The closed door
Author: John Fleming Wilson; Mary Ashe Miller
Date: 2024-07-27T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Sea stories; Ship captains -- Fiction; Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction; Shipwrecks -- Fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The closed door

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The closed door

Author: John Fleming Wilson

Mary Ashe Miller

Release date: July 27, 2024 [eBook #74137]
Most recently updated: August 10, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Ainslee's Magazine Co

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLOSED DOOR ***

The Closed Door

By John Fleming Wilson

“I left the wreck in the last boat,” Gorham told me. “It was a very dark and stormy morning and the sea ran before the gale in great splashes of a kind of vivid, intense white. To the east of us the California coast rose like a shadow out of the spume and spindrift. And that woman sat beside me on the thwart and clutched my arm with a steady, relentless strength which affected me more than if she had screamed.”

“I never could understand that affair,” I said. “Harry Owen was not only a seaman of ability and experience, but the last man in the world to——”

Gorham sighed and lifted his tired eyes to mine.

“I have never appeared in the affair, of course,” he remarked. “I was only a passenger on the Shearwater. The underwriters didn’t go into the matter.” My companion sighed again, staring at me owlishly. He rubbed his great forearm thoughtfully. “That woman’s fingers were set in my flesh, I tell you, right through my jacket. And it was precisely as if she were screaming. And any minute I expected a sea to tumble us all into Davy Jones’ locker.”

“His wife?” I commented.

“Of course,” Gorham replied. “So she was—Captain Harry Owen’s wife. And although she had been married to him six years she had never so much as suspected, I think.”

“Suspected what?”

Gorham made a slight gesture of disdain for my dullness.

“Who the other woman was.”

It was my turn to stare. Hadn’t I known Owen for years, been shipmate with him, been his friend? And didn’t everybody know that after he married pretty Sheila McTodd he never so much as glanced at another woman?

“You mean to tell me that there was another woman?” I demanded of Gorham. Then something in the extraordinary expression of his usually calm face stopped me. “Then that explains——”

“Why the Shearwater was, in a way, deliberately cast away,” he finished.

“Did you know the other woman?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Did I know her?” I insisted.

Gorham whispered a name and we looked at each other intently, each waiting for the other to speak.

“It is incredible!” I said finally, and I walked to the window and stared out into the rain that was lashing San Francisco. Then I turned on him fiercely. “You don’t know what you are saying! I tell you Harry Owen, to my certain knowledge, never so much as went to tea with Kitty Melrose after he married Sheila. And of all women to accuse of being—of being—” I shook my fist at Gorham.

He did not move.

“I know!” he said quietly. “I tell you I was there. She was the first woman I saw when our boat finally reached the Western Pacific and we were literally dragged on board out of the boiling sea. The instant I caught her eyes, I knew. She was standing in a sheltered corner of the deckhouse, her dark hair set with pearls of spray and her lips parted in a sort of childlike amazement. It was exactly as if I had been working over a puzzle for years and suddenly the missing bit popped up and completed it, solved it.”

I came back and sat down. I was rather astonished at my own coolness.

“Kitty Melrose was the most charming girl I ever knew,” I remarked. “Clean and fine and upstanding and willful and witching.”

Gorham suddenly brought his great palm down on the chair arm with a mighty smack.

“Of course. We both knew her. Half of us were in love with her. She never looked at any of us. She was at once our best of friends and yet aloof. And of us all but one man touched that secret spot which lies in every woman’s heart—and he went and married the McTodd girl. Nice enough, probably, and all that; but not in Harry Owen’s class nor in Kitty Melrose’s set. And Harry Owen threw away the Shearwater for Kitty’s sake.”

“But he hadn’t met her in years,” I persisted.

“Of course not!” Gorham retorted. “He was in love with her. He didn’t even dare think of her. He had tied himself up tight and fast to Sheila. You remember his marriage?”

“I was on the China coast at the time,” I growled. “I heard some queer things—which I didn’t believe.”

“Right!” was his answer. “But we’re going to get this thing straight. The world has forgotten the wreck of the Shearwater and the mystery of it. But you and I were Harry’s friends. We were Kitty’s friends. And for the sake of the two of them I’m going to tell you the truth to-night. Then we are never going to whisper so much as a word all the rest of our lives. Some people would misunderstand.”

He lighted his pipe deliberately and stared into the grate a moment. Gorham is noted in many ports for his mumness, his almost savage insistence on plain facts, his steady judgment. And here he was talking of a mystery. I felt the note of unsureness in his voice.

“In a case like this,” he began, “I want to go back a little and fix the facts we both know, as a sort of starting point. In the first place, Harry Owen was what we call a gentleman, well bred, pretty well educated, sent to sea as a stripling to make a man out of him, as the phrase runs. But one always saw him sooner or later in the old crowd. The nice crowd you and I knew when we were younger. He got his papers easily enough and gossip ran that he was going to stop ashore and be something in the broking line. He spoke to me about it one trip I made on the old City of Peking. He thought it would be pretty splendid to be a broker. He was tired of the sea—it was no place for an ambitious man—a dog’s life.

“Well, he came home here to San Francisco and played about for a couple of months. Then old Ben Harris offered him a good place in his business. I thought it was settled. Harry was oddly serious-minded about it. Then he suddenly vanished—went off to sea as chief officer of a freighter. You understand me? He fell in love with Kitty Melrose and she refused him. Instead of staying and sticking it out, Harry threw up Ben Harris’ offer and went off. That’s the time some of us remarked that Owen wasn’t the man we thought him. We didn’t know he was in love with Kitty Melrose.”

“And he came back and married Sheila McTodd. That was the end of him socially,” I remarked. “And you ask me to believe the unbelievable—that a man in love with Kitty would marry anybody else. You remember her? I recall one evening I saw her standing in the doorway of her father’s house. I came to the foot of the steps and looked up. And with a perfectly simple and unpremeditated motion she stretched out both her arms, barring the doorway, her firm hands resting on the lintels. I tell you that that unconscious attitude made me feel for an instant a chill, as if the guardian of paradise were barring it to me.”

Gorham nodded.

“Exactly. We can both understand Harry Owen’s frame of mind. That he was an ass is not to the point. Life wasn’t worth living without Kitty—so he went to sea.”

“And married,” I murmured.

“Instead of getting properly drunk!” was the brutal response.

I was scandalized, but my companion would have none of my pleas for decency.

“The young fellow was half crazed,” he repeated, “so he went and married Sheila McTodd. He went to sea the day after the wedding. Some time later I met him in Panama, and he was barely civil. That same night I saw him sitting at a greasy cafe table staring into nothing, an empty glass in his fist. The next day a skipper more than half insinuated that Harry Owen was going to the devil. So he did, for a year. Then something bred in his bone drew him back from the edge and began to remold him. But, as a matter of fact, no career was open to him, except to con freighters back and forth on the Pacific. He had had his chance and lost it.”

“When he lost Kitty Melrose.”

“When he married the McTodd girl,” Gorham corrected me softly. Then he went on: “His history was that of hundreds of other seafaring men from that time on; dogged, hard work, scanty savings and intervals when he had to tramp the streets in search of a berth. But he managed pretty well. He saved money. He treated Sheila in an exemplary manner. But he avoided all contact with the old crowd; he was almost ferocious, at times, when one caught him on the street and spoke of former times. Yet all the while he was working steadily upward. Then he happened on that salvage job of the Mary Foster, and dumped fifteen thousand dollars into Sheila’s bank account. I met him in Liverpool six months later. He was embarrassed, as if he had no business away from the Pacific. It appeared he had a very good command. But he was going back to San Francisco, just the same——”

“Gave up his second chance in a big line,” I interrupted.

Gorham nodded.

“He couldn’t stand it, you see. Kitty was in California. He suffered the agonies of the damned that night in a little hotel near the landing stage—for Harry Owen wanted to talk, to sit there in that infinitely dingy room in that ill-smelling hostel in Liverpool and tell me the truth, the enormous and insurmountable fact of his existence, that he loved Kitty Melrose; and he dared not. But it showed on his face, white and haggard under the tan; in his hard-bitten lips and tense hands. He tossed up his command and took a miserable old tramp back to the Golden Gate. From that time on, he stayed in the coastwise trade.

“Imagine to yourself,” Gorham went on, “the manner of life the man led; instead of getting drunk, he got himself married, and so forever debarred from seeing the one woman the world held for him. He was constantly coming into San Francisco and snatching at the papers to see whether Kitty was engaged, or married; he was constantly leaving the city, knowing that he could never be anything in her splendid life.”

“Ah,” I said, “he talked at last, did he?”

Gorham ignored my thrust.

“There was always Sheila, too. And when I speak of her, of Harry Owen’s wife, I am on firmer ground. She made a confidant of me; she used to visit my office on some excuse or other and conclude by saying abruptly and bitterly, ‘I suppose you won’t tell——’

“That was her complaint about life; none of us who had been part of Harry’s old, youthful days could carry over, so to speak. She was forced to recognize that, when he married her, he had closed a door which she could not pry open.”

Gorham tapped the hot ashes out of his pipe thoughtfully.

“I don’t profess to understand women, but Sheila was angered by the indisputable fact of Harry Owen’s faithfulness to his marriage vows. She knew, as women do know those things, that he was living up to some one else’s standard. And try as she might, she could never ascertain even so much as the name of any woman with whom her husband had been in love. She knew he did not love her, nor ever had. You see? He lived irreproachably—and not for her. So, after she had cunningly questioned me about Harry’s youth, she would say in her thin, plaintive voice: ‘I suppose you won’t tell——’ I used to look at her in amazement. She was so deplorably”—he sought for the word hesitatingly, bashfully—“immodest about it. I shudder when I think how some women lay bare and open to a passer-by the secrets, the petty obscurities, of their lives.

“At last, Owen got the Shearwater.”

“You got it for him,” I remarked.

“I helped,” Gorham confessed. “I couldn’t bear to see our old chum handling steam schooners and colliers in and out of the harbor where we had had our joyous and happy youth, while the rest of us went ahead and kept up the old associations and friendships and got a taste of happiness. So I put in a word for him with the owners and he took over the old packet. She carried passengers, as you know, and he sat each evening at the head of his table in the saloon and chatted with people who admired his trim figure and address. Yet you must understand that all this time he never gave me a hint of the truth. I never knew or suspected that Kitty Melrose had refused to marry him, never dreamed that he loved her. Sheila herself had put the puzzle in concrete form for me.”

“You mean she told you Harry was in love with another woman?” I demanded.

“Of course not—not in so many words,” he returned. “But she had made it clear enough that she thought about it constantly. Naturally enough, I felt there might be grounds—in the event it proved she was right. But here we come to the miracle of the whole affair.”

Gorham stirred uneasily, lighted another pipe, and stared at me intently.

“You are to keep in mind that, from now on, I am telling you precisely what passed under my own eyes, I am not sitting in judgment. I am expressing no opinion and drawing no inferences. As I told you, I left the Shearwater in the last boat.”

“Go on,” I said. “I know nothing about it—except that Owen went mad. That is certain.”

The man opposite me cast his eyes down.

“It was so reported,” he acknowledged. “I beg of you to do as I am doing—express no opinion.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “I am not a sentimentalist. But when a fact is cast up at my feet like a bottle on the beach, I accept it. Listen:

“The Shearwater was to sail from San Francisco for San Pedro on a Friday afternoon in January. In the morning I found I had to go South and, because the steamer would land me in time for business on Monday morning, I telephoned down for passage. A few minutes before sailing time I arrived at the pier and found Sheila there, too; she was complaining bitterly about something. I pulled up and would have gone away, but she made a point of my staying, wiped her eyes, and said in a constrained way, ‘I’m going South this trip with Harry.’

“He seemed struck dumb; she went on to say she had arranged it with the port captain, and then began to fuss about the cabin. She took something from Owen’s desk and put it in a rack. It was perfectly apparent that she had never been in the cabin before. She said as much.

“Of course, Harry had to go on the bridge immediately. We sailed on the dot. When we had passed Angel Island he asked me to join him.

“‘It will be a dirty trip,’ he said to me composedly. ‘The barometer is jumping and the Shearwater is heavily laden. I wish——’

“He did not finish the sentence; but I understood that he resented Sheila’s presence on his ship, in his cabin. We passed on to other topics and so carried on our conversation till we were well abreast of Pigeon Point. It was already blowing very heavily, in squalls, and the sea was making fast. Just at dark Harry suddenly interrupted his talk to say, ‘Will you please find Sheila and see that she has her dinner? I must stay on the bridge all night.’

“So I went below and found Mrs. Owen in the cabin, seated in a big chair. She was seasick, she told me quietly, when I had given her her husband’s message. I went down and dined by myself. After dinner I rejoined Harry on the bridge. It was a very nasty night indeed, and the old Shearwater was making heavy weather of it. I stayed an hour, and during that time the Western Pacific, also southbound, overhauled us and was swallowed up in the darkness. She would reach San Pedro twelve hours ahead of us.

“At last I turned in, only to be aroused a few hours later by a quartermaster with a summons to the bridge. Harry Owen was there, sheathed in oilskins, his sou’wester pulled down over his eyes, his whole form streaming with brine.

“‘Look!’ he bawled in my ear, and I looked.

Far away and to leeward rockets were going up, throwing a dim refulgence against the overcast sky.

“‘It’s the Western Pacific,’ he told me quietly. ‘She tried to cut corners and, I suppose, broke her propeller shafts.’”

Gorham glanced at me.

“As a matter of fact that was what had happened. But Owen seemed rather at a loss.

“‘I’ve got to go in and stand by,’ he said. ‘That goes without saying. But she’s within six miles of the rocks and the Shearwater can’t tow her out against this gale, and the notion of transferring passengers is hopeless.’

“‘What kind of line have you—the best?’ I demanded.

“The chief mate answered that question. The Shearwater had a new, nice, sweet, ten-inch manila. It might do.

“‘We’ll run in and have a look-see, anyway,’ said Harry in something of his old manner.

“So we ran in and a ticklish job it was. But presently we were within a quarter of a mile of the disabled steamship and the wireless got busy. The Western Pacific wanted to be towed out of danger—a matter of forty miles. Transferring anybody was out of the question, for the sea was terrific. No boat could live in it. Both captains were pretty anxious. Finally Owen ran the Shearwater right up under the lee of the Western Pacific and threw his searchlight on her. She was all right, sea anchor out and riding fairly easily. But when Harry Owen laid down his binoculars he was a different man. I know now what he saw. He made no further demur about attempting a tow and we spent an hour passing our new line, fixing chafing gear and so on.

“It was none of my business, you understand.

“We picked up our tow and started out. Within fifteen minutes I comprehended, though not a word was said, that we had tried an impossibility. The Shearwater was too old; she wasn’t up to towing a six-thousand tonner against sea and gale. Her wooden topsides were rotten. We could barely steer her. Then word came to the bridge that the hawser was pulling the after deck to bits. Harry Owen listened and then stared out over the sea, running with a brisk, ugly weight before the wind. He went aft and I joined him. The Shearwater was so built that the only place to take the line to was a small windlass directly in front of the steering gear, consequently the great straining hawser was slowly, but surely, tearing out the entire structure that held the leaping rudderhead and the quadrants.

“‘You’ve got to let her go, sir,’ said the mate, showing an anxious face. I shall never forget the queer pallor of his countenance under the dim light of the lantern on the deckhouse wall.

“Owen looked at him fixedly a moment. Then he said, just as I am speaking now, ‘Take the hawser around the after deckhouse, mister.’

“The mate gaped at him. But Owen’s eyes never wavered. The order was obeyed, though it took an hour, during which sea after sea came aboard the old Shearwater and the Western Pacific began frantic speech by wireless. However, the job was done.

“From now on the Shearwater was, you understand, almost helpless. It was cruel work and, at last, Harry himself took the wheel. Ten-inch lines, no matter how good they are, can’t stand up under such a strain as was inevitably put on ours. But Owen deliberately sacrificed his own vessel to save the Western Pacific.”

“I heard he went mad,” I murmured. Gorham lighted another pipe.

“Get this into your head: the big liner was on a lee shore, no help in sight; she would have gone on the rock in an hour had it not been for the Shearwater. But twenty miles south she would have been safe. Tugs were coming to her assistance. It was that twenty miles Owen was trying to make.”

“He was mad to try it,” I said. “No seaman with freight and passengers is justified in wrecking his own ship that way. And you tell me——”

“The chief officer and the engineer came to me about it,” Gorham went on. “That was their idea—that Harry Owen was mad. The Shearwater was being picked apart by the seas, as a boy pulls a toy to bits. In fact, when they finally appealed to me—after a deadly scene on the bridge—it looked very much as though we would be lucky to get to port ourselves without assistance. I recall that as we talked, down in the engineer’s cabin in full sight of the trampling engines, our voices were mournfully muffled. I was Harry Owen’s oldest friend, they told me, while the combers boomed and crashed overhead. It was my business to bring him to his senses.”

“Did they really think he was mad?” I demanded.

Gorham puffed at his pipe slowly. Then he rose and went to his portmanteau and fumbled around a little and came back with a bit of soiled, flimsy paper.

“They had this,” he explained. “The wireless man had brought it to the chief and it put them all in a blue funk.” He spread the paper out on his great knee and read it thoughtfully. “Harry sent it as a message while we were making a fresh hitch for the hawser.”

Gorham handed it to me with a gesture, as if to say: “You see what we were confronted with.”

I read that little sheet, written in Harry Owen’s bold script. It was brief. Then I laid it on the table.

“And what did Sheila have to say?” I asked.

“She knew nothing about that message,” he responded. “Nor did she know much about what was going on. I went in to see her several times. She sat in a big chair fastened to the deck in Harry’s cabin and stared at me out of her cold, shallow eyes.”

“Did nobody else go to her?” I inquired. “I’d have thought the chief officer—”

“The chief officer had had enough in the wheelhouse,” Gorham replied. “He came out like a man in a daze; but he did his duty like a man. No idle hands on the Shearwater that night!”

“But what did they make out of that message?” I insisted. “You tell me they went to you as a final resort, to ask you to bring Harry Owen to his proper senses. What did they make out of that wireless he sent?”

Gorham peered at me.

“What would you make out of it?”

I thought this over. Now that the story was plain in my mind, I could easily interpret that short, strange message. But what would I have made of it, seated on a lounge in sight of swiftly moving engines, with the boom of a tempest roaring overhead and only this faintest of glimmers to light up the darkness in the soul of a man who was ruthlessly carrying me to destruction? I shook my head.

Gorham went on composedly:

“At dawn we still had six miles to drag the Western Pacific. The line still held, because of Owen’s extraordinary seamanship. That was his hold on his crew. I am convinced that no other man afloat could have kept his men at work as Harry did. And what work!

“The gale had piled up a sea that ran irresistibly from horizon to horizon, which lifted the Shearwater up to dizzy heights, flung her savagely to one side, dropped her into vast hollows that resounded like caverns. And as the vessel disintegrated under our feet, we patched her up. I tell you we labored like men possessed to keep that wretched old packet alive, to keep her going—to keep the steady pull on the hawser that meant safety for those hundreds on the liner. Yet no help came. The carpenter reported three feet of water in the hold, seams opening up in the wooden topsides, beams buckling below under the terrific strain.

“The gale died slowly. At noon it was a breeze; then it shifted to a brisk offshore wind and the Western Pacific, as jaunty as ever, signaled she was all right. The wireless reported that within a couple of hours all kinds of assistance would arrive. And before the final cheering message had come our engines suddenly stopped. The Shearwater was sinking, and sinking fast. The pumps were choked; every sea that broached over us poured its tons down into the holds through the shattered decks.

“Harry Owens turned the wheel over to a hand and came out, to see his crew crowding the decks. He gave a brusque order to cast off the hawser and listened quietly to the chief officer and the engineer.

“‘A bad run of sea yet,’ was all he said, and went into his own cabin. I followed him, leaving the officers to get the boats ready for launching. Sheila was still crouched in that great chair, her fingers set into its leather arms. Harry looked at her and remarked very simply, ‘The ship is sinking. We shall have to take to the boats. There is time yet. You’ll find yourself quite comfy on the Western Pacific.

“She rose with a single movement. ‘This ship is going down?’ she cried. Then flared up wildly. ‘The only decent ship you ever had, and you let her sink!’

“Harry met her eyes calmly. ‘Poor Sheila!’ he said in a tuneless voice. Then he lighted a cigar and left for the deck, where the crew were sweating about the boats and life rafts. He went to a little group of passengers and told them briefly that he was sending them off to the liner, now riding easily and rather pompously a mile away to the drag of the hawser we had let go. Then he drew me aside.

“‘I shall send you in charge of one of the boats,’ he told me. ‘You will take Sheila with you.’ He twisted his lips into a wry smile. ‘Poor Sheila!’ he croaked.

“I was dumfounded. I scrutinized the man carefully. He was as sober and as collected as we are now. His eyes were steady. A blob of sea broke over the shattered bulwarks and flooded to our knees. He did not notice it.

“‘You saved the Western Pacific,’ I said, ‘and you have ruined yourself. Man, man!’

“I was terribly angry with him. Yet he stood in the midst of that tragedy like one who had succeeded, not failed. He dominated us all, a kind of heroic and pitiable figure.

“So we got into the boats—the sea was going down rapidly, and the Western Pacific sent over four boats to help out. Into the last boat we put Sheila, dry eyed, cold, almost, one might say, frozen in her expression. Harry handed her over the broken rail with a kind of gentle compassion. He did not say anything to her. It happened that it was one of the liner’s boats and the mate in charge stared up at Owen expectantly. The Shearwater was almost awash. Still Harry made no movement to get into the boat. Instead, he thrust me in and I found myself seated with Sheila.

“‘Hurry up, sir!’ cried the mate in our boat.

“But Harry shook his head with a firm and determined movement.

“‘Shove off!’ he ordered, and the men obeyed like children. But their officer bawled out, again and again, vainly. Harry Owen stared at us all, rising and falling on the spumy seas, and then turned away and went into his own cabin. As he closed the door the Shearwater dipped her battered bows deeply. A surge overran her. She lurched to starboard, righted herself and slowly went down. She seemed to stop when the water was halfway up the deckhouse and floated a moment, half submerged. I think we all stared at Harry Owen’s door.

“It did not open.

“As I told you, Sheila did not utter a cry; but her fingers were set in my flesh so I had the impression of some one screaming. A moment later the Shearwater vanished.

“In that instant I was enormously puzzled. I had seen a riddle set and staged before my eyes and I had no answer to it. I do not remember the men pulling the lifeboat over to the Western Pacific—I recall nothing but the darkness of that tremendous and tragic problem and the incessant pressure of Sheila’s fingers into my arm. But when we reached the liner’s deck, I supporting Sheila, I saw a woman standing in a little recess of the deckhouse. It was Kitty Melrose. She was as lovely and witching as ever, her eyes shining, her lips parted gently.

“How do women know? I cannot tell. But Sheila caught sight of her and thrust through the crowd to her and peered into her beautiful and shining eyes with a kind of terror. Kitty’s expression never changed; she stood there with pearls of spray in her hair and a look of childlike, glorious amazement on her face, which was turned toward the dreary spot where a few bits of wreckage showed above the grave of the Shearwater. And do you know what Sheila said?”

Gorham laid his pipe aside and lowered his eyes.

“She said, quite simply, ‘Nobody would ever tell me.’”

He stopped and picked up his pipe again.

“At that moment the skipper of the Western Pacific came bustling along.

“‘Where is Captain Owen?’ he bawled.

“The chief officer of the Shearwater answered that question: ‘With his ship,’ he said in an ugly, injured tone.

“I assure you that that captain, faultlessly dressed, quite magnificent and self-confident, now that his own vessel was safe, hadn’t a word to say. The Shearwater’s engineer turned on him with a snarling, ‘Captain Owen ran his own ship under to save yours.’

“But, while that was the bald truth, I felt no interest in the affair on that side. I was looking at Kitty Melrose. Sheila’s queer, plaintive, ‘Nobody would ever tell me,’ sounded in my ears. In my pocket was that message that Harry had wirelessed across the night before. What would Kitty say? Nothing, of course. She stood remote and fine and composed in a little space surrounded by anxious and curious and respectful men and women. Yet I saw in her gaze, still fixed on the spot amid the tumbling seas where Harry Owen had gone to his death, something”—Gorham fumbled around a bit, scratched a match, blew it out, glanced at me with a gloomy eye, finished his sentence in a voice suddenly husky—“something Harry must have dreamed of seeing.”

“They said he was crazy,” I remarked lifelessly.

“Women drive men mad,” Gorham returned with amazing earnestness. “Harry’s madness was—it was something you and I would give our souls for.”

“I looked down at the flimsy bit of paper on the table, and sighed. It was Owen’s final message. It read:

Miss Katherine Melrose, SS W. Pacific.

You cannot say no this time.

Harry Owen, Master Shearwater.

“Yes,” said Gorham slowly, “I saw her hand rest lightly on her bosom and I knew that Harry’s message lay there.”

“But she never answered it!” I cried.

My companion stared at me.

“Oh, yes, she answered it. As such women do. That night she came to my room and said abruptly, ‘They tell me he—Harry—Harry Owen went into his cabin and closed the door.’

“‘That is true,’ I told her.

“‘And he did not open the door again?’ she insisted.

“‘No,’ I said.

“She lifted her bright and luminous eyes to mine and tried to smile, gallantly.

“‘He wouldn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘It was like Harry to close a door—and never open it again.’

“Then she slipped out of my room without a sound.”

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October 1922 issue of Ainslee’s magazine.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLOSED DOOR ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- The Closed Door

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE