Five Fatal Words (23 page)

"Come in," he invited. "Nobody's hurt."

"What happened? Donald, what happened?"

"Maybe you can tell us," said Donald, trying to smile at her but making a sorry failure of the attempt. "Maybe you can tell us."

DONALD had covered his pajamas with dressing gown before he had opened the door; but Theodore Cornwall had given no thought to such formality. He stood gaunt and gray in his pajamas, staring down at a strange black object which lay in a pool of water on the floor.

He was physically uninjured, as was Donald; but gone was his calm of the hour earlier in the night when he had reassured Melicent and forgiven her her attack of "nerves." He was excited and quivering under the stress of an emotion which was not exactly fright. That is, Melicent thought at first that he was tense with fright; then she saw it was not that.

After he looked up at her and nodded, he stared down again and bent over the strange black object on the floor.

It lay not only in the pool of water but upon a scorched spot.

"It was hot," said Theodore. "Red-hot; or white-hot. It came through that window and struck the radiator and fell to the floor. You see it set the floor afire."

"I see," said Melicent.

"We put out the fire and cooled it with water. It is hardly cool." He touched it and picked it up gingerly, and then replaced it on its spot on the floor. "You can plainly see its path."

He pointed to the window, the upper pane of which was shattered and the blind torn through. He pointed to the radiator against the inner wall opposite the window. It was painted tan to harmonize with the wall paper; and about halfway up the radiator, showed a black scar in the paint and the iron was broken.

"You see," Theodore repeated. "It came through the window, struck the radiator and fell to the floor--burning. You see how much water we had to pour on it to put it out."

"I see," said Melicent; and since he left the object on the floor, she bent over it, too.

Donald was beside her, watching her and his uncle and the object. He had said nothing since she had come into the room.

"It's really cool now," he told her, and he picked up the strange projectile. It was the size of two fists, irregularly shaped and pitted like slag but it was smooth, not sharp, at the edges of the indentations.

Melicent touched it in Don's hand; and it was cool, but not cold. The metal of the door knob, which she next touched for comparison, was cooler.

"What is it?" she asked, herself quivering a little.

"What does it look like to you?" Donald challenged her.

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," returned Donald bluntly. "You know what it looks like; and I do, too."

"It is perfectly plain what it is," announced Theodore proudly. Yes, proudly was right; and now Melicent realized the nature of the emotion which mingled with his fright. It was a sort of exaltation--a queer, exalted excitement. "It is a small meteorite. It is a bit of cosmic material--a shred of some star which, wandering near the world, came in my window."

"And might have killed you," said Donald.

"Might have," agreed Theodore, "but obviously did not. The danger from it, therefore, is patently past; but there remains its meaning."

"Its meaning?" said Melicent.

"Its significance, obviously," replied Theodore. "My stars, my stars would speak directly to me."

"Bosh, uncle!" Donald objected roughly. "What more, nephew, would be required to convince you? Could there be an intervention--a message more direct?"

"How do you read the message, uncle?"

"I don't know; but Miss Loring will not be in doubt. She will know at once. What time is it?"

"Four o'clock."

"I should call her, anyway."

"No; not now."

"Why not now?"

Donald could offer no objection more convincing than the hour of the night. He seemed to Melicent upset and confused; on the other hand, Theodore Cornwall was becoming clearer in his mind each moment.

"I was wavering--I confess it now--in my allegiance to the stars," he announced.

"So this was sent to warn me."

"Warn you," muttered Donald.

"Give it to me," ordered Theodore and he obtained it. "Plainly it was meant for me."

"Plainly," agreed Donald; and they stared at each other.

Donald first remembered Melicent and he turned to her. "You must go back to bed."

"I can't think of it," said Melicent.

"You can do nothing here," Donald told her and he led her into the hall, closing the door behind them.

"Do you know anything about that--thing?" he demanded.

"Know anything?"

"I mean, what did you see or hear? What alarmed you?"

"I saw it outside, I think," said Melicent. "There seemed to be a flash; then I heard it."

"Seemed to be a flash?"

"I couldn't be sure. I was almost asleep; my eyes were closed; but I think there was a bright flash. Then I heard the smash when it hit."

"Yes; it came in through the window, as he said--missing him by perhaps eight feet."

"Did it miss you by much more? You were sleeping in there, weren't you?"

"On the couch. It went by at my feet. I didn't see it go by; the smash woke me up; and there it was on the floor, burning the floor."

"Donald!" exclaimed Melicent, suddenly seizing him. "
What is it?
What in the world is it?"

"Melicent, I don't know!"

"It can't be a meteorite--or can it?"

He had clasped her, holding her close before him; and they clung together for a moment like children in a thunderstorm. "Of course it can be a meteorite," Donald whispered. "As he said, a shred of some star. There are millions and billions and billions of shreds of stars and worlds and comets forever wandering through space. The earth sweeps up hundreds of thousands--millions each day. Most of them burn out, of course, in the upper atmosphere with barely a flash that anyone can see. A few--one in a million or more--are big enough to get through the atmosphere and strike the earth.

"They strike mostly in waste places or in the sea; because, of course, there's so many waste places and so much sea. But there's no reason why one shouldn't some time strike in a city. In fact, they sometimes have, as everybody knows. But I never heard of one coming into one's room. . . . Yet, why not that, too?"

"To-night?" said Melicent. "After the sign?"

"That's it, of course. That's what got me, too. There was the fog, you know, that killed Aunt Alice."

"I know very well," replied Melicent. "No one could have poisoned that; no one could have sent the fog. It must have--just come."

"And this--this?"

He could make no reply. He asked: "Where's Aunt Hannah?"

"She didn't awake."

"Are you sure she can awake?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I said. Hadn't you better go back to her? If she awakes, don't tell her of this, will you? Not to-night, anyway. I've got too many things to think out; and I'd better go back to Uncle Theodore. If there's anything wrong with her, of course you'll--"

"Of course."

He bent forward suddenly, and she raised her lips. He kissed her and then thrust her away. "We depend on each other," he said.

"Always."

"All right."

He was gone; and her duty was to return to her room where she promptly learned that Hannah Cornwall was quite capable of awakening. In fact, she had awakened and had entered the room which Melicent had deserted. She was standing, in her night clothes, at the middle of the floor.

"Where have you been, Miss Waring?"

"In the hall."

"I heard voices; whispering. Who was with you?"

"Donald-your nephew."

"I suspected that. When did you go out there?"

"I don't know; perhaps a quarter hour ago."

"How long have such meetings been going on?"

"They haven't been going on, Miss Cornwall. To-night there was an alarm."

Melicent caught herself quickly, reminded of her promise just given to Donald not to report to his aunt the matter of the meteorite; however, having started upon an explanation, she had to give one; and so, instead of telling what had just happened, she related her earlier expedition into the living room, as if it had just occurred. It did not satisfy Miss Cornwall, who complained: "I don't see why in the world you would want to go out and expose yourself to risks like that. It isn't sensible and it isn't nice." There was a short pause and then Miss Cornwall accused her: "And do you realize what you have done? You left this door open behind you; and you've given away the fact that we sleep in each other's rooms."

"But only to your nephew," Melicent defended herself.

"Only to my nephew!" Miss Cornwall mocked in such a tone that Melicent added:

"And I don't believe he noticed."

"Of course he noticed. You have seriously impaired one of the few circumstances that made it possible for me to exist with any degree of security, now that you have exposed our plan, our system."

"But," pleaded Melicent, "it was only Donald who found out--"

"Only Donald!" Miss Cornwall cast back at her. "Only Donald. And Donald was the only one who was present when his father died. And Donald arrived just after Everett died. And Donald was in Brussels, safely away, when the fog came that killed Alice. And Donald to-night has posted himself as my--brother Theodore's keeper, after Theodore got his death message. Did it ever occur to you"--and her voice sank to a ghastly whisper--"that I wanted to keep my secret from Donald perhaps more than from any of the others?"

Melicent shrank from Miss Cornwall. "I'm sorry; but--but it must be inconceivable that Donald--"

The old woman straightened up. "You ought to be sorry. Twice during the last few minutes you have called my nephew by his first name. Under normal circumstances I might be sufficiently democratic not to resent that fact, but with things as they are, I think any such familiarity, even if it is unconscious, is decidedly unappropriate. I will go back to your room to sleep. Since our custom of exchanging rooms has been discovered, it will be assumed that we will now change back, and consequently we shall not do so.

Heretofore you have always been a great satisfaction to me, Miss Waring, but to-night I feel that you have acted beyond your authority and, I may add, in a manner that is almost imbecile." Miss Cornwall retreated and closed the door.

Melicent returned to bed; and her mind did not follow Miss Cornwall an instant after the closing the door. Her whole thought and feeling sought the room where Donald again confronted his uncle with the strange, scarred bit of pitted metal in his hand. Was it actually a meteorite--a scrap of some star? Was there actual significance in its coming to Theodore Cornwall, in this queer crisis of his life? Or was it purely an accident-a cosmic coincidence without any meaning at all?

All the world, not long ago, read meaning into anything striking from the stars.

An eclipse halted a battle upon which an empire depended; a comet heralded the Norman conquest of England. Were they all wrong who read, for ages, human fate from portends in the sky?

Plainly, Theodore Cornwall had come to be more pleased than frightened by what had happened. It heightened his importance, flattered him with a sense of celestial attention. A meteorite, to warn him, had entered his room.

But did Donald believe that? Melicent was sure that he did not. He had been finding, through those minutes of surprise and confusion, some other explanation of it all.

What?

She lay thinking about Donald, dwelling on their first meeting in the old house of Hannah's and their encounter again at night in the eerie light of the room which was beginning to burn. She compared that night with this; and contrasting only the minute in the burning room with the minutes in the dark of the living-room when he held her behind him, she realized how very far Donald Cornwall and Melicent Waring had traveled on the trail--to what? Love? Well, to something.

Then there was their kiss, which neither had planned or consciously intended, but which they had had to give each other to-night.

Was she in love with him? At every one of their highly temporary intervals of peace and pleasantess, she had enjoyed being with him.

Melicent was ripened and ready for love. She was at an age when most girls have already loved at least once, and only the diligence with which she had pursued self-education, and the attention she had devoted to her business, had kept her from an earlier surrender.

Donald had great strength, both physical, expressed in his tall and powerful frame, and intellectually, shining from his vivid eyes. The shape of his chin was an index of some fixity of purpose. His mouth was not without humor and both the curl and color of his hair spoke of vitality. In those few intervals during which they had been a young man and a young woman and no mote, she had an acute consciousness of yearning born within herself. He had reflected it.

Nevertheless, love--real love--scarcely could be expected to develop under the exciting and gruesome circumstances in which both she and Donald lived. Her own emotions--and his, too--were not to be trusted. Emotions of some sort constantly were being aroused; emotions of one sort exaggerated feelings of another. Like to-night when neither of them intended to kiss; and they had, because they were scared and a little in awe at the idea that a shred of a star had come to give them a warning.

She had promised, however, to depend on him; and promised that he could depend on her. Then what was that his aunt had said? He, it had been, who most of all was not to know that Miss Cornwall and she changed rooms!

The sun was shining bright; the sun was high over the city. It was nearing noon; for, at last, Melicent had fallen asleep and in the morning Miss Cornwall had let her sleep.

Miss Cornwall was up and about. Her room was empty and Melicent, dressing, learned from a servant that Miss Cornwall had breakfasted two hours ago and was now in her sister's suite. Mr. Donald Cornwall had gone out; Mr. Theodore Cornwall was at breakfast.

So nothing more had happened during the night. Melicent found Theodore alone at the breakfast table where a place was set for her.