CHAPTER XXIX

The seventh shot   •   第35章

CHAPTER XXIX

THROUGH THE NIGHT

ON—on through the blue dusk of the September evening.

Now that he found himself actually in the touring car that he had so impetuously engaged, Jim Barrison found his chaotic thoughts settling into some sort of approximate order, if not of repose. He began to analyze himself and this strange ride through the night.

He knew that suddenly he had forgotten the habit and the prompting of years; the caution that usually made him project himself into a possible future and meet it intelligently; the restraint and sensible skepticism which had always made him consider risks and appraise them, even while being quite as willing to take them as any other brave man. He knew that he had in a single moment forgotten all the training and the custom of his mature lifetime, because a woman had asked him to come to her!

A woman? That would not have been enough, he knew, in any other case. He was as chivalrous and as plucky as most men—a gallant gentleman in all ways; but his discretion would have aided his valor in any ordinary enterprise. As it was—he had been deaf and blind to any and all promptings save those that pounded in his ardent pulse. And all because a woman had sent for him! A woman? Say, rather, the woman! The one woman in the world who could so move him, change him, separate him from himself!

For the first time, but with characteristic honesty and thoroughness, Jim Barrison acknowledged to his own heart that he loved Grace Templeton.

He loved her, and he was going to her. The fact that she wanted him was enough. It was strange—some day when he was sane, perhaps, he would see how strange.

The chauffeur slowed up and turned to say over his shoulder:

“I guess it’s here, sir. There’s a sign that says Fer—something, and that’s a road house in there, all right! Shall I drive in, sir?”

“Yes; go ahead.”

The big car crept in slowly around the curving drive toward the low row of not too brilliant lights, for this road house was set far back from prying eyes. There were a few trees in front, too, which further enhanced the illusion of privacy. Barrison could not help noticing that, unlike most road houses, this one seemed bare of patrons for the nonce. There was not another automobile to be seen anywhere about.

He had heard of Ferrati’s before. It was one of those discreet little out-of-town places, far away from the main road, hidden by trees, vines, and shrubbery, and known only to a certain selection among the elect. Whatever its true character, it masqueraded as modestly as a courtesan behind a cap and veil. Proper to the last degree was Ferrati’s; any one could go there. The tone was scrupulously correct—if you frequented its main rooms. And the authorities saw nothing wrong with it. Ferrati himself saw to that!

But there were stories—Barrison had heard a few of them—which suggested that the resort, like some people, had a side not generally known to the public. It was even said that it was a headquarters for a certain blackmailing concern much wanted by the police; that all manner of underworld celebrities could be sure of a haven there in off hours, and that the bartender was nearly as skillful at knock-out drops as he was at mixed drinks.

How, Jim asked himself, had Grace Templeton ever got into these surroundings? Of course he sensed something queer about it all, and he could not help wondering despairingly whether that unquenchable thirst for adventure to which she had borne witness had been the means of bringing her inadvertently into such an unsavory neighborhood.

He did not dismiss the car, but told the man to wait, and, running up the short flight of steps at the front door, asked the rather seedy-looking maître d’hôtel, or whatever he was, for Miss Templeton.

The man did not seem to understand him, but a second individual, who was clearly his superior in position, made his appearance, and greeted Barrison politely and with some air of authority.

“Is your name Ferrati?”

“Giovanni Ferrati, if the signor pleases.” He bowed, but Barrison had the impression that the man was watching him. He was dark and foreign looking, with a face like a rat.

“The signor wished——”

“I am to meet Miss Templeton here,” said Barrison shortly.

The rat-faced one’s expression cleared from a dubious look to delighted relief. So far as he was able, he beamed upon the newcomer.

“Ah, that is well! If the signor would come this way——”

Jim followed where he led, with an unaccountable sense of distrust and discomfort gaining place in his breast. For the first time, a genuine doubt assailed him. Suppose it were a trick, a trap? Nothing since he had first entered this “joint,” as he savagely termed it to himself, had put him in any way at his ease. And at last he was conscious of a well-developed instinct of suspicion. It was not only what he had known before—that Grace was in trouble; it was a conviction that the whole situation was an impossible one—false, dangerous, utterly unlike what he had been expecting. Suppose—he hardly dared to put his thoughts into words. He only knew that he found his environment singularly menacing. He could not tell what it was that was in the air, but it was something wicked and deadly. He wished that he had waited long enough to verify that telegram! If Grace Templeton had not sent it——

“This way, signor, if you please!” said the rat-faced man called Ferrati.

At the end of a dim and unsavory corridor, he turned the knob of a door.

“The lady awaits you, signor!” he said, with a remarkably unpleasant smile.

The room within was highly lighted, as Jim Barrison could see, even through the small space where it was held open by Ferrati. He walked in promptly.

On the instant, the lights were switched out—at the very second of his entrance. He could see nothing now; it was pitch dark.

Mingled with his rage was a perfectly human mental comment: “You idiot; it serves you right!”

For of course he was in a trap—a nice, neat trap, such as any baby might have walked into!

The door closed behind him quickly, and something straightway clicked.

He was locked into this mysterious room in this strange and murderous resort, and the darkness about him was that of the grave.