The Sinister Lake

Front matter

The Sinister Lake

By Geraldine Bonner Author of “The Emigrant Trail,” “The Girl at Central,” etc.

The flame shot up, trembled in transparent beauty, and died. Blatch poured the burned brandy into his cup. “Do you think Frank Harmon knows what this man really is?”

Part I

Part I of a Thrilling Two-Part Story

prologue

PROLOGUE.

WHAT really did happen at Jaspar Blatch’s country place, Hinterland, on the last fateful summer of his ownership, has long been a matter of question and conjecture. Of course there were inquiries and depositions and all the rest of it, but the world—his own and the outer one which was interested in everything pertaining to the grisly circumstances—always cherished a conviction that there was more to it than came out. When the first meager filterings of news from Canada struck the city, the papers were kept busy purveying the usual lies and surmises, especially the yellow ones with their sleuthhound scent for a mystery in high life. But presently a newer sensation squeezed it out, and the Blatch story was retired to the back page and faded away.

The press, however, is more crowded than the daily life of the well-to-do New Yorker, and he talked and speculated for weeks. It was all so startling. Apart from the catastrophe, there was the presence of the Harmon children, people nobody ever heard of, unexpectedly emerging from the limbo of the unknown as vital factors in the life of one of the most unique—shall I say mysterious—figures in the city. Everybody was running about asking everybody else who were the Harmon children, who so suddenly2 But I mustn’t tell too much or I'll spoil the story. What I can say is that there were those who went from club to tea, stepping delicately and whispering, into the ear inclined at a welcoming angle, that a good deal wasn’t told, and in their opinion this, that, and the other facts had been suppressed. Very fantastic most of it and yet, when you come to know the truth, not half as fantastic—or as horrible—as what really were the facts and what led up to them.

Now time has passed, Blatch’s sun has set2 Again I mustn’t anticipate. There are young people in New York—the last callow crop—who, I fancy, only dimly remember him and Hinterland and the Harmon children. Perhaps I am writing this for them; it may give them a pleasant, creepy chill on one of those rare evenings when they stay at home and in sheer desperation take up a book. Or I may be writing it for an older group, who knew the small, shriveled figure and were proud to salute it as the Blatch motor rolled sumptuously by. They ought to be interested, for they gossiped enough about the man when he was among them, were guests at the parties in the big stone house on Fifth Avenue. A good many of them did amazing things to get invitations, but it was only to say that they’d been inside the house; not one of them but felt relieved when they could pass on from the host’s suavely sardonic greetings, for they were afraid of him. As it afterward developed, they showed a much keener instinct than one would have supposed they possessed. When they read it—and I think they will, for curiosity is one of the most persistent of human weaknesses—their uncertainties and questions should be set at rest and answered.

How did I come by my knowledge? That is one of the secrets an author ought to keep. But I will say something, for my narrative might not convince the doubting Thomases without some proof. I knew old Tom McGraw well. He died only last winter, in the secluded quiet of a little house he’d bought in the Bronx. A queer old fellow, very secretive, but in his last years, when the friendship was established and old age had limbered the rigidity of temperament and training, he grew more expansive. What he told me, as first-hand witness, and what he had sensed as one who knew Blatch’s character and history, furnished the main facts of the story. Of course I had to piece out a good deal, but that is a novelist’s function. The links in the chain had to be inserted as I guessed them. And after you have finished, you will see that I must have guessed right. It couldn’t have been any other way.

I

CHAPTER I.

Out of the door of a gray-stone house on that part of Fifth Avenue which has been called “The Mile of Millionaires,” a gentleman came forth. At the curb, an open motor, an object of shining perfection, awaited him. But before he made his way to it, he halted on the steps, glancing about him as if to take in the scene and the suave, quiet beauty of the afternoon. He looked up the long perspective, with its rampart of majestic houses, and at the Park’s bosky reaches, dappled by tree shadows and the slanting light on lawns. It was a gracious prospect, calm in its solid grandeur, sinking into a period of repose, for it was the end of June and the people who lived there had almost all left town.

That the gentleman on the steps should still be in the city, still have his house open, showed him as an original, one who holds himself aloof from the herd movements. And for this—as well as for other things—he was well known; even if he had flown in the face of public opinion by staying in town all summer, nobody would have been surprised. His eccentricities did not extend to outward forms; witness the meticulous correctness of the motor and the subdued elegance of his own clothing. That he was dressed in the height of fashion any one could see, but that it was a height where the conspicuous had no place, only those noticed who knew about such things.

At the door of the motor, he spoke to the waiting footman—a word of greeting cold and concise, just sufficient to recognize the man as a human entity, without relaxing their relation as master and servant. Then he gave an address in an obscure quarter of the city, where such vehicles as his, conveying such a person as himself, were seldom seen. The men on the front seat had been there before, but even if they hadn't, they were too accustomed to his divergences from a standardized line of conduct to feel either curiosity or surprise.

Propped in the angle of the tonneau, a wide, unoccupied stretch of cushion extended beyond him, for he was made on a small scale. Under the brim of his top hat, his face showed as that of an aging man, looking much older than his years, which were fifty-seven. It did not match his body—which suggested youth in an agile, wiry spareness—but was haggard and lined, the skin withered as if tropic suns might have scorched or tempests dried it to a leathern dessication. Yet, seared and riven, it was a face charged with life—seemed a battered screen behind which the spirit glowed with eager intensity. The eyes, deep set in sunken orbits, were singularly bright, like young, sparkling eyes looking through a ravaged mask.

The motor, turning from the curb with a circling sweep, headed for down-town, passing a rubber-neck wagon lumbering northward. The man with the megaphone did not see it, his glance fixed on the house which it had just left and to which he now drew the attention of his passengers. His voice, coming in a muffled, hollow note from the megaphone’s throat, announced it as the residence of Jaspar Blatch, accounted by many one of the finest examples of architecture on the Avenue.

The muffled, hollow notes from the megaphone’s throat announced it as the residence of Jaspar Blatch, accounted by many one of the finest examples of architecture on the Avenue.

The passengers submissively looked—let their eyes wander from the entrance, beneath a deeply cut frame of carving, up the gray façade, its sober dignity brightened by jardinières of rose pink and trailing green, its windows veiled by curtains of Italian lace. Some bent forward in eager scrutiny, recognizing its claims to attention, perhaps having heard of it. The man with the megaphone knew that kind, generally architects, more interested in the house than in its owner. But most of them cocked their heads and listened while he summed up Blatch in a hollow roar—the multimillionaire and art collector, come to his wealth by sudden inheritance, as in a story in a book. And then, the next house on his list looming into view, he had to hurry up with Blatch, dispose of him in a last valedictory bellow, as a bachelor and a recluse living alone among his art treasures, one of the finest private collections in the city of New York.

The house returned no sign of life to the stares that raked its proud front. Old Tom, Blatch’s valet, pottering about in his master’s room, saw the wagon through the curtains and was not sufficiently interested to give it a second glance. Had the other servants noticed it, they would have smiled superciliously. They knew what was being said and liked it, though it was their pose to be derisive.

On this mellow June day, the lower windows were open, letting in the city’s voice. It entered the rich, still place, then died away like a vulgar visitor abashed before unaccustomed refinements. The lights that came with it revealed vistas of chaste magnificence, rooms opening from rooms, slants of sun on shining floors, glints of bronze and marble. The last was a picture gallery built in the rear, a brilliant finale to the perspective, with the afternoon’s brightness bathing its walls.

The house was very quiet, as it nearly always was. Now and then its tranquility was disrupted by an entertainment, a sumptuous affair to return a season’s hospitalities. Then the city’s elect came, jostled one another on the stairs, heard opera singers sing and celebrities play, and said as little as they dared to their host, whose polished courtesy always seemed to mask an ironical disdain. But this didn’t happen often; Blatch abhorred noise and bustle, wanted to live in studious peace among his treasures. New servants entering his employment were so instructed by old Tom, who was the head of the establishment and had been with Blatch since those legendary days when he had been young and poor.

Beside the butler, in some secret niche of his own, there was only one other person on the ground floor. This was the secretary, Joe Adamson, who was sitting in the library waiting for a visitor.

The library was back to the left, before you reached the picture gallery, its stained-glass windows shutting out brick walls and flagging. It was an impressive room, the books that mounted in lines to its coffered ceiling imparting an air of friendliness to its somber grandeurs. Adamson, sprawled in an easy-chair, was reading one. His attitude suggested revolt against the oppressive perfections among which he lived, and a knowledge that his employer was out. One leg was thrown over the side of the chair, one arm uplifted against its back, the hand absently pawing at his hair. He was a long, graceful, muscular young man of twenty-six, healthily brown-tinted, cleanly shaven, and well-featured—the kind of young man the large colleges turn out by the hundreds every spring.

He had been four years with Blatch, ever since he had graduated. His class-mates had expected better of him; a secretaryship, no matter how highly paid, was well enough for a starting point, but not just where one would have expected Joe Adamson to stick. Knowing ones said that they weren't surprised; there had always been a quality of go-as-you-please, not precisely laziness, but lack of initiative, about Joe. He had the brains for success, but brains had to be reinforced by hustle and push.

Adamson had thought about it a good deal himself and pondered the something that had held him back while the others forged ahead. It was not, as they had said, laziness or want of enterprise either—it was a troublesome intruding of the affections. They kept getting in the way, disqualifying him for the race, like a weakened joint or a stiff muscle. For success the head must rule, and with him it was the heart, directing his conduct, governing his actions, making the great prizes look mean. It was not to his interest to stay with Blatch, and he saw it clearly and stayed on. In the four years of their companionship, he had come to care more for that strange and solitary being than for any other man he knew. Also, he thought himself necessary to Blatch’s comfort and convenience.

The silence that lay thick as an essence over the lower floor was reft asunder by the tinkling of a bell. Adamson threw down his book and jumped up, pulling and shaking himself into the trimness that befitted his position and the dignity of the visitor he expected.

This was a man, large and bald, with the firmness of authority in his heavy tread and the stamp of it on his face, at once bland and stern. Long lips folded together in a flexible line, deep furrows separating their corners from the smooth, fat expanse of his cheeks. He was a personage, George J. Denby, attorney of the rich and serving Jaspar Blatch in that capacity for the last fifteen years. Half an hour earlier, Adamson had telephoned him, saying that he had some information to impart and would come down to his office. Denby, inquiring where Blatch was and being told that he was out, had answered that he would save Adamson the trouble and come up himself. It was on his way home, he intended leaving the office early, and they could get through their conference before Blatch returned.

The subject of this secret conference had been disturbing them for a month. It dealt with Blatch’s growing interest in the Harmon children.

Very few people knew anything about the Harmon children. Adamson had been ignorant of their existence till his employer one day had announced that he expected them to dinner. There were three of them, and though they were always alluded to as “the Harmon children,” Mary, the eldest, was twenty-four, and the boy, Frank, only two years younger. Even Lottie, the third, though she was ingenuous and naïve, was nineteen, an age at which a New York girl has put away childhood and childish things.

Out of the unknown, unheralded and unexplained, the Harmon children had appeared from Europe and taken a sudden, prominent place in the life of Jaspar Blatch. That he should have refrained from any introductory mention of them was not in itself unusual, for he was a person of proud reticences, vouchsafing no explanation of his actions or affairs. What was unusual was that he should have exhibited so great an interest in any one. The lawyer and the secretary, the one with a long acquaintance to measure by, the other with the advantage of a daily contact, had never seen him diverted from his lonely self-sufficiency by any call to companionship or need of human society. They had been baffled, puzzled, and finally had become uneasy, as they had seen the rich man’s increasing preoccupation in this trio of detached, unrelated, and inexplicable orphans.

That they might be his own children had naturally occurred to both men, but it was a theory they had soon abandoned. At the time when they had been born, Blatch had been prosecuting extensive travels in remote parts of the earth, far from the centers of civilization. No woman had ever figured in his life; the white light of publicity that had beaten on him for the last twenty-five years had revealed no lapse from a monastic austerity. Moreover, if they were his, he would have made provision for them, and Denby knew that his will contained no mention of the name of Harmon. Adamson, who drew his checks and attended to his correspondence, in the four years of his incumbency had never heard of money or letter being sent them.

Each man’s anxiety had risen from his affection for Blatch, but each saw the Harmon children menacing his peace from a different angle. The lawyer envisaged the calamity of an elderly man, notoriously eccentric, falling a prey to a group of youthful schemers. The secretary saw the same man shaken from a cushioned routine and exposed to novel and agitating influences which might react upon him to his own detriment. While he combated Denby’s idea, Adamson was not entirely easy in his mind about one of the Harmon children; he had made discoveries which had led him to believe that they were not all of an equal excellence. And this he resented having to tell Denby; it was like a betrayal.

It was the boy, Frank, he was not sure about. A surface of European polish overlaid what seemed a childishly light and thoughtless disposition, all the more noteworthy as the Harmons had no money, no relatives, and no friends. What added to his discomfort was that the boy’s close companion was a young doctor, Melville Gaynes, whom Adamson instinctively disliked and distrusted. At a former conference, he had agreed to have an investigation made of Frank’s brief career in America and the doctor’s antecedents, and if anything discreditable should turn up, to acquaint Blatch. Then, just as the result had reached him, illumination had come from an unexpected quarter. Tom, the valet, usually as uncommunicative as his master, one night had knocked at Adamson’s door and, with dropped voice and cautionings of secrecy, had told a story that explained the mystery.

It was this story that Adamson now unfolded to the lawyer.

“It goes back to Blatch’s early days. when he was an artist, unknown, without a cent, living in some rookery downtown. Tom was the janitor of the place.”

Denby nodded.

“I remember. There was an illness when Tom took care of him. He mentioned it when I drew his will—offered it as an explanation of the large legacy he left the old fellow.”

“Well, that illness—a terrible one—had an indirect connection with the Harmon children. According to Tom, it was caused by their mother, the result of her treatment of Blatch, who was engaged to her and whom she threw over for a man named Harmon.”

The lawyer compressed his lips, his head teetering in comprehension.

“That lets in some light. So there has been a romance in Blatch’s past. I’ve often wondered.”

“This girl—Alice Brunel was her name—was young and beautiful and poor. She came from the South somewhere—she and a sister—and lived here with an aunt, a Mrs. Hamilton. The girls had a great vogue, cut a wide swath, and became for a time the fashion. Tom found this out later; at the time, all he knew was that Blatch, who had a studio in the place, was painting Alice’s portrait. He used to see her come and go, generally with her sister.

“He knew very little of Blatch himself then—met him on the stairs, now and then tidied up the studio, and says he was always kindly and genial. Yes”—as the lawyer looked up in startled question—“if those aren’t his words, that was the impression he conveyed, He saw the strangeness of it himself, and said that after the illness, Blatch was another man—never came back to what he had been. Well, to go on, one day, going up to the studio on an errand, he found Blatch desperately ill, comatose, half dead. He got in a doctor and, there being no one else to do it, took care of the sick man himself, buying what was needed out of his own pocket. He told it all as if he were ashamed of it. He’s a great old boy, is Tom.

“Blatch hung between life and death, delirious, often raving. From what he said then, Tom got a line on the situation. It was, of course, broken and disjointed, but sufficient to show that the woman had jilted Blatch for a rival who had money. Before he recovered—the illness was long—Tom saw in the papers the notice of Alice Brunel’s marriage to Alexander Harmon, and that they had left immediately for Europe, where Harmon was in the consular service.”

“Umph!” Denby’s glance was musing. “Strange how he could have bottled all this up—never given a hint of it to me or to any one else, as far as I know.”

“And bottled up Tom. I thought I'd got inside his guard long ago, but this is the first time he’s even mentioned the subject to me, and he was as uncomfortable as a conspirator informing on his chief. Blatch’s recovery was slow, and before he could get about, Tom saw that he was a changed man. ‘It was as if the spirit had been drained out of him,’ was the way he expressed it—ambition, hope, interest, all were gone. When he was strong enough to move, he cut the picture to pieces and burned it. He offered no explanation of the act and never has spoken of the woman to Tom from that day to the present. It was when he was beginning to crawl about that the news came of the fortune—fifteen millions from an uncle in New Zealand that he’d never seen and whose name he hardly remembered. Then they started out on those travels—they were years at it—in every odd corner of the globe.”

“Did Tom know if he had ever seen the woman again?”

“I asked him, and he said no—and as he’s never left Blatch’s side from the time of his illness to the present moment, he would know. He never heard Blatch speak of her, of her husband, or of her children, and he’s certain he never saw any of them. Tom himself, when they were in Europe, used to inquire about the Harmons from hotel employees and other travelers. He kept a sort of tab on them that way—knew that they had settled abroad and stayed there. But of late years he’s heard nothing of them—didn’t know the parents were dead till the children turned up in New York as orphans.”

The lawyer pondered a moment, then spoke in a low, ruminative bass:

“I have a vague memory of two girls called Brunel—a long time ago—when I was busy climbing up the ladder. They made rather a splash in a puddle that wasn’t as full then as it is now. One of them married, and they disappeared from the puddle. I imagine that was the Alice who wrecked our friend.”

“‘Wrecked’ is the right word. It accounts for a good deal that, up to now, was unaccountable.”

Denby, striking his hands on the chair arms, heaved himself forward.

“Put in plain words, it explains Blatch’s lack of balance. We all know he’s not normal, and now we know why. A man of high-strung temperament received an unexpected and crushing blow. He recovered from it physically, hut the delicately poised mental equilibrium was never restored.”

Adamson’s glance showed a startled question.

“But you can’t call him insane?”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the other with testy repudiation. “I never thought, much less said, such a thing. Blatch isn’t insane, but he doesn’t walk the chalk line between sanity and insanity as evenly as you or I do. He wobbles a bit. Numberless people do. I could make a good collection from my own clients. And this being the case, Adamson, it’s up to us to be careful of the influences he’s liable to fall under and guard him against bad ones.”

“I understand that perfectly, Mr. Denby. It’s one of the reasons I stay on here. But now that I’ve heard this story, I can’t see anything strange in his interest in the Harmons or any necessity to guard him against them. Here they are, children of his old sweetheart, penniless, without a friend. Knowing him as I do—his lavish generosity, the curious kindness he hides like a sin—it would seem to me only natural that he should want to help them.”

“To be sure—and I’d be the last one to deprive him of what may be an interest for his declining years. The point is, my dear boy, are these young people, of whom we know nothing, just the kind we’d like to see get a strangle hold on our friend?”

Adamson pushed his chair back from the desk. He did not want the lawyer’s eyes on him, but, also, he did not want to wake his curiosity by avoiding them. He tried to speak with an impersonal coolness, and it was hard, for his desire was to speak with the passion of a partisan.

“In my mind there is no doubt about the—er—high character, integrity—all that sort of thing—of Miss Harmon. I’ve met her several times, and I'd swear she is as disinterested, as free from any mercenary motives, as you and I are.”

It was successful. Denby’s eyes, fixed on the colored panes of the window, were blank with their own vision.

“Yes, I’ll admit she impressed me favorably the only time I saw her—once here. A quiet, well-mannered girl—nothing of the adventuress about her.” He swerved his glance back to Adamson, the blankness gone, keen and questioning. “But the boy—how about him? By the way, have you the results of that investigation?”

The young man felt in his pocket and drew out a sheaf of papers, which he looked through as he spoke.

“Yes, they came just before Tom opened up. As far as the boy goes, there’s nothing of any moment—just a lightweight, irresponsible and lazy, spoiled more than anything, I guess. But the doctor chap”—he drew out a paper and held it to the lawyer—“well, you can see for yourself.”

Denby read it and gave forth a grunt:

“Umph—a pretty bad egg. No regular employment, attracted the attention of the police as a suspect in the drug traffic, never has practiced his profession, gambles as a means of livelihood.” He handed the paper back with a dry laugh. “Not just the sort of man one would like to see established on a friendly footing here.”

Adamson spoke eagerly:

“But Gaynes isn’t a member of the Harmon family.”

“No,” countered the other quickly, “but he’s a close friend of a member, a boy of twenty-two, who you yourself say is irresponsible and weak. Blatch must know the result of this inquiry.”

“There’s no question about that.” The young man rose and moved to the window, where he came to a stand, looking out. From behind him, Denby’s voice came, addressing his back:

“You remarked just now on the naturalness of Blatch wanting to befriend the children of his old sweetheart. Isn’t it probable that the children may use this interest to their own advantage—may extort money from him, possibly cajole him into making a will in their favor?”

Adamson turned sharply from the window.

“No—seeing what they are, it’s not only improbable, it’s impossible. As to the will, that’s another matter. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did it of his own volition, without any cajoling.”

“Good Lord!” muttered the man of law in dismay. Then, with a revival of hope, “But he’ll be going to Hinterland soon. That'll take him from under their spell.”

Hinterland was Blatch’s country place, a vast domain in Canada up toward the Hudson Bay country. It was the one of his possessions that figured oftenest in the newspapers, having a wider interest for the general public than his pictures, his antiques, or even himself. A millionaire retreating for his summer into the wilds was a much more novel spectacle than one settling down sociably at Newport or Bar Harbor.

Adamson had begun a slow pacing up and down across the open space beyond the desk. His eyes were on his feet, pressing noiselessly on the soft thickness of the rugs.

“We go in about ten days. But people are sometimes asked to Hinterland. Last year and the summer before, there were a number of guests. It’s the only place where Blatch likes to have them.”

“Good Lord!” murmured the lawyer again, and turned on Adamson a face of consternation. “You don’t think he'll invite them up there?”

“I don’t know. No one knows what he’s going to do till the order’s given. I mention it as a possibility.”

Denby rose, held in dismayed contemplation of this disturbing suggestion.

“They'll have him at their mercy. He couldn’t get away from them. Probably nobody else in the place.” He looked at his companion and once more knew an upwelling of relief. “But you—of course you're always there.”

“Oh, yes. I’m always there.”

“Well, if he should ask them, you could be relied on to watch and yield a counter influence. Outside Tom, he cares more for you than for any one else.”

The young man paused in his walk, looking frowningly at his feet.

“I think he does care for me. He’s certainly treated me with unfailing kindness and generosity.”

“Then it’s up to you to keep him from falling a victim to his own sentimentality. It’s a word I never expected to apply to any action of Jaspar Blatch’s; he’s the last man I’d have thought had a soft spot of that kind in his make-up. But before the chance comes to extend any invitation, tell him about Gaynes. That'll be a check on his hospitable intentions.”

He picked up his gloves from the desk and made a move to go, when a last thought stopped him:

“The children themselves—have you ever heard them make any comment on him? Do they know anything of this story?”