that night babbitts, o'mally and i left for quebec. before we went the wires that connected us with the canadian city had been busy. st. foy 584 had been located, a house on a suburban road, occupied for the last two weeks by an american called henry santley. instructions were carried over the hundreds of intervening miles to surround the house, to apprehend santley if he tried to get away, and to watch for the lady who would join him that night. unless something unforeseen and unimaginable should occur we had barker at last.
as we rushed through the darkness, we speculated on the reasons for his last daring move—the sending for his daughter. o'mally figured it out as the result of a growing confidence—he was feeling secure and wanted to help her. he had had ample proof of her discretion and had probably some plan for her enrichment that he wanted to communicate to her in person. i was of the opinion that he expected to leave the country and intended to take her with him, sending back later for the mother. he was assured of her trust and affection, knew she believed in him, and was certain the murder hadn't been and now never would be discovered. he could count on safety in europe and with his vast gains could settle down with his wife and his daughter to a life of splendid ease. well, we'd see to that. the best laid schemes of mice and men!
the sun was bright, the sky sapphire clear as the great rock of quebec, crowned with its fortress roofs, came into view. the two rivers clasped its base, ice-banded at the shore and in the middle their dark currents flowing free. snow and snow and snow heaved and billowed on the surrounding hills, paved the narrow streets, hooded the roofs of the ancient houses. through the air, razor-edged with cold and crystal clear, came the thin broken music of sleigh bells, ringing up from every lane and alley, jubilant and inspiring, and the sleighs, low running, flew by with the wave of their streaming furs and the flash of scarlet standards.
glorious, splendid, a fit day, all sun and color and music, for me to come to carol!
a man met us at the depot, a silent, wooden-faced policeman of some kind, who said yes, he thought the lady was there, and then piloted us glumly into a sleigh and mounted beside the driver. a continuous, vague current of sound came from babbitts and o'mally as we climbed a steep hill with the frontenac's pinnacled towers looming above us and then shot off down narrow streets where the jingle of the bells was flung back and across, echoing and reverberating between the old stone houses. it made me think of a phrase the boys in the office used, "coming with bells!"
we went some distance through the town and out along a road, where the buildings drew apart from one another, villas and suburban houses behind walls and gardens. at a smaller one, set back in a muffling of whitened shrubberies, the sleigh drew in toward the sidewalk. before the others could disentangle themselves from the furs and robes, i was out and racing up the path.
my eyes, ranging hungrily over the house, thinking perhaps to see her at one of the windows, saw in it something ominous and secretive. there was not a sign of life, every pane darkened with a lowered blind. all about it the snow was heaped and curled in wave-like forms as if endeavoring to creep over it, to aid in the work of hiding its dark mystery. barker's lair, his last stand! it looked like it, white wrapped, silent, inscrutable.
as i leaped up the piazza steps the door was opened by a man in uniform. he touched his hat and started to speak, but i pushed him aside and came in peering past him down a hall that stretched away to the rear. at the sound of his voice a door had opened there and a woman came out. for a moment she was only a shadow moving toward me up the dimness of the half-lit passage. then i recognized her, gave a cry and ran to her.
my hands found hers and closed on them, my eyes looking down into the dark ones raised to them. neither of us spoke, it didn't occur to me to explain why i was there and she showed no surprise at seeing me. it seemed as if we'd known all along we were going to meet in that dark passage in that strange house. and standing there silent, hand clasped in hand, i saw something so wonderful, so unexpected, that the surroundings faded away and for me there was nothing in the world but what i read in her beautiful, lifted face.
i never had dared to hope, never had thought of her as caring for me. all i had asked was the right to help and defend her. perhaps under different circumstances, when things were happy and easy, i'd have aspired, gone in to try and win. but in the last dark month, when we'd come so close, we'd only been a woman set upon and menaced, and a man braced and steeled to do battle for her. now, with her stone-cold hands in mine, i saw in the shining depths of her eyes—oh, no, it's too sacred. that part of the story is between carol and me.
there had been sounds and voices in the vestibule behind us. they came vaguely upon my consciousness, low and then breaking suddenly into a louder key, phrases, exclamations, questions. i don't think if the house had been rocked by an earthquake i'd have noticed it, and it wasn't till o'mally came down the passage calling me, that i dropped her hands and turned. his face was creased into an expression of excited consternation, and he rapped out, not seeing carol:
"what the devil are you doing there? haven't you heard?" then his eye catching her, "oh, it's miss whitehall. well, young lady, you must have had a pretty tough time here last night."
she simply drooped her eyelids in faint agreement.
"what do you mean?" i cried, and looked from o'mally's boisterously concerned countenance to carol's worn, white one. "what is it, something more?"
she gave a slight nod and said:
"the last—the end this time."
o'mally wheeled on me:
"she hasn't told you. he shot himself—here, last night, shortly after she arrived."
before i had time to answer, babbitts and the man in uniform, a police inspector, were beside us. babbitts was speechless—as i was myself—but the inspector, pompous and stolid, answered my look of shocked amazement:
"a few minutes after one. fortunately i'd got your instructions and the house was surrounded. my men heard the report and the screams and broke in at once."
i looked blankly from one to the other. there was a confused horror in my mind, but from the confusion one thought rose clear—barker had done the best, the only thing.
the inspector, ostentatiously cool in the midst of our aghast concern, volunteered further:
"he didn't die till near morning and we got a full statement out of him. for an hour afterward he was as clear as a bell—they are that way sometimes—and gave us all the particulars, seemed to want to. i've got it upstairs and from what i can make out he was one of the sharpest, most daring criminals i ever ran up against. i've had the body kept here for your identification. will you come up and see it now?"
he moved off toward the stairs. o'mally and babbitts, muttering together, filing after him. i didn't go but turned to carol, who had thrust one hand through the balustrade that ran up beside where we were standing. as the tramp of ascending feet sounded on the first steps, she leaned toward me, her voice hardly more than a whisper:
"do you know who it is?"
"who what is?" i said, startled by her words and expression.
"the man upstairs?"
i was terror-stricken—the experiences of the night had unhinged her mind. i tried to take her hand, but she drew it back, her lips forming words just loud enough for me to hear:
"you don't. it's hollings harland."
"carol!" i cried, certain now she was unbalanced.
she drew farther away from me and slipping her hand from the balustrade pointed up the stairs:
"go and see. it's he. there's nothing the matter with me, but i want you to see for yourself. go and see and then come back here and i'll tell you. i know everything now."
i went, a wild rush up the stairs. in a room off the upper hall, the light tempered by drawn blinds, were o'mally, babbitts and the inspector, looking at the dead body of hollings harland.
