CHAPTER XII
On the narrow balcony outside his room Atherton sat alone in the darkness, looking forth upon the splendor of the night. Above him stretched the velvet blackness of the heavens, jewelled with bright and luminous stars; from the distant woodland sounded, in ceaseless iteration, the music of the whippoorwills; while from the meadows the south wind, bearing the fragrance of the fields, stirred the ivy on the stable walls and murmured nocturnal melody among the branches of the slumbering pines. Beauty everywhere, on earth and in sky; beauty, it seemed to Atherton, in perfect unison with the thoughts which filled his brain.
"Ye shall be born again." The old Biblical phrase, long forgotten, echoed and re-echoed in his mind. And in his case he knew that it was true; that the events of the last three days had altered the whole current of his being. Already the old life--the feverish hours around the ticker, the crowd of gamblers, the close, stale air of the customers' room, the glare and dazzle of the lights--all of these things seemed part and parcel of another world. Now they were gone, and gone, too, was that horrible concentration on points and fractions; quarters and eighths; to Atherton, gazing upon the calm and silent glory of the night, it seemed incredible that he could ever have lived through times like these.
Midway in his mind, between that past hell and this present heaven, lay the memory of his meeting with Blagden and with Mills. And once again, as he recalled that evening, it seemed to him impossible that he could have been a party to the compact they had made. Like a drunkard only half sobered after a debauch, he knew now that although he had not realized it he had still been under the spell of the market, a beaten gambler, yet in the grip of the lure and lust of the game. Yet his agreement caused him no real uneasiness, for though at the time Blagden's magnetism and his ready eloquence had made all that he had said seem plausible and sane, now, viewed from this distance, the idea of three young men, without money and without influence, solemnly banding together to defy the world, appeared quite childish and absurd. And yet, so far as he was concerned, he was compelled to admit that in one particular Blagden's judgment had certainly been correct; a true adventure had awaited him. How, he wondered, had Mills and Blagden fared. It was difficult to imagine Tubby in any very melodramatic role, but Blagden, after his meeting with his fair acquaintance, seemed destined inevitably to encounter some sort of romance or intrigue. And as Atherton thought of the woman at the café, with her splendid beauty so flauntingly for sale, a sudden sequence of comparisons and contrasts flashed through his mind. There was the life of the ticker, feverish, fascinating, fruitless, ringing empty and hollow when set over against the sane and wholesome life of the man who works for his livelihood. And in like manner there was this traffic and barter of illicit love, morbid, exotic, supersensual, paling to quivering shame when compared with true love, something so earthly and yet so celestial, so passionate and yet so ethereal, so bewildering and so enthralling that it would not let him sleep, but kept him here in the darkness, while the clocks struck twelve, and half-past, and one--
Among the shadows surrounding the house occurred a subtle transformation--a change half sound, half motion, and so faint and evanescent that Atherton, still partly in dreamland and only semi-conscious of the real world about him, regarded it incuriously, oblivious of its real significance. But an instant later he became thoroughly awakened as he saw one of the shadows detach itself from the rest and begin to move, cautiously and without noise, in the direction of the stable. Atherton looked on with interest. "Now who the dickens," he wondered, "can that be? And what in the world is he after? This is a cheerful hour for a man to be taking a walk for his health."
The general attitude of the figure, indeed, suggested secrecy, if not something still more sinister. Slowly and warily it advanced, but the stable was evidently not its destination, for as it passed the huge pine in front of the house it approached it, little by little, until at last the shadow of this nocturnal prowler became lost and merged in the lower branches of the tree. At once Atherton's curiosity increased. "I'd better have a look at this," he decided, and stepping into his room, he slipped his revolver into his pocket, passed quietly down the stairs and began making his way toward the tree. At the edge of its lower branches, which swept the ground, he paused to listen, and heard above him faint sounds which seemed to indicate that this midnight marauder was ascending the tree. Completely mystified, he dropped on hands and knees, and as he crawled inward, an occasional descending branch or bit of bark made it evident that his supposition was correct.
Atherton's wonderment increased. "Must be a lunatic," was his first thought, but this seemed scarcely possible. Then why, he reflected, should a person wish to climb a tree at this time of night? To signal? For what purpose, and to whom? To keep some kind of a watch, or lookout? This seemed more likely. Could the man be a burglar, with a confederate working in the house? "If I go up after him," he thought, "he'll surely hear or see me. And if I hail him when he comes down, I'll probably get into trouble right away. If he is a burglar, he's doubtless a good shot and a quick one, too. I think I'll play this safe." And climbing up some eight or ten feet from the ground, he found a place where two huge limbs grew close together, and working out as far as possible from the trunk of the tree, he stretched himself out at full length and waited. Occasional faint sounds reached him from above and presently the figure again descended, passing so near him that even in the darkness Atherton gained the impression that the man was of slender stature, somehow suggesting vaguely the identity of Martin's new assistant. Waiting until it seemed safe, Atherton slipped down to the ground in his turn and reached the circumference of the branches just in time to see the shadow once more disappear upon the veranda. Presumptively, then, the man was not a burglar, but an inmate of the house.
But for what purpose had he climbed the tree? "I believe," concluded Atherton, "that I'll go up myself. Must be a bully view, if nothing else."
Accordingly, he began his ascent, memories of similar climbs in boyhood coming vividly to mind as he mounted higher and higher. The first part of his journey was made in darkness so profound that there was no possible chance for observation, but when he reached a height about two-thirds of the way to the top the branches began to shorten rapidly so that presently he found that he could command a view of the stable upon one hand and of the house on the other. The stable was in total darkness, but when he turned his attention to the house he at once discovered that one window was brightly lighted and his heart quickened at the sight, for there was now at least a possible explanation of the mystery. Who's room was it, he asked himself, and although totally unfamiliar with the interior arrangement of the house, he felt that considering the secretary's story everything pointed to Bellingham as its occupant. Again he started upward, but it now became a question whether or not he could obtain a glimpse of the room, for he had reached an altitude where the trunk of the pine had decreased dangerously in size, so that every puff of wind swayed him giddily to and fro. Undoubtedly, his predecessor's lighter weight had been an advantage, but Atherton's curiosity was thoroughly aroused and setting his teeth he advanced foot by foot until at length, with one arm clasped tightly around the trunk of the pine, he had gained a height whence he could view, through the open window, the interior of the room.
As he had expected, it was Bellingham's apartment. The secretary, a green shade over his eyes, sat at his desk, working with concentrated absorption upon the papers before him. To his right and left were scattered about the room what at first appeared to be streamers of white ribbon, but which Atherton presently recognized as the paper "tape" which supplies the tickers and upon which are recorded the daily transactions of the Exchange.
"A chart fiend," thought Atherton to himself, "working in secret, as they always do. I wonder, though, why anyone should be spying on him; he can't be harming anybody but himself. I wonder if it's possible--"
But at this point a gust of wind, unusually severe, interrupted his reflections, swinging him back and forth so dizzily that when it had subsided he was glad enough to begin his descent from his airy altitude. Once safely back upon the ground, he paused to think. His first impulse was to return to his room and wait until morning before informing Bellingham of what had occurred. But on second thought various circumstances seemed to combine to render haste imperative. For one thing, there was the manner in which the secretary had acted; for another, there was the unmistakeable earnestness of his appeal; and to lend color to his fears there was this singular nocturnal observation of his labors. Surely, no ordinary servant would have had the wish, the courage or the skill to make this dangerous ascent, and in addition to this there was the added fact that this arboreal spy was in the employ of Marshall Hamilton, one of the financial leaders of New York. All in all, the matter assumed serious proportions. But how, at this hour of the morning, was he to make his way to Bellingham's room? Doors and windows were locked; no water pipe or sturdy vine adorned the walls. "A bow and arrow," he thought to himself, "might do the trick." And although such a weapon was not available, the idea suggested another, and making his way back to the stable, he unearthed, in the loft adjoining his room, an old discarded tennis set, and abstracting three of the balls, returned to his room, slit them with a knife, and hastily penned three notes, "Man has been watching you from top of pine tree. If you leave, meet me at address given to-morrow night, eight o'clock." Then, inserting one of these, with a corner projecting, in each of his missiles, he once more retraced his steps toward the house.
If possible, he would have preferred to make his attempt from the ground, but the height of Bellingham's room made the angle so difficult that he wisely decided there would be no use in attempting this method of communication. "I might shoot away all night," he reflected, "and never hit the window at all. I'll have to take another climb." And accordingly, travelling with the added speed acquired by familiarity with his surroundings, he soon regained the top of the pine.
To his relief, the window was still open, and the secretary was still pursuing his labors with undiminished ardor. "This," thought Atherton, "is the time to 'groove' one," and taking one of the balls from his pocket, he waited for a lull in the wind, and calculating, as well as he could, the required elevation, he let fly with so good an aim that the ball struck fairly on the window ledge, bounced over and disappeared within the room.
Immediately Atherton saw the secretary start, look around him with an expression of amazement, and then rise hastily from his seat. A few moments later he reappeared at the window, gazing forth in the direction of the pine tree with every evidence of terror and consternation; then abruptly closed the window and lowered the shade. For an instant Atherton could see him moving hurriedly about the room; then the light was suddenly extinguished, Bellingham's apartment was engulfed in the black bulk of the house; and Atherton, feeling that he had done everything in his power, again descended and made his way to his room, wondering greatly what would be the outcome of the night's events.
