Stranway's knock was answered almost on the moment. The door swung back seemingly of its own volition, and a dim, narrow hallway was revealed. Stranway stepped inside—and the door closed behind him. Startled, he smiled the next instant. It was simple enough, the door was operated by a cord attachment, that was all.
"This way! This way!" a man's voice called to him from an open door just down the hall.
Stranway moved forward, turned into the room—and came to an abrupt stop barely across the threshold.
Before him, in the centre of the room, stood a clean-shaven little old man in a red velvet smoking jacket, his feet encased in red leather slippers, his scanty fringe of hair surmounted by a red skull-cap with bobbing tassel.
"What," demanded this personage sharply, as he fixed Stranway with bright, steel-blue eyes, "what is your favourite colour—h'm?"
Stranway drew suddenly back. So this was it! This was what was behind it all—a madman!
"No," said the little old man quickly. "No; you are quite wrong. I am not at all mad. It is a question I always ask. I see you have not studied the significance of colour. I recommend it to you as both instructive and of great value. There is no surer guide to the temperament than colour. For instance, blue is a cold colour, whereas orange is warm."
"Oh!" said Stranway; and then, with a whimsical smile at the red slippers, the red jacket, and the red skull-cap: "And red—what is red?"
"Red?" replied the little old man instantly. "Red is neither warm nor cold."
Stranway, again taken aback, stared for an instant, nonplussed, at the other; then, mechanically, his eyes swept around the room. It was as curious as its occupant—and here, too, red was everywhere predominant. The heavy silken portière, that hid what was, presumably, another door opposite to the one by which he had entered; the carpet, a rich fabric of the Orient; the curtains which were drawn back from the single window that evidently gave upon the rear, since the shutters there were swung wide open to admit the light; the bookshelves, that filled in the spaces beneath and around the window as also the entire length and breadth of one side of the room; the huge safe in one corner; the upholstery of the chairs—all were red. It was very strange! A disordered pile of books on the floor, and the sliding ladder before the shelves suggested the student; a ponderous, large and very modern filing cabinet, together with the two telephones upon the desk suggested the busy man of affairs; the desk itself suggested the dilettante—it was of very old mahogany, with slender curving legs, and wondrously inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
The little old man came abruptly nearer and gazed into Stranway's face.
"Yes, yes," he said; "the photograph had the Stranway features; your father's mouth, your mother's nose. You are the original of the photograph. I am perfectly satisfied. You are Ewen Stranway. Sit down, sit down in that chair." He pointed to one facing the desk chair, which latter he took himself.
"And you," suggested Stranway bluntly, as he seated himself, "would you mind introducing yourself? I suppose you are C,305. But that, you will admit, is a trifle vague and unsatisfactory."
"Yes, I am C,305." The little old man chuckled dryly. "My name, however, is Charlebois, Henri Raoul Charlebois, descendant"—he drew himself up with a quaint air of pride—"of the Norman Counts of Charlebois."
"You speak like an American," commented Stranway.
"I should"—the blue eyes twinkled—"for I am an American, as was also my father before me."
Stranway now settled easily back in his chair. In spite of the bizarre nature of his surroundings, the bizarre appearance of this Henri Raoul Charlebois himself, there was something about the old fellow that appealed to him and attracted him strongly.
"Ah! You feel, too, that we shall get along together!" The assertion came swiftly, instantly pertinent to Stranway's thoughts.
Keen and alert of brain himself, Stranway shot a curious, appreciative glance at the other; but when he spoke it was with quiet irrelevancy.
"You seem to know a good deal about me, a good deal that I don't understand. That advertisement, the note—how did you know I was in New York, how was I recognised on the street, and what is this debt you speak of? What does it mean?"
A hard, almost flint-like expression had crept into Charlebois' face.
"It means," he replied, a sudden harshness in his voice, "that for once I have failed—and I do not often fail. I did not know that your father was in difficulties. I believed him to be rich and prosperous."
Stranway stared in wonder.
"I don't understand," he said. "I don't understand what you mean, nor how, no matter how close you might have been to my father, though I never heard him speak of you, you could have believed anything else. Everybody thought he was wealthy. Even I, his son, never dreamed that——"
"Nevertheless," broke in Charlebois, "I should have known. It was my business to know."
"But," protested Stranway in amazement, "how——"
"Wait!" Again Charlebois interrupted him. "Wait! There is no mystery about it. Listen! The true state of affairs only reached me by wire on the morning you left Kenora—yesterday morning. Your destination was New York; your address was unknown—hence the notice in the papers on your arrival If I had failed with the father, there still remained the heir. The note you received is simply explained. My messenger knew you by your photograph. He was waiting outside your boarding house when you left there after lunch. Not wishing to become known either to you personally or to those you might question at the house, for reasons that you will come in due time to understand if you accept the proposition I am going to make to you, the messenger followed you until, in the midst of a crowd, he was able to deliver the note to you without disclosing his own identity. Is that quite clear to you?"
"Yes," said Stranway slowly. "Yes; that is clear—but why? My father, his circumstances, the debt—were you his friend?"
The tassel on Charlebois' skull-cap bobbed around in semi-circles, as he shook his head soberly.
"He was my friend—once. My friend—when I needed a friend. You are quite right, he never spoke of me. How should he? He did not know me."
Stranway, frankly bewildered, flung out his arm in an impotent gesture, but the words on his lips were checked by Charlebois' upraised hand.
"You are puzzled," said Charlebois, with an indulgent smile. "It is natural, quite natural. But have patience. You shall see. Tell me first of yourself, your position. You are no longer independent? Your funds are not abundant?"
Stranway smiled grimly.
"I have a hundred or so, that's all, to tide me over till I find something to do."
Charlebois nodded his head acquiescently.
"Just so, just so," he agreed. "Perhaps then after all, it as well the debt was not cancelled before. It will stand you in good stead now. I will show you the account, and I trust you will consider the offer I shall make you equitable, and a full and just quittance of the debt. In any case we will not haggle—you shall be satisfied."
Stranway swung impulsively to his feet.
"That's very honourable, very generous of you, Mr. Charlebois," he began. "I do not quite know what to say. I—I——" He fumbled for his words and stopped.
Charlebois regarded him with a kindly smile.
"It is neither one nor the other," he said. "It is simple justice. But see—here is the account."
He turned as he spoke, walked to the safe, dropped on his knees before it and began to spin the dial backward and forward. An instant later, the steel door swung open, and Charlebois returned to the desk carrying in his arms a massive book, covered in red morocco leather, the edges bound with heavy brass and locked together by three strong hasps. He set the volume on the desk, returned again to the safe and from a drawer in an inner compartment took out a key. With this he unlocked the book, opened it and motioned Stranway to approach.
Stranway, full of nervous excitement now, moved quickly to Charlebois' side, and bending over the old man's shoulder watched the other's movements intently.
The volume was indexed. Charlebois turned to the letter "S" and ran a long, lean forefinger down the column of names.
"Stranway—Stranway," he muttered. "Stran—ah—page two hundred and forty-three!" He turned the pages deftly, stepped suddenly back, and the book lay wide open on the desk.
Stranway, bending quickly forward, read the words on the page at a glance. He read them again—and now, as they seemed to leap back at him in mockery, his look of incredulous dismay became an angry flush. He had been right at first, the man was mad—or was making a fool of him. The great red book was a ledger, and on the page open before him were scarcely a half dozen words. His father's name was at the top; beneath was a date, and, opposite the date, was a credit entry consisting of the two words: "One Dime." The debit side of the ledger was a blank.
Without a word, just a short, savage laugh, Stranway wheeled abruptly for the door—and, as abruptly, spun around again. With a grip, surprising in its strength for one of his age, Charlebois had caught him by the arm and faced him about.
"My boy," he demanded gravely, "have I offered you ten cents? You are too impulsive, too emotional. Have you still to learn that value is not calculated by rule of mathematics? Listen! This book is the record of a period of my life when I was homeless, destitute, and physically unable to earn my bread because my lungs were seriously affected and I was too ill and weak either to secure or do enough work to support me. It is a large book, is it not? Well, it would need be, for many debts, very many debts, were incurred in that period. I was careful then not to forget them, for I knew the day was to come when I should repay. You are beginning to understand—to understand what ten cents that your father gave me once might mean? That day, the beginning of repayment came years ago now, when wealth with a sudden flood poured upon me—but of that at some other time! You are interested now in yourself and why I sent for you. There are many names in this book, many accounts still unbalanced. In that filing case yonder are almost daily records of the lives of those men and women whose names are written here. It has grown to be a stupendous work. It has called into being a far-reaching and highly trained organisation. And now the time is here when I need some one very close to me, a confidant, one upon whom I can implicitly rely. This is what I hope to offer you—first, for your father's sake; second, because I believe I shall find in you the one I have been seeking. Should I prove to be right in my opinion of you, and should you then accept the offer, it is but fair I should tell you that I shall demand much—but also I will give much. I would demand absolute, unquestioning obedience; invulnerable loyalty; your sworn oath of secrecy under any circumstances that might arise."
A whim? A vagary? No; it was more than that. There was no feebleness of brain behind the steady eyes that played on Stranway and seemed to read him through to his soul. Resolve, purpose, inflexible will, and a grim something he could not quite define were written on the other's face.
"And also," added Charlebois quietly, "it would be equally unfair before we go farther to disguise from you the fact that, should you associate yourself with me, you face the possibility of grave danger, of perhaps even death."
Death! Danger! The words struck Stranway with a cold shock, just as it seemed he was beginning to understand a little something of this quaint character before him.
"Death? Danger?" he echoed in a bewildered way.
The hard, flint-like expression was back in Charlebois' features.
"Even so—death and danger," he repeated. "You have only seen one entry in the ledger, and that was on the credit side. There are debit entries there as well. Debit entries, as surely debts as the others; as surely to be settled, to be balanced as the others—and with the same impartial justice. Should I forget the one and not the other? I have forgotten neither. They are all there—all!" His clenched hand fell suddenly upon the Red Ledger. "And all are paid—at maturity. Powerful men to-day are amongst those names on the debit side, men who strike in the black of night, who fight with unbuttoned foils, who turn like rats at bay to save themselves; and from these, their craft and resources, comes the danger I have warned——"
Charlebois stopped abruptly. One of the two telephones on the desk—one of a style and manufacture generally used for connecting up different parts of an establishment—rang sharply. Stranway had not noticed the difference in the instruments before, and now he did so with a curious sense of surprise. The house was very small for such an installation; there were, he judged, perhaps four rooms in all, there could hardly be more.
His eyes, from the instrument, lifted to Charlebois' face—and he stepped back involuntarily. It seemed as though it were another man who now stood before him. Old before, Charlebois' face appeared aged almost beyond recognition; the hand that held the receiver to his ear was trembling violently; the other hand, still on top of the Red Ledger, opened and shut, opened and shut spasmodically; the man's stature seemed absolutely to shrink, and his whole frame shook as with the ague. Spellbound, dumb with amazement, Stranway stared. The receiver clattered from a nerveless hand to the desk. Charlebois tottered, recovered himself, and with a wild, hunted look around the room, turned to Stranway.
"Wait! Wait!" The words came stammering through twitching lips, and the next instant Charlebois had darted behind the red silken portière and was gone from the room.
For perhaps a minute, Stranway stood there motionless, confused, his mind in turmoil—and then, suddenly, like a galvanic shock, clearing his brain, stirring him to action, a wild scream rang through the room.
It came again—from behind the portière—full of terror, agony, despair—a woman's scream. A bare second, every muscle rigid, Stranway stood poised; then with a spring he reached the portière and tore it aside. A door was before him, its upper portion glass-panelled.
"My God!" he cried fearfully, and wrenched at the door with all his strength. It would not yield. Sweat beads of horror sprang out upon his forehead.
Before him, in the room beyond, two forms were struggling—that of Charlebois and a woman; a woman, young, slender, lithe, with a face that even in its pallor now was beautiful; a woman, gowned in black, without touch of colour about her save, grim in irony, a delicate purple orchid that, half wrenched from her corsage, dangled now from its broken stem. Charlebois' hand, clutching a revolver, tore suddenly free as they swayed. Like a madman Stranway flung himself at the door again. And again it resisted his attack. There was a flash, a puff of smoke, a sharp report. He heard a gurgling cry from the woman's lips. She reeled, crumpled up, pitched forward, lay a motionless, inert heap upon the floor—and a dark crimson stain gushed out upon the carpet.
Instantly, then, Stranway turned and raced back across the room to the other door. He had not closed it after him when he had entered—but now it was locked! He wasted a minute in a blind, futile effort to force it; then, his brain working rationally again, he jumped for the desk, snatched up the city telephone and whipped off the receiver.
"Hello! Hello! Central!" he called frantically. "Cent——"
"Put that down!" The words came in a monotone, deadly cold, as Charlebois, with working face, his revolver covering Stranway, stepped into the room, and whipped the portière violently across the glass-panelled door behind him.
Stranway's hand dropped.
Charlebois came nearer, close to the desk, and a paroxysm of fury seemed to seize him.
"You have seen! You have seen!" His voice, high-pitched, was almost a scream. "You would give me to the law, you would send me to the chair! Your oath, your solemn oath that no word of this will ever pass your lips, or you shall not leave this room alive!"
Stranway's face, already colourless, greyed; but, now, his lips straightened doggedly in a firm line and he looked Charlebois steadily in the eyes—it was answer enough.
"You won't?" snarled Charlebois. "You won't? I will give you until I count three. It is my life or yours. My life or yours, you fool, do you not see that? One!"
Stranway's mouth was dry. The room was swimming around him.
"No!" he said hoarsely.
"Two!"
There was only one chance—to launch himself suddenly at the other and risk the shot. Stranway's muscles tautened—but he did not spring.
With a broken cry, Charlebois suddenly thrust the revolver into his jacket pocket, and, lurching forward into the desk chair, buried his face in his hands.
"I can't—I can't! No, no; no more blood!" He was half moaning, half mumbling to himself. "No, no; no more blood! There has been enough—I have taken life—she is dead—come what may, no more blood." He looked up suddenly into Stranway's face. "See! See!" he cried, and jumping to his feet, ran with quick, short steps to the safe.
Staggered for a moment at this sudden change of front, weak from the revulsion of feeling brought about by the reprieve from what he had felt was almost certain death, Stranway hung against the desk, following the queer, grotesque figure with his eyes. He saw the other swing wide the door of the safe; and then, almost on the instant, it seemed, Charlebois came running back to the desk with laden arms.
"See! See!" he cried again. "Your oath, your oath that you will say nothing, and this is yours—all of it—all of it!" He tumbled great packages of banknotes on the desk, and his fingers fumbled with the string around a canvas bag. "All—all!" From the bag poured a glittering pile of gold.
All! Immunity for a grovelling wretch from the crime of murder! Stranway's hands clenched. A fierce resentment sent the blood whipping to his temples. Hush money! Money to buy his silence! Money to turn him, too, into a craven thing. His lips tightened into a straight line.
"Is it not enough?" Charlebois was pushing the notes and gold with nervous haste along the desk toward Stranway. "Then you shall have more. It is very easy money for you—very easy. You have only to say nothing, just that little thing is all I ask of you—to say nothing. You have never been here. You have seen nothing. Who will question you? There are thousands of dollars here—thousands. Take them! Take them, and go away! And there will be more each month, each week. I will make you rich! Take them, and——"
With a sudden leap, Stranway caught the other's wrists in a vice-like grip.
"I'll take your revolver," he said, his voice out of control and rasping strangely in his own ears. "I don't think I'd care to touch anything else of yours!" Mercilessly he jerked the old man around, and, holding Charlebois now by the collar of his jacket, snatched the revolver from the other's pocket. "Now then! You'll either open that door, which someway or other you locked, and march out to the first policeman, or I'll telephone the police from here. You can take your choice."
"Money!" The old man choked from the tightening grip. "Listen! Don't be a fool! You are young! I will give you anything in the world you want. You shall live in luxury. Do you know how much is there on the desk? Look at it! All big bills! Big bills! There is a fortune even there—and that is only a beginning. Monday——"
With his grip still upon the other, Stranway reached for the telephone.
"You are an old man," he said between his teeth, "or I would ram your money down your throat! As it is, I'll do it anyhow if you——"
His sentence ended with a low, startled cry. His hand from Charlebois' collar dropped nervously away. He was staring like a man bereft of his senses at the red portière before the glass-panelled door. It had swung wide again—and standing there, brown eyes fixed upon him, half challenging, half coyly demure, was the woman with the orchid who, but a moment since, he would have sworn had been murdered before his eyes.
And then Stranway burst suddenly into a harsh, savage laugh. Perhaps he was mad, too! Certainly, at least, he had been made to play the part of a fool!
But it was Charlebois who spoke—in a strangely gentle way, as he adjusted the ruffled collar of his red velvet jacket.
"My boy," he said, "you are piqued. You feel that, whether I am mad or not, the prank has been carried a little too far at your expense."
Stranway did not answer. He looked at the girl. Her eyes met his again, but very steadily now; great, self-reliant, deep brown eyes—and, curiously putting a curb upon his anger, they seemed to hold now a strange sincerity.
But now, with a little flush of colour mounting to her cheeks, she turned quickly away, and the red portière dropped into place behind her. He heard the glass-panelled door close softly. She was gone.
He bit his lips. If this Henri Raoul Charlebois was mad, she wasn't. But what was the meaning of it all? Who was she?
Again it was Charlebois who spoke—-as naturally as though Stranway had asked his question aloud.
"She is very fond of that flower you saw her wearing," said the little old gentleman quietly; "and so here we call her—the Orchid."
Stranway, with a little start, lifted his eyes from the red portière upon which they had been fixed, and looked at the other. Tempted to nurse back his waning resentment, he was minded to make no reply. And yet, was it curiosity that was the stronger—or what?
"And—the Orchid"—he stumbled over the name—"is a member of this organisation of yours that you spoke of, I suppose?"
"She is more than that," replied the little old gentleman softly. And then suddenly he came forward and laid both hands on Stranway's shoulders. "My boy," he said earnestly, "it was all necessary. There has been no jest, no mockery, no intention to hurt or wound your pride. There was far too much at stake for me to base my decision in reference to you on anything but certainty and proof. Do you not remember that I said I hoped I should find in you the one I have been seeking? And so I risked giving you offence to prove you. You have shown that neither fear nor bribery will move you to an act that is foreign to your conscience, as acquiescence in a demand such as I made upon you must be foreign to the conscience of any decent man. You have shown—what I require most of all—that implicit confidence can be placed in you. And so I ask you now to come here and join me in a very intimate way in my work; to come here and share with me the burden that in these later years, I might almost say the closing years during which that book there will be balanced forever, have grown too heavy for me alone. We will not speak of material recompense, for money will be the consideration of least importance between us. I promise you adventure, I promise you romance; and I promise you that you will never be called upon to participate in any act of which you do not conscientiously approve. But again, too, I must warn you that you will not be free from the dangers that surround me—and they are many and grave."
The little old gentleman's hands fell from Stranway's shoulders, and he stepped quietly to the door and opened it.
"I do not want you to answer now," he said. "You are mentally disquieted for the moment. Think well about it—and come to me to-morrow morning with your decision."
And Stranway, finding himself a moment later in the sunlight of the quaint courtyard, rubbed his eyes. It was as though he had been dreaming.