SILENT GUESTS

SILENT GUESTS

By A. E. Forrest

CHICAGO PASCAL COVICI, Publisher MCMXXVII

COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY PASCAL COVICI, PUBLISHER, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE CUNEO PRESS, INC.

“What lurks behind the curtain? Wouldst thou learn? If thou art wise thou wouldst not—”

CHAPTER I

A MYSTERIOUS thing, the human mind. Can it keep a secret indefinitely? Here I find myself committing to paper things which I had determined never to divulge—sacred things long hidden; intimate privacies having their roots in the soul.

However, these written pages shall never be seen by the merely inquisitive eye, but shall be safely hidden away and kept as a faithful attestation of the genesis of this house—unless fate decrees otherwise. I believe in fate—are we not all merely its playthings—toys moved hither and yon in Nature’s nursery?

Was it fate that called me from my accustomed life and routine in a distant American city to that little churchyard in a secluded corner of the Canadian backwoods, where so trivial a thing as curiosity aroused by the peculiarity of an epitaph chiseled in a marble headstone marking the grave of an unknown led me into a realm of fact more unreal than even the wildest of dreams and unfolded to me in reality the pages of a weird, transcendental [2]drama? Was it predestined that I should leave home and friends and find in this sparsely settled spot an interest which inextricably drew the very threads of my being into the tangled skein of other and tragic lives?

The mission calling me from the office of a firm of lawyers in Philadelphia into which I had but recently been admitted as junior partner was a forlorn search for traces of an Englishman, one James Hogarth, who had, while in Canada, mysteriously disappeared. The case was important and urgent, we were informed by our clients in London, as seven years had elapsed since Hogarth, heir to a large estate, had been heard from, and the property was about to escheat to the British crown.

I was following a seemingly slender clue—the statement of a butler once in the employ of the Hogarth family that “some six or seven years previously he had seen a letter postmarked ‘Valleyford, Canada’ in which Hogarth made mention of a place called Craighead Hall.”

On this meager thread rested our firm’s hope of a large fee and mine of proving my qualification as a worthwhile partner.

My third day of travel on this, my first long journey, brought me to a village called Laketown, reached only by local train. This day is indelibly fixed in my memory. It was a bright September morning, and marked the last stopping point before [3]reaching my destination.

No premonition of anything untoward troubled me as I rested comfortably on the cushions of an old-fashioned high-swung stage-coach as it rolled quietly along a smooth dirt road away from the village. My spirits were high through avid anticipations of success and the enjoyment of an unusual and well-deserved holiday.

Alone in the coach, a long twenty-mile ride before me, I had ample opportunity for reflection. What should I find: romance, mystery, perhaps danger, for impulsively even before transferring my luggage from the depot platform to the stage-coach labeled “Laketown-Valleyford,” I had questioned the driver of the team of bays:

“Do you know of a place called Craighead Hall?”

The man had given me a peculiar inspection.

“Yes, but nobody of your kind ever goes there.”

Further inquiry brought curiosity but little satisfaction. “Never been there.” “No, nobody ever went there.” “Place was some ten miles east of the village.” “Was said to be a resort for criminals, brought there by the owner, Hugh Craighead, who lived with them, a sort of overlord.” “No, I have never seen him, but I think you run a big chance of being murdered,” he speculated after I had informed him of my errand.

The driver had never heard of James Hogarth, [4]but volunteered that he would not be surprised at the disappearance of anyone who visited Craighead Hall.

My pulse quickened at the thought of meeting this overlord of criminals, but before we reach thirty, romanticism holds strong, especially in those in whose veins flows Scotch blood, and my name is Montrose.

“My partners know my destination,” was my thought, and there was nothing to dull the keenness of anticipation as we jogged on, straight into the wilderness.

The regular thud of hoof on soft dirt became monotonous and I welcomed the opportunity of taking a seat beside the driver when a stop was made that the horses might drink from a small fordable stream crossing the roadway. The air was clear and bracing and the open country with its evidences of a recently gathered bountiful crop of wheat, barley and rye, in time gave place to dense woods.

We traveled miles through an unbroken forest of hardwood; the maples had taken on their best scarlet dress and the oak and beech were changing. We neared a river; spruce and cedar trees occasionally opened to furnish a glimpse of white water tossed into spray. A waterfall, it must have been of some magnitude, gave notice of its force.

The driver, pointing to an avenue between [5]fronds of green, said “Kneeley’s Falls; the river drivers shoot that fall of eighteen feet. Craighead’s foreman tried it once—they got what was left of him six miles downstream.”

Craighead again. I plied the man with questions, but he had no further information to impart.

A wooded hill was on our left; not a human habitation had we passed in ten miles; dense thickets of green fringed the noisy river on the right. Suddenly we dropped without warning into civilization. We crossed on a wooden bridge about one hundred and fifty feet in length, a stream of water so black and swift that it presented the appearance of immobility.

“The Ford, fifty feet deep and running like a millrace,” the driver volunteered, “but old Sandy Todd with his usual Saturday night load of gin aboard thought his mare could ford it.”

The usual small town, I reflected; two main streets, post office at the bridge end, good brick buildings, one sporting four stories, at which I alighted. This was the Myrtle Bank Hotel, with a piazza a few feet above the board sidewalk.

Though the usual small village crowd was assembled to witness the one exciting event of the day, the coach’s arrival, I was obliged to carry my portmanteau into the office.

The dust of travel removed, a very fair dinner, then to the post office. Not the postmaster, hotel [6]proprietor, or livery-stable keeper, nor any of the other citizens of whom I made inquiry had ever heard of Hogarth or any stranger visiting this man’s town. Nor could I hire a vehicle which would take me to the Craighead “plantation” as it was commonly called.

I was not more fortunate on the following morning—“There is a funeral out in the country, everything engaged,” was the excuse vouchsafed at the public livery office. When I insisted, I was informed that roads were bad and Craighead kept a pack of vicious hounds that roamed the woods out to a high fence a mile from his house and did not welcome strangers. No villager had entered the place.

In desperation I borrowed a ride on the seat beside a farmer whose homing course brought him within three miles of Craighead’s enclosure. We had traveled about seven miles and had just passed a small white-painted church when the taciturn farmer, who declined my proffer of money for the accommodation in terms equally decisive with those used in refusing to discuss the Craighead menage, spoke, a little excitement apparent in his voice:

“There is Hugh Craighead now,” pointing to a little cemetery adjoining the church on the east. “He is at John Blank’s grave as usual.”

In the far corner of this little churchyard fate brought me face to face with Hugh Craighead. The [7]man was leaning on a white-painted paling enclosing an isolated grave just outside the God’s acre dedicated to remembrance. So absorbed in thought was he that he did not notice me until I was quite near and called him by name.

I looked into the eyes of a man apparently in the early thirties; kindly yet piercing eyes, wide set in a strong, refined face. Tall, over six feet, symmetrical in build, yet showing evidence of a constitution none too robust. There was a something about his expression difficult of explanation—a sadness and yet not exactly that, the face of a soulful man with a history. Introducing myself, I stated my business and was pleased to hear him say: “Yes, I have heard the name Hogarth. James, I think it was.”

My hopes of immediate success were shattered when he added, after a pause, “That was many years ago when I was abroad. The name was mentioned in the letter of a superintendent now dead.”

I pushed my inquiry as far as I dared without appearing importunate, even suggesting that some old servant at his home might remember Hogarth’s visit. “There are no old servants at Craighead Hall,” he replied in a tone which forbade further questioning.

Evidently feeling that his statement was inadequate, abrupt, he added, “You do not know of my establishment.”

[8]Sensing in the man’s peculiar mien a desire perhaps for privacy as to his peculiar affairs, I merely said, as I turned from him, “I am sorry.”

In turning, my eye was caught by a peculiarity in the markings on the white marble slab at the head of the well-kept grave within the little enclosure. It carried only the words:

JOHN BLANK

and underneath in chiseled script these lines:

There were lacking the customary dates; neither birth nor death was recorded, nothing but the name so suggestive of desire to hide identity, and the meaningless verse. The grave was evidently not old—could it not hold the object of my search, perhaps masquerading under the pseudonym John Blank?

“Who was this man?” I abruptly inquired of Craighead. “You evidently knew him well.”

A peculiar, hunted look came into Craighead’s eyes as he too turned to glance at the headstone. “Oh yes, I knew him well, knew him during my [9]childhood,” and after a pause added, “I know him yet, but you would not understand,” and turned toward the roadway as though wishing to terminate the interview.

“My friend,” I said, “What was this man’s real name—how did he die? I am much interested.”

Craighead appeared troubled. After a keen direct look, holding my eyes by something peculiar in his, he said, “His history is strange, most tragic. I have never discussed it with any person.” Then he hesitated, “But I rather like your manner, Mr.——”

“Montrose. Gordon Montrose,” I hastily answered. “You evidently did not catch the name.”

“No, I was somewhat nonplussed when you addressed me. You know Hugh Craighead has few friends hereabout,” he said rather pridefully, I then thought.

The thought persisted—“This may be acting.”

“A relative, I presume, and a much loved one to bring you out to his resting place,” I ventured.

“No,” Craighead replied, “the man was just one of the many unfortunates, a plaything of fate, whose life was a fever and whose death was a terrible tragedy. But,” he continued, “he did not suffer alone, as I find cases just as sad as his in our work.”

“I don’t think I quite understand your real work, Mr. Craighead.”

He smiled peculiarly. “I am doing for both body and soul what your ministers of the gospel claim to [10]be doing for the soul. I am salving the mentality of the derelicts of Canada, picking up the hulks held in the whirlpool and those set adrift by the state to become a new menace to society; searching out the history of felons claiming innocence or justification and obtaining the release of the worthy; caring for them until self-respect returns.”

Craighead turned toward Blank’s grave. “That silent sleeper there, a felon, a suicide, yet a man—every inch a man. Would to God I had been a grown man and had known his wrongs.”

He drew his hand across his eyes as though wiping away a film, a vision stirred by recollection; then, as though exhausted, seated himself on a flat slab of marble covering all that was mortal of one who had lived and loved and was no more.

Both of us fell silent. There was for me a moment of embarrassment; the man was so gentlemanly, so womanish and yet so strong. Nothing of the overlord I had pictured; my sympathies were keenly aroused. “I should like to hear his story,” I said, “maybe I can render you some assistance;” an attempt to break the embarrassing silence rather than the expression of a hope.

Craighead looked keenly at me, seeming to wish to read my thought as well as character and after a pause, “Mr. Montrose, what is your calling?”

“Lawyer,” I answered, “and you are also a lawyer. I was informed that you were interested in [11]helping criminals, but did not quite grasp the nature of your work. I wish I could see the reformatory.”

“Reformatory!” he shot back. “You shall. Why man, that word reeks of abuse, cruelty, petty graft and everything that is loathsome. You shall see my home, my guests, the evidence of the worth of my work.”

Here he paused as I replied, promptly accepting the invitation. Into his eyes that were blazing crept a look of defeat, fear, I thought. He looked at his watch, glanced at the sun just disappearing behind the ridge of the peaked roof of the one-storied church. I could read a wish to recall the invitation.

“Mr. Montrose, night will soon be here. You are seven miles from the village, without a conveyance. I have few callers at Craighead Hall. Frankly, were there any means of getting you back to your hotel, I should ask you to spend the day, rather than—” again he hesitated as though reflecting—

“However, I shall enjoy your company tonight,” and his face lighted as he added, “It is long since I have spent an evening in the company of a brother in the law—and I may wish to ask your advice on a matter—Well, my home is but three miles away.”

In silence we walked southward across fields of wheat stubble—across plowed land. No fenced road [12]was encountered until just before coming to a dense wood. We turned into a broad pathway—it was little more—the turf had, however, been cut by the wheels of vehicles.

Save for a monosyllabic “A short cut,” from my host, no word passed between us. Craighead seemed in a brown study and I felt the intruder. We reached the border of the wood, a high fence stretched off to right and left as far as I could see. Craighead selected a key from a ring holding many of varying sizes and unlocked a small gate in the fence, paused for me to enter, then relocked the gate.

I began to entertain misgivings. The man was certainly peculiar. Was he sane? What was hidden in this dark timber confronting us? Was I but following Hogarth, to disappear?

A well-defined roadway led us into deeper shadows. Footsteps made scarcely a sound as they pressed the damp leaves under foot. The gloom was oppressive. The silence of the man walking alongside though just a step ahead, the eerie surroundings, all tended to stir in me a foreboding of evil.

I was about to break the silence, although my host’s preoccupied manner indicated such an intrusion presumptuous, when the air was suddenly shattered by a most startling sound, the baying, near at hand, of what seemed an army of hounds.

[13]I stopped, frozen in my tracks. Before I could utter a word, Craighead placed two fingers in his mouth giving a shrill whistle as half-a-dozen huge, long-eared brown animals came hurtling into the roadway from all directions. We had been surrounded, effectually trapped.

Abruptly the animals stopped, every beast alert, then Craighead said gently, “Come on boys, ’tis only your master.”

They crowded about him, emitting short muffled sounds, not touching him, just seemingly expressing joy and affection. I had retreated a step or two, involuntarily, but aside from being the recipient of a glance from many an upturned eye in which the white showed viciously from ugly, many-wrinkled heads, I was ignored.

As we followed the dogs, a pack of bloodhounds I observed, my uneasiness increased, and the pathway becoming more and more obscure as twilight deepened into night, I thought of retreat.

Craighead suddenly stopped, laid his hand on my shoulder, “Pardon my seeming boorishness, Mr. Montrose. I have a heavy problem; you don’t mind my thinking it out?”

“Not in the least,” I replied, glad to hear his voice addressing me. He sent the dogs ahead of us with a word.

“In my peculiar work I sometimes have to call on my four-footed friends here for aid in running [14]down some poor devil who in gaining physical freedom loses what little mental poise prison has left him and endeavors too early a return to old haunts, where he would soon become either the hunted or the hunter among the wolves of society, and eventually find his way back into confinement.

“These are bloodhounds, most intelligent brutes. They will run down and hold but will not harm any person. You see I have many thousands of acres in my home; the country is sparsely settled. Bears, wolves and the dreaded lynx are plentiful, even in this wood, though we hunt them incessantly. Thank Heaven, though a number of men have run away, nobody has been eaten yet.”

We had been walking with long strides and, just then, emerged from the wood into a clearing. The terrain rose quite rapidly as we advanced, until at length we were on a plateau across which we followed a well-made road seemingly for a long distance. The fading twilight could not hide the fact that on either side were cultivated fields and away to the right a dark shadow marked a hill, much higher than the elevation which we had attained.

Craighead appeared to be hurrying as though anxious to make some goal before darkness closed down; there was a moon, but it had not yet arisen.

“Here we are,” he said.

We came abreast of and passed a number of large barns and a long, one-storied stable of stone. The [15]munching of hay and grain, the stamping of hoofs, and such usual sounds as come from a small army of horses housed for the night, struck my auricular sense as weird and untoward, so highly keyed were my nerves. I thought I could discern people moving about in the open spaces between the buildings, but save for the sounds made by the animals, everywhere was silence. A human voice, or even the barking of a dog would have afforded a degree of relief.

Craighead preceding me, we soon passed a picketed enclosure, evidently the dog kennels. A man was housing the hounds. Farther along, we entered, through a gate, onto a white graveled walk which seemingly led us through an orchard, as I could make out the outline of trees while the perfumed emanations from ripe apples came to me soothingly.

CHAPTER II

WE STOOD before a doorway of dark wood, heavy but not pretentious, and showing some carving in the subdued light thrown by a lamp enclosed in glass and set into the heavy jamb on the left.

The building seemed to be one-storied, and of stone. It stretched away on either side of the door into the night. I could not make even a guess as to its dimensions, but it loomed large in my imagination.

“We are home,” Craighead said, throwing back the heavy oak door and holding it apparently with left arm outstretched and with head slightly bowed; a mute invitation to me to precede him across the portal of Craighead Hall.

I stepped into what was evidently an upper reception hall, as directly in front of me was the top tread of a broad stairway. My host said in a quiet tone, “I have brought you in the nearest way,” closed the door and preceded me down the stair.

[17]I noted two things—the house was silent, and he did not lock the door.