The Slayer of Souls

"I thought there was something white in the woods."

"Where, dear?" he asked coolly.

"Over there beyond the lawn."

What she called the "lawn" was only a vast sheet of pink and white phlox, now all misty with the whirring wings of sphinx-moths and Noctuidæ.

The oak grove beyond was dusky. Cleves could see nothing among the trees.

After a moment they went forward. His arm had fallen away from her shoulders.

There were no lights except in the kitchen when they came in sight of the house. At first nobody was visible on the screened veranda under the orange trees. But when he opened the swing door for her a shadowy figure arose from a chair.

It was John Recklow. He came forward, bent his strong white head, and kissed Tressa's hand.

"Is all well with you, Mrs. Cleves?"

"Yes. I am glad you came."

Cleves clasped the elder man's firm hand.

"I'm glad too, Recklow. You'll stop with us, of course."

"Do you really want me?"

"Of course," said Cleves.

"All right. I've a coon and a surrey behind your house."

So Cleves went around in the dusk and sent the outfit back to the hotel, and he himself carried in Recklow's suitcase.

Then Tressa went away to give instructions, and the two men were left together on the dusky veranda.

"Well?" said Recklow quietly.

Cleves went to him and rested both hands on his shoulders:

"I'm playing absolutely square. She's a perfectly fine girl and she'll have her chance some day, God willing."

"Her chance?" repeated Recklow.

"To marry whatever man she will some day care for."

"I see," said Recklow drily.

There was a silence, then:

"She's simply a splendid specimen of womanhood," said Cleves earnestly. "And intensely interesting to me. Why, Recklow, I haven't known a dull moment – though I fear she has known many – "

"Why?"

"Why? Well, being married to a – a sort of temporary figurehead – shut up here all day alone with a man of no particular interest to her – "

"Don't you interest her?"

"Well, how could I? She didn't choose me because she liked me particularly."

"Didn't she?" asked Recklow, still more drily. "Well, that does make it a trifle dull for you both."

"Not for me," said the younger man naïvely. "She is one of the most interesting women I ever met. And good heavens! – what psychic knowledge that child possesses! She did a thing to-day – merely to amuse me – " He checked himself and looked at Recklow out of sombre eyes.

"What did she do?" inquired the older man.

"I think I'll let her tell you – if she wishes… And that reminds me. Why did you come down here, Recklow?"

"I want to show you something, Cleves. May we step into the house?"

They went into a little lamplit living-room. Recklow handed a newspaper clipping to Cleves: the latter read it, standing:

"Had Deadliest Gas Ready for Germans

"'Lewisite' Might Have Killed Millions

"Washington, April 24. – Guarded night and day and far out of human reach on a pedestal at the Interior Department Exposition here is a tiny vial. It contains a specimen of the deadliest poison ever known, 'Lewisite,' the product of an American scientist.

"Germany escaped this poison by signing the armistice before all the resources of the United States were turned upon her.

"Ten airplanes carrying 'Lewisite' would have wiped out, it is said, every vestige of life – animal and vegetable – in Berlin. A single day's output would snuff out the millions of lives on Manhattan Island. A drop poured in the palm of the hand would penetrate to the blood, reach the heart and kill the victim in agony.

"What was coming to Germany may be imagined by the fact that when the armistice was signed 'Lewisite' was being manufactured at the rate of ten tons a day. Three thousand tons of this most terrible instrument ever conceived for killing would have been ready for business on the American front in France on November 1.

"'Lewisite' is another of the big secrets of the war just leaking out. It was developed in the Bureau of Mines by Professor W. Lee Lewis, of Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., who took a commission as a captain in the army.

"The poison was manufactured in a specially built plant near Cleveland, called the 'Mouse Trap,' because every workman who entered the stockade went under an agreement not to leave the eleven-acre space until the war was won. The object of this, of course, was to protect the secret.

"Work on the plant was started eighteen days after the Bureau of Mines had completed its experiments.

"Experts are certain that no one will want to steal the sample. Everybody at the Exposition, which shows what Secretary Lane's department is doing, keeps as far away from it as possible."

When Cleves had finished reading, he raised his eyes in silence.

"That vial was stolen a week ago," said Recklow gravely, "by a young man who killed one guard and fatally wounded the other."

"Was there any ante-mortem statement?"

"Yes. I've followed the man. I lost all trace of him at Palm Beach, but I picked it up again at Ormond. And now I'm here, Cleves."

"You don't mean you've traced him here!" exclaimed Cleves under his breath.