you're showing now, just as you showed
them at the breakfast table, that you think the sug-
gestion is absurd."
"I don't think it's absurd. But I do think it's un-
founded."
"Notwithstanding Miss Chandler's own statement,
you think it's unfounded?"
"I think you misconstrued it. I don't think she meant
the kind of help you and Catherine Price have in mind.
I think she wants to help the guilty person to pull
himself or herself up to the scratch and clear the
others, purely as a family duty. She may have thought
that jolt would bring them all to their senses. And
of course," the speaker ended thoughtfully, "there's
a possibility that two or three of them may be in it."
"I think you are absolutely wrong. If you were
right, the revelation would precipitate the very sensa-
tion Catherine Chandler was trying to avoid."
"Not necessarily. In fact, not at all. She'll have
her own way of handling that, I imagine. That's why
I said it would be a family affair."


162 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
He shook his head at her. "Your imagination is
running away with you. But let's get to the point.
There was something special you wanted to say to
me?"
"Only that I'm sorry I've annoyed you; or dis-
appointed you," she corrected. "I want to work har-
moniously with you." She hesitated a moment, but as
he showed no impatience she went on: "So I'm going
to tell you something. I loved Catherine Chandler. I
suppose that will surprise you, but it's true. She didn't
fool me for a moment. I've always been able to see
the faults of those I loved, as well as their good points.
And Heaven knows I've shown them my faults as
well as my good points, too."
"What are your faults?" Long interrupted.
Though she had spoken of herself in passing, it
became plain that her thoughts were not on herself.
His question pulled her up and she looked startled.
Then she flashed so brilliant and friendly a smile at
him that his heart warmed under it.
"You've seen plenty of them," she admitted, still
smiling; "cock-sureness, over-independence, tactless-
ness, perhaps. I'm afraid you'll see a lot more as we
go on. But I loved Catherine Chandler," she went on
seriously, "and I'm absolutely loyal to her memory.
The biggest ambition of my life now is to carry out
her last wishes."
"It's mine, too," Long admitted. "But I wish to
God she had made her last wishes plainer. She said
she wanted me to approach the situation with an open



GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 163
mind, and I'm so confused already that I don't know
whether I'm executioner or a kindergarten teacher."
"You'll know," his companion predicted. "You'll
know, soon."
For a moment they looked at each other from the
new point of view developed by these confidences.
Then as if they had strengthened her resolution to
make him understand her, she went on.
"Miss Chandler never fooled me," she repeated. "I
saw her bitterness, her arrogance, her occasional
cruelty. She made me furious a dozen times a day.
But she had a wonderful personality and a far finer
mind than any other patient I've ever attended. I grew
curious, then interested; and finally I became devoted
to her. She saw it and at first it amused her," the
speaker admitted, "but as time passed I think she
saw I was giving her something money can't buy—
affection.
"I'd have nursed her for nothing if she had been
a poor woman. She hadn't much affection in her
life, and I believe mine pleased her after she had time
to take it in and think it over. Anyway, it made her
realize that she could trust me, and she softened a
little; only a very little. She loathed sentiment; but
she talked to me much more freely after she accepted
the fact that I actually cared for her. And she did
accept it. I learned that when she showed her trust in
me four days before she died."
As her companion remained silent the speaker ended
almost fiercely:


164 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Catherine Chandler was worth ten thousand of
the derelicts she's sheltering here. And when I see
them sneer at her and insult her memory, while you
look on and smile, I see red! That's why I've lost my
head once or twice."
Long listened in amazed silence. He had no doubt
of Miss Webb's sincerity, and the revelation also ex-
plained the resentful manner he had observed so often.
"I'm glad you were fond of her," he said at last.
"I wasn't fond of her. I tell you I loved her."
"I'm glad you loved her. I very nearly loved her
myself, a great many years ago."
"I suspected that. And I know that she loved you,
devotedly and not merely as a friend, to the day of her
death."
Long straightened out of his lounging position.
There was another moment of silence.
"I'm sure you're mistaken," he said at the end of it.
Hope Webb's firm lips curled. "Of course you didn't
know it. Men are so blind about such things. But she
loved you. I knew it the first day you came to see her,
though I saw you together only for a moment before
she hustled me out of the room, as she always did
when any one came. And the last three months, when
you didn't come, I was very near writing you. I knew
she missed you and wanted you, horribly."
"As it happened," Long muttered, "she was up to
her neck that entire time in things she was keeping
from me."
"I know she was. She spoke of that, too. She'd


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 165
often say, 'Nicholas wouldn't approve of what I've
been doing to-day.'"
"She wrote me to stay away, that she was busy.
Did you know what she was doing?"
"Not much of it, but some of it. Naturally, you
realize now that she had detectives on the trail of
every member of the family."
"Yes, I know that. But it had nothing to do with—"
"No. She engaged them long before there was any
suspicion of poisoning. The poisoning was done the
last week of her life. And I'm going to find out who
did it," Hope Webb added incisively, "if it's the last
thing I ever do. In the meantime," she added with a
sudden hardening of her jaw-line, "you mustn't ex-
pect me to love her murderers."
Long took that evening off and spent it in the writ-
ing-room of his pet club. He had meant to play bridge,
but Miss Webb had given him too much to think
about. At five minutes of twelve he inserted his latch-
key into the keyhole of the big front door and slipped
into the house, feeling rather like a runner who had
just passed under the wire. The sound of the Trouba-
dour's voice, raised in a love-song, drew him along
the hall to the dining-room, and he opened the door
and glanced in.
The young folks were there, including George, who
seemed for the moment to be the center of their inter-
est. He sat in a big chair before the replenished fire, a
plate of sandwiches on his knee and a whisky and
s


166 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
soda in his hand. A disarrayed dining-room and the
presence of various empty plates on the table with
the remains of food on them showed that the others
had indulged in a light repast.
The Troubadour was sprawled out in the huge
carved chair that held Lily, singing to her while he fed
her a sandwich. To Long, Bryce's arms and legs al-
ways seemed scattered over the room, so large and
ubiquitous was their effect. Like George and Henry,
the Troubadour was in immaculate evening dress, and
the lawyer wondered where he got the money to pay
for his clothes and the small white chrysanthemum in
his buttonhole.
Catherine Price was the first of the group to realize
the new-comer's presence.
"Hello, Uncle Nicholas! Come in and have a sand-
wich," she hospitably invited, with a lazy smile at
him. Catherine, Long told himself as he accepted the
invitation, was now the only member of the group
who was really cordial, though only a few short days
ago he had fondly fancied himself popular with all
its members.
"We've eaten almost everything," Catherine con-
fessed as she brought the sandwich plate to him when
he had taken his pet standing position by the fire with
an arm on the mantelpiece. "You and George can have
what's left. Dickie, for Heaven's sake turn off the
vocal gargling for a few minutes and draw in some
arms and legs."
The Troubadour turned it off and drew them in.


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 167
"You must have got home early," Long said con-
versationally as he made his selection from the sand-
wich plate.
The remark was unfortunate. It reminded his
hearers of their wrongs, and their faces clouded.
"My God! why wouldn't we?" Lily asked with acid
scorn. "Is there any sense in going to a dance from
eleven to twelve? Nothing's doing till after midnight,
anyway. That rule of Aunt C. C.'s has put a devil of
a cramp in our style."
The Troubadour closed her mouth with a kiss, and
then put a bit of the sandwich between her lips before
she could speak again.
"Besides, to-night George had to get home to make
his pious pilgrimage," he pacifically pointed out, as he
re-assembled his scattered arms and legs.
The remark gave Long his opening.
"Anything unexpected about it?" he genially asked
George.
The boy had been looking very grave. Now his face
hardened and he raised to the lawyer a pair of eyes
that held a singularly remote expression. But he an-
swered in his usual tone.
"I got an earful. Trust Aunt C. C. not to stage any-
thing stale. I'd like to drop into your room for a
moment when we go upstairs, sir," he added, "and
have a little talk with you, if you can spare the time."
Long nodded and finished the sandwich.
"But make it as soon as you can," he suggested as
he left the room with a general "good night" to the


168 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
group. "Midnight's my pet bedtime. That's why the
life here agrees with me so well," he added, and men-
tally kicked himself for a tactless ass.
He was glad the boy was coming up. He had not
yet had an intimate talk with any of the youngsters.
Indeed, he had never even been alone with one of
them, save on the occasion of that brief staircase chat
with Catherine. He had been glad to see that they
were normal to-night. Evidently there had been very
little drinking. But he did not attach too much im-
portance to this temporary restraint. They'd probably
break loose again to-morrow.
Back in his room, he made sure that his cigarettes
and cigars were within reach of the guest's easy-chair
near the fire. He had hardly completed these simple
preparations before young Dixon knocked at the door.
But when he was seated and had accepted and lit a
cigarette, the caller showed himself in no hurry to
begin the interview he had suggested. Instead he re-
vealed a knowledgable appreciation of some good
pieces of furniture Long had brought with him when
he moved to the Chandler house. The host, though he
was impressed by the young man's interest in and
genuine understanding of his treasures, had no wish
to discuss them now. Tactfully but definitely he
brought George to the point of his visit; and when
he realized that it was unavoidable George drew a deep
breath and took the six-barred fence of his purpose
with a rush.
"This whole business is so queer, Mr. Long," he


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 169
began, leaning forward, crossing his legs and clasping
his left silk-clad ankle with his right hand, in a studied
affectation of carelessness, "and we're all so much in
the dark, that I thought perhaps it would help mat-
ters if I told you a few things that happened during
the last months of Aunt G. C's life."
"Perhaps it would," Long agreed and settled back
receptively in his chair on the other side of the fire-
place.
"It isn't very easy to put into words," George went
on steadily. "And in a way I suppose it's a betrayal
of confidence. But the fact is, sir—and I know it's
going to shock you—that about six weeks before her
death Aunt C. C. asked me to get her a dose that would
end things for her! She told me exactly what she
wanted—it's rather new in medicine, I believe—and
where I could find it."
"What are you telling me?" Long leaned forward
quickly, then deliberately relaxed and waited.
"Yes, sir," George continued, "that's exactly what
she did. It was just after the visit of the specialists.
You know they had given her another year or two.
We'd all heard of that and I expected to find her
bucked up. Instead, she was all off her feed. She began
by saying she supposed the news had given her heirs
as big a jolt as it gave her. You know how she talked.
She used to say things that froze one's blood. It usually
took me two or three sprees to get over a visit to
Auntie," he reflectively interpolated. "Of course I said
the right things. I said we were glad, and all that, but


170 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
she told me not to lie any more than I had to. And
then she . . . she . . ."
"Yes?"
"Then she brought it right out," George said with
a quick breath. "She said she thought I was the sort
of reckless young devil who might have the nerve to
do a thing like that. She made it sound like a bribe.
When I showed what I thought of the idea she began
to argue in the most cold-blooded way you can
imagine. She started a regular discussion; wanted my
views; asked if I thought any of the rest would do
it for her. I was so flabbergasted I could only jibber.
It was a hellish thing to go through."
The boy stopped and stared into the fire, as if see-
ing again the scene he described.
"Fancy Aunt C. C. lying there on that infernal chaise
longue and asking a fellow to bump her off," he re-
sumed heavily. "She reminded me that she had al-
ready lost the use of her legs and would soon lose the
use of her hands and she said they were getting numb,
and she asked me what I thought another year or two
of life meant under such conditions. She said she had
read up on her disease and knew what was ahead of
her. It was all a nightmare, and finally I couldn't stand
it any longer, so I got up and stumbled out of the
room. But first I made it perfectly clear that there was
absolutely nothing doing, for me, along that line."
"Go on," said Long.
The young man changed his position and with a
hand that shook lit another cigarette.


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 171
"That was about the end of it, all right, so far as
I was concerned," he resumed. "She brought it up
once or twice more, but I guess I'd made her under-
stand. Anyway, she sneered at me and said I hadn't
any more nerve than a caterpillar and that she was
glad I was crawling away, since I could never have
put it over. She said she thought she could find some
one with more nerve and discretion."
"Yes?" Long muttered.
"She tackled Ethel next," George went on, and
Long mentally nodded. That would be young Dixon's
next move, of course—to drag Ethel into the story.
And Ethel, he knew, would swear to anything her
twin said.
"I guess Aunt C. C. thought she'd better try Ethel
because I'd probably tell her, anyway. And she was
dead right. I did tell Ethel. So when Aunt C. C. sprung
it on her, Ethel was hep to everything and didn't get
quite as bad a jolt as I did, though it was awful
enough. She told Aunt C. C. to cut it right out; that
she couldn't even talk about it. Aunt C. C. was furious
and talked so loudly about Ethel's general worthless-
ness that Miss Webb came in and she sent Ethel away.
But the thing knocked Ethel out pretty much the way
it had me. We both had the willies for days after-
ward. Later on, Aunt C. C. tried to persuade us both
that she hadn't really meant what she said; but of
course we knew better."
Long experienced some difficulty in speaking, but
he brought out his next question naturally enough:


172 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Have you any reason to believe your aunt made
that request of any one else?"
"Yes, sir. I know of at least one more, and prob-
ably there were others."
"Was Naomi the one you knew about?"
"Yes, sir. How did you guess?"
"Naomi," his host said deliberately, "is a cool
young person with plenty of nerve."
The young man gave him a long look between
slightly narrowed eyes, and Long asked his next ques-
tion in a different tone:
"Was Miss Sabin's reaction the same as yours and
Ethel's? I mean, did she turn down the proposition?"
"Of course she did!" the boy roughly flung back.
"What else do you think she'd do?"
"Then she told you?"
"Yes, she told me. She had to have some safety-
valve, just as Ethel and I did. The damned thing was
getting on her nerves, just as it got on ours. Some-
thing I said one time when I was drunk showed her
I'd had the same sort of scene with Aunt C. C. that
she'd had, so when I was sober again she tackled me
and we compared notes."
The caller stopped now, in the definite manner of
one who has said what he came to say, and for a time
they smoked in silence. Then Long leaned forward,
flicked the ash end of his cigar into a tray on the
table between them, and asked another question:
"Just what made you decide to tell me this story,
Dixon?"


GEORGE MAKES A CONFESSION 175
Long leaned back in his chair and looked up at the
contorted face.
"Be quiet," he ordered. "Do you want to stir up the
household? You're acting like a fool. And get it into
your head," he emphasized as the young man strode
back to the fireplace, "that I'm not insulting Naomi.
I have admired her very much. But you're both in
a difficult situation and I'm trying to get to the bot-
tom of it. There's no use talking any more about it
to-night, though," he added with a sigh. "Calm down
and go to bed, and we'll take the matter up again in
a day or two. You see," he ended, as George, whose
back was toward him, did not move, "I happen to
know that you've been living out at Naomi's chicken
farm for months."
This time young Dixon wheeled to face him.
"What of it?" he asked furiously. "Ethel was there,
too."
"Only part of the time. In fact, very little of the
time."
"Well . . . there was some one else there; some
one that made it all right."
"Who was it?"
"That's just what I can't tell you."
"I thought you couldn't."
Suddenly the young man became a frightened boy.
He dropped into the easy-chair and buried his face
in his hands.
"Oh, what a hell of a world this is!" he burst out.
"It never occurred to us that any one would know I'd


176 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
been there or would be rotten enough to suspect . . .
But Aunt C. C. said the same things you've just said,
in that damned message of hers to-night."
"Why shouldn't people suspect?" Long asked
quietly. '"Your reputation isn't the sort that protects
a young girl who was constantly seen with you and
is evidently in love with you, and who finally takes
you under her own roof. What do you think her
neighbors imagined? Couldn't you think of that . . .
for her sake?" As George took this in silence, he re-
peated his earlier admonition. "Hustle off to bed," he
wearily advised. We'll go into all this again when we
have more time for it."
Young Dixon got up and stood looking at him
for a moment, groping for words that would not come.
The anger died out of his expression, and his face
looked old and haggard.
"Oh, all right," he said at last and turned vaguely
toward the door. "You'll let me know when you want
to talk it over?" he asked from the threshold. Long
followed him and put a hand on his sagging shoulder.
"Of course."
For a moment he remained by the open door, letting
the light of his room illumine the way of the dazed
figure. When George had vanished among the
shadows of the hall, Long closed the door, but he
stood still for a long time, staring absently at its
polished panel.


CHAPTER IX
THE STRANGER AT NAOMl's
AOMI'S chicken farm was twenty-five miles
from the Chandler house, on the other side of
Water ford. When Long entered its side driveway late
the next afternoon it had, at a casual glance, the ap-
pearance of a deserted place. The front door and
windows were boarded up and the small white farm-
house looked cold and empty. It Was in excellent con-
dition, however, and the visitor reflected that it must
be a rather charming place in the summer. He stopped
his roadster and for a few moments sat quietly look-
the place over. Then, seeing a curving line of smoke
mounting from a rear chimney, he nodded and jumped
out of his car.
"Now we'll see if we can get to the bottom of all
this," he muttered, and going to the kitchen door, he
assailed its stout woodwork with vigorous knuckles.
There was a long interval. He continued his assault
and at last heard the sound of deliberate steps on the
kitchen floor. The door opened and a gingham-clad
country woman with gray hair, a flat, pushed-in face
and closely set lips, surveyed him with severe dis-
approval.


178 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"We don't want to buy nothin'," she tersely an-
nounced.
"That's lucky, for I haven't anything to sell," Long
smiled. "I want to see the man of the house."
"There ain't no man of the house." As the caller
seemed surprised by this statement, she added frigidly,
"There ain't never been." The door was closing. "A
lady owns this farm and she's away," the woman
ended.
"Yes, I know." Long casually rested an arm against
the jamb at an angle that made it impossible for the
woman to shut the door wthout crushing his bones.
"I saw her this morning. Now I've come to see the
gentleman."
"You mean . . . she sent you?" For an instant the
guardian spirit of the farm wavered.
"I'm here, you see. If you will kindly take my name
to the gentleman . . ."
He left the sentence unfinished, but his look was
one to inspire confidence as he watched the changing
expression of the woman's face. The caution in her
triumphed.
"I dunno what you mean," she said at last. "There
ain't no man here, and Miss Sabin's away."
Long looked over her plump shoulders into the
kitchen and to the hall beyond it. He fancied he saw a
figure lurking in the hall shadows.
"Is he taking a nap? I don't mind waiting if you
can't risk disturbing him."
His insistence irritated the caretaker. She faced him


180 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
along the hall, and into the dim front parlor of the
farm-house.
"Merely a case of intelligent observation, old chap.
We met but once in the dear dead days that are no
more, but you haven't changed much. I recognized
you through an upstairs window as soon as you turned
into the yard. Naturally, callers interest me. And I
infer that your visit has something to do with Naomi,
and with Catherine's interesting experiment, and that
interests me, too. I assume you came in peace and not
in war. Still, I might not have given myself the pleas-
ure of this chat if you hadn't spoken so seductively
of cigars."
As he talked with an animation that revealed inner
nervousness the man dropped into a chair opposite his
guest, drew the sides of the shabby bath-robe together
over his knees, and gazed smilingly at the older man.
"You'll forgive the informality of my attire," he
added as an unimportant afterthought. "As you see,
I'm not dressed to receive. In fact, I'm just out of
bed. There's nothing to do but sleep, in this benighted
hole. You're my first visitor in six months, if I except
George and Ethel; and of course Naomi and I regard
them as members of the family."
"I wasn't at all sure you'd see me," Long admitted,
glancing around the cold little room with its shuttered
windows and empty fireplace.
"It isn't discreet, I suppose, and I admit that for
a moment your appearance gave me something of a
jolt. But Hebe's presence doesn't really constitute a


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 181
full social life, and I'm rather fed up here. If you'll
produce some of those cigars you mentioned just now,
they may help us toward a better understanding."
Long drew the box from the pocket of the heavy
overcoat he had not taken off and handed it to his
host, and the latter split the revenue stamps with an
avid thumb-nail, opened the box, and tore the pro-
tecting silver foil from its contents. He offered the
box to his caller, but he had no matches, and Long
produced his lighter and held it to the host's cigar
before he lighted his own. The man drew in a deep
mouthful of smoke and exhaled a long, contented
sigh.
"The first perfect cigar I've had in years," he cheer-
fully admitted. "One whiff of it convinces me that
it doesn't really matter why you came, since you're
here with these. If you had happened to bring a flask,
the occasion would be perfect. But of course you
didn't," he added sadly, as Long shook his head. "Per-
haps the next time—"
"There won't be any next time." Long spoke with
so sudden a change of tone that the other raised his
heavy black eyebrows. His hair and eyebrows were
as straight and black as Naomi's, but he had not her
vividly blue eyes. His were brown. They widened a
trifle now under the caller's words. "You've got to
get out of here, Sabin, and you've got to get out
quick," Long added.
"My dear fellow, this is so sudden," his host com-
plained with a deprecating smile.


182 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Out you go," Long repeated. "You've been rob-
bing that girl for six months, and you've bled her
white. She has nothing left, so you're going while
the going is good."
"Oh, but it isn't so good, old chap. That's just the
point. And you're spoiling a superb cigar for me by
these unreasonable suggestions," the other murmured
discontentedly.
"We'll drop all the Handsome Harry stuff," Long
contemptuously assured him. "It doesn't impress me
at all. I'm a lawyer, and you know perfectly well that
I know all about you. In twenty-four hours I could
have you back behind the bars, where you belong,
and you know that, too."
"But you won't," his host said gently. "It's because
I knew you wouldn't that I gave you this hospitable
reception."
"No, I don't think I will, just yet," the lawyer
agreed. "I have another plan for you."
"I hope it's a good one."
"It's an excellent one, and it's going to have your
enthusiastic cooperation."
"I'm not impulsive," Harry Sabin reminded him.
"Perhaps not, but you're going to act as if you
were, for the next few hours. You see," the caller
added with a sudden eye-flash that made his companion
look thoughtful, "I'm not talking through my hat. I
really know your entire record. I've been Catherine
Chandler's lawyer for thirty years. I remember her
sister Jane's marriage to you, and Naomi's birth, and


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 183
the various scandalous episodes in which you figured
from then on. I was one of those the prison authori-
ties notified of your escape after we all thought you
were safely up for twenty years, and I've been on
the lookout for you ever since. I suspected that Naomi
was helping you, but it was only last night that I
knew definitely you'd had the nerve to come here.
I've spent the entire day on your affairs."
"So good of you," the listener murmured; but now
his look was as menacing as the visitor's.
"I've bought a nice first-class ticket to South
America for you," Long went on. "You're sailing on
a good ship and in a comfortable outside state-room,
and you're sailing to-night. I'll drive you to the
steamer myself—we can make it in three hours—and
I'll linger close by the gang-plank till that steamer
starts."
He waited a moment, but his companion did not
speak. He merely took his cigar out of his mouth and
looked thoughtfully at the end of it.
"I needn't point out to a man of your intelligence
that freedom in South America is better than prison
here," Long went on. "It's also better than hiding in
this house, blackmailing your daughter. Blackmailing
is what it amounts to," he contemptuously added as
the other's face darkened. "Naomi isn't hiding you
here for love of you. She knows exactly what a hound
you are, and she's tolerating this situation to prevent
the whole wretched scandal from being reopened. But
your little plan of sitting pretty and grafting on what


186 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Evidently she had learned through her detectives that
some man was lying low at the chicken farm, and,
knowing that Sabin was at large, she had easily guessed
the rest.
With her horror of scandals and an especial horror
of this one, it was not to be expected that she would
give the man up. Yet she might have financed an
effort to get him out of the country. What Long could
not understand was why she had not done this. With
the money furnished, Naomi could have done all Long
was now doing—could have bought the ticket under
an assumed name, could have driven her father to the
nearest sailing port for South America, could have
got rid of him. But probably Naomi was afraid to
mention the matter to her aunt. No one ever knew
what Catherine Chandler's reactions would be to an
appeal.
When Sabin came back, his appearance did credit
to the full half-hour he had devoted to its improve-
ment. He was bathed, shaved and immaculate. He
wore an excellently cut business suit, a handsome
overcoat now flung open but with a collar that would
turn high around his face, a new steamer cap, gray
kid gloves, and a pair of shoes whose luster almost
reflected Long's face when he looked down on them.
In his hands Sabin carried a new suitcase and a new
patent-leather hat-box.
"All ready, you see," he announced cheerfully.
"Naomi fitted me out as soon as I got here, at my
suggestion, of course, and we've simply been waiting


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 187
for a good break such as this you're giving me, old
man. Awfully kind of you, I must say."
"Don't thank me. You know I'm not doing this for
you. If you're ready, come on."
Long started toward the front door, but Sabin
called him back.
"Can't open that," he reminded the other. "It's
locked and barred and bolted. We're not supposed to
open the back one, either, except at night, which is
the time I sneak out and take my exercise. Of course
Hebe doesn't know why we have to be so careful."
"How does Naomi explain your presence, to her?"
"Hebe thinks that federal officers are after me for
bootlegging. It's an avocation she has a profound
sympathy for. Let's go out humbly through the
kitchen, old man, as befits our nefarious enterprise."
He was plainly in high spirits, and Long was glad
of that. It would make the next three hours easier.
Under the caretaker's widening eyes they passed
through the kitchen. At the door Sabin suddenly
turned, went back, caught the woman's plump shoul-
ders in both hands, and gave her a resounding smack
on each retreating cheek.
"Something to color your dreams, Hebe," he called
back as he hurried out, while she sputtered with in-
dignation. "It's the only parting gift I can make you,
but it should be enough for any maiden. Fare thee
well, and if forever, still forever fare thee well. . . .
She was a pretty good old scout," he informed Long as
he threw the hat-box and case into the roadster and


186 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Evidently she had learned through her detectives that
some man was lying low at the chicken farm, and,
knowing that Sabin was at large, she had easily guessed
the rest.
With her horror of scandals and an especial horror
of this one, it was not to be expected that she would
give the man up. Yet she might have financed an
effort to get him out of the country. What Long could
not understand was why she had not done this. With
the money furnished, Naomi could have done all Long
was now doing—could have bought the ticket under
an assumed name, could have driven her father to the
nearest sailing port for South America, could have
got rid of him. But probably Naomi was afraid to
mention the matter to her aunt. No one ever knew
what Catherine Chandler's reactions would be to an
appeal.
When Sabin came back, his appearance did credit
to the full half-hour he had devoted to its improve-
ment. He was bathed, shaved and immaculate. He
wore an excellently cut business suit, a handsome
overcoat now flung open but with a collar that would
turn high around his face, a new steamer cap, gray
kid gloves, and a pair of shoes whose luster almost
reflected Long's face when he looked down on them.
In his hands Sabin carried a new suitcase and a new
patent-leather hat-box.
"All ready, you see," he announced cheerfully.
"Naomi fitted me out as soon as I got here, at my
suggestion, of course, and we've simply been waiting


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 187
for a good break such as this you're giving me, old
man. Awfully kind of you, I must say."
"Don't thank me. You know I'm not doing this for
you. If you're ready, come on."
Long started toward the front door, but Sabin
called him back.
"Can't open that," he reminded the other. "It's
locked and barred and bolted. We're not supposed to
open the back one, either, except at night, which is
the time I sneak out and take my exercise. Of course
Hebe doesn't know why we have to be so careful."
"How does Naomi explain your presence, to her?"
"Hebe thinks that federal officers are after me for
bootlegging. It's an avocation she has a profound
sympathy for. Let's go out humbly through the
kitchen, old man, as befits our nefarious enterprise."
He was plainly in high spirits, and Long was glad
of that. It would make the next three hours easier.
Under the caretaker's widening eyes they passed
through the kitchen. At the door Sabin suddenly
turned, went back, caught the woman's plump shoul-
ders in both hands, and gave her a resounding smack
on each retreating cheek.
"Something to color your dreams, Hebe," he called
back as he hurried out, while she sputtered with in-
dignation. "It's the only parting gift I can make you,
but it should be enough for any maiden. Fare thee
well, and if forever, still forever fare thee well. . . .
She was a pretty good old scout," he informed Long as
he threw the hat-box and case into the roadster and


188 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
took the seat next the driver's. "She looks like the
wrath of God, but I have a growing suspicion that
she has a kind heart. There were even several em-
barrassing indications of late that she was succumb-
ing to my beaux yeux."
"We won't go into that, if you don't mind," Long
said with distaste.
"Oh, she didn't. She continued modest and virginal
to the end. But there was a late lark singing in her
heart, just the same, though I admit that its notes
were a trifle adenoidal."
They were out on the highway now, and Long sent
the car along the open road at forty miles an hour. A
three-hour chat with this companion held no lure for
him, but he at once discovered that neither did it hold
strain. Sabin monologued contentedly. All he asked
was a listener. Finding his companion uninterested in
"the sex," he discoursed on South America, which it
appeared he had been reading up. "Naomi got the
books and maps for me at the library," he interpolated.
He was a good talker and as intelligent as he was un-
moral. To his own surprise Long became interested,
and finally took his share in a dialogue.
They reached their seaport destination soon after
eight o'clock. But the ship was not to sail till eleven,
and the prospect of another three hours of companion-
ship had an effect on Long which his companion rec-
ognized.
"You needn't wait till she goes," he suggested with
a gracious wave of the hand. "I give you my word as


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 189
a scholar and a gentleman that I'll be on board and
probably asleep in my innocence when she pulls out."
"No, I've set my heart on seeing you hanging over
the deck-rail, waving your handkerchief at me," Long
told him. And the voyager, realizing that he meant it,
changed the subject.
"Then let's have a good dinner on shore," Sabin
urged. "We won't get any decent food or service on
the boat at this hour, and I haven't had a good meal
for years, except what Naomi or Hebe cooked for me.
They're no chefs, either. You must be as hungry as a
wolf, too. We'll find the best place in town and seek
a retired corner there. It's safe enough," he added
almost irritably, as Long looked dubious.
"All right, if you care to take the risk," the lawyer
decided. "You'll be off our hands," he ended, "which-
ever takes you, law or steamer."
Sabin shook his head. "A tactless remark," he
pointed out; but it depressed him for a moment.
When they had found the best restaurant and the re-
tired corner, Long took in with dispassionate interest
the eagerness of his companion. Sabin was like a
school-boy out on a holiday lark.
"The dinner is mine, of course," Long told him,
"but would you like to order it?"
"Would I like to?" Sabin echoed unctuously. "The
question confirms my growing suspicion, Long, that
you really have a heart."
For the next ten minutes he brooded over the menu,
while Long studied their fellow-guests in the restau-


190 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
rant. There were not more than a dozen of these, but
the number included several pretty girls, one of whom
was Naomi's type. He might point out that resem-
blance to Naomi's father a little later, and, the topic
thus introduced, it might be possible to learn just what
the girl had undergone since that gentleman's abrupt
arrival under her roof. The lawyer understood why
she had brought young Dixon there. He was the only
person she could trust, and she had not dared to be
alone with the debonair brute who sat opposite
him. . . .
Suddenly Sabin seemed to read his thoughts.
"Dixon was no company for me at the farm," he
critically mentioned. "You'd think the young ass would
have had sense enough to bring some supplies to me,
some decent cigars and whisky. Not he! He smoked
his cigars himself, and when he simply had to get
drunk he went back to town for a day or two and
Ethel stayed with Naomi. They all treated me as if
I were an adder," he ended dispassionately, and turned
away to give the order to a waiter who hastened for-
ward at his nod.
The meal he ordered was not inspired, but it was
good: deep-sea oysters on the half-shell, a clear soup,
filet mignon with fresh mushrooms and potatoes au
gratin, hearts of lettuce salad with Russian dressing,
camembert, toasted biscuits and coffee.
"My tastes have necessarily grown simple, in the
past ten years," he confided to Long. With one excep-
tion it was his sole reference to his enforced retire-


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 191
ment. The exception concerned his hands, on which
the nails were broken and blackened. "Too much out-
door exercise," he said, flushing, when he saw Long
glance at them.
He disappeared from the table for a few moments
and followed the head waiter to some lair in the rear
of the establishment. Subsequently cocktails were
served in tea-cups, and high-balls were set before them
modestly flanked by half-empty ginger-ale bottles. Long
declined these beverages; he was very careful what
and where he drank. But Sabin consumed his own and
the other man's share, pronounced the drinks excel-
lent, and became confidential.
"You're an understanding chap, Long," he said
when his second high-ball was half gone, "so you must
have some notion of what it means to me to eat a
good meal again in the company of a man of the
world. It's an experience I haven't had for ten years."
"Too bad George disappointed you," Long ironi-
cally observed. "You say he was at the farm most of
the time?"
"Yes, he was usually underfoot. He could have been
amusing if he hadn't annoyed me so much. Besides,
he's mad about Naomi; much good it will do him,"
he contemptuously interjected. "I needn't mention to
a man of your acumen that when a chap's in love his
sense of humor goes into hibernation. Young George
was a good deal of a bore. Then he and Naomi have
both been frightfully upset of late, quite aside from
the strain of my company, which they openly detested."


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 193
Having learned what he wanted to know, Long was
willing to follow this strong hint: "I thought Naomi
loved him."
"So she does. You seem to be infernally well posted.
How did you catch on?"
"I've seen them together lately."
"You could see them together every day for a year
and not catch on. That pair don't wear their hearts
on their sleeves. Even I didn't catch on till I over-
heard them powwowing one night. Naomi thinks mar-
riage isn't for her," he added carelessly. "Doesn't want
to bring children into the world that are the offspring
of a drunkard and the grandchildren of a convict.
Told George so in those very words. The things young
folks talk about nowadays make a man sit up," he
virtuously added. "When I compare them with the care-
ful stepping I had to do toward Jane Chandler . . .
However, that's neither here nor there. Naomi will
never marry, and I'm glad of it. I don't want any
little Dixon brats pulling at her purse-strings."
"You really are about the limit, Sabin," Long dis-
passionately commented. "Haven't you any affection
at all for the girl, or at least any gratitude?"
Sabin shrugged his shoulders. "I was sure you had
a heart. You're a sentimentalist, too. Naomi's all right.
But there's no bunk between her and me. I know
damned well the only reason she's helping me is to
avoid more scandal, and she knows the only reason I
look her up is to make use of her. Naomi isn't my type.
She's the kind whose infernal virtue would make a


194 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
man like me shoot himself if he thought too much of
her. George is in luck not to get her, if he only knew
it. She's set herself to reform him, though, and she'll
do it before she's through, if he doesn't watch out.
"I'll say for her that she's got pluck and the per-
severance of a bull-dog, and I admire those qualities.
She'd rather have had a python in the house than
her father, and she let me see it. But she stood up to
me every time I started something. I started something
pretty often," he ended simply. "Life was so cursed
monotonous. I had to have a little excitement."
Long summoned the waiter and asked for the check.
"Must we go?" his guest objected, and hurriedly
gulped down the last of a liquid he had been assured
was cherry brandy.
"Yes. It's almost ten, and the boat sails at eleven."
Long paid the check, tipped the waiter, and led the
way out of the restaurant. He was afraid that if he
had to look at Sabin any more, or listen to his talk,
he'd step on him.
They walked back to the ship. That killed some
time; and as soon as they were on board, Sabin in-
spected and approved his outside state-room. In that
refuge Long gave him his money and tickets.
"Let there be no mistake about this, Sabin," he said
with an eye-flash that made the other blink. "This is
your one last chance. If you come back I'll have you
in prison in twenty-four hours. A little scandal, which
people will soon forget, won't be half so hard on
Naomi as years of grafting and the strain of wonder-


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 195
ing what you're up to. I'm willing to try her way
this time, but never again."
"And you can be such a charming companion when
you like!" Sabin sighed. "However, be calm. I have
no intention of coming back. It's too risky. Later, when
Naomi gets her money, I may take a little run over , to
Paris and Vienna and Budapest, but I think my perma-
nent headquarters will be in the Argentine."
"An excellent place for them," the lawyer approved.
"But don't be too sure of that Chandler money, Sabin.
It will be within my discretion to divert it, I think."
"And I predict that you'll be too discreet to do
anything of the sort. Meantime, there's the first whistle,
old man. If it had sounded an hour ago, I'd have burst
into tears, but now I really feel that I can part with
you."
Long shook hands with him, went down the gang-
plank, and waited at the base of it till it was lifted
and the line of water widened between boat and shore.
Then without a backward glance he hurried to the
garage where he had left the roadster, and ruthlessly
interrupted the nap of a resentful foreman, standing
over the man while the necessary supplies of oil and
gasoline were being put in.
It was a good night for driving, but even with the
best of luck he couldn't reach the Chandler house till
three o'clock. So he'd spend the night in his club. His
obligation to be at home by midnight was merely a
sentimental one. "At home!" The irony of that stung
him. Nevertheless, he was glad to feel that Catherine


196 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
would approve his night's work. He suddenly felt
that he owed a good deal to Catherine.
On his way to his office the next morning Long
stopped at the Satterlee Hospital and sent his card
to a rising young surgeon he knew there.
"I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, Doctor," he
apologized as they shook hands, "but I won't keep
you more than five minutes."
Doctor Grant, who was very impressive in an op-
erating outfit which lacked only the mask, showed an
artless relief at this.
"Sit down," he urged with belated hospitality. "I
operate in fifteen minutes, but till then—"
"I just want to ask you a couple of questions about
a nurse who used to be here," Long said hurriedly.
"A Miss Webb—Hope Webb. Do you remember her?"
"Perfectly. A fine-looking girl. All the internes were
in love with her, and most of the staff. But that's
neither here nor there. If you want a good nurse you
couldn't do better than to get her."
"I don't want a nurse. But she's in the same house-
hold I'm in just now, and I want to know something
about her."
Grant met the caller's eyes and checked a grin.
"What do you want to know?" he briskly demanded.
"Two things. I'm very favorably impressed by her,
but she's in a position of considerable trust in a family
of young people. I want to know whether her reputa-


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 197
tion is all it should be and whether she has any bad
habits, such as drugs or drink."
"Drugs or drink! Good Lord, no! Where did you
get that notion?"
"It was passed on to me by a woman who hates Miss
Webb. I think she was lying."
"You can bet your hat she was lying. You have
only to look at Miss Webb to see that she's as whole-
some as she is handsome. As to her reputation, it's
A-One. She comes of mighty good stock, too, and
she's a college graduate."
"I thought as much. There's only one more point.
Did she leave here under any sort of cloud?"
"She left a cloud of gloom over the young internes,"
the surgeon chuckled. "Everybody was sorry to see
her go, and we tried hard to keep her. She was forging
right ahead here. But she was tired of hospital work,
said it was too monotonous. Said she was going in
exclusively for private nursing. She was nursing some
rich old maid, the last I heard."
"Thanks." Long got up, amazed by the quality of
his relief. He had not believed Mrs. Price's charges,
of course he hadn't, but to have them so thoroughly
disproved sent up his spirits with a rush. "That's all
I need. I was sure she was all she seemed, but it was
common sense to make the inquiry."
"Of course. Look in again some day."
"No, I'll keep out of this hygienic hive and try
to get you down to the club for dinner some night."


THE STRANGER AT NAOMI'S 199
death, I was so sure I'd get some money that I . . .
I committed myself to a definite agreement."
"What made you so sure, Naomi?" The lawyer
asked the question very gently, but he saw that it
startled her. She grew paler.
"Why ... I ... it was always understood, in a
way," she faltered. "Anyway, I must have a thousand
dollars. I simply must!"
"No, you mustn't, Naomi."
She rose with a rush, as if in response to a power-
ful spring that moved her. Then, as she stood looking
at him, her face became a mask of hopelessness.
"You mean," she asked slowly, "that you can't
let me have the money?"
"No. I mean that you don't need it. I myself bought
a ticket to South America for your father, and I saw
him off last night on the Argentine. He won't trouble
you any more. That's why I didn't get home before
curfew," he added smilingly. He watched her taking
in his words, striving to get hold of their incredible
meaning.
"You . . ." she began and stopped.
"Your aunt left word that I was to help you," he
explained. "Evidently she learned that he was here—"
"I told her," Naomi said dully. "I told her two
months before she died. I asked her to help me. She
. . . she wouldn't, then. Oh, if she only had!"
Long drummed on the arms of his desk chair and
watched her. He had looked forward to Naomi's re-
lief under the shifting of her burden. Instead of show-


200 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
ing it, she dropped into her seat, turned away from
him, and with a gesture of despair buried her face
in her hands, a shoulder raised to ward off sympathy
or understanding. She was not weeping. She seemed
beyond tears. She was merely, for a black moment,
turning her back on life.


CHAPTER X
MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS
YOUNG and pretty women were not frequent call-
ers at Nicholas Long's office, and the face of
the office boy when he brought in another card, ten
minutes after Naomi's departure, showed that he ap-
preciated the innovation. His expression nicely con-
veyed emotions of surprise, admiration and an oppres-
sive knowingness.
Long frowned at the card unrecognizingly for a
moment, then nodded. Under the engraved name of
Mrs. Warren Mason he had discovered a modest and
faintly penciled explanatory line. It read, "Formerly
Miss Connolly—Miss Chandler's night-nurse."
"Show her in," he told the boy, and the lad re-
sponded with a promptness that betrayed the lady's
waiting presence on the threshold. Long rose to re-
ceive Mrs. Mason, nee Connolly, who proved to be
a small, fresh-faced, attractive young woman, wear-
ing the shiningly new raiment of a bride. She smiled
up at him with a deprecating expression.
"I guess you know why I'm here," she suggested.
"I think I do," he affably admitted. "You want that
new living-room furniture. Sit down and I'll give you
the check for it."
301


202 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Her smile gave way to amazement. "Good gracious!
how did you know about that?"
"Miss Webb mentioned it, casually, in passing."
"Oh!" She considered this for an instant as she
seated herself, and then dropped Miss Webb from
her mind so definitely that Long almost heard her fall.
"I thought maybe as it wasn't in the will ... I under-
stand Miss Chandler gave you the money . . ."
"Of course. That's all right. I've been expecting
you every day."
"We've been away on our wedding journey. We
didn't get back till last night."
It was quite plain that in her marriage the new Mrs.
Mason was realizing all her girlish dreams. She dif-
fused a soft radiance, an emanation of happiness that
filled the office. She took the check he now gave her
and dropped it into her hand-bag with a little laugh
of pleasure.
"That was awfully good of Miss Chandler," she
said gratefully. "It means so much to us now. You
see, my husband is a young doctor just beginning his
practice, and of course his income is uncertain. It was
really a big risk for us to marry."
"You must have been glad of those extra checks
during the last six months," the lawyer suggested with
a straight look at her.
The blow seemed to hit her between the eyes. She
actually fell back in her chair under the impact of it.
Then she stiffened and laughed.
"I should say I was, though I couldn't really feel


MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS 203
that I earned them," she said rather breathlessly. "Miss
Chandler was so quiet at night. Still, I guess I was
useful to her, and I've practically furnished our new
apartment with her money."
"She'd be glad of that." He didn't know whether
she would or not, but of course it was the thing to
say. Mrs. Mason, too, seemed to experience a mo-
mentary doubt, but she rose superior to it.
"Yes," she corroborated, and now she spoke quite
naturally, "I really feel that in a way all our furni-
ture is a present from her. It's lovely, too, the best of
everything. I got the sort that lasts a lifetime: nice
mahogany pieces made on the old lines; Oriental rugs
—You know what I mean."
"Yes, it must be charming. Don't go just yet," Long
added as she started to rise. "Ever since Miss Chand-
ler's death I've wanted to ask you a few questions,
and I should have sent for you in a few days if you
hadn't dropped in." He leaned forward in his big
swivel chair and smiled at her encouragingly. "Will
you be quite frank with me?"
"Why . . . yes ... of course, Mr. Long."
But the soft radiance had departed. The happy eyes
of his visitor clouded suddenly. She looked uneasy
and a trifle stubborn.
"I suppose you've heard of the little experiment
Miss Chandler is making on us all?" he went on, to
put her at her ease.
"You mean you're all living together? Yes, there
was something about that in the newspapers. But I


204 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
didn't know whether it was true, or what it meant if
it was true."
"It's true enough," Long said grimly, "and we're
not quite sure, ourselves, just what it means. Miss
Chandler had some odd ideas, you know."
"I'll say she had!" Mrs. Warren Mason muttered
with justifiable faith in the eloquent modulations of
her voice.
"She's left me a hard job, and I need all the help
I can get. So I wish you'd tell me frankly and con-
fidentially if anything queer . . . unusual . . . hap-
pened during the last few months of Miss Chandler's
life."
"Queer and unusual things were always happening,"
his caller willingly testified. She seemed relieved by
the turn the conversation had taken. "Miss Chandler
was seeing entirely too many people every day. She
never saw more than one at a time, of course, but it
used to make Miss Webb furious, because the patient
hadn't the vitality for that sort of thing. Miss Webb
and I couldn't stop it, for we had none of the authority
nurses usually have over a patient in her condition.
No one had any authority over her. That was queer,
in itself."
"Not very queer, when one considers that Catherine
Chandler was the patient," Long murmured wearily.
"Well, it seemed queer to us. She did exactly as
she pleased, from start to finish, and of course she
wore herself out and died before she needed to. I


MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS 205
could see how tired she always was when I came 011
at six, but I didn't realize at first all that was going
on. Several of the constant callers were supposed to
come on investment business, but I knew it wasn't
that."
"You thought it wasn't?"
"I was sure it wasn't. The two men that came so
much, Mr. Jackson and Mr. White, were supposed to
be her brokers, but they didn't look or act like brokers.
I've nursed a lot of brokers and I know the types."
Long nodded contentedly. He knew now that, con-
trary to Miss Webb's opinion, the little night-nurse
had not been too love-obsessed to keep her eyes open.
"When did you see them? You weren't there in the
daytime, of course."
"No, but I . . . I . . ." Her self-conscious manner
had returned, and now it was mingled with fear. She
had stupidly given him an opening and he had taken
it, and she was afraid of what it might lead to.
"Come now," he said gently. "Tell me the whole
story."
"There's nothing to tell," she faltered.
"Oh, yes there is. There's a good deal to tell." As
she still hesitated, he regretfully put on the screws he
had in readiness. "For example, you must tell me why
Miss Chandler gave you all those various checks,
including one for two hundred dollars. I found them,"
he added pleasantly, giving the callef time to think,
"among her canceled vouchers when I looked them


206 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
over. She gave them all to you within two months of
her death. There were more than a dozen checks made
out to you in addition to your salary checks."
His visitor moistened her lips.
"There's nothing to be frightened about," Long said
gently. "I'm sure you earned the money, but I'd like
very much to know just how you did it."
Mrs. Warren Mason found her voice and some
measure of assurance.
"The small checks were for little commissions I
did for Miss Chandler, shopping and such things, in
the daytime. I was free every afternoon and I attended
to a number of matters for her."
Long nodded again. This, of course, was entirely
plausible.
"But how about the two-hundred-dollar check, made
out by you and signed by her? At least, I assume it
was made out by you. The handwriting on the face of
the check and the endorsement are the same as they
were on all the other checks."
"That," young Mrs. Mason said after a moment's
thought, "was a confidential matter between the patient
and her nurse. I don't think Miss Chandler would
want me to talk about it. All I can tell you is that it
it was in payment for services I gave her. I think she
overpaid me, several times at least; but she fixed the
amounts herself."
"I haven't thfi least doubt that you earned the money.
I've already admitted that. But really, Mrs. Mason, I
think you ought to tell me what those services were."


MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS 209
no reason why Miss Chandler shouldn't live for sev-
eral years, because she had such courage and vitality.
She wanted Miss Chandler to save her strength, and
she began to try to keep out visitors. That irritated
Miss Chandler and got dreadfully on her nerves. They
had a lot of set-tos about it—"
"You mean quarrels?"
"Well, words, anyway. Miss Chandler said she
didn't care a damn how long she lived, but she was
going to do as she pleased while she did live; and she
said she wouldn't be dictated to by any trained nurse
or any one else. Miss Webb went to Doctor Cary, but
he couldn't do anything. He didn't even try. Miss
Chandler kept right on doing anything she wanted to
do. She had started a lot of new things and she was
busier than ever.
"One day she actually had herself taken to a phono-
graph studio and had some records made—dictated
them, you know. She must have had a good many
made, for she was there all afternoon. Of course she
had to be carried on a stretcher and taken back and
forth in a private ambulance, and the whole thing al-
most knocked her out. Miss Webb was with her, and
Doctor Cary, but they had to wait in the outer studio
and she only let them come into the laboratory, or
whatever they call it, when she needed to be stimu-
lated. They didn't hear anything she 4fptl or know what
it was all about, and Miss Webb was frantic because
she was burning up her vitality that way.
"Then the man White, who was supposed to be a


210 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
broker, brought the finished records and he tried them
all out on Miss Chandler's new phonograph. They put
in a lot of time doing that and it tired Miss Chandler
terribly. I forgot to say that, before she went, Miss
Chandler wrote for hours every day. She must have
written out all the things she dictated. You can see
how she was using up her strength. Miss Webb was
half crazy with worry and anxiety about her, and she
fussed every time she thought any one stayed too long.
At last, one night when I came on, they were having
a downright row about it."
"That's interesting," Long said thoughtfully.
"Miss Webb gave notice, and Miss Chandler ordered
her to leave the house that very night. Then Miss Webb
went off to pack, but of course she didn't do it. While
Miss Webb was in her own room Miss Chandler talked
to me more frankly than she had ever done before,
and asked me to help her. She said she was making
some experiments, and that she simply had to see
certain people and to see them often. She said the
experiments were vital and that they concerned her
family, and that it was much more important to carry
them out than to live a little longer. She said she
hadn't the strength to do what she was doing and at
the same time to argue with Miss Webb about it,
and that she couldn't let Miss Webb go because she
really liked he^Pnd had grown dependent on her.
"She was a quick thinker and she made her plans
while she talked to me. She said that hereafter she'd
have the men come in the evenings, after Miss Webb


MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS 211
went off duty. Miss Webb had got into the way of
running in and out of the sick-room after I came on
at night, but Miss Chandler said she'd stop that by
getting tickets for her for theaters and concerts.
"It all worked out the way Miss Chandler planned.
When Miss Webb was safely out of the house Miss
Chandler would have her callers. They wouldn't come
till eight, and of course they'd be gone before Miss
Webb got back, around midnight. And they'd only come
in the afternoons about once a week.
"Miss Webb was happy after that," the speaker
added with a sigh. "She thought she had won out. Miss
Chandler always got two tickets, so Miss Webb could
take a friend with her, and she sent her back and forth
to town in the sedan, just as she always sent me in it
in the afternoons. Between us we kept Dunn busy. I
bought the tickets ahead, when I was doing other
errands in town, and that's the way a lot of those
smaller checks went. But I wasn't happy about it,
myself," the speaker ended with a sigh. "I mean about
Mr. White and Mr. Jackson coming so often. By the
way," she interpolated, "I think Mr. Jackson was a
detective and that Miss Chandler was having some
one sleuthed. Anyway, he looked and acted like one."
"Yes, go on."
"I wasn't happy," Mrs. Mason repeated somberly.
"I knew all those night conferences ^jren't good for
Miss Chandler, and that's where my res^nsibility came
in. At the same time, it certainly wasn't good for her
to be crossed and to be rowing with Miss Webb all


212 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
the time. We all knew she couldn't live long, anyway
—not as long as Miss Webb thought she could. I
talked to my fiance about it; he's a doctor, you know.
He said if it was his mother, he'd let her do anything
she wanted to do, since it was a hopeless case, and
entirely aside from any question of money. He said
that when a woman is in the state Miss Chandler
was in, about all one can do for her is to let her die
happy. And Miss Chandler made the same point her-
self, again and again."
"So that's why you got the two hundred dollars
and the other large checks?"
"That's why I got them. And that's why she left
me the five hundred, too, I guess."
"Johnson must have been in on this," Long sud-
denly suggested.
"Of course he was. He had to be. But he didn't
dream how much of it was going on. He was off
several evenings a week himself, from eight on, and
Nora answered the bell, or I did. You remember,
don't you," she added conversationally, "the evening
you yourself came to see Miss Chandler. That was just
five nights before she died, I remember, and I opened
the door for you. I'm sure no one in the house ex-
cept Miss Chandler and me knew you were there that
night."
She stoppecLand stared at the lawyer, who looked
back at her vacantly.
"You remember that, don't you?" she repeated,
struck by his expression. "You gave her a sleeping
■


MISS CONNOLLY REMEMBERS 213
powder that night. She told me you had. Surely you
remember that?"
"Yes," said the lawyer, "I remember it." He asked
his next question in a voice that made her give him
another quick glance: "Did any other visitor come
those evenings except Jackson and White?"
She hesitated a moment as if reflecting.
"Only one," she said at last. "He came twice."
"Who was he?"
"He was supposed to be from Mr. White's office.
Perhaps he brought some more phonograph records,
though I didn't hear them being tried as I did when
Mr. White came. I always sat in Miss Webb's room
when a visitor was with Miss Chandler. That's on
the other side of the bathroom, you know. I could
never make out any words, even when the phonograph
was going. I could just hear Miss Chandler's voice,
but I suppose they used the moderator.
"You asked if odd things happened. Several times
I heard Miss Chandler herself speaking more loudly
than usual, and for a long time, without interruption,
like a person reciting something. That was one of the
odd things. Miss Chandler made a mystery of a lot of
things toward the last. I think she enjoyed doing that.
It satisfied her dramatic instinct, if you know what
I mean. And she simply loved making mysteries that
puzzled Miss Webb. She knew Miss^Webb was in-
terested in everything about her, and she took a sort
of . . . of . . ."
"Of sardonic delight," Long suggested.


214 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Yes, of sardonic delight—" the visitor accepted
the verbal lift with eager gratitude—"in keeping Miss
Webb in the dark as much as she could. I knew a
whole lot more about her than Miss Webb knew."
"You certainly did," Long confirmed and smiled
wanly at the memory of Miss Webb's description of
the little creature before him. Apparently the love-
obsessed Miss Connolly had fooled the calm, poised
super-nurse to the top of her bent. The lawyer got
out of his chair rather stiffly. "It's good of you to be
so frank," he said. "You have helped me. Thank you."
She rose, too, and their eyes met in a sudden deep
look.
"Then . . . you think what I did was all right?"
she asked in a low voice.
"I won't go so far as that. But I suppose almost
any one else might have done the same thing in your
place."
He opened the office door for her, and even escorted
her to the elevator. Mrs. Warren Mason smiled out
at him as the car began to drop and then experienced
a pang of compunction at sight of his face.
"He looks awfully old and tired," she told herself,
and she added thoughtfully, "I'm glad I didn't tell
him any more than I did!"


CHAPTER XI
A NIGHT VISIT
WHEN Nicholas Long entered the Chandler
living-room that evening, dressed for dinner,
it was empty save for Lily Price and the Troubadour,
who were economically occupying one chair, as was
their devoted habit. They were also clasped in a close
embrace, from which they slowly and philosophically
emerged at his appearance. The Troubadour bestirred
himself to the extent of rising to shake hands, an at-
tention Long could have dispensed with. But the young
man proved himself the possessor of an understanding
heart.
"Can't I mix you a high-ball, sir?" he sympathet-
ically inquired. "You look awfully seedy, if you'll for-
give my saying so."
"Your saying so doesn't exactly buck me up," the
new-comer admitted. "But I won't have the high-ball,
thank you."
"You might get one for Mother," Lily suggested.
"She's going over the top to-night in Auntie's room,
and, if I can judge by my experience- last night, she'll
need it."
Long looked at her curiously. "So you went last
night?"
215


A NIGHT VISIT
219
"That oyster died when the fishman opened its shell
and laid it on its little stomach in half the space it's
accustomed to occupy. It couldn't stand having its style
cramped like that, and I know exactly how it felt."
The intellectual discussion that followed filled ten
minutes, to the relief of Long, who had no intention of
telling the assembly why he looked like a boiled owl.
He was even able to smile wanly over Lily's descrip-
tion of an oyster climbing out of boiling water and
over the sides of the kettle it was being cooked in.
"My darling, you're confusing it with a lobster,"
the Troubadour cried. "How simply adorable of you!"
He wiped his lips with his napkin and kissed her ten-
derly behind the left ear. "My favorite spot," he affa-
bly remarked to Miss Webb, who was observing him
somewhat critically. "Though there's much to be said
in favor of the nape of her neck and the little hollow
just above the breast-bone—"
"Dick, for God's sake shut up," George groaned;
and Mrs. Price said, "Children!" As usual, Mrs. Price
was eating nothing, but her eyes were bright and she
chatted animatedly to Naomi, who sat beside her. Long
paid little attention to any of them. He was very tired,
and he left the dining-room immediately after dinner,
with a murmured remark about making up some sleep.
But when he reached his own room he showed him-
self in no hurry for bed. Instead, he put on a dressing-
gown, drew his most comfortable chair close to the
fire, and for a long time sat looking thoughtfully into
* the heart of the flames. Once he rose and paced the


220 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
floor. When he finally went back to the chair, he took
up a book and tried to read. But he could not keep his
eyes on the page. They slipped from it to the burning
logs, to the rug at his feet, to space. At last he gave
up the effort and dropped the book. The clock on his
mantel struck ten; a nuisance, that clock. He hated
hearing the hours tolled off at night, if he happened
to be awake. And lately, for some reason, he usually
happened to be awake.
He heard another sound, a quick tap at his door.
He frowned. Young George, perhaps; and he was cer-
tainly in no mood to talk to young George to-night.
But it wasn't George. The door opened as he hesitated
and Catherine Price spoke from the threshold.
"I'm so glad you're up," she said hurriedly. "You
see, Mother and Lil have sneaked off, and the Trouba-
dour and I don't quite know what to do about it."
"Sneaked off? You mean they've left the house?"
"Yes."
Long's eyes narrowed. "What of it? They've got
plenty of time to get back before midnight."
"They won't get back," Catherine dully assured
him. "Mother doesn't want to make that pilgrimage
to Aunt C. C.'s room."
"Then they'll go to a hotel or to your mother's
apartment. Don't make a tragedy of it," he added
almost impatiently as she held her ground and looked
at him. "It will be their first offense. They'll still have
two nights of grace, you know."


A NIGHT VISIT
221
"Only one," Catherine confessed. "You see . . .
they were out last night! I didn't know it till morning.
Lil and I had a row and I slept in Naomi's room."
"So . . . they were out last night!" He looked at
her. The girl was taking this hard. "Even at that,
they'll still have a night to the good," he reminded
her.
Catherine did not move. "They'll use it to-morrow
night. Oh, don't stare so!" Her features, rigidly held
in control, now twisted and seemed to run together.
She bit her lips to check their quiver. "It's all so
damned hopeless!" she cried and at last turned as if to
leave him.
Long, though he had risen at her entrance, had
not moved toward her. Now he crossed the room and
called her. She came back to the threshold.
"Where are they?" he asked gently. "Do you know?"
"Ill tell the world I know! At least I know it's
got to be one of two places."
"Do you want me to go after them?"
"Could you? Would you?" For a moment hope
looked at him out of her eyes, then disappeared. "Oh,
what's the use? They'll merely go again to-morrow
night," she muttered.
"To-morrow is to-morrow," Long said. "Let's do
what we can to-night and let to-morrow take care of
itself. If you'll wait here in the hall, I'll be with you
in two minutes."
He hurried back into his room. When he emerged,


222 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
dressed to go out, he found the Troubadour waiting
with Catherine in the hall, and he was struck by the
youth's expression.
"Is there any reason why we should make a secret
of this expedition?" he asked Catherine.
"I'd rather Miss Webb didn't know about it."
"Where are we going?—to town?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll order the car and have Dunn drive us.
If you and Bryce will slip out to the front gate and
wait, I'll go to the garage and stir up Dunn."
"Let me do that, sir!" The Troubadour, who ob-
viously had his uses, was off as he spoke.
Catherine, having stopped in her room for an eve-
ning coat on the way downstairs, threw it over her
shoulders as she accompanied Long out of the house.
In silence they hurried along the driveway toward the
entrance to the grounds. When they got there, Long
spoke:
"It's drugs, I suppose."
"Yes. That's plain enough. I wondered when you'd
catch on. But Mother could fool almost any one, till
just lately."
"How long have they been using drugs?"
"Mother's been at it eight or nine years, off and
on. But now it's mostly on and very little off. It's
only a matter of a year or two with Lily." Her voice
broke. "Lil was trying to help Mother—followed her to
some of the places, and they got her into it, too. And
Mother let them!" The girl's voice broke hysterically.


A NIGHT VISIT 223
"Mother let them," she repeated. "Turn your gray
matter on that for a minute!"
Long turned it and turned it away again. "Where
shall we find them?"
"We may have to go to two places. But I think
they'll be at home."
"At home?"
"I mean at our old apartment. Dick says that Mother
has just sublet it to one of the women—" She broke
off. "I think they'll be there," she repeated. "Anyway,
we'll go there first. We won't have any trouble getting
in, either, for the clerk will let us go up and I have
a latch-key to the flat. I had to drag you into this
because Dick and I can't do anything with them if
they've got past a certain point. Perhaps you can't,
either. But it's worth trying."
The car, driven by Dunn and with young Bryce
elegantly reclining among the cushions of the rear
seat, came speeding along the driveway and picked
them up. The Troubadour made room for them in
silence. As they drove to town Catherine continued her
conversation with Long as if there had been no inter-
mission. Her nervousness, like George's, was of the
sort that calls for the relief of words. The Trouba-
dour's was different. He sat in a black silence, listen-
ing to the sleet that bit icily at the sedan's windows.
Long was struck by the look of utter misery on his
round young face.
"Mother admires you, really," Catherine said. "That's
why you may have some influence. I thought of Miss


224 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Webb first. She'd help if she could; she's a pretty good
sport, when all's said and done. I'm getting fond of
her. But she'd be worse than useless in this case. Mother
loathes her."
"Why?"
"Because Miss Webb has been on to Mother for
months. Aunt C. C. learned about it, too, a few weeks
before she died, so Mother thinks Miss Webb told her.
I don't agree. I think Aunt C. C. found it out some
other way. Mother accused Miss Webb of it, the day
after we came here, and the pair of them had a big
row. I guess you got the aftermath of it. All the rest
of us did."
"Miss Webb ought to be more patient with such an
affliction," Long muttered. "A trained nurse should
understand."
"She understands too damned well. That's the
trouble," Catherine explained. "She tried to help
Mother at first. But patients in Mother's state do ter-
rible things. They lie, they steal, they break promises
as if they were crackers. They're full of schemes and
tricks. They have absolutely no moral sense. They do
things they'd die rather than do if they were them-
selves. Why, only yesterday, even Lily—"
"Cath, for God's sake, don't!" The Troubadour
spoke hoarsely and shivered farther back into his
corner, and Catherine, after a quick glance at him, went
on in a different tone:
"Miss Webb has seen Mother do them all, and I
guess she's fed up with them. The thing she can't


A NIGHT VISIT 225
seem to forgive is Mother's letting Lil get into it, and
I must say I feel the same way about that. So does
Dick."
"Cath, stop talking for just a minute!" the Trouba-
dour begged in agony.
"Of course you realize that you'll have to send your
mother to a sanatorium for treatment if it's as bad as
that," Long suggested.
Catherine sighed. "I know. She's had half a dozen
'cures/ and they help for a while. But we haven't a
cent for anything like that now. I expected to send
both Mother and Lil as soon as we got our money. I
simply can't do it till then."
The Troubadour interrupted violently:
"We wcn't send Lil to. any sanatorium! I'll take
care of her, myself, day and night. I've done it before
and I can do it again. And if she's away from her
mother's influence, I can cure her."
"Perhaps you can, Dickie," Catherine said gently.
"Anyway, we'll try it. You're the doctor, so far as
Lil's concerned." She caught Long's look of surprise,
and explained. "He's her husband, you know," she
said. "He married her last year, to try to save her,
when we saw this thing was getting a hold on her.
That's why he's been around so much. He's been her
shadow. I don't know what I'd have done without him.
He hasn't let her get out of hand very often—only
three times before last night. But it's been terribly
hard. We've had poor Mother against us every min-
ute."


226 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Her thoughts veered.
"All this is pretty hard on you/' she said. "If Aunt
C. C had left us where we were, we could have kept
our skeletons decently covered a little longer. But she's
dragged us and our skeletons here, and their bones are
rattling in your poor ears every minute I know now
that's the way she wanted it," she added heavily.
"That's what I meant when I said at the breakfast
table that she was trying to help us. She wants the
whole hellish business out in the family open, so we
can get together and pull one another through. Don't
you think that's it?"
"I'm sure that's it," Long quietly agreed.
The car stopped at the entrance of the Wellington
Arms. The big apartment-house, which had a reputa-
tion for quiet and exclusiveness, was already almost
dark. Xight lights burned at the entrance and in the
empty lobby, but most of the windows 'were un-
lighted
"Park right near here and wait for us," Long told
Dunn as they left the car.
"We'll have to compose our features and seem in
good spirits," Catherine said as they passed through
the swinging storm-doors. "Wake up and caro^
Dickie."
The Troubadour smiled and his round white face
was like a tragic clown's. He preceded them across
the vestibule, to ring the elevator bell, and Catherine
glanced after him with a softened look.
"He's more of a lad than you'd think," she told


A NIGHT VISIT 227
Long, and the lawyer replied, "I'm beginning to realize
that."
"But he's almost off his head, poor boy, or he'd
know we mustn't rush upstairs till we're sure Mother's
there. Go and keep him from ringing for the elevator,
till I find out. And tell him to pull himself together,"
Catherine directed. "He'll make the innocent bystander
wonder what's wrong."
There was indeed one innocent bystander in the
lobby, a sallow youth who had just come out of a
telephone booth and in the better light of the hall was
looking up a number in a directory he held in his hand.
He blinked over a page near-sightedly, and followed
a column of names with an eager forefinger. Long
hurried after the Troubadour, and Catherine crossed
to the night-clerk, who was at his desk behind a railed
inclosure, looking over a pile of late mail. He smiled
as he glanced up and recognized her.
"I'm meeting my mother and sister here, George,"
she casually announced. "Have they come yet?"
"Yes, Miss Price, they got here half an hour ago."
"Then I'll go right up. Is the world treating you
well?"
"I'll say it is." He smiled at her again, but his eyes
were serious. He fingered the letters he was holding
and spoke with quick decision as she turned away:
"Beg pardon, Miss Price, but if you've a minute to
spare . . ."As she faced him he added quickly, but in
a low voice, "I'd like to ask you a few questions about
Madame Dalmier."


228 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Madame Dalmier? Who's she?"
"Why—" the clerk stared—"the lady your mother
sublet the apartment to."
"Oh, yes," Catherine said slowly.
"She's just over from Paris, your mother told me,"
the young man went on, "and I understood that she
was a friend of your family."
Catherine shrugged her thin shoulders and rested
an elbow on the desk between them.
"Perhaps she is, but I don't seem to remember much
about her. When did she move in?"
"The day after you left."
"Didn't you get references when Mother sublet to
her?"
"No, I didn't; and that's just the trouble." He spoke
volubly now but in the same low tone, and his manner
showed that he was deeply disturbed. "You see, when
your mother sublet the apartment, she was still re-
sponsible for the rent until the first of May, so we
didn't go as carefully into Madame Dalmier's refer-
ences as we usually do. All we had to know was that
she was financially responsible and a woman of good
social standing, and your mother said she was
both."
"Well, doesn't that settle it?" Catherine's look sharp-
ened and she turned her face toward Long and the
Troubadour, uneasily waiting near the elevator.
"It ought to," George slowly agreed. "Naturally,
we thought it did. But now I'm beginning to wonder
if Mrs. Price really knows much about Madame Dal-


230 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
The clerk waved a deprecating hand. "I guess you
know what I mean, all right. We don't object to a little
life. Personally, I'd like to have more of it around here.
I was glad when you and your sister and your friends
were running in and out at all hours. But Madame
Dalmier's callers aren't the live sort.
"She hasn't had a man visitor since she came," he
went on slowly. "They're all women, and sometimes six
or eight of them walk in and out during the afternoon
or evening. I'd think it was just a question of little
teas and bridge parties if they were ordinary-looking
visitors. But they're different. It's usually the same
bunch coming and going, alone or in pairs. Some are
well dressed and others look as if they'd been blown in
by a storm.
"One of them looks almost like a tramp. But maybe
she's just a Bohemian of the Greenwich Village type.
I lived in New York a year and I've seen 'em! She's
the worst of the lot that calls on Madame Dalmier.
Her hair's always half down, and her hat's crooked,
and her clothes—well, I relieved Burke, the day-man,
yesterday, and I saw her come in at five in the after-
noon, with one gray suede slipper on and one black
patent-leather pump. I saw that, myself! Her hands
were dirty, and she had rings on them that must have
cost a fortune.
"There's another woman that's young and pretty
and well dressed, and scared to death. She keeps her
collar around her face and sneaks in and out as if she


232 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
cocktail and high-ball parties, and making her callers
pay through the nose for them. Though, come to think
of it," he added reflectively, "they usually act more
natural when they're leaving than when they come.
That's queer, too, isn't it?"
The Troubadour hurried across the lobby and caught
Catherine's arm.
"For Heaven's sake, Cath, come on! It's getting
late," he jerked out almost furiously. "Mr. Long says
we've got to hurry."
At the look she gave him he turned away and went
back to the lawyer. The clerk nodded.
"That's the way they act," he said almost trium-
phantly, as if pleased by this apt illustration of his text.
"Nervous, high-strung, if you know what I mean.
They're usually like that when they come at night. But
he's the first man—he's with you, though, isn't he?"
he added blankly. Then, as if the discovery had fright-
ened him, he brought out with considerable firmness:
"I believe this woman has a little 'speak-easy' up there,
and of course your mother doesn't suspect it. Whatever
it is, we've got to get rid of Madame Dalmier. We
can't have queer things going on here."
"You may be all wrong. Has any one else noticed
anything unusual about her visitors?"
"This is a mighty quiet house, you know. There
aren't many people coming and going. Only the other
night-clerk seems to have noticed anything so far. Of
course we see the worst of it at night. And, yes, one of
the day-men spoke of two women that came to see


A NIGHT VISIT 233
Madame Dalmier—tousled and messy creatures with
dirty finger-nails and wonderful fur coats. They're
a weird lot; and I don't mean maybe!" he ended with
emphasis.
"They may be friends of Madame Dalmier who go
in for crystal-gazing or table-rapping or for holding
seances. There's a lot of that sort of thing in society
now. And you know how eccentric those peop'° usually
are."
"That's right, too." His face had brightened. "I
don't want to start anything unless I have to," he ad-
mitted. "It'll get me into trouble if I do; but I may
get into worse trouble if I don't. You see, I was the
one that passed in Madame Dalmier on Mrs. Price's
say-so."
"Lie low for a day or two, anyway," Catherine ad-
ised. "I'll look into this."
He nodded, reassured; then looked troubled again.
"There's one of them now," he whispered.
Catherine's eyes took the direction of his glance.
Then she nodded to the clerk and strolled toward the
elevator, close on the footsteps of the new-comer, who
was hurrying across the lobby. The car was waiting
and she followed the other woman into it, drawing
Long and the Troubadour after her by an eye-flash and
nodding affably to the operator. The lad at the lever
seemed overcome with pleasure at the reappearance of
Miss Price, but Catherine, usually friendly in all human
encounters, for once ignored him. Her gaze was on
the woman she had followed.


A NIGHT VISIT 235
made Mother too furious. I thought I might risk
Uncle Nicholas, but now it isn't safe. I've got to play
a lone hand. I'll use my key and slip in very quietly.
Be close to the door, outside. I'll want to feel that
you're right there."
She left them, and Long and the Troubadour, each
unwilling to meet the other's eyes, watched her in si-
lence as she hurried away. After a moment or two they
followed her and took their patient stand a few feet
from the door before which she had stopped.


MADAME DALMIER 237
Two years earlier her mother had replaced with one
shaded bulb the brilliant side lights in the small pri-
vate hall. That was at the beginning of the period
when Mrs. Price had shown an increasingly marked
distaste for light. To-night the bulb was dimmer than
ever, and Catherine was not surprised. But the door
opening from the little hall into the apartment was
ajar and past a heavy, pushed-back curtain she saw
the familiar living-room, lost in vague shadows and
at first glance apparently unoccupied. As she stared
uncertainly into it, however, she realized that there
was a dim illumination from an open fire which burned
behind a screen, and that small points of heavily shaded
light came from a few individual bulbs feebly assert-
ing themselves in brackets on opposite walls, and that
there was a slight rustle and stir in the room.
She also had an immediate impression that the room
itself was greatly changed. There were new and heavy
pieces of furniture in it—divans, half a dozen of them.
The atmosphere was close and warm, and reeking with
the scent of a heavy Eastern perfume. She stood mo-
tionless and staring, her eyes slowly becoming accus-
tomed to the gloom. All but one of the divans were
occupied by women stretched at full length upon them.
The one nearest the door held the stranger who had
been on the elevator with her.
She alone was sitting upright, and her tense atti-
tude was in sharp contrast to the inertia of the other
figures. She had thrown her hat and coat on the floor
beside her, and Catherine saw quite plainly now her


238 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
fair, untidy hair and livid little face, its features twist-
ing almost grotesquely. Her hands closely clasped her
knees, and one foot was far forward as if about to
spring. Her eyes were quiet at last. They clung with
an unswerving stare to a closed door at the far end of
the room.
For a moment the observer watched her with fas-
cinated interest. Then Catherine's eyes, increasingly ac-
customed to the dusk, passed from one to the other
of the figures on the divans. Which of them was her
mother's? which Lily's? One divan held two figures—
possibly theirs. She could not tell. All the figures looked
alike. The women were not sleeping. An arm moved
here; a body changed its position over there. From
somewhere, several rooms away, the sound of music
came very faintly. The music was good, a piano ar-
rangement of De Falla's "Nights in the Gardens of
Spain," played with a precision that suggested a me-
chanical instrument.
The far door now opened and a short, plump woman
came through it. She was middle-aged, with dark hair
streaked with gray, and a heavy-featured but intelli-
gent face. She wore a look of impeccable respectability.
Her type was British. She might have been the head
of an English nursing home. She carried her weight
like a banner and moved with extraordinary ease and
lightness toward the woman sitting on the divan, who
sprang up to meet her with a strangled gasp.
Simultaneously some warning sense impelled the


MADAME DALMIER 239
new-comer to glance toward the threshold. She saw
Catherine and her eyes widened. She swung in the
new direction, caught the girl's arm in a powerful
grip, and, drawing her out into the hall, closed the
door. There she released the arm and stood with her
back to the door, facing the unexpected guest.
The maneuver was so sudden that Catherine had
instinctively yielded to its force and authority. Now
she stood speechless for an instant, rubbing the arm
that still felt the imprints of five fingers.
"What are you doing here?" the woman asked in
a low but incisive voice. "How did you get in?"
"With my latch-key. I'm Miss Price." Catherine
spoke in a tone as low as the other's, but tried to make
her voice sound casual.
"Oh, Miss Price." The woman's face changed, but
she looked confused and doubtful.
"My mother and sister are here to-night, you know.
Are you Madame Dalmier?"
"No. I'm called Kirby."
"Well, Kirby, I'd like to go in, if you'll be good
enough to move away from the door."
The girl's voice and manner were natural now. She
spoke with her usual flippancy and a little louder than
before, taking a step toward the door as she ceased.
But Kirby held her ground.
"Perhaps it's all right," she muttered, "but I must
make sure. You'll have to see Madame Dalmier. I'll
go and fetch her. Sit down and wait."


240 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Catherine nodded indifferently and took the one
chair the hall contained, a high-backed and severely
uncomfortable one standing in a corner. It, too, was
new. The door closed on Kirby and reopened in a
surprisingly short time. It closed again, and Catherine,
instinctively rising to her feet, was confronted in the
dim hall by a new and striking figure.
It was tall and straight and slender, and dressed
in immaculate white linen. The face, almost as white
as the linen, was a superb but expressionless mask,
and the woman's snow-white hair, soft and with a
silver luster, was bobbed and waved with a perfection
of line the visitor grasped in detail as the other turned
her head for an instant to make sure the door was
shut behind her. The head itself was carried like the
head of an empress, and Catherine Price, beauty-
loving pagan that she was, felt even in that moment
the lure of the other's strange and sinister charm. For
it was both strange and sinister.
She met Madame Dalmier's eyes—unforgettable
eyes, almost expressionless, almost colorless, too, in
the dim light. "She might be an Albino," Catherine
told herself. "But she isn't. More likely she's one of
those Russian white-blondes we hear about but don't
often see."
"Mademoiselle," said a cold voice, in English much
more perfect than the visitor's, "why did you force
your way in here?"
"I didn't force my way in. I opened the door with
my latch-key. You see," Catherine evaded, still half


MADAME DALMIER 241
hypnotized by her strange hostess, "my mother didn't
tell me she had sublet the flat."
t
Madame Dalmier nodded slowly, as if accepting
the explanation, but her eyes never left the girl's face.
De Falla's music came to their ears faintly, as if from
far away.
"Why did you come?" Madame Dalmier asked
at last. "Is it that you wish to join them for a treat-
ment?"
The suggestion, made in words that dropped like
broken icicles, ended the temporary spell that had held
the caller. Suddenly and terribly she saw that superb
figure as it was, stripped of its hideous mockery of
a nurse's uniform and standing before her the skeleton
symbol of death.
"No," she said with so complete a change of tone
and manner that the white eyebrows of Madame Dal-
mier rose a trifle, "I have not come to join them,
madame. I've come to take them away."
The white head nodded again, but now there was
something menacing in the nod, though the woman
spoke calmly:
"You cannot do that, my young friend. Go home
and wait till they return."
She put one hand on the knob of the door leading
to the outer hall, and caught the girl's left shoulder
in the other. Her hands looked colorless and delicate,
but her grasp was as powerful as Kirby's. Catherine
twisted out of it.
"Don't touch me," she said in a strangled voice,


244 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Don't talk," said a low, drawling voice from a
near-by divan. Other figures began to move and stir,
vaguely disturbed by a sense of unaccustomed hap-
penings.
"Get up," Madame Dalmier ordered. She spoke very
softly but with a quality in her voice that, together
with those impelling hands, slowly brought the two
figures to a sitting posture. Kirby hurried to the side
of her mistress, seized the feet of mother and daugh-
ter, and placed them on the floor. With a leverage as
efficient and as coordinated as if applied by one per-
son, maid and mistress raised their two "guests" and
swiftly propelled them to the door and through it into
the hall.
"I'll take care of them now," Kirby jerked out to
her mistress. "Better look after Mrs. Baird. She's at
the jump-off. She'll have them all stirred up in a few
minutes more."
Through the still open door she looked back at
"Mrs. Baird" as she spoke, and Catherine's eyes in-
stinctively followed hers. The blonde woman was off
the divan now, down on the floor, clutching, clawing,
tearing at her clothing. Catherine's breath caught and
a sickening nausea swept over her. She saw the door
close when Madame Dalmier had passed through it,
and almost simultaneously the whining stopped. Kirby
opened the outer door and with a sudden fierce shove
thrust Mrs. Price and Lily across the threshold and
into the main hall of the building.
"Take them," she hissed as Catherine caught her


MADAME DALMIER 245
mother to keep her from falling. The door closed and
a bolt shot home.
From the shadows Long and the Troubadour has-
tened forward. Mrs. Price shook off Catherine's arms
and stared at them increduously with her faded eyes,
which now showed a faint sparkle.
"But . . . what's . . . the . . . idea?" she asked
in a vague, gentle voice, spacing her words as if feel-
ing for them one by one.
"Catherine wants us to go home, Mother, and Mr.
Long and Dick have come for us." Lily's voice sounded
almost natural now. "I guess they're worried about
Aunt C. C.'s curfew rule."
"Oh, is . . . that . . . it?" Mrs. Price was still
under the sodden ecstasy that had held her. She took
the arm Long silently offered and tried to smile at
him. The smile was horrible. He turned his face away
from her.
"H'lo, Dick," said Lily.
"Hello, Lil."
He put an arm around her and led her to the ele-
vator. There, before the car appeared, she shook him
off.
"Don't paw me," she said irritably. "You ought to
know by this time that I hate to be touched."
They made the elevator descent and the little jour-
ney across the empty vestibule, and George nodded
at them affably from the desk. Catherine and the
Troubadour returned his nod and chatted cheerfully
as the party went out through the swinging winter


246 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
doors. George whistled unconcernedly under his breath
as he dropped a few letters into their pigeonholes. It
was a relief to him to have people like the Prices call
on Madame Dalmier, after that other bunch. Not but
what Mrs. Price herself had been a little queer at
times, during the last year or so. But, then, every-
one was queer. Sometimes he felt queer himself. George
grinned, looked over a telegram that had just come
in, and decided that the "party" it was addressed to
could wait for it till morning. No use waking people
up at night. . . .
In the Chandler hall, an hour later, Catherine, who
was leaving her mother's room, stopped to speak to
Long.
"Oh, why did you wait?" she asked with genuine
compunction. "I know how awfully tired you are to-
night. Yes, I suppose they're all right now," she added
in answer to his question. "At least they're in their
beds. I'm going to Naomi's room to ask her to take
me in for the rest of the night. I can't ..."
"Of course not." Long looked at her. "What next,
Catherine?"
"I've thought it all out. I ought to send Mother
to a 'cure' to-morrow. To-night's experience shows
that. God knows where I'll get the money."
"I know, too, Catherine. Don't worry about the
money."
"You mean ... ?" Her breath caught.
"Yes, I'll advance it."


MADAME DALMIER 247
"Dick is sure he can pull Lil through, and I guess
he can." She repeated her earlier tribute: "He's quite
a lad." She drew a deep, shaking breath. "But it will
be a good deal like sending Mother to the electric
chair; only there'll be nothing quick and merciful about
it," she went on. "The doctors warned me after the
last 'cure' that they didn't think she could stand an-
other. It's just straight hell for her, you know."
"I know, my dear. But it seems to be hell for your
mother any way we look at it. And we've got to save
Lily, haven't we?"
"Yes, we've got to save Lil." She met his eyes and
again compunction seized her. "Do go to bed, Uncle
Nicholas," she said hastily. "I'll try to thank you to-
morrow. To-night you look half dead."
He smiled down into the little painted face, which
suddenly looked sweet and girlish under its tangerine
overlay.
"I am half dead, Catherine, and I almost wish that
I was altogether dead," he added wearily. "Good
night."
He went on upstairs, Catherine stood motionless,
staring after him.
"I thought there was one rock in this hideous whirl-
pool of ours," she told Naomi half an hour later, as
they lay side by side in the darkness. "But if Uncle
Nicholas meant that—"
"He meant it, all right," Naomi said.
"You think he did?" Catherine was startled. For a
blessed moment she forgot her own tragedy.


248 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"I think he did. He's getting a lot of jolts. Almost
any one of them might bowl him over, and he's get-
ting them all at once. Just the same, I'd be glad to
change places with him."
"So would I," Catherine groaned.


CHAPTER XIII
cary's sober second thought
THE pace of the last fortnight had been a trifle
too swift for a man whose normal way of
life was deliberate and easeful. Long wearily admit-
ted this to Miss Webb at tea-time the next day, after
Mrs. Price had been left at the sanatorium. It had been
a tragic episode; a matter of ostensibly taking her for
a country drive, to end with tea at the home of a
suburban friend, and in reality of leaving her in virtual
imprisonment ... of seeing the complete moral and
physical collapse of a once proud and high-minded
woman ... of hearing her shrieks ... of keeping
Lily out of the way, too, till it was over. But the
Troubadour had attended to that end of the affair;
a suddenly silent, songless Troubadour, whose round,
unwinking blue eyes held misery.
When they reached home Catherine had gone di-
rectly to her room, with a request to be let alone. Lily
and the Troubadour were still testing the speed limit
of Long's roadster, and Long had gone into the living-
room and found Miss Webb there and demanded tea.
Somehow, it was not a day for other stimulants. Miss
Webb gave him the tea, looking sympathetic and less
splendidly sure of herself than usual, and even, he
249


CARY'S SOBER SECOND THOUGHT 251
this afternoon. She was wholly feminine and definitely
comforting.
He selected a cigar from the box she offered him
and sat holding it unlighted, staring blankly into the
fire. She struck a match and held it for him, and the
little service broke the black spell that for a moment
had settled over him like a drifting fog. He leaned
back in his chair, drew a deep mouthful of smoke,
and exhaled it on another sigh.
"It's been a hard day," he admitted.
"I know. But Miss Chandler would have been glad
of what you've done."
"I suppose she would." For a moment he smoked
in silence. Then, "One wonders," he said, "why she
didn't attend to some of these matters herself."
"Surely that's clear enough," his companion pointed
out. "She discovered them only a few weeks before
she died. By then she hadn't time or strength or nerv-
ous force to do much about them."
"Yet she gave time and strength and nervous force
to a lot of experimenting and investigation—"
"All of which was right along the line of help. It
cleared the ground for you."
A tired man asked the question that had been whirl-
ing in his mind for days:
"Then why didn't she tell me she had cleared the
ground and let me start intelligently, instead of pitch-
ing me into this mess blindfolded?"
"I can answer that, too," Miss Webb said very
gently. "So could you if you were not so exhausted.


252 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
She was a desperately sick woman and she was over-
whelmed by her discoveries. She didn't know what
to do about them. She didn't want the responsibility
of action. Yet she was afraid to remain inactive. She
was afraid of other things, too, as I've told you be-
fore. Most of all, she was afraid to die after the
selfish life she lived; for I suppose there's no doubt
that it was one of the most selfish lives a woman ever
lived. I loved her, but I felt that she never did any-
thing for anybody. Did she?"
To afraid not."
"I think in the beginning it was partly the frantic
impulse to divert her mind from her fate that made
her put detectives on the trail of her heirs. Certainly
it was as much that as the wish to help them. The
things she found out made her realize that she had
to do something, but she couldn't decide what. She
had lost faith in her own judgment. Perhaps she hadn't
entire faith in the detectives and didn't want to handi-
cap you by a mass of information that might be partly
inaccurate.
"She must have realized, too, that she had given
her strength and nervous energy to the investigations.
She was losing ground every day, though I got rid
of as many of her visitors and as much of the writ-
ing as I could. She knew she hadn't time to carry
out any plans of her own, even if she had been up
to making them. She said to me again and again:
'I wish to God my brain was what it used to be. I
can't think clearly any more.' So she turned the whole


254 -THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
brought out at last. "But of course she never meant it.
She was merely trying them out. Probably it was one
of her experiments."
"No doubt of it. But that's no excuse for her, and
it raised the devil with the youngsters. We'll simply
have to accept Miss Chandler's own defense: her mind
wasn't as strong as it had been."
"Then—" she had been thinking it out and now
her eyes widened—"it proves what I've said right
along. It explains why she was afraid. She realized
she had started something she might not be able to
control. And she was right. In the end she got itl
Some one gave it to her."
"Possibly."
"There can't be any doubt about it. Some one gave
it to her."
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, stared
at the floor, and thought hard.
"Which one was it?" she muttered at last. "We
ought to know."
"Why? Since she wanted it done, or said she did,
the responsibility is hers. Why do we have to know
which, if any one, did it?"
"Just the same, we must know." She spoke almost
fiercely now. "We ought to be able to find out. It
was done the fifth day before she died. I've studied
up the effects of that poison. Its full action usually
takes either four or five days, but I remember noticing
a big change in her the morning of the fourth day,
and she herself spoke of it. The puzzling thing is that


GARY'S SOBER SECOND THOUGHT 255
she had no visitors either of those days or nights. At
least I can speak for the days, and so far as I know
no one came either night."
"Could she have had it hidden and taken it herself?"
"Where could she have hidden it? Her tables were
out of reach, she couldn't walk, and we made up her
bed two or three times a day and sometimes oftener,
if she was restless. I explained all that to you in our
first talk."
He watched her, following without conscious effort
the swift working of her mind. His warming sense
of comfort in her presence was over. Her next words
were what he had expected them to be:
"I wonder if any one could have come at night. . . .
I'll see Miss Connolly . . . Mrs. Mason ... to-
morrow," she suddenly announced.
"That won't be necessary. I'm to see her in my
office to-morrow afternoon." As he spoke Long hoped
Mrs. Mason would be within telephone reach. If not,
he would go to her new home in the country. He had
her address.
"Oh!" Miss Webb spoke rather flatly, as if dis-
appointed.
"See here," the lawyer said dispassionately, "you're
going entirely too fast again. And you've forgotten
this: Even if Miss Chandler did ask that hideous
service of some one, and some one gave it, there's
nothing to be gained by knowing which one. What
could you do if you did know? Surely you realize,"
he added steadily, after giving her a moment to take


256 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
this in, "that the last thing in the world Catherine
Chandler would want would be any publicity about it.
You've admitted that she ordered you to keep your
mouth shut."
He watched the changing expression on her face.
She was clearly a battle-field of doubt and conflicting
impulses.
"Just the same," she said at last, between her teeth,
"I intend to know who did it."
"I suppose we'll soon know," he agreed. "In the
meantime, don't make it any harder for those young-
sters than it needs to be. They're in a hideous position.
As young George puts it, they're 'between the devil
and the deep sea.'"
She seemed struck by the admission.
"Did he say that?" she asked eagerly; and he saw
her turning it over in her mind. "It's exactly where
they are," she said at last, "and I'm glad of it."
He studied her thoughtfully.
"You seem very hard, sometimes, for a thoroughly
kind woman," he told her. "Yet you say you were
fond of Catherine Chandler."
"I said I loved her, and I did. I still do. I shall
love her memory all my life. But I'm not wasting
time grieving for her. I'm doing the job she asked
me to do. And, as I've said before, I haven't your
patience with her murderers."
It was not a jocund note to end an interview on,
and Long experienced a deepening depression as he
dressed for dinner. He dined at his club that night.


CARY'S SOBER SECOND THOUGHT 257
Impossible to face that empty chair at the other end
of the table ... or that chattering group. . . . Come
to think of it, though, there wouldn't be a chattering
group. There would be only Miss Webb and Naomi
and Henry and the Dixon twins; and he couldn't fancy
much cheerfulness there when the young folks knew,
as they must, why Aunt Anne had gone away. Cath-
erine, poor Catherine, was spending the evening in
her room, and the Troubadour would certainly keep
Lily out of the house till bedtime. . . . Every one
knew about Lily, too. Every one knew everything, it
now seemed to Long, except who poisoned Catherine
Chandler.
He played bridge in the card-room after dinner,
with three old friends. The game was not interesting
and he was not sorry to have it interrupted by a tele-
phone call.
"Mr. Long? Cary speaking," a voice at the other
end of the wire informed him. "Cary, Doctor Cary,"
it impatiently repeated, as he failed to respond. "I've
just called up the house and they said you were at
the club. If you can spare fifteen minutes I'd like to
have a little talk with you."
"Why, yes, Doctor, of course I can." Long spoke
with a conscious effort to seem natural. "Do you want
me to come to your office?"
"No, I'm not far from your club. I'll come right
over, if it's all right. Can you see me in ten minutes
or so?"
"Of course," Long said again. "Any time." He


258 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
went into the lounge, found a secluded table in a cor-
ner, and sat there frowning so absorbedly over some
legal papers that no one ventured to approach him
till a club servant reported that Doctor Cary was in
the reception room.
"Bring him in," Long directed, and felt a slight
chill run the length of his spine which repeated itself
as he rose and shook hands with the old doctor. Cary
was not at ease, and he tried to conceal the fact by
an added brusqueness of manner. He was not a man
to waste time in discussing side interests. Almost be-
fore he had settled in his arm-chair and lit the cigar
Long offered him, he went to the point of his visit.
"I want to talk to you about something," he began
almost accusingly.
"Yes?" His host waited.
"I've come to the conclusion that we ought to have
that woman's body exhumed and a post mortem made."
"You mean Miss Chandler's?"
"Of course I mean Miss Chandler's. Who the devil
but Miss Chandler could I mean?"
"Then you've changed your mind, Doctor?" Long
asked the question courteously, but something in his
manner emphasized his words and Cary got it.
"I won't say that. But the infernal thing keeps com-
ing up in my mind, and I'd like to have it settled one
way or the other."
"Even though you promised her there wouldn't be
any autopsy?"
"It wasn't exactly a promise. I simply scoffed at


CARY'S SOBER SECOND THOUGHT 259
the idea of having one. I let her see such a thought
hadn't occurred to me. But see here!" Cary leaned
forward and sent a keen look into the other's eyes.
Long met it steadily. "You don't want an autopsy, do
you?"
"If you will think back a little, Doctor, you will
remember that I came to your office not long ago to
suggest one. You pooh-poohed the idea. You said she
didn't want it done, and I'm begining to understand
why. In fact, I think, I can throw a good deal of light
on the whole subject. I've wanted a talk with you,
and I meant to telephone you to-day for an appoint-
ment to discuss matters. But it's been a pretty hectic
day. We've been putting Mrs. Price into a sanatorium."
"Anne Price? Again? Poor woman!" Cary's in-
terest in this announcement momentarily diverted him
from the larger issue. "A nice creature at her best,"
he added reminiscently. "I knew her when she was a
young thing; a beauty and a belle. They didn't give
you much hope at the sanatorium, I suppose."
"Practically none at all."
Cary nodded. "No constitution to begin with, no
self-control or conscience left, and a system with every
organ poisoned by this time. She's been using the stuff
about ten years, and she was so damned clever that
no one suspected it till a few years ago. Too bad."
He dropped the subject of Mrs. Price. "You were
saying ..."
"That I'd have come to see you to-day if I hadn't
been attending to Mrs. Price's affairs, and inciden-


260 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
tally getting rid of the woman who's been her worst
influence. Do you know anything about a creature they
call 'Madame Dalmier'?"
Cary shot a quick glance at him, and then gave his
mind to the question:
"Dalmier . . . Dalmier . . . yes, I've heard of her.
She must be that Russian who has a supposed cure for
morphinists. In reality she runs a house of indulgence
and gives 'em the needle herself. I've heard some ap-
palling yarns about a place she ran in New York. I
believe it was shut up a couple of years ago."
"It seems that it was. That's why she started in
here in Waterford. Thinks she's safer in a smaller
city, but I understand she's been moving from pillar
to post. Her latest move was to Mrs. Price's old apart-
ment. We had to get her out of there this morning."
Cary nodded. "She ought to be electrocuted," he
dispassionately observed. "But she's only one of doz-
ens of 'em, operating in big cities as openly as the
speak-easies, and using the speak-easy as a cloak and
feeder. It's pretty rotten to have them spreading to
cities like Waterford. You wouldn't think a town of
two hundred thousand would have enough addicts to
make them pay."
He recalled his larger interest.
"About this Chandler affair . . ." he resumed.
"I was coming to see you after we got back from
High Crest, but it was pretty late . . ."
"So you've put Mrs. Price in High Crest? A good
place, but infernally expensive."


262 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
as he bent over the ash-tray to crush out the burning
end of his discarded cigar. "Let me know if the Con-
nolly girl puts up anything new."
"I'll do that. But, Doctor—" they were both stand-
ing now and Long stopped the other's big figure as
it was hurrying away—"what's to be done if we do
discover poison? Have you thought of that?"
Cary's face showed that he had. He straightened
his huge shoulders.
"We'd better wait and meet that situation if it
comes up," he suggested.
Long accompanied him to the club's tiled vestibule
and watched him trudge away, putting down his big
feet with uncompromising firmness.


CHAPTER XIV
"the bunch" confers
RETURNING from his club after the interview
with Cary, Long crept into the Chandler house
like a thief in the night. His one hope was to get up
to his room unobserved, but it was not to be realized.
As he crossed the threshold he nearly ran into the
Troubadour, who was just leaving the house. The
young man's anxious face cleared at sight of him.
"Oh, here you are, sir!" he exclaimed with relief.
"I'd just given you up."
"Did you want to see me, Bryce?" The older man
spoke wearily.
"Yes, sir, if you can spare a few minutes. I know
it's been a hard day. But I think . . . that is, I hope
. . . that what I want to tell you will cheer you up
a bit. The others have gone to bed," he added as Long
still hesitated. "They've been talking things over, and
they wanted you to know what's been decided."
"Oh, well, I suppose I ought to know what's been
decided," Long murmured ironically.
The Troubadour ignored the tone.
"The living-room's empty and the fire's still burn-
ing there," he mentioned. "If you'll go in and sit down
I'll bring you the cigars."
■
263


264 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Long went into the living-room and dropped into a
seat beside the fire. The big empty Chinese chair of
the mistress of the house was directly opposite him,
and as he realized this he made an instinctive move-
ment to rise. Then he sank back again. He was too
tired to stir, but he shook his head at his invisible
hostess.
"Kate, how could you?" he muttered. "How could
you?"
The Troubadour entered and proceeded to make
him comfortable. He drew a small table to the side
of Long's chair, put a box of cigars within easy reach,
and, when Long took one, lit and held a match for
it. The Troubadour's movements were not so swift
as usual, and his round face looked gray. Long ex-
perienced a pang of sympathy.
"You look about the way I feel, Bryce," he said
kindly.
The young man settled into a chair beside him and
fixed his unwinking gaze on the embers.
"It's been pretty awful," he admitted. "But it's the
beginning of daylight for me." As Long looked at
him in silence he added in a low voice: "A few months
more with her mother would just about have finished
Lil, in spite of all I could do. I suppose you know,
sir, that Mrs. Price had reached the stage of wanting
every one else to take the stuff with her. She was
offering it to Ethel and George, and she kept at Lil
and Catherine all the time."


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 265
"Bryce," Long said abruptly, "why aren't you doing
some work?"
The boy seemed surprised at the sharpness of the
tone with which the question was asked.
"Do you mean why haven't I a job?" he asked
without resentment. "I had one, a pretty good one in
a broker's office, up till eight months ago. I'd had it
two years. Then when I realized how things were with
Lil, I dropped it and gave all my time to her. That
seemed to be my job then, and it is still. I don't sup-
pose you'll believe it, but I've worked like a dog for
the last eight months, watching Lil and her mother,
running after them, and helping to get Mrs. Price
out of trouble. She had begun to steal things, you
know, to get money for the stuff. The friends she
stole from would tell me, and I'd tell Catherine, and
we'd get the things out of pawn and give them
back.
"All her friends got so they'd let us know. It was
understood. But it wasn't always easy to find out
where she pawned what she took. About all the allow-
ance Cath and Lil had has gone that way," he inter-
polated. "But that was only one phase of it. Morphine
seems to rob its victims of every human quality. There
were other things she did, awful things. I can't talk
about them—"
"Of course not," Long hastily agreed. The last
thing he himself desired was to discuss those other
phases.


268 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"They use it as a pick-me-up when they're down
and out," the Troubadour went on as if he were ad-
vancing a new thought, "and they find it works. After
that it's just a question of a habit that grows till
it gets the best of them."
"You young folks oughtn't to need pick-me-ups,"
Long mentioned testily.
"It doesn't follow that we're happy because we're
young," the Troubadour gently reminded him. "Do
you think Catherine has been happy these last few
years? It's been straight hell for Cath and Lil and
me. You know what Naomi's been through, but I
guess even you haven't much idea of the things that
happened on that little chicken farm while Sabin was
there. I didn't know, myself, till Lil told me about
them, while we were riding to-day. Naomi loves
George and he adores her, but she swears she'll never
marry him, and he's the sort that goes right under
when things break wrong for him. Ethel tried to hold
George back, and when she found she couldn't she
decided to go the limit, too. As for Henry . . ."
"What's wrong with Henry?" Long grimly in-
quired.
"Nothing; and that's exactly what's wrong with
Henry. He's lived by himself and for himself ever
since he was fourteen. He works over his ledgers
all day and over his first editions all evening. He
visits his father once a year, but they don't mean
anything to each other. He has no more idea of life
than an angleworm has. He's never lived nor loved


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 269
nor suffered." He summed up Henry's case in a final
pitying sentence: "He isn't human."
Long sighed. His own case, he had begun to realize,
was much like Henry's.
"All that being admitted," he said, "suppose you
come to the point and tell me what has been decided
to-night."
The Troubadour smiled at him. It was a smile un-
expectedly sweet, boyish and lovable.
"I was really getting round to that, sir, though
you mightn't think it. But first I wanted to be sure
you've got the bunch sized up right. Things have been
moving so fast that it would be natural enough if
you got the wrong dope on them. And not one of
them was normal when they came. You see, they'd
all been hanging on by their eyelashes, waiting for
Miss Chandler's money to ease things up, and the
shock of not getting it simply knocked them out."
"I know. I know."
"They didn't understand you, either, just at first.
They thought . . . well . . ."
"They thought I was a hypocrite and a spy and a
general nuisance. I know that, too. Bryce, you're tell-
ing me a lot of stuff I know."
"Forgive me, sir, but I had to be sure what you
know and what you don't know. Do you remember the
morning—by Jove? it seems weeks ago, but it was
only a few days!—when Catherine said at breakfast
that she thought Aunt C. C. was trying to help
them all?"
s


270 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Yes."
"Well, they jeered at the time, and Miss Webb was
about the worst of the lot. But the whole bunch has
begun to realize that Catherine was right. She and
Naomi got it first, from Aunt C. C.'s phonograph talks.
The others got it in the same way a little later, but
they wouldn't let themselves take it in. Naomi caught
on when you hustled her brute of a father out of the
way, and Cath and Lil certainly took it in last night
and to-day. Taking together what you're doing and
what Aunt C. C. is saying and has done, they know
now, all of them, that the two of you are trying to
pull them in and start them over. And what they
agreed on to-night was to give you a leg-up on it.
They're going to have a new deal all around."
"I'm glad of that."
"I suppose what it amounts to," the Troubadour,
went on, gazing thoughtfully into the fire, "is that the
successive jolts they've had have brought them to their
senses. When Ethel came downstairs she was so off
her trolley that she repeated Miss Chandler's entire
talk, almost word for word. You know how Miss
Chandler could put things over, when she really let
herself go. Well, it seems that to-night she described
Ethel's and George's future and finish in a way that
straightened Ethel's bob. At the end of it all she made
one point that hit Ethel in the solar plexus. George
admitted that she had given him the same jolt, and
that he'd been thinking of it ever since.
"She reminded them that each was devoted to the


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 271
other and that each would do for the other what
neither would do for himself or herself. She said
George would never pull up on his own account or
even on Naomi's, but he might do it to save Ethel.
And she said Ethel had gone too far now to think
of herself, but was still capable of thinking of George.
She suggested that they make a compact. Ethel is to
lay off the stuff as long as George does, but the minute
one takes a drink it releases the other. That makes
George responsible for Ethel and Ethel responsible
for George, you see; and one drink for either means
that the other climbs on the toboggan again and goes
whirling down. Pretty neat of the old girl, wasn't it?"
"Will it work?"
"If it doesn't, nothing will. It's the one plan I'd
check. You see, Miss Chandler didn't mince matters
when she told them what would happen if they kept
on as they've been doing. She didn't stop till she landed
them both in psychopathic wards and the Potter's
Field. That voice and that prediction going on in
that dark room won't be forgotten very soon by either
of them. So to-night George and Ethel gave each
other their promises, before the whole crowd of us,
and we're all going to help. That stirred Lil. She had
got hers, too, all right, up in that black hole; and
again last night and to-day. So to-night she gave me
her promise to drop drink and morphine. It was the
first time she had been willing to do that, and I've
never known her to break a promise. From the mo-
ment she made that one I was sure she was safe."


272 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"You think she'll keep it?"
"I know she'll keep it," said the Troubadour, whose
devotion to his Lily had flickered in and out of his
story like a dancing flame. "But she can't do it alone,
and she's going to have an awful fight. She's to start
a cure to-morrow right here in the house, and I'll
stand by till it's over. Miss Webb has agreed to help,
too. That woman is a trump and I've always known
it. She didn't understand them at first, any more than
you did; in fact, not half so well. But she's catching
on now, all right. She and Mrs. Price had some fright-
ful times. I guess you didn't know about those. Mrs.
Price had lied about her to us and to everybody else,
even to the servants; and Miss Webb knew it, but
didn't want to do anything about it till you caught on.
Mrs. Price must have told you some awful whoppers
about her."
"She did," Long gravely admitted. He rose. "All
this about the feet on the new highway is good hear-
ing, my boy," he said. "It's the best kind of news
and I'm glad you told me. You can all count on me
for anything I can do. But just now I'm going to
bed."
The Troubadour went upstairs with him and in the
top hall both paused.
"Then you're going back to work, after Lil's cure?"
Long asked.
"Yes, sir. My old job with Brown and Butler is
waiting for me. They've told me so."
Long hesitated. "I suppose in the meantime you're


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 273
rather short of cash," he suggested. "If a loan would
help you—"
But the Troubadour was backing away, his round
face blazing.
"Thanks awfully, sir, but I couldn't think of that,"
he stammered in a panic. "I've never borrowed in my
life. My mother left me a little money and the interest
just keeps me alive. I'm managing on that, and George
and Henry are letting me sleep on the couch in their
sitting-room when I stay too late to catch the trolley.
If you don't mind my sticking around the house a
little longer—"
"Glad to have you," Long said cordially. "Good
night."
He went to his room pondering the strangeness of
that assurance as addressed to the Troubadour.
The Mrs. Warren Mason who entered Long's office
at three o'clock the next afternoon was not the radiant
bride of the previous visit. She was a serious woman.
Her expression was calm and purposeful, and she was
accompanied by a broad-shouldered, good-featured
young man whose dark face revealed a fixed deter-
mination to stand no nonsense in this interview. She
introduced this young man as her husband, Doctor
Warren Mason, and that gentleman at once and some-
what truculently assumed the role of her protector.
"I'm butting into this thing, Mr. Long," he began
stiffly, "because it's worrying my wife. Naturally, I
don't want her worried."


274 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Of course you don't. Neither do I. Since we're
agreed on that, we ought to get along swimmingly."
Long seated them comfortably with their backs to
the wall and their faces toward him and the wide win-
dows of the big private office. Then he sat down at
his desk and formally opened the interview.
"Mrs. Mason," he began, "do you happen by any
chance to remember any special incidents that oc-
curred the Thursday evening before Miss Chandler's
death?"
He saw her face flush, then pale, and caught a
slight reflection of these phenomena on the face of
her husband. Both were silent.
"I'm trying to think," Mrs. Mason announced at
last. "Do you mean the night you came to see Miss
Chandler?"
"Yes, I mean that night, five nights before her
death. Miss Chandler sent for me and I came."
"I remember perfectly," Mrs. Mason said. "I tele-
phoned for you, myself, and gave the message to your
servant, Stevens."
"I'm glad the details are clear in your memory, for
I want you to tell me all about the other visitor who
came that night."
"The other visitor?" she faltered, and glanced at
her husband.
"Now, see here, Mr. Long," the bridegroom said
hastily, "perhaps you don't realize that you're butting
into Miss Chandler's private affairs."
"Please don't take that attitude, Doctor Mason.


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 275
And try to realize, yourself, that for more than thirty
years I've been Miss Chandler's confidential man of
business. So far as I was concerned, she had no private
affairs."
"She seems to have kept a few things up her sleeve
at the last," the visitor muttered, and Long smiled.
"She may have tried to," he admitted, "but they're
dropping out pretty fast these days."
The smile and confession lightened the atmosphere.
Doctor Warren Mason grinned. Long added another
brick to the little structure of understanding that was
rising between them.
"I knew some one had been there just before I
came that evening," he explained, "and I inferred that
it was a man, because there was a half-burned cigar
butt in the ash-tray and the room .was full of cigar
smoke. I gathered, too, that he had tired Miss Chand-
ler and made her pretty angry. I think I know who
he was, but I want to be sure. Who was he?"
He asked the question so casually that the answer
came out almost before Mrs. Warren Mason real-
ized it.
"Mr. Sabin."
"Sabin? Ah!" Long nodded. "I thought so. Had
he been there before?"
"Yes, but only once."
"Now we're getting somewhere," the lawyer affably
assured her. "Tell me all you can remember about
both visits. You arranged them, I suppose?" he
brought out as an afterthought.


276 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Yes, sir. It was one of the things she wanted me to
do."
"Begin at the beginning and tell me just how you
managed it."
Sustained by an encouraging nod from her husband,
Mrs. Mason began her recital.
"First of all, she told me Miss Sabin had a scoundrel
for a father and that he was hiding now at her chicken
farm and that it would be all up with him if the police
found him. That interested me, because I admired
Miss Sabin awfully. She's so lovely, and she had al-
ways been nice to me when she came to see Miss
Chandler. I didn't know what her father had done,
but I decided it was bootlegging or something like
that. So many gentlemen seem to get into trouble
that way, nowadays."
"They do," Long said gravely and took care not
to meet Mason's eyes.
"Miss Chandler said she wanted to see Mr. Sabin,
and she knew I could drive a car. She offered me a
hundred dollars to go to the farm in her roadster
and get him and bring him to her. She gave me a
note to give him, and it had to be done without Miss
Sabin's knowing anything about it. Miss Chandler
said she had a plan to get rid of him. And a little
later she said there was something she wanted to ask
him to do first."
"She trusted you, didn't she?" Long commented
dryly.
"Yes, she did, and I never knew why. For she


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 277
knew Miss Webb loved her, yet she never told Miss
Webb a thing."
"I guess she knew she could wind you around her
finger, Nellie," Doctor Mason unexpectedly suggested.
He added to Long: "If there's any blame in all this,
it's that old maid's. She lay there for three solid months
cooking up one scheme after another and getting
Nellie to help her to carry them out."
"I agree with you," Long said gravely.
The admission encouraged "Nellie," who continued
her report with increased assurance.
"I earned that hundred dollars hard," she said de-
fensively. "I went to the farm three times before I
found Sabin and the housekeeper there alone, and the
scond time I almost ran into Miss Naomi. The third
time I had to pay the housekeeper ten dollars to take
Miss Chandler's letter to Mr. Sabin. But after that
it was all clear sailing, and Miss Chandler gave back
the ten dollars the next day. Mr. Sabin went off and
dolled himself up, and then came to the roadster with
me—I'd left it on .a side road—and I drove him to
Miss Chandler's house. He had to hang around in the
shrubbery, of course, till Miss Webb was out of the
way, but it was almost six when we got there, so she
left in an hour or so. Then Sabin rang the bell and gave
Mr. White's card to Johnson—"
"He was the man that used the card?"
"Yes, and that made it all seem quite regular. Mr.
Sabin and Miss Chandler had a long talk and high
words, and Miss Chandler got quite excited. Then I


278 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
had to leave Nora in charge of the patient and take
Mr. Sabin out again to the chicken farm. He made
me stop at a second-hand shop in town and he was in
there half an hour and came out with a big bundle
of cheap-looking clothes. There was an old cap on
top of it, so I guess he'd got some sort of a disguise."
"How long before her death was this first visit
made?"
"I'm not sure, but it was after the visit of the
specialists, a few days after, I think; and they came
about six weeks before she died. I remember that Miss
Chandler used their decision as an argument when
she was persuading me. She said: 'I'm strong enough
for anything. Didn't the bigwigs give me two years
more?'"
"You didn't hear what she and Sabin said when
they were together?"
"Of course not. I never heard anything any of her
callers said."
"And you heard no more about him till you had to
go for him again that Thursday night?"
"I knew Miss Chandler had had a letter from him
a few days before his second visit. It excited her and
she read it two or three times and then tore it in
pieces and make me burn them. When she ordered
me to go and get him again, I didn't want to. It was
too big a risk."
"Odd she didn't have Naomi do that," Long mused
aloud.
"Miss Sabin wouldn't do it. Miss Chandler asked


"THE BUNCH" CONFERS 279
her to in the beginning. Miss Sabin's one thought was
to keep her father from getting to see Miss Chandler."
"How do you know that?"
She got the famous eye-flash with that question and
it disconcerted her. She hesitated, but the eye-flash
called for the truth.
"Because when I took him home that first night she
caught us. She had suspected something. Her father
did some roaming around at night, it appeared, but
this was different. She had made the housekeeper
admit that a lady had called. She was watching for
us and saw the car coming. She came down the road
and spoke to us when we were getting out a little way
from the farm. Of course when she recognized me
she caught on to the whole thing and I thought she'd
go crazy. I never saw a cool person so much excited.
She laid me out cold! It was that terrible white anger,
and a kind of panic with it. I could see her father was
afraid of her. That surprised me. He had seemed such
a cool customer. . . .
"I drove forty-five miles an hour coming and going
that night. I might have been arrested. But Miss
Chandler gave me two hundred instead of one hundred
for the job. She was always generous," the speaker
handsomely admitted.
"Of course Sabin was alone with Miss Chandler
while he was in her house?"
"Oh, yes, all the time."
"Then, you say, you went for him a second time
the Thursday before she died?"


28o THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"Yes, sir."
"How did you manage it that time, with Miss Sabin
on guard?"
"It was easy enough. Mr. Sabin and I had made
plans. Miss Sabin has a telephone. Her father never
answered it when she was in the house. If I got her
I hung up without speaking. I had to telephone eight
or ten times before I got him. Then I arranged to meet
him at a place about three miles from the farm, and
he walked there."
"How long did he stay that second night?"
"Not long. We were there before six (I always
'went on' at six, you know). But he had to wait till
Miss Webb left at seven before he came into the
house. He was with Miss Chandler half an hour or
so, but I couldn't get him out of the house before you
came, so I had to put him in the upper store-room.
Then, as soon as you left, I had to take him home, and
I didn't get back till almost eleven. I guess I broke all
the records that night. Miss Webb got in less than
half an hour after I did. It was a pretty close shave.
Miss Webb looked in on Miss Chandler, as she al-
ways did before she went to bed, and she made a
fuss over the condition the patient was in. I had for-
gotten to give Miss Chandler her second powder. So
Miss Webb gave her one, and Miss Chandler took
it and told Miss Webb to stop fussing and go to bed.
"Miss Webb said that after that she wouldn't leave
the house again at night. But I guess she couldn't have
gone anyway, because Miss Chandler was a lot worse



282 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
most. By the way—" his voice changed—"you haven't
forgotten that our old friend didn't want this done?"
"I'm afraid the time is past when we can think of
that. Miss Chandler started something, and in justice
to others we've got to get to the bottom of it."
Long hung up the receiver and for a long time sat
staring at it absently, but he did not see it. He was
recalling a moment in that office when Naomi Sabin
had turned her back on a situation even her courage
could not face.


CHAPTER XV
HANDSOME HARRY EXPLAINS
THAT night Long went home to dinner. He
didn't want to. He wanted to go to the club
again. But his duty seemed clear and was made easier
than he had expected. The entire family, excepting
Mrs. Price but counting the Troubadour, who now had
to be counted, was assembled in the living-room with
the Troubadour singing at the piano; and as he re-
turned the greetings of the company Long was im-
pressed by individual changes in manner and expres-
sions.
Lily, seated very close to the Troubadour, still wore
her characteristic look of impish recklessness, but her
features were twitching with nervousness and she re-
vealed an unusual dependence on her companion. That
youth interrupted his song to light a cigarette for her.
During the process he promised to feed her at the
table with his own hand if she would agree to drink
six spoonfuls of soup and to eat four mouthfuls of
fish and the leg of a chicken. His absorption in this
pending contract suggested that he considered himself
alone with Lily in the universe, but he emerged from
the great outer spaces long enough to nod affably to
the new-comer.
283


HANDSOME HARRY EXPLAINS 287
"If not, he's the only one of them who doesn't. He
hasn't enough imagination to take in the situation.
But I think even he is having some new emotions under
that brown-front exterior of his."
"If he's having any emotions, they're new to him,"
Long agreed. "Before we drop the subject, tell me
something," he added. He gave her the question eye
to eye: "Am I right in thinking you're absolutely con-
vinced that no one saw Miss Chandler during the last
five days and nights of her life except Sloan, the
lawyer, and you and Miss Connolly and Doctor
Cary?"
"I know positively that no one else saw her in the
daytime. She was so ill the last four days, from the
time Mr. Sloan left and her letter to you was finished,
that it was out of the question to let any one else see
her. She was exhausted. I noticed the change in her as
soon as I came on in the morning. She was so much
weaker that I didn't dare to let Miss Sabin see her
when she called."
"Oh! Did Naomi call that morning?"
"Yes, bright and early, about eight. She said she
had come into town early, on important business. She
seemed very nervous about something, and asked par-
ticularly if there had been any change in her aunt's
condition. I told her Miss Chandler seemed a little
weaker, but that she was planning to see some man
on business later that day, much against my wishes. I
said I couldn't let her see Miss Chandler, because Miss
Chandler must save her strength for that interview.


288 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Miss Sabin left her love and a fat envelop for Miss
Chandler and went away."
"A fat envelop? You mean a letter?"
"No. Miss Chandler opened the envelop while I
was in the room. It had a lot of bills and a piece of
paper with a few lines on it. I had got a thousand
dollars out of her desk for Miss Chandler the day
before. They were crisp new bills, and so were the
ones that dropped out of the letter. But of course they
couldn't have been the same."
"Why not?" Long spoke absently, his mind busy
with this unexpected development.
"How could Naomi Sabin have got hold of the
money?"
"That's so. Did Miss Chandler make any comment
on the little episode?"
"She groaned and tore up the scrap of paper, and
told me to throw the pieces in the fire and put the
money in her desk, which I did."
"Did Naomi come again?"
"No, but she telephoned every day."
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"
"I didn't think it was important."
"H-m." He returned to his first question: "You're
sure Miss Chandler didn't see any one else?"
"I can answer for the last four days and nights of
her life, for I was constantly in and out of her room.
That's what makes it so hard . . ."
"That's what I wanted to be sure of. You can
swear, if necessary, that no one but the doctor and


290 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"I'm certain of it."
He watched her exhale a long breath.
"And Lil . . ." she said uncertainly.
"Lily had nothing whatever to do with it, either."
"God, but that's a relief!" She stood very still for
a moment, taking in the comfort of the double assur-
ance. "Uncle Nicholas," she said in a very low voice,
"you speak as if ... as if .. . you know who did
it 1"
"I think I do."
The words made her wheel around to face him.
"Then you ought to tell the rest of us," she brought
out almost harshly, but in the same low tone. "What's
the use of keeping seven people in a hell of suspicion?
We've got enough to stand," she ended, "without that."
"Three of you already know you needn't worry.
That is, I've told you and you will tell Lily and Bryce,
who I suppose is worried on Lily's account. That leaves
only Naomi, the Dixons, and Henry, and they'll know
in a few days more, a week at the most. In the mean-
time I'd rather you didn't say anything to any one
but your sister and Bryce, and make them realize it's
confidential. Your mother, I'm sure, had no idea such
a suspicion existed. So she isn't worrying."
"Not about that," Catherine confirmed. "Poor
Mother!"
They went out to dinner, and Long found that in
the table rearrangement made necessary by Mrs.
Price's departure Miss Webb was at his right. The
fact was comforting.


HANDSOME HARRY EXPLAINS 291
"What Catherine told you must have been a shock,
even though I had prepared you," he said when they
had a moment together.
"Yes, in one way. I'm sorry to think they're all
suffering, for of course they're not all guilty."
"If any one is guilty, it's Catherine Chandler," Long
said unexpectedly. "She admitted it in her letter, and
though at the time I didn't understand, I know now
what she meant." As his companion took this in silence,
he went on. "She can't claim that this particular ex-
periment of hers helped anybody. Instead it has done
a lot of harm. I'm beginning to think I understand
the situation. She began it to try people out, regard-
less of the fact that she had weaklings to deal with
and that it was a devilish thing to try them out that
way. She became interested in watching their reactions;
and, running true to Catherine Chandler form, she
kept up the experiment for the sake of the kick she
got out of it. It interested her, gave her something new
to think about. Can you deny that?"
"No, I'm afraid you're right."
The admission was so surprising that he turned to
look at her.
"But she paid," Miss Webb ended with a sigh.
"I'm glad she paid. Oh, I don't mean I'm glad she
was poisoned, if she was," he hurriedly amended. "But
I'm glad she was frightened and ashamed of herself,
and I think she was both. And I believe the sincere
desire to help the youngsters came after she realized
what she had done to them. It's in the nature of an


HANDSOME HARRY EXPLAINS 293
his host offered, and spoke in a tone he vainly tried
to make matter-of-fact.
"This is an awful mess we're in, Mr. Long," he
brought out.
"Just what do you mean, Henry?" Long lit his own
cigar and stretched out comfortably in his chair.
"I guess you know what I mean. We, the family,
have been talking it over for days, and if there's any-
thing in the notion that things can be communicated
occultly to other minds, I guess even the servants are
onto it." As Long waited, he went on, speaking ag-
gressively in his effort to keep cool: "What I'm talk-
ing about, of course, is this suspicion that Aunt
Catherine died of poisoning, and that some of us
gave her the poison at her own request, or got it for
her."
"We're looking into the matter, Henry. I can't say
much more than that just now." Long spoke so wearily
that Hutchins glanced at him with concern. His manner
grew milder.
"The others seem to think, sir . . . that is, some
of them, talking it over in twos and threes . . . that
. . . It's awfully hard to put it into words, but . . .
well . . . Naomi seems to be the one really un-
der . . ."
It was at this point that Long made a surprising
discovery. Hutchins could not go on. There was a
moment of silence. Then the young man began again:
"That's why I wanted to speak to you, sir. I haven't
said anything to her yet, but I'm going to ask Naomi


294 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
to marry me. I've been in love with her for three years,
but I thought there wasn't a chance for me. Now, if
she's in trouble, I want to speak up. I ... I want the
right to stand by."
"That's very fine of you, Henry."
"Fine—rot! Excuse me, sir, but all I want is to
look after her. I know she doesn't care for me. How
could she?—a girl like that? But I'm a steady sort of
chap; at least I suppose I am. Anyway, I'm slow and
dull enough to be steady. I guess I don't know much
about myself, really. I've never tried to think things
out. But since all this came up, and I've seen so much
of Naomi and realized what she's been through, I . . .
I'm awfully anxious to help her. I don't care anything
about what her father is. I don't care anything about
what she did. I don't care anything about myself,
either. I mean I'm not asking myself whether she loves
me, or whether she ever will. That doesn't seem to
matter. I just want to help her. Is there any way I
can? Shall I ask her?"
"I think I would, my boy."
The older man was following with sympathetic eyes
the difficult metamorphosis of the angleworm into an
unselfish human being. He wished Catherine Chandler
could have seen it, or Miss Webb; and.he was con-
scious of a momentary surprise over this association
of their personalities in his mind.
"I think Naomi will be very much touched," he
went on. "Any girl should be, by such devotion at such


304 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
for the knob, and get out of the room. He knew ex-
actly how she felt. . . .
He had slept fairly well at the Country Club. That
night he didn't sleep at all, though his brain assured
him with gratifying clearness that he had nothing for
which to reproach himself. He had lost most of the
good effects of his Country Club visit when Monday
morning at ten o'clock he again received Doctor and
Mrs. Warren Mason in his office.
"I did keep something back, Mr. Long," was the
bride's greeting. "Before we got your message my
husband said I must come and tell you about it. He's
afraid—"
"I've begun to catch on to the fact that my wife's
involved in something really unpleasant," said the
young doctor, who looked as if he hadn't slept well,
himself. "Up till now I've supposed it was just the
errands Nellie ran and the money end that was worry-
ing you. You see, she didn't tell me anything about
this powder business till last night."
"I didn't think I ought to," his Nellie gulped. "Miss
Chandler told me again and again I was never to
mention Mr. Sabin's visits to anybody."
"We'll release you from that promise," the lawyer
said dryly. "Just begin from the moment Sabin left
and tell me . . ." He stopped, thought an instant, and
shot a question at her so suddenly that she jumped:
"Did you give Miss Chandler one of the powders he
brought her?"


THE LAST MESSAGE 305
"I'll tell the world I didn't!" Mrs. Warren Mason
said indignantly. "I took the pair of dirty things to
the bathroom and dropped them into the vault."
"You—what?" Long almost shouted the question.
"That's what I did," Mrs. Mason repeated, rather
overwhelmed by his vehemence.
"Tell me every detail," Long said in a voice that
was not so steady as usual.
"Well, it was this way: When I got Mr. Sabin up-
stairs and came back into the room to tell Miss Chand-
ler you had come, I noticed two powders lying on her
medicine table. I never left medicine lying around that
way, and neither did Miss Webb, so I said to Miss
Chandler, 'What are these things?' She looked at
them a minute with a queer expression—they were on
a table across the room from her—and then she said
in her sarcastic way, 'They would seem to be my
sleeping powders.'
"There wasn't any reason why I should suspect
anything, and I didn't when I asked my next ques-
tion. But I couldn't understand how they had got
there, so I said, 'Did Miss Webb leave them out for
you?' Miss Chandler didn't answer and I thought
she hadn't heard, so I asked the question again and
she said, 'No,' very crossly. That left only Mr. Sabin
to do it, for Nora hadn't been in the room at all; and,
besides, she had the strictest orders never to touch
the medicine. I said, 'Did Mr. Sabin leave them?' And
when she said, 'Yes,' I asked if he had given her a
powder."


THE LAST MESSAGE 307
"So I dropped the matter of the powders and
propped her up to receive you, and she shut her eyes
and kept them shut so long I almost thought she was
asleep. Just as I was leaving the room to get you I
noticed those powders again. Her eyes were still closed.
So I got two fresh powders out of the box in the
medicine closet and put them on the table, and I tucked
the others in my apron pocket. It didn't take a minute.
"When I turned toward Miss Chandler her eyes
were open, but she wasn't looking at me. She was
staring straight before her and I was off at one side.
I'm not sure she hadn't seen what I was doing, for
my back was toward her. But anyway, she didn't speak
of it. I went into the bathroom and dropped the two
powders Mr. Sabin had handled down into the vault.
I simply wanted to get rid of them because he had
fingered them, and because I had no idea of giving
them to my patient without being sure what they were.
I'd have dropped them into the fire as I meant to in
the first place, but they'd have flamed up and she might
have noticed it. So I disposed of them the other way."
"When did you suspect that there was anything
wrong about them?"
"When Miss Naomi came to see me the next morn-
ing. It was very early and I had just gone off duty,
so I saw her in the library. She was so unkind and
so excited that I didn't give her any satisfaction. She
said her father had admitted that he left some medi-
cine, and I said he'd left two powders and they had
disappeared during the night. Miss Naomi seemed al-


THE LAST MESSAGE 311
fortably, and I'll tell you the whole story. I hope
you're not in a hurry. It's quite a long one."
He told it while Cary listened in almost unbroken
silence.
"I've got a question for you," Long warned the
doctor when he had finished. "Now that we know
there was no poisoning, will you tell me why Catherine
Chandler died just at the time Sabin's poison would
have killed her, if she had taken it, and why she had
the symptoms it would have caused?"
"That's easy," Cary said. "The time may have been
merely a matter of coincidence. She had worn herself
out with all her investigations and experiments, and
she collapsed long before she needed to if she had
taken care of herself. The symptoms were those of
her own disease—the same symptoms appear in a
dozen diseases—but there may have been suggestion
in them, too. She was hipped and scared, and no
wonder. For in my opinion," he deliberately added,
"she really meant to take the poison Sabin brought
her."
"You really think that, Doctor? It's what I'm afraid
of, too."
"I'm pretty sure of it. Why should she want to
experiment on Sabin? She knew he was hound enough
to do anything. And if she wasn't using him, why
didn't she hustle him out of the country?"
"Those are the arguments that convince me."
"They're practically unanswerable," Cary declared.
"They account for her fear, too. She wouldn't have


314 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
"A record for me! But why didn't you—"
"Wait, please." Her air was professional again, and
that air now irritated him because it seemed to put him
at a distance. He could almost see her fading out, like a
picture on the silver screen, and he had an impulse to
draw her back. However, he waited.
"She said she had put a lot on your shoulders that
she wasn't up to, herself, and that you were going to
take it hard because you were a bachelor and had al-
ways lived alone, without responsibilities. She said you
weren't used to personal contacts and duties of the kind
you'd have to meet."
Long smiled wanly. "She was right about that."
"She said that if I saw you were going down under
it, taking it too hard and that sort of thing, I was
to put the record on and let her give you her last mes-
sage. She said it might help you, but she left the time
to my discretion."
Catherine Chandler's man of affairs looked at her.
"I could mention a number of occasions in the last
fortnight when I needed help," he dryly observed.
"I know, and especially the other night, right after
our talk. I ought to have given it to you then. In fact,
I meant to. But she didn't want to let you off unless it
was really hurting you. She said you were so in-
dolent—" Long stiffened, then relaxed under a sudden
twinkle in the brown eyes that were holding his—"so
indolent," Miss Webb coolly repeated.
"I heard you the first time," her companion said
coldly.


316 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
harm. He himself had gone through days of it, be-
cause of her and her suspicions. Vague notions of
taming her flitted through his mind. She'd need some
discipline from the man who married her. He looked at
the slender, erect body preceding him up the stair-
case, and suddenly his heart shook. He knew now what
was the matter with him. His mind had been too con-
fused to take in the knowledge sooner. Resentment
against her died in him.
She let him into the formidable room, flashed on the
electric lights, and drew an easy-chair close to the big
phonograph standing at the right of the door. But he
shook his head, trying to pull his thoughts from her
to the duty before him.
"I'll take this exactly the way the youngsters got
it," he announced; "darkness, chaise longue, and all
the rest of it. I want to see what the effect was."
"Then will you have your man Stevens come down
and hide in the closet and breathe adenoidally while
you're listening?" she ironically inquired.
For a moment his new-born passion experienced a
chill. This seemed like criticism. Then he chuckled.
"So you discovered that?"
"Of course I discovered it, after the second session,"
she said almost scornfully. "I suppose he's really a
detective, too, and not your servant at all."
"That's what he is," the lawyer cheerfully admitted.
"I sent Stevens to Scotland for a visit, and took this
man on to help me in the little job before us. If Cather-
ine engaged a detective, I didn't see why I shouldn't.
—%


THE LAST MESSAGE 323
destruction of body and soul for some of you. If the
vices you have formed seem more precious to you than
the decent things of life, I suppose you'll cling to them.
But you've shown me there's enough good in you to
make you want to throw them off, and any one who
makes the effort will have me with him or her from
start to finish.
"As fast as I'm convinced of your good faith and
continued determination to make yourselves what you
should be, I'll raise your incomes. I'll finance any
sound enterprises you want to go in for. I'll stand
back of you like a father. And," his smile flashed out
at them, "it's going to be a labor of love. I find I
rather like being a family man.
"One thing more," he added, his eyes on the faces
before him. "I'm going to ask you to keep all Miss
Chandler's rules for the coming six months, and most
especially the midnight curfew rule. We want to get
a good running start on this new life we're planning,
and your aunt's suggestions can't be bettered."
Henry Hutchins got slowly to his feet. He had lost
his usual assurance. Naomi had refused him that after-
noon, but she had done it so kindly and gratefully
that he was almost happy. He sent a deprecating smile
over the assemblage.
"No one has asked me to speak for this gang,"
he said, "but I'm going to, just the same, for I'm
sure I know how we all feel. We're so happy over
the end of that hideous suspicion of us that we'd do
anything; and the next best thing to that,.Uncle Nicho-


326 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
Long cast an apprehensive look at Miss Webb.
"They've got to let off steam," he told her in a
low voice. "She wouldn't mind."
"She'd love it," said Hope Webb.
It was her first big step along the new road of
understanding.


330 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
ous ways. I couldn't be sure of it for months, but
lately . . ."
"And you're crazy about them, and you show it
every time one of them comes near you."
"I'm fond of them, though the Prices and Dixons
make me furious every day of my life with their noise
and carelessness and forgetfulness—"
"You take trifles like that too seriously. But you're
patience itself about the things that count. I wish I
could tell you what a miracle-worker you've been all
winter." His gaze dwelt on her. "You're showing the
strain, though. You haven't the color you used to
have."
"I haven't always been as patient as I've seemed."
She ignored the matter of the color. "And the nights
of sleep I've lost!" she added.
"You've taken it too hard," he repeated.
"No harder than you have. Your hair has grown
white since the holidays, and you look positively hag-
gard."
He sighed. "I suppose I'm hypercritical, but that
doesn't strike me as a tactful remark from a lady to
the admirably preserved middle-aged man she's going
to marry."
"Mr. Long, why do you keep harping on that sub-
ject?"
"Because it's the only subject except the children
that interests me, and we can't talk about them all
the time. And my name is Nicholas when we're alone


SIX MONTHS LATER 331
together; a beautiful name, when one comes to think
of it."
"We can talk of the children now," she said, ignor-
ing his second sentence. "I want to talk about them.
We haven't done it for a month. You've accused me
of being fond of them," she went on, "and I am; and
I've decided that being fond of them is the turn of
the screw. As long as they were merely patients, in
a way, it wasn't so hard. Now their capacity to make
one suffer is appalling."
"I know; I feel that, too. But it's through our af-
fection for them that we're getting hold of them. And
the worst of the fight is over now, don't you think?"
he tentatively advanced.
"I'm almost sure of it. The first three months I
didn't dare to look a day ahead. Now I can face their
future. But we're still in for a lot of setbacks and
disappointments. We're sure to have them."
For a moment they sat silent, their ears open to the
sound of battle in the years to come. Then Long spoke
thoughtfully, his eyes on Bryce and the two girls,
waiting at the tea-table in the garden.
"You talk as if the experiment were still going on.
But the six months are up to-day. What's your notion
of the next step?"
"That's for you to decide, of course; and you can't
convince me that you haven't decided already!"
"Just the same, I'd like your ideas. Give me a sort
of resume of the situation as you see it."


332 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
She sighed wearily. "Ill assume an expression of
extreme intelligence and go through the mockery of
telling you what you know as well as I do. It's easy
enough. Everywhere I look I see imaginary charts,
their charts. I haven't thought of anything else for
six months, and I can't now."
"Of course you can't . Neither can I. If we could,
we wouldn't be putting the job over as I think we're
doing. But go ahead. Read their future."
"Lily's case, of course, seemed the hardest," Hope
began. "But she was the quickest to respond and she's
the one I'm surest of now."
"I feel that, too."
"Her mother's death was a terrible lesson, and of
course it removes the poor child's greatest temptation.
If Mrs. Price had lived, I don't think we could have
pulled Lily through. As it is, Dick and Catherine have
done more for her than we have. There's a lad for
you! And how I disliked him in the beginning!"
"So did I."
"With Dick and Catherine standing by Lily," Hope
went on, "I think she could safely go on without you,
even now."
"Or without you?"
"Without either of us."
"I agree, so far."
"Naomi is very much softened, and she's got a
different angle on life. We needn't worry about her
any more. I used to think it was a good thing for
George that she refused him. Their temperaments are


SIX MONTHS LATER 333
so different. Now ... I don't know. Of course
George and Ethel are the big problems."
"Of course."
"They like having a real home at last, as all the
rest do, and comfort and affection and a family around
them. They're doing better and better under those
conditions. But neither of them is strong enough yet
to stand alone or to hold the other up. If they drifted
out into the world to-morrow, I believe that in six
months or a year at the most they'd be back just where
they were."
"I'm afraid that goes without saying. In short,"
Long smiled at her, "we've made a good beginning,
but we've still got a long way to go. Incidentally, how
about saving me? Can't you make up your mind to
do that?"
"Oh, you!" She rose. "You're the least of my wor-
ries," she added as they started for the garden.
Johnson was crossing the lawn, chin high and mov-
ing with the dignity of a super-butler slightly handi-
capped by the weight of a heavy tray. Jennie, the
parlor-maid, walked humbly in his wake, anxious eyes
on the cakes she bore. The tennis-players, now cool
and fresh and smooth of head, but still arguing fiercely
over their late game, ended the procession. When the
tea had been poured, Henry Hutchins held up his cup.
"I'm going to offer a toast," he began, "and I
actually don't believe any one but myself has remem-
bered the vital anniversary I'm toasting. Let's drink
to six months ago to-day!"
r


336 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
I shall be here, and the more company I have, the
better I'll like it. In fact, what I'm really hoping,"
he confessed, encouraged by the shining eyes around
him, "is that you youngsters will consider this house
your home until you marry."
Young Dixon rose and struck an attitude.
"I hope," he said solemnly, "that even Dick will
have the sense to keep his mouth shut while I make
a few remarks. Fortunately, every one but Dick and
me is too overcome to speak," he went on, glancing
around the tea-table. "So if you'll muzzle your spouse,
Lily, I'll just mention that if Uncle Nick had tried
to get us out, we'd all have clung tearfully to door-
knobs, kicking Johnson fiercely on the shins every
time he came to detach us.
"But the important thing I want to say, Uncle, is
that your hospitality doesn't go quite far enough. I've
just worried Naomi into promising to marry me next
autumn if I keep to the strait and narrow path, and
we're rather counting on throwing Henry out and
staying on here till . . . well, till we need more than
two rooms."
"Don't be absurd, George," Ethel said, literally.
"Of course Henry won't give up a room here at home
and go and live alone somewhere else."
Every one began to talk at once. Long, who was
still standing, walked around the table, lifted Henry
Hutchins to his feet with an impelling hand under his
arm, and sat down beside Miss Webb.


SIX MONTHS LATER 337
"I'm changing places with you," he blithely assured
young Hutchins after this maneuver.
"A fact even Henry might have grasped in time,"
George contributed.
"They owe the homyness of this place to you," Long
told his co-worker in a low voice. "Why not marry
me and be the boss of it, as I've been urging right
along? Hope, you know I love you!"
"See how they're pairing off," she evaded, her eyes
on the group excitedly talking around them. "In an-
other year or two they'll all be married and scattered."
"Not scattered. Simply tucked away safely in homes
of their own, as you and I shall be. How about it?"
"I don't know."
Long shook his head at her.
"You know perfectly well," he assured her. "You'd
cling to a door-knob, yourself, and shriek if I tried
to oust you."
"Oh, I'll stick to the job. But as to marrying
you . . ."
"Of course I'm too old for you," he said soberly.
"Otherwise it's the ideal arrangement. I adore you,
but you need a strong hand, and I've got one under
this velvet glove of mine. Let me see. I've proposed
marriage to you seven—no, eight times before. Don't
you feel up to it now," he ended anxiously, "for the
sake of the children?"
"I might." That confession had turned her heart
to water. Till to-day he had never mentioned the dif-
s


338 THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
ference in their ages. "But not for the sake of the
children," she added; and the color he had missed
came back as she met his quick ecstatic look at her.
She was actually up to it at last. She had admitted
that she was. And here were "the children" all around
them! For once, that was annoying.


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