Frederick Bartlett - The Web of the Golden Spider

The voices in the next room which had been subdued now rose to a point where some phrases were audible. The younger man seemed to be getting excited, for he kept exclaiming,

“Good. That’s bully!”

Their words were lost once more, but Wilson soon heard the sentence,

“I’m with you–with you to the end. But what are you going to get out of this?”

Then for the first time he heard the voice of the other. There was some quality in it that made him start. He could not analyze it, but it had a haunting note as though it went back somewhere in his own past. It made him–without any intention of overhearing the burden of the talk–sit up and listen. It was decidedly the voice of an older man–perhaps a foreigner. But if this were so, a foreigner who had lived long in this country, for the accent consisted of a scarcely perceptible blur. He spoke very slowly and with a cold deliberation that was unpleasant. It was so a judge might pronounce sentence of death. It was unemotional and forbidding. Yet there were little catches in it that reminded Wilson of some other voice which he could not place.

“My friend,” came the voice more distinctly, as though the owner had risen and now faced the closed doors between the two rooms, “my friend, the interests I serve are truly different from yours; you serve sentiment; I, justice and revenge. Yet we shall each receive our reward in the same battle.” He paused a moment. Then he added,

“A bit odd, isn’t it, that such interests as yours and mine should focus at a point ten thousand miles from here?”

“Odd? It’s weird! But I’m getting used to such things. I picked up a chap this morning whose story I wouldn’t have believed a year ago. Now I’ve learned that most anything is possible–even you.”

“I?”

“Yes, you and your heathen army, and your good English, and your golden idol.”

“I object to your use of the word ‘heathen,’” the other replied sharply.

Wilson started from his couch, now genuinely interested. But the two had apparently been moving out while this fag-end of the conversation was going on, for their voices died down until they became but a hum. He fell back again, and before he had time to ponder further Danbury hurried in with a suit of clothes over his arm.

“Here,” he cried excitedly, “try on these. I must be off again in a hurry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long, but we’ll make up the time in the machine.”

He tossed out a soft felt hat and blue serge suit. Wilson struggled into the clothes. Save that the trousers were a bit short, the things fitted well enough. At any rate, he looked more respectable than in a lounging robe. The latter he cast aside, and as he did so something fell from it. It was a roll of parchment. Wilson had forgotten all about it, and now thrust it in an inside pocket. He would give it back to Sorez, for very possibly it was of some value. He had not thought of it since it had rolled out of the hollow image.

Danbury led the way out the door as soon as Wilson had finished dressing. The latter felt in one of the vest pockets and drew out a ten dollar bill. He stared from Danbury to the money.

“Tuck it away, man, tuck it away,” said Danbury.

“I can’t tell you–”

“Don’t. Don’t want to hear it. By the way, you’d better make a note of the location of this house in case you need to find me again. Three hundred and forty Bellevue,–remember it? Here, take my card and write it down.”

It took them twenty minutes to reach the foot of Beacon street, and here Wilson asked him to stop.

“I’ve got to begin my hunt from here. I wish I could make you understand how more than grateful I am.”

“Don’t waste the time. Here’s wishing you luck and let me know how you come out, will you?”

He reached forth his hand and Wilson grasped it.

“I will.”

“Well, s’long, old man. Good luck again.”

He spoke to the chauffeur. In less than a minute Wilson was alone again on the street where he had stood the night before.

It was almost noon, which made it eight hours since Wilson was carried out of the house. He had had less than four hours’ sleep and only the slight nourishment he had received at the hospital since he and the girl dined at midnight, yet he was now fairly strong. His head felt sore and bruised, but he was free of the blinding ache which so weakened him in the morning. An austere life together with the rugged constitution he inherited from his Puritan ancestors was now standing him in good stead. He turned into the narrow street which ran along the water front in the rear of the Beacon Street houses and began his search for the gate which had admitted him to so many unforeseen complications. The river which had raged so turbulently in the dark was now as mild and blue as the sky above. A few clouds, all that were left of the threatening skies of the morning, scudded before a westerly breeze. It was a fair June day–every house flooded with sunshine until, however humble, it looked for the moment like a sultan’s palace. The path before him was no longer a blind alley leading from danger into chaos.

He found that nearly a third of the houses were closed for the summer, and that of these at least one half had small doors leading into fenced courtyards in the rear. There was not a single mark by which he might identify that one which he had battered down. He had only forced the lock so that the door when held closed again would show no sign of having been touched. The priest, or whoever it was who had entered after him, must have taken the same precaution, for every gate was now fast shut. It seemed a hopeless search. Then he happened to remember that the policeman had said that there was glass atop this particular wall. He retraced his steps. The clue was a good one; he discovered with a bounding heart that one alone of all the entrances was so protected. He tried the door, and found to his further relief that it gave readily. He stepped within and closed the gate behind him. He saw then that it had been held by the same piece of joist he himself had used, but had been so hastily and lightly fixed as merely to hold the door shut. He ran across the yard and in another minute was through the window and once again in the lower hall. It was fairly light there now; he did not feel as though this was the same house. This was the third time that he had hurried along this passage on his way to unknown conditions above, and each time, though within a period of less than a full day, had marked a crisis in his life.

As he sprang up the stairs it did not occur to him that he was unarmed and yet running full ahead into what had proven a danger spot. It would have mattered nothing had he realized this. He had not been long enough in such games to value precaution. To reach her side as quickly as possible was the only idea he could grasp now. At the top of the second flight he called her name. He received no reply.

He crossed the hall and pushed aside the curtains which before had concealed his unknown assailant. The blinds were still closed, so that the room was in semi-darkness. The fire had gone out. There was no sign of a human being. Wilson shouted her name once again. The silence closed in upon him oppressively. He saw the dead hearth, saw the chair in which she had curled herself up and gone to sleep, saw the rug upon which Sorez had reclined, saw the very spot where she had sat with the image in her lap, saw where she had stood as she had thrust the revolver into his hand and sent him on his ill-omened errand. But all these things only emphasized her absence. It was as though he were looking upon the scene of events of a year past. She had gone.

He hurried into the next room–the room where Sorez, fainting, had fumbled at the safe until he opened it–the room where he had first seen the image which had really been the source of all his misfortunes. The safe door was closed, but about the floor lay a number of loose papers, as though the safe had been hastily ransacked. The ebony box which had contained the idol was gone. Some of the papers were torn, which seemed to show that this had been done by the owner in preparing for hasty flight rather than by a thief, who would merely rummage through them. Wilson picked up an envelope bearing a foreign postmark. It was addressed to Dr. Carl Sorez, and bore the number of the street where this house was located. The stamp was of the small South American Republic of Carlina and the postmark “Bogova.” Wilson thrust the empty envelope in his pocket.