Kerry (12 page)

“Oh, but there you are mistaken,” said the quiet assured voice. “He was there. ‘In the beginning God created—’ The Hebrew word used for God in that first verse of Genesis is in the plural and means not God a single person, but
the Godhead
, the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. That brings us face-to-face with the mystery of the Godhead of course. But over in the book of John, in the first verse we read: ‘In the beginning was the Word—
Word
in the original Greek signifies the Messiah—and the Word was with God, and the Word
was
God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.’”

“What!” said Kerry, “do you mean that Jesus made the world?”

“He certainly did.”

“But He was not born yet.”

“Not in His human form. But He always existed, and scripture distinctly says that He was there when the worlds were made and He created them. Jesus is God made human, that He might take man’s debt of sin upon Himself. Don’t you understand?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Kerry solemnly, “I never heard anything like this before. It does not sound like any creed I ever heard of before.”

“It is not a creed. It is simply God’s Word.”

“Go on, please, tell me about His coming again. I know of course in general that He was supposed to have been born on the earth, that He lived a beautiful life, and that He died on the cross presumably for the sins of the world, but I never heard that anybody believed He was coming again. Is it unique to a few people? Is it something new?”

“No. The Church throughout the ages has believed it but strangely enough has not given much heed to it for centuries. Yet it is mentioned in the New Testament more often than any other doctrine. Christ Himself promised it before He left the earth. The angels stated it as a fact to comfort His sorrowing disciples while they watched Him ascend into heaven. There are many promises of great blessing to those who are watching and waiting for His coming. In fact, He Himself, when He established the Lord’s Supper, said that His people were to observe it as a memorial to Him ’till He come’!”

“That sounds very strange and wonderful,” said Kerry thoughtfully. “It would make life worth living if one could believe a thing like that. Even though everything were very hard, one could stand it, if there were something like that to look forward to. But what makes you think, even if it is true, that it might be soon? It is a great many years since the Bible was written. All those people died and never saw Him come back. Why is He any more likely to come now?”

“Because the things have happened that He said were to be the signs of His coming.”

“What things?”

“Events in Palestine; many things concerning the Jews; the talk of world peace; the rise of Rome into prominence once more; the League of Nations; and perhaps more than anything else the falling away of professing Christians from a firm belief in the Bible as the Word of God. Things in the moral, the intellectual, and even the physical world are all marching along just as prophecy foretold they would do in this age. It is a marvelous story. I would like an opportunity to tell it to you if you are interested, and to bring you into touch with the words in the Book.”

“It sounds marvelous,” said Kerry, “but it sounds fanciful. It seems too wonderful to be true. It is weird. It is uncanny, like science.”

“It is much more true than science,” said McNair reverently. “It never changes. This has been truth through the ages, made plain only as the knowledge was needed. God ordered that some of these prophecies should be sealed up until the time of the end, and then the wise should understand, but none of the unbelieving should understand!”

“Oh!” said Kerry softly. “That sounds—Why, I can see how that would be. That is like science, too. The wise understand, slowly, bit by bit—take electricity, for instance! But is it really accurate? Can you prove all this you have been telling me? Or have you just accepted some other person’s word about it? Excuse me, I do not mean to be rude. I really want to know.”

“I understand,” said McNair. “Yes, I know it to be true. Yes, I can prove it to you if you will give me opportunity, prove it to you from the Word of God. There is no other place to go. All other sources are shifting sands, one day standing on one theory, another day on another.”

Kerry was silent for a full minute, sitting thoughtfully looking at the stars.

“But about that silver trumpet,” she said softly, “was that real, too? And you haven’t told me why He is coming again and what is going to happen then.”

“Well, so this is where you have hidden yourselves away, is it?” said a hard nasal voice from the shadows behind them. “Nice night again in spite of all predictions, but I think it’ll rain before morning. I saw a cloud off on the horizon. This sort of thing never lasts at this time of year.”

McNair started up from his chair.

“Yes, and it is late. Miss Kavanaugh, I shouldn’t have kept you here all this time away from your friends.”

“It’s been wonderful up here,” said Kerry, beginning to shed her wrappings, and gripping her new bag furtively.

“What have you two found to talk about all this time up here away from everyone?” asked Dawson in a tone that seemed to mean geniality, though there was an underlying suspicion in the accents.

“Stars!” said Kerry joyously. “Aren’t they lovely! I’ve learned a lot about them, how they were made, and—other things. You ought to talk with Mr. McNair, Professor Dawson. He knows a lot of interesting things. But I’ll have to say good night now. I’m not supposed to stay up late on this voyage.”

McNair gathered up the blankets and followed her, and Dawson tagged along behind. Again he had succeeded only in dispersing the gathering. But he shut his lips grimly and watched them, a sinister gleam in his black eyes. He had been in his stateroom all the afternoon writing. Time would tell.

The first thing Kerry did when she was safely shut into her room was to unlock her trunk, undo that bundle of pictures, and rip open one of the magazine leaves to see if the notes were still there. They were all there. None of them seemed to have been disturbed.

But her old briefcase, in which she used to keep her papers and which she thought she had left strapped up and neatly stowed at the side of the wardrobe, was lying unstrapped on her bed. Did she or did she not put it away before she went to dinner?

G
raham McNair found Kerry on deck quite early the next morning. She was standing by herself, wrapped closely in her coat, her bright wool bag tucked under her arm. He noticed the trailing vivid threads of green silk fringe that had escaped from the top of the bag, the floating vivid wisp of red-gold hair that had escaped from her little brown hat, and the touch of colors pleased him. She looked like a picture with her delicate profile etched against the sea and sky, her bright hair blowing.

But when he came nearer he noticed a shadow in her eyes, something that he was sure had not been there the day before. Even the smile with which she greeted him had an absentminded air about it.

“You are worrying about something,” he stated intimately, after they had exchanged remarks about the morning.

She flashed him a quick comprehending look. “How did you know?”

He met her gaze with a fine understanding one.

“I know.” He smiled. “It is just written in your face, that is all. I wonder, if I could help at all?”

“Oh, my face!” said Kerry. “My father used to tell me that he could read me like a book. He tried so hard to train me not to herald all my feelings to the world. And I thought I was succeeding! Just see!”

McNair smiled down at her again.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You succeed better than you realize. I haven’t been able to read you at all well until this morning when I caught you off your guard. In fact I’ve tried very hard to find out about one or two things, and I am just as much in the dark as when I came on shipboard.”

Kerry flashed him a glance of wondering interest.

“What could you possibly want to know about me that I’ve been so secretive about?” she challenged brightly.

“Well to begin with, I can’t quite make out your attitude toward Dawson. I wish I knew just what relation he sustains toward you, what interest he has in you. Please don’t think I’m trying to be impertinent. I had a reason for wishing to know.”

“I wish I knew!”
said Kerry fervently, the troubled look coming into her eyes again. “I wonder—would it be wrong to ask advice of a stranger? You have been so kind—and seem so sane! I don’t like to burden others with my perplexities but—”

“It certainly would not be wrong!” said McNair eagerly. “I only wish you would let me help you if there is anything I can do. And please don’t count me a stranger. I thought we had got beyond that the last two evenings.” She flashed him a look of friendliness.

“Thank you,” she said, “I’ll think of you as a friend hereafter.”

“And please understand that whatever you say I shall regard in the strictest confidence, and afterward it shall be as if you had not spoken, if that is your wish.”

“Thank you, I know I can trust you,” she said gravely. “I was only not quite sure whether it was right for me to bother you. Very well, then, Mr. McNair, what would you do if you had lost a very important paper under circumstances that made you think that someone had entered your stateroom and taken it away?”

McNair gave her a quick, keen startled look before he answered. Then he spoke gravely.

“Generally speaking I should tell the steward of the ship immediately.”

“But—would he have any possible way to recover the paper without making a great fuss and letting everybody know about it?”

“Yes,” said McNair, still gravely, “I think he would. I have known of instances of such recoveries on other voyages. And I happen to know this man. You can trust him. But—may I know a little more about the circumstances? I don’t like to give advice off hand, although perhaps you would rather confide in the steward.”

“No!” said Kerry quickly. “I would much rather tell you. I am not sure but I am very silly in imagining anything wrong. I have tried all night to be sensible and think the paper would turn up by daylight, although I had thoroughly searched the room several times, and asked the stewardess. But this morning when I began to search again I found a fountain pen just under the edge of my berth, and inside my
locked trunk
was a strange pencil that did not belong to me. The fountain pen had a blue and white mottled barrel, and the pencil was yellow with a rubber band wound around its middle.”

“Ah!” said McNair under his breath.

“But of course there are many yellow pencils and blue penholders in the world,” argued Kerry.

“What reason has Dawson to want that paper?” asked McNair. “Do you know? Or do you suspect? Of course I’ve seen such a pen and pencil sticking from his vest pocket.”

“I’d better tell you everything,” said Kerry with troubled brow, looking with unseeing eyes off to sea. “Of course his particular pen and pencil may still be in his vest pocket this morning. I want to be fair.”

“I think you had better tell me the whole story,” said the young man. “I perhaps can help a lot. And if I can’t it won’t do you any harm, I’ll promise that.”

“Well,” began Kerry, dropping her voice, “yesterday morning I did not go down to breakfast. I wanted to work. When I opened my door to go out at noon one of the pages I had been copying, which had escaped my notice when I gathered the papers up to put them away, blew out of the door and a little way down the corridor. I reached after it, but Professor Dawson, who was coming from the other end of the corridor, got it first and instead of giving it to me at once as I expected, he held it for what seemed to me like a full minute, while he read it.”

“What unspeakable rudeness!”

“When he did give to it to me he seemed almost—reluctant—to give it up. I tossed it inside the door and it landed on the bed. I locked the door. I was vexed but I walked with him down the corridor. We did not talk. He seemed rather absentminded. We went into the dining room together, and later when others had been seated he left the table for a few minutes, professedly to get a joke he wished to read to us. Perhaps you remember that he followed me from the table. You certainly heard him try to make a ‘conference’ date with me last night, as he called it. So he followed me and demanded that I come out on deck at once as he said he had something very important to say to me.”

“Had he ever been associated with your father?” asked McNair suddenly.

“Not that I know of,” said Kerry. “He is an utter stranger to me. So I was the more surprised when he began to talk. He said that he wanted to help me, and when I asked him what he meant he said he knew that I was getting my father’s book ready for publication, and he would be glad to help in any revising or altering that was necessary. He said that he, being a scientist, would be more fitted to do the work than I would. He insinuated a friendship and association with my father, which I am sure never existed. I was so angry that I could scarcely answer him, but I managed to control my voice and make him understand that whatever my father had written needed no altering or revising, and that I was not engaged in any such business as he seemed to suppose. I have been my father’s typist of course, for some time past, and there were a few remaining pages that needed copying after he died, because of corrections and alterations he had made, but I would as soon attempt to pull one of the stars to pieces and put it together in another way, as to alter anything that my father had written, unless he had given me explicit instructions to do so. Besides, I thought the man impertinent. I do not know how he even knew my father had been writing a book unless some hints had got into the scientific magazines. I was so dreadfully upset about it that I am afraid I was very rude to him. But—when I went back to my room that page of manuscript that I had thrown on my bed was
gone!
I rang for the stewardess, but she said she had not been in the room!”