The House of Mystery | Page 8

finger when they buried her. That's why--" to put the brake on his rapidly running sentiment, he ventured one of his rare pleasantries at this point--"that's why I'm still a stock newspaper feature as one of the great matches for ambitious society girls."
Bulger, listening, was observing also. Within the front cover of the case were two sets of initials in old English letters--"R.H.N." and "H.W." His mind, a little confused by its wanderings in strange fields, tried idly to match "H.W." with names. Suddenly he felt the necessity of expressing sympathy.
"Poor--" he began, but Norcross, by a swift outward gesture of the hand, stopped and saved him.
[Illustration: "IT WASN'T THE MONEY; IT WAS THE GAME--"]
"Well, I got in after that," Norcross went on, "and I drove 'em! It wasn't the money; it was the game. She'd have had the spending of that. And it isn't just to see her--it's to know if she is still waiting--and if we'll make up for thirty years--out there."
As Bulger handed back the locket, the secretary knocked again. Norcross started; something seemed to snap into place; he was again the silent, guarded baron of the railroads. He dropped the locket into the box, closed it. "The automobile," said his secretary. Norcross nodded, and indicated the box. The secretary bore it away.
"Come up to dinner Tuesday," said Norcross in his normal tone. But his voice quavered a little for a moment as he added:
"You're good at forgetting?"
"Possessor of the best forgettery you ever saw," responded Bulger. Forthwith, they turned to speech of the railroad rate bill.
* * * * *
When, after a mufti dinner at the club, Bulger reached his bachelor apartments, he found a telegram. The envelope bore his office address; by that sign he knew, even before he unfolded the yellow paper, that it was the important telegram from his partner, the crucial telegram, for which he had been waiting these two days. It must have come to the office after he left. He got out the code book from his desk, laid it open beside the sheet, and began to decipher, his face whitening as he went on:
BUTTE, MONT.
Reports of expert phony. Think Oppendike salted it on him. They will finish this vein in a month. Then the show will bust. Federated Copper Company will not bite and too late now to unload on public. Something must be done. Can't you use your drag with Norcross somehow?
WATSON.
Bulger, twisting the piece of yellow paper, stared out into the street. His "drag with Norcross!" What had that ever brought, what could it ever bring, except advertising and vague standing? Yet Norcross by a word, a wink, could give him information which, rightly used, would cancel all the losses of this unfortunate plunge in the Mongolia Mine. But Norcross would never give that word, that wink; and to fish for it were folly. Norcross never broke the rules of the lone game which he played.
As Bulger stood there, immovable except for the nervous hands which still twisted and worried the telegram, he saw a sign on the building opposite. The first line, bearing the name, doubtless, was illegible; the second, fully legible, lingered for a long time merely in his perceptions before it reached and touched his consciousness.
"CLAIRVOYANT," it read.
He started, leaned on a table as though from weakness, and continued to stare at the sign.
"Who is the cleverest fakir in that business?" he said at length to himself.
And then, after a few intent minutes:
"When he was a freight clerk--thirty years ago--that was at Farnham Mills--'H.W.'--granite shaft--sure it can be done!"

III
THE LIGHT
As Dr. Blake tucked his racket under his arm and came down to the net, the breeze caught a corner of her veil and let the sunlight run clear across her face. He realized, in that moment, how the burning interest as a man, which he had developed in these three weeks for Annette Markham, had quite submerged his interest as a physician. For health, this was a different creature from the one whom he had studied in the parlor-car. Her color ran high; the greatest alarmist in the profession would have wasted no thought on her heart valves; the look as of one "called" had passed. Though she still appeared a little grave, it was a healthy, attractive gravity; and take it all in all she had smiled much during three weeks of daily walks and rides and tennis. Indeed, now that he remembered it, her tennis measured the gradual change. She would never be good at tennis; she had no inner strength and no "game sense." But at first she had played in a kind of stupor; again and again she would stand at the backline in a brown study until the passage of the ball woke her with an apologetic start. Now,