The Blind Man's Eyes by William MacHarg (best books to read non fiction txt) 📕

"His name's Hollock. He's the titular owner of the place on the Michigan shore where Latron has been living. The telegram I sent night before last was addressed to his place, you know. He's been a sort of go-between for Latron and the men—those who knew—who were managing the properties. I'd never met him, though, Mr. Santoine, and I didn't know either him or Hollock on the train. As I said, I wasn't in the know about killing Warden."

"When did you learn who Eaton was, Avery?"

"The day after we got back here from the West I got word from Latron; they didn't tell me till they needed to use me." Avery hesitated; then he went on—he was eager now to tell all he knew in his belief that by doing so he was helping his own case. "You understand, sir, about Latron's pretended death—a guide at the shooting lodge had been killed by a chance shot in the woods; purely accidental; some one of the party had fired at a deer, missed, and never knew he'd killed a man with the waste shot. When the guide didn't come back to camp, they looked for him and found his body. He was a man who never would be missed or inquired for and was very nearly Latron's size; and that gave Latron the idea.

"At first there was no idea of pretending he had been murdered; it was the coroner who first suggested that. Things looked ugly for a while, under the circumstances, as they were made public. Either the scheme might come out or some one else be charged as the murderer. That put it up to Overton. He'd actually been up there to see Latron and had had a scene with him which had been witnessed. That part—all but the evidence which showed that he shot Latron afterwards—was perfectly true. He thought that Latron, as he was about to go to trial, might be willing to give him information which would let him save something from the fortune he'd lost through Latron's manipulations. The circumstances, motive, everything was ready to convict Overton; it needed very little more to complete the case against him."

"So it was completed."

"But after Overton was convicted, he was not allowed to be punished, sir."

Santoine's lips straightened in contempt. "He was not allowed to be punished?"

"Overton didn't actually escape, you know, Mr. Santoine—that is, he couldn't have escaped without help; Latron was thoroughly frightened and he wanted it carried through and Overton executed; but some of the others rebelled against this and saw that Overton got away; but he never knew he'd been helped. I understand it was evidence of Latron's insistence on the sentence being carried out that Warden found, after his first suspicions had been aroused, and that put Warden in a position to have Latron tried for his life, and made it necessary to kill Warden."

"Latron is dead, of course, Avery, or fatally wounded?"

"He's dead. Over—Eaton, that is, sir—hit him last night with three shots."

"As a housebreaker engaged in rifling my safe, Avery."

"Yes, sir. Latron was dying when they took him out of the car last night. They got him away, though; put him on the boat he'd come on. I saw them in the woods last night. They'll not destroy the body or make away with it, sir, at present."

"In other words, you instructed them not to do so until you had found out whether Overton could be handed over for execution and the facts regarding Latron kept secret, or whether some other course was necessary."

The blind man did not wait for any answer to this; he straightened suddenly, gripping the arms of his chair, and got up. There was more he wished to ask; in the bitterness he felt at his blindness having been used to make him an unconscious agent in these things of which Avery spoke so calmly, he was resolved that no one who had shared knowingly in them should go unpunished. But now he heard the noise made by approach of Eaton's captors. He had noted it a minute or more earlier; he was sure now that it was definitely nearing the house. He crossed to the window, opened it and stood there listening; the people outside were coming up the driveway. Santoine went into the hall.

"Where is Miss Santoine?" he inquired.

The servant who waited in the hall told him she had gone out. As Santoine stood listening, the sounds without became coherent to him.

"They have taken Overton, Avery," he commented. "Of course they have taken no one else. I shall tell those in charge of him that he is not the one they are to hold prisoner but that I have another for them here."

The blind man heard no answer from Avery. Those having Overton in charge seemed to be coming into the house; the door opened and there were confused sounds. Santoine stood separating the voices.

"What is it?" he asked the servant.

"Mr. Eaton—Mr. Overton, sir—fainted as they were taking him out of the motor-car, sir. He seems much done up, sir."

Santoine recognized that four or five men, holding or carrying their prisoner between them, had come in and halted in surprise at sight of him.

"We have him!" he heard one of them cry importantly to him. "We have him, sir! and he's Hugh Overton, who killed Latron!"

Then Santoine heard his daughter's voice in a half cry, half sob of hopeless appeal to him; Harriet ran to him; he felt her cold, trembling fingers clasping him and beseeching him. "Father! Father! They say—they say—they will—"

He put his hands over hers, clasping hers and patting it, "My dear," he said, "I thought you would wait for me; I told you to wait."

He heard others coming into the house now; and he held his daughter beside him as he faced them.

"Who is in charge here?" he demanded.

The voice of one of those who had just come in answered him. "I, sir—I am the chief of police."

"I wish to speak to you; I will not keep you long. May I ask you to have your prisoner taken to the room he occupied here in my house and given attention by a doctor? You can have my word that it is not necessary to guard him. Wait! Wait!" he directed, as he heard exclamations and ejaculations to correct him. "I do not mean that you have mistaken who he is. He is Hugh Overton, I know; it is because he is Hugh Overton that I say what I do."

Santoine abandoned effort to separate and comprehend or to try to answer the confusion of charge and questioning around him. He concerned himself, at the moment, only with his daughter; he drew her to him, held her and said gently, "There, dear; there! Everything is right. I have not been able to explain to you, and I cannot take time now; but you, at least, will take my word that you have nothing to fear for him—nothing!"

He heard her gasp with incredulity and surprise; then, as she drew back from him, staring at him, she breathed deep with relief and clasped him, sobbing. He still held her, as the hall was cleared and the footsteps of those carrying Overton went up the stairs; then, knowing that she wished to follow them, he released her. She drew away, then clasped his hand and kissed it; as she did so, she suddenly stiffened and her hand tightened on his spasmodically.

Some one else had come into the hall and he heard another voice—a woman's, which he recognized as that of the stenographer, Miss Davis.

"Where is he? Hugh! Hugh! What have you done to him? Mr. Santoine! Mr. Santoine! where is he?"

The blind man straightened, holding his daughter to him; there was anxiety, horror, love in the voice he heard; Harriet's perplexity was great as his own. "Is that you, Miss Davis?" he inquired.

"Yes; yes," the girl repeated. "Where is—Hugh, Mr. Santoine?"

"You do not understand," the voice of a young man—anxious and strained now, but of pleasing timbre—broke in on them.

"I'm afraid I don't," Santoine said quietly.

"She is Hugh's sister, Mr. Santoine—she is Edith Overton."

"Edith Overton? And who are you?"

"You do not know me. My name is Lawrence Hillward."

Santoine asked nothing more for the moment. His daughter had left his side. He stood an instant listening to the confusion of question and answer in the hall; then he opened the door into the library and held it for the police chief to enter.

Eaton—he still, with the habit of five years of concealment, even thought of himself by that name—awoke to full consciousness at eight o'clock the next morning. He was in the room he had occupied before in Santoine's house; the sunlight, reflected from the lake, was playing on the ceiling. His wounds had been dressed; his body was comfortable and without fever. He had indistinct memories of being carried, of people bending over him, of being cared for; but of all else that had happened since his capture he knew nothing.

He saw and recognized, against the lighted square of the window, a man standing looking out at the lake.

"Lawrence," he said.

The man turned and came toward the bed. "Yes, Hugh."

Eaton raised himself excitedly upon his pillows. "Lawrence, that was he—last night—in the study. It was Latron! I saw him! You'll believe me, Lawrence—you at least will. They got away on a boat—they must be followed—" With the first return of consciousness he had taken up again that battle against circumstances which had been his only thought for five years.

But now, suddenly he was aware that his sister was also in the room, sitting upon the opposite side of the bed. Her hand came forward and clasped his; she bent over him, holding him and fondling him.

"It is all right, Hugh," she whispered—"Oh, Hugh! it is all right now."

"All right?" he questioned dazedly.

"Yes; Mr. Santoine knows; he—he was not what we thought him. He believed all the while that you were justly sentenced. Now he knows otherwise—"

"He—Santoine—believed that?" Eaton asked incredulously.

"Yes; he says his blindness was used by them to make him think so. So now he is very angry; he says no one who had anything to do with it shall escape. He figured it all out—most wonderfully—that it must have been Latron in the study. He has been working all night—they have already made several arrests and every port on the lake is being watched for the boat they got away on."

"Is that true, Edith? Lawrence, is it true?"

"Yes; quite true, Hugh!" Hillward choked and turned away.

Eaton sank back against his pillows; his eyes—dry, bright and filled still with questioning for a time, as, he tried to appreciate what he just had heard and all that it meant to him—dampened suddenly as he realized that it was over now, that long struggle to clear his name from the charge of murder—the fight which had seemed so hopeless. He could not realize it to the full as yet; concealment, fear, the sense of monstrous injustice done him had marked so deeply all his thoughts and feelings that he could not sense the fact that they were gone for good. So what came to him most strongly now was only realization that he had been set right with Santoine—Santoine, whom he himself had misjudged and mistrusted. And Harriet? He had not needed to be set right with her; she had believed and trusted him from the first, in spite of all that had seemed against him. Gratitude warmed him as he thought of her—and that other feeling, deeper, stronger far than gratitude, or than anything else he ever had felt toward any one but her, surged up in him and set his pulses wildly beating, as his thought strained toward the future.

"Where is—Miss Santoine?" he asked.

His sister answered. "She has been helping her father. They left word they were to be sent for as soon as you