The Project Gutenberg eBook of32 CaliberThis 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 atwww.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: 32 CaliberAuthor: Donald McGibenyRelease date: September 27, 2007 [eBook #22781]Most recently updated: August 14, 2009Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32 CALIBER ***
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 atwww.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: 32 CaliberAuthor: Donald McGibenyRelease date: September 27, 2007 [eBook #22781]Most recently updated: August 14, 2009Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: 32 Caliber
Author: Donald McGibeny
Author: Donald McGibeny
Release date: September 27, 2007 [eBook #22781]Most recently updated: August 14, 2009
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 32 CALIBER ***
Produced by Al Haines
by
Donald McGibeny
Frontispiece by
[Transcriber's note: frontispiece missing from book]
I was in the locker-room of the country-club, getting dressed after the best afternoon of golf I had ever had. I had just beaten Paisley "one-up" in eighteen holes of the hardest kind of sledding.
If you knew Paisley you'd understand just why I was so glad to beat him. He is a most insufferably conceited ass about his golf, for a man who plays as badly as he does; in addition to which he usually beats me. It's not that Paisley plays a better game, but he has a way of making me pull my drive or over-approach just by his confounded manner of looking at me when I am getting ready to play.
We usually trot along about even until we come to the seventh hole—in fact, I'm usually ahead at the seventh—and then conversation does me in. You see, the seventh hole can be played two ways. There's a small clay bank that abuts the green and you can either play around or over it to the hole, which lies directly behind. The real golfers play over with a good mashie shot that lands them dead on the green, but dubs, like Paisley, play around with two easy mid-iron shots. When we get to the place where the choice must be made, Paisley suggests that I go around, which makes me grip my mashie firmly, recall all the things I have read in the little book about how to play a mashie shot, and let drive with all my force, which usually lands me somewhere near the top of the clay bank, where it would take a mountain goat to play the next shot. After that, Paisley and I exchange a few hectic observations and my temperature and score mount to the highest known altitude.
Of course, every now and then, I forget my stance and Paisley long enough to send the ball in a beautiful parabola right on to the green, and when I do—oh, brother!—the things I say to Paisley put him in such a frame of mind that I could play the rest of the course with a paddle and a basket-ball and still beat him. This particular afternoon he had tried to play the seventh hole as it should be played, and though we had both foozled, I had won the hole and romped triumphantly home with the side of pig.
I was gaily humming to myself as I put on my clothes when James Felderson came in. His face was drawn and his mouth was set in a way that was utterly foreign to Jim, whose smile has done more to keep peace in committee meetings and to placate irate members than all other harmonizing agencies in the club put together. There was something unnatural, too, about his eyes, as though he had been drinking.
"Have you seen Helen?" he demanded in a thick voice.
"No. Not to-day," I answered. "What's the matter, Jim? Anything wrong?"
Felderson has been my law partner ever since he married my sister Helen. I had left him at the office just before lunch and he had seemed then as cheerful and unperturbed as usual.
"Helen has gone with Frank Woods!" he burst out, his voice breaking as he spoke.
It took a second for me to grasp the meaning of what he said, then I grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Jim, Jim, what are you saying?"
My sister—left her husband—run off with another man! I had read of such things in stories, but never had I believed that real people, in real life and of real social position, ever so disgraced themselves. Every one knew that Frank Woods had been seeing a lot of Helen, and several close friends had asked me if Jim knew the man's reputation. I had even spoken to Helen, only to be laughed at, and assured that it was the idle gossip of scandal-mongers. That she should have left Jim, darling old Jim, for Frank Woods, or any other man, was unthinkable. Jim sank on a bench and turned a face to me that had grown utterly haggard.
"It's true, Bupps! I found this on the table when I went home to lunch."
He held out a crumpled note written in Helen's rather mannish back-hand.
"Jim,
"It is now ten-thirty. Frank is coming for me at eleven. He has made me realize that, loving him the way I do, I would be doing you a horrible injustice to keep up the wretched pretense of being your wife.
"Had you left any other way open, I would have taken it, but you refused a divorce. I hate to hurt you the way I must, but try to understand and forgive me.
"Helen."
I turned toward Jim. His chin was sunk in his hands. Two men came in from the tennis-courts and nodded as they went by.
"What have you done?" I asked.
He raised his head, and on his face was written incalculable misery.
"Nothing!" he answered, dropping his hands hopelessly. "What can I do, except let them go and get a divorce as soon as possible? It's my fault. After we—quarreled the other night, she asked me to divorce her, and I refused. God, Bupps! If you only knew how much I love her and how hard I've tried to make her love me. And she did love me till Woods came along."
I hurried up my dressing, turning over in my mind the details of Jim's married life. In the light of the latest developments, I realized the painful fact that I was partly to blame myself. Helen hadn't really loved Jim when she married him. Oh, she'd loved him in the same way she'd loved a lot of other men whom she'd been more or less engaged to at one time or another. She had married Jim, because it had been the thing to do that year, to get married; and she realized that Jim loved her more and could give her more than any of the others. Where I came in was that I had urged her to marry Jim because he was the best man in the world and because I wanted him for my brother-in-law.
I remembered now how cold Helen had been, even during their engagement, trumping up almost any excuse to keep from spending an evening alone with the man who was to be her husband. It had made me so hot that I had reproached her even in Jim's presence. My words didn't seem to affect Helen any, but they did affect Jim a lot. He had taken me for a long ride in his car and filled me full of moonshine about how he was unworthy of her and how he would win her love after they were married. I was in such sympathy with him that I tried to believe it true, although I knew Helen as only a younger brother can know a sister. I knew that she had been pampered and petted ever since she was a child; that she had never shown much affection for father and mother, who were her slaves, while toward me, who had insulted and made fun of her, she was almost effusive. With this in mind, I had urged Jim to neglect her, to "treat her rough," but when a man is head-over-heels in love with a girl, what's the good of advice? To tell him to mistreat her was like telling a Mohammedan to spit in the face of the prophet.
They had been married a little over a year when Frank Woods came to Eastbrook on war business for the French Government. He had been in Papa Joffre's Army during part of the mêlée, wore theCroix de Guerrewith several palms, and could hold a company of people enthralled with stories of his experiences. Whether he had a right to the decorations, or even the uniform, no one was quite sure, but it set off every good point of his massive, well-built frame. He would stand in front of the fire and tell of air-scraps in such a way that, while he never mentioned the hero by name, it was easy to guess that "hero" and Frank Woods were synonymous. He could dance, ride, play any game and shoot better than the best of us, and when he sat at the piano and sang, every man looked at his wife or his fiancée and wondered where the lightning was going to strike. For although he was a very proper young bachelor for months, showing no unseemly interest in women, we all of us, I think, secretly felt that he was setting the stage for a "grand coup."
If he had singled out Helen from the first, he couldn't have played his game better, for his seeming indifference to her loveliness piqued her almost to madness. During the early months of our entrance in the war he was called back to France, and every man in Eastbrook breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't one of us who could say why we thought him a cad, but just the same, I doubt if there was a father in Eastbrook who would willingly have given his daughter to him. He was too much of the ideal lover to make a good husband. There was something about him, too, that made no man want to claim him as a particular friend, but perhaps it was because we were all jealous.
While most of the younger men of the town were in France, or, like Jim and myself, in a training-camp, Frank Woods came back, and this time there was no mistaking whom he had picked out for his attentions. Until the war was over and Jim home, it was not noticeable, for he was most meticulous in his behavior, but with Jim busy trying to straighten out our tangled practise, Woods lost no time in taking advantage of his opportunities. And there had been opportunities enough, heaven knows, with Jim surrounded by clients, yet trying in his clumsy, lovable way to remonstrate with Helen for seeing so much of Woods. My interference had only increased his opportunities, for the evening I told her what people were saying, she quarreled with Jim, and as a result he threw himself into his work with an energy in which enthusiasm had no part.
All the time these thoughts were running through my head—and they ran much faster than I can set them down—I had been throwing my clothes on, knowing something had to be done, yet what that something was I couldn't for the life of me figure out.
"Come on, Jim!" I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him from his dejected position.
"Where to?" he responded wearily.
"First of all, we're going to shut this thing up.The Sunwould like nothing better than to spread it thick all over the front page of their filthy sheet."
"You're right, old boy! I'd forgotten about the newspapers. It would be horrible for Helen to have her name dragged through the mud."
"I wasn't thinking of Helen," I responded testily, "but a lot of cheap notoriety won't help our law practise any."
All the spirit seemed to have seeped out of his system, so I pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition.
We were just backing into the drive when one of the servants came running from the club.
"Oh, Mr. Thompson!" he called.
I stopped the car and waited for him to come up.
"What is it?"
"You're wanted on the telephone."
I jumped from the car and started for the club. There were the usual groups of tea-drinkers and bridge-players scattered about on the broad veranda, and it seemed to me, as I ran up the steps, that they all stopped talking and looked at me, I thought, with curiosity, if not with pity. There would be no use shutting up the newspapers if that bunch of gossips were in possession of the scandal.
I hurried to the telephone and slammed the door to the booth, expecting to hear the voice of some reporter demand if there was any truth to the rumor that Mrs. James Felderson had run off with Frank Woods. To my buzzing brain it seemed that the whole world must have heard the news.
"Hello," I called.
"Is that you, Warren?" It was Helen's voice.
"Helen!" I yelled. "For God's sake, where are you?"
"I am at the house. Listen, Warren! Have you seen Jim?"
Her voice sounded faint and strangely uncontrolled.
"Yes—yes," I shouted. "He's here with me now."
"Then bring him here quickly, Warren! Please hurry."
"But, Helen——"
"Don't ask me any questions, please." There was a catch in the voice on the other end of the wire. "I c-can't answer any questions now, but bring Jim, and hurry!"
The receiver clicked and I dashed out of the booth, a thousand questions pounding in my brain. Why was Helen at the house? Had Frank Woods failed to keep his appointment, thinking better of eloping with another man's wife; or, had Helen come to her senses, seen through the thin veneer that covered the cad and the libertine in Frank Woods and returned to her husband for good? Over and above these questions and conjectures and hopes, there was thanksgiving in my heart that the irremediable step had not been taken; that something had intervened to keep scandal and disgrace away from Jim.
There must have been something in my face that told Jim I had been talking to Helen, for he moved into the driver's seat and greeted me with the single question: "Where is she?"
"Home!" I panted, "and drive like the devil!"
I might have saved myself the trouble of the last, for even before I got into the car there was a roar of exhaust and the crunch of grinding gears and we were off down the smooth drive with a speed that quickly brought tears to my eyes and put the fear of God in my heart.
How we ever escaped a smash-up after we got into the city I can't tell to this day, for Jim never once slackened speed. He sat there with jaws set, pumping gas and still more gas into the little car. Thrice I saw death loom up ahead of us, as vehicles approached from side-streets, but with a swerve and a sickening skid, we missed them somehow. Once a street-car and a wagon seemed completely to block the road ahead, but Jim steered for the slender opening and when I opened my eyes we had skinned through, leaving a corpulent and cursing driver far behind. After that I forgot my wretched fear and the blood surged through my veins at the delicious feel of the air as it whipped my cheeks. We turned at last into the long approach to Jim's house and it was then that my heart sank.
Frank Woods' car was standing before the door.
Had Helen been alone, I would have dropped Jim and gone on, knowing that what they had to say to each other was not for outside ears, but when I saw Frank Woods' car there, I felt that a cool head might be needed. There was an ominous set to Jim's shoulders as he walked toward the steps, a sort of drawing in of the head, as though all the muscles in his big frame were tensed. He hesitated a fraction of a second at the door, either to let me catch up with him or because of distaste for the prospective meeting, and we entered the cool dark hall together.
Helen was standing at the entrance to the big living-room, her tall figure erect, her head proudly poised, one graceful arm upraised, with the hand buried in the velvet hangings. She had on a gray traveling-suit, the coat of which lay tossed over the back of a near-by chair. A large patent-leather traveling-case lay beside it. I had expected, from the urgency of the message and the sound of her voice over the telephone, to find Helen agitated, but, except for slight traces of recent tears and a high color, she looked as cool and collected as though she had invited us to tea. Jim, on the other hand, was trembling, his face a pasty white, with great beads of perspiration standing on his forehead.
She motioned us to enter, and I led the way, gripping Jim's hand in passing. Woods was standing by the window, his back to us, and his whole pose so artificial, so expressive of disdain, that I felt the short hair rising along the back of my neck in antagonism. When he heard us, Woods turned with contemptuous deliberation, but when he caught sight of the dumb misery on Jim's face, his own turned a dull crimson. Helen crossed the room and seated herself on the divan, back of which Woods was standing. The whole performance—the place she chose near him, the look she flashed at him as she sat down, showed so completely which of the men she loved, that my heart sank and I lost hope of ever bringing her back to Jim. It was Helen who first spoke.
"You received the note I left this morning?"
Jim moistened his lips once and said, "Yes." The word was barely audible.
"Then there is no need to tell you I have made up my mind to go withFrank."
Her tone was coldly final. Woods had turned and was again gazing out of the window. Jim looked at Helen with the eyes of a hound-dog. My heart ached for him, but there was nothing I could do.
"Why did you come back?" Jim almost whispered, keeping his eyes directly on her face.
"Because I didn't want a scandal." She glanced down at her lap where she was opening and closing a beaded vanity bag. Evidently she was finding the interview harder than she had expected.
"I felt—I hoped that if I could show you definitely and finally that I don't love you, that I am devoted to Frank, your pride, if nothing else, would induce you to give me the divorce for which I asked. That is the reason we decided to come back—so you might make it possible for us to marry without a scandal."
The gross selfishness of the woman—I could hardly think of her as my sister—her cold cruelty, yes, even her damnable beauty, seemed to go to my head and something snapped inside. I couldn't bear the sight of Jim standing there helpless, while these two turned the knife.
"That was very considerate of you," I sneered.
"You keep out of this, Warren!"
"I'm damned if I do," I retorted. "I at least have a brother's right to tell you that a man who will sneak into another's home to make love to his wife, behind his back, and then——"
Woods turned quickly. "That's a lie, and you know it."
Jim put his hand on my shoulder. He knew I was ready to fight.
"Don't, Bupps!"
Suddenly he seemed to straighten into life. From the way he set his jaw, I knew that the old courage, which had won so many cases in the court-room, was back on the job.
"You were quite right, Helen. While I imagine your reason for not wanting a scandal was largely selfish, yet I think that consideration for my position was partly responsible for your return, and for that I thank you. When you asked for a divorce the other night, I didn't realize that your love for me was so entirely dead, or that you had fallen so completely under this man's influence. Under the circumstances, I shall give you a divorce, if only to keep you from taking matters into your own hands. But I shall not do it until I have satisfied myself that your new love is real, that the man is worthy of it. If there is anything in Woods' life that does not bear looking into, I'll find it out; if he has done anything in the past that is likely to hurt you in the future, I shall know it, and you shall know it, too, before you take this irrevocable step."
Woods flushed for a moment when Jim spoke of digging into his past, but he laughed easily and said:
"You're getting a bit melodramatic, aren't you?"
"Better melodrama than tragedy," Jim responded bitterly.
"Helen has told you she doesn't love you, and that she does love me. This morning she was ready to face the scandal of leaving her husband; to go to live with me, to live openly with me, unmarried, until you could get a divorce. That rather answers your first point, doesn't it?"
"It makes me think no better of you, that you should have agreed to such a sacrifice."
"I never expected to win the husband's love at the same time I won his wife's," Woods responded evenly.
Never have I seen murder shine out of a man's eyes as it did out of Jim's at that moment. Each man measured the other across the narrow space, and I longed that the laws of civilization might be swept aside so that the two might tear at each other's throats, for the woman they loved. Both men were powerful, and neither feared the other.
"As to looking up my past," Woods continued, "one might think you were the father of the lady and I a youthful suitor. While I recognize no right of yours to meddle in my affairs, the fact that I was sent to America as the duly accredited agent of the French Government should have some weight. They are not accustomed over there to hiring thugs and cutthroats to carry on their business."
"This is all beside the point," Helen broke in. "May I ask, Jim, where I am going to stay and what I am going to do while you are investigating Frank's past?"
"You are going to stay here."
"Here? But where will you stay?"
"I am going to stay here with you."
Woods came around the divan. "Look here, Felderson! Can't you seeHelen doesn't love you, that you've lost—?"
"Keep back!" warned Jim huskily.
"She can't stay here with you. She's no more your wife than if she had never married you. Do you think I'll allow her to stay in this house, forced to endure your attentions—?"
"Who are you to say what you will or won't allow?" Jim roared, his eyes blazing. "You came into my house as my guest and stole my most precious possession. Get out before I kill you!"
Woods' face was white. For one minute I felt sure the two men would settle matters then and there. Suddenly he turned and said: "Come, Helen!"
"She stays here!" Jim cried.
Helen had arisen from the divan when the two men came together. Now she stepped forward.
"I'm going with Frank. We came back here more for your sake than our own. We tried to give you a chance to do the decent thing, but I might have known you wouldn't. With all your protestations of love for me, when I ask you to do the one thing that would show that love, the one thing that would make me happy, you not only refuse, but you insult the man who means everything in the world to me. If I had ever loved you in my life, what you have just said would have made me hate you. As I never loved you, I despise and loathe you now."
She started to pass him, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. His face was white and drawn and his eyes were the eyes of a madman. He lifted her up bodily and almost threw her on the divan, crying, "By God! You stay here!"
Jim turned just as Woods rushed and with a mighty swing to the side of the head, sent him crashing into the corner. Dazed as he was, he half struggled to his feet, and when I saw him reach beneath his coat, I sprang on him and wrenched the revolver from his hand.
Disheveled and half-stupefied, he rose and glared at us like an angry bull. Slowly he straightened his tie and brushed back his hair. He glanced over at Helen, who was sobbing on the sofa.
"Two of you—eh? A frame-up." All the hatred in the world gleamed in his eyes, as he looked at Jim. "If you don't let Helen come to me, Felderson, I'll kill you; so help me God, I'll kill you!" Then he picked up his coat and hat and walked out of the room.
Jim went slowly to the door and into the hall. He looked tired and old. I heard the outer door slam behind Frank Woods and a motor start. Then I went out to Jim.
I was on my way back to Jim's after having gone home to change my clothes. Jim had asked me to stay with him that evening and, to tell the truth, I was glad to do it, partly because of the threat Woods had made and partly because of the way Helen looked at Jim when she passed us in the hall on the way to her bedroom. Being a lawyer, I have naturally made a pretty close study of character, and if I ever saw vindictiveness on the face of any human, it was on Helen's at that moment.
I said nothing about the affair to mother while I was home, for she has been very frail ever since my father's death and I thought there was no use in needlessly upsetting her. There would be plenty of time to discuss the matter after Helen left Jim.
Again and again I recalled the struggle of the afternoon and again and again, Helen's face, distorted with anger, reappeared. Finally I decided to drive the car over to Mary Pendleton's and ask her to come spend the night with Helen. In her overwrought, hysterical condition, Helen was capable of doing almost anything.
Mary has been like a second sister to me. She really cares nothing for me, except in a sisterly way, but we have been together, so much so and so long that Eastbrook gossips have given up speculating whether we are engaged. I'd marry her in a minute, or even less, if she would have me, but Mary insists on treating me like a kid; calls my crude attempts at love-making "silly tosh and flub-dub," which makes the going rather difficult. She was bridesmaid to Helen and is the one person, besides myself, who can influence her in the least, so I felt that her presence would add ballast to our wildly tossing domestic craft. Needless to say, my own lack of self-control during the afternoon had been as unexpected as it was disappointing, but when it comes to anything that concerns Jim, I'm not responsible.
I rang the bell and Mary, herself, came to the door, looking radiant as usual.
"Hello, Buppkins!" She greeted me with that detestable nick-name she has used since I wore rompers. "Aren't you trying for a record or something? This is twice you've called on me this month."
"Mary, I'm in trouble."
"Is the poor 'ittle boy in trouble and come to Auntie Mary to tell her all about it?" she sing-songed, making a little moue, as though she was talking to her pet cat.
"Cut it, Mary!" I said. "I'm really in trouble."
"What is it, Bupps?"
"Helen ran off with Frank Woods to-day."
"Heavens, Bupps!"—she was serious enough now.—"Where did they go?"
"They went, but they came back. Helen's home with Jim. They tried to force him to give Helen a divorce. There was an awful fight and Woods swore that he would kill Jim unless he let Helen go. But put on your hat and coat and get your things. Helen needs you with her. I'll tell you the rest on the way over."
"I'll be with you in a second," she called, running up-stairs.
When Mary was snuggled down beside me in the car—and she does snuggle the best of any girl I ever knew—I told her everything, not forgetting the part where I wrenched the gun away from Woods.
"Goodness, Bupps! I bet you were scared," she commented, her eyes twinkling.
"Frankly, I didn't know what I was doing, or I would never have had the nerve," I laughed. "But, lord! I feel sorry for Jim."
Mary's face clouded over.
"So do I, Bupps, but any one could have seen it coming. Jim was too good to her. As much as I like Helen, I will say that the only kind of husband she deserves is a brute who would beat her. That's the only kind she can love. I was with her the night before her wedding, and she confessed then that if Jim were only cruel or indifferent to her, just once, she thought she could love him to death. The only reason Helen cares for you and me, was because we never paid any particular attention to her when she acted up and pouted. That is why she is mad about Frank Woods. When he came to Eastbrook, he treated her as though she didn't exist."
"And if Jim were cruel to her now, do you think she would go back to him?" I asked.
Mary shook her head. "No, it's different now. If Jim were cruel to her, she would probably hate him all the more for it."
"Proving the incomprehensibility of woman," I jeered.
"Proving the flumdability of flapdoodle," Mary responded. "If you men only put one little thought into giving a woman what she wants, instead of giving her what you think she ought to want; if you kept as up-to-date in your love-making as you do in your law practise, women wouldn't be the incomprehensible riddle you always make them out to be."
"Well, why don't you tell us what you want?" I asked.
"Silly! That would spoil it all, don't you see? Besides we aren't sure just what we want ourselves."
My spirits, which had risen considerably during our conversation, dropped with a slump when Jim's big house loomed up ahead. Already, something of the unhappiness within seemed to have added a more somber touch to the outside. Have you noticed how you can tell from the face of a house what kind of life the inhabitants lead? Happiness or misery, health or sickness, riches or poverty all show as though the walls were saturated from the admixture of life within.
I sent Mary up-stairs to see Helen, while I went into the drawing-room in search of Jim, but there was no one there except Wicks, the butler, who was lighting a fire, for, though it was only the last of September, the nights were chilly. I snatched up the evening paper to see if by any chance a hint of the scandal had crept into print. I felt sure that, as matters stood, they would not dare to put in anything definite, butThe Sunhas a nasty way of writing all around a scandal, so that, while the persons involved are readily recognized, they are quite helpless as far as redress is concerned.
I noticed that Wicks had taken an infernally long time to start the fire. Although it was burning merrily, he still puttered about, brushing up the chips and rearranging the blower and tongs. When Wicks hangs about he usually has a question on his mind that he wants answered, and he takes that means of letting you know it. I decided not to notice him but to force him to come out in the open and ask, for once, a straightforward question. From the fire, he moved to the table and straightened the magazines and books, glancing now and then in my direction, trying to catch my eye, but I buried myself more deeply than ever in the paper. When he finally stepped back of my chair, human nature could stand his puttering no longer, so I laid downThe Sun, and turned to him.
"Well, Wicks, what do you want?" I snapped.
Wicks looked at me with the expression of a small boy caught sticky-handed in the jam-closet.
"Nothing, sir!—that is—er—nothing." He turned and started from the room.
"Come here, Wicks!" I called. "I know when you hang around a room unnecessarily, as you have been doing for the last ten minutes, that you have something on your mind. Now, out with it."
"I was merely going to arsk, sir, hif I 'ad better begin lookin' arfter another place, sir?"
That was an extraordinary question. Wicks had been with the Feldersons ever since they were married.
"What put that idea into your head, Wicks?"
He was far more confused than I had ever seen him.
"Meanin' no disrespect, sir, and I don't mean to be hinquisitive about what doesn't concern me, but I couldn't 'elp 'earin' a bit of what took place this arfternoon, sir."
Good lord! I'd forgotten there might have been other witnesses to the scene of the afternoon besides myself.
"Do the other servants know about this, Wicks?"
"Hi think they do, sir, seein' as 'ow Mrs. Felderson 'as been actin' and talkin' so queer."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
Wicks struggled for composure. The subject was evidently most distasteful to his conservative and conventional British nature.
"Hit was Annie, Mrs. Felderson's maid, sir, that hupset the servants. W'en she came down from hup-stairs, she said as 'ow Mrs. Felderson was a ragin' and a rampagin' around 'er room, sayin' that if Mr. Felderson didn't give 'er a divorce, she would do violence to 'im, sir."
"Did Annie hear her say that?" I questioned.
"She says so, sir."
The whole thing was so monstrous that I gasped. For this awful dime-novel muck to be tumbled into the middle of my family was too sickening. My sister, running away from her husband with another man and now threatening, in the hearing of the servants, to kill him, unless he gave her a divorce, disgusted me with its cheap vulgarity. I hid, as best I could, the tempest that was brewing inside me.
"Wicks, Mrs. Felderson is not well. Tell the servants that she is greatly depressed over an accident that happened to a friend. At the present time, she is so upset over that, she really doesn't know what she is saying. Quiet them in some way, Wicks! And tell Annie to stay with Mrs. Felderson!"
"Very good, sir." He started to leave.
"And, Wicks—"
"Yes, sir."
"There is no need of your looking for another place."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!"
Wicks departed and I was left to my gloomy thoughts. Helen must be brought to her senses. Mary and I must work, either to bring her back to Jim, or, if that prove hopeless, to see that the divorce was hurried as much as possible. The very thought of having Mary along with me, with her inexhaustible fund of God-given humor and common sense, gave me a vast amount of comfort and confidence.
At this point, Jim came in. He had had a bath and a shave and had put on a dinner-coat, looking a lot more fit to grapple with his troubles than he had the last time I had seen him. Only in his eyes did he show the shock he'd received that day.
"Communing with yourself in the dark, Bupps?"—his voice was natural and easy.
"Yes," I sighed, "I've been trying to see a way out of this mess."
Jim lit a cigarette and threw himself into a chair. For a few moments he puffed in silence, taking deep inhalations and blowing the smoke against the lighted tip, so that it showed all the rugged, strength of his superb head.
"What would you say, Bupps, if I told you everything would come out all right?"
"And Helen stay with you?" I asked incredulously.
"And Helen stay with me," he repeated calmly.
"Of her own free will?"
"Of her own free will," he answered.
"I should say that the events of the day had addled your brain and that you are a damned inconsiderate brother-in-law to try to make a fool of me."
"I mean it, Bupps," he said quietly.
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
"That everything will come out all right," he smiled.
"But how, man?" His complacency almost drove me wild.
"Bupps, have you noticed how much money Woods has been spending around here—his extravagant way of living? Where do you think that money comes from?"
"His contracts with the French Government," I replied.
"But I happen to know he didn't land those contracts. That's the reason he beat it so suddenly when we got into the war." He tossed his cigarette into the fire.
"His salary from the French, then. They must have paid him some kind of salary."
"Have you never heard what ridiculously small salaries the FrenchGovernment pays its officers?"
It was true that Woods could never have lived as he did on ten times the salary of a French captain.
"His own private fortune then," I suggested.
"Ah! There's the point! If he has a private fortune, then my whole case falls to pieces. That's what I've got to find out. Woods has been playing for a big stake, and I think he has been playing with other people's money. Did you notice how he flushed this afternoon when I suggested looking into his private affairs? It was the veriest accident—I was stalling for time—but when I saw him color up I knew I'd touched a sore spot. No, Bupps, I don't think Woods has a private fortune."
"But even if you show him up as worthless, will Helen come back to you,Jim?"
The color came to his face and he laughed with a queer twist to his mouth.
"Am I as horrible as all that, Bupps?"
His words brought a lump to my throat. I went over to him and almost hugged him.
"Jim, you're such a peach—dammit all—"
I heard a light step behind me.
"Oh, Bupps!" laughed Mary, "if you'd only make love to me in that ardent fashion, I'd drag you to the altar by your few remaining hairs."
I stood up, blushing in spite of myself. She can always make me feel that whatever I am doing is either stupid or foolish.
"Dinner is served, and I'm starving. Come on, people!" she announced, leading the way to the dining-room.
"Where's Helen?" I asked.
"She's not coming down. She has a slight headache," Mary answered, giving me a warning look. "I am delegated to be lady of the manor this evening." She looked so adorable as she curtsied to us that I felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to grab her in my arms and smother her with kisses, but remembering what she had done to me once when I yielded to impulse, I refrained.
When we sat down to the table, Helen's empty place threatened to cast a gloom over the party, so Mary told Wicks to remove it.
"It's too much like Banquo's ghost," she whispered, laughing merrily atJim.
"Speaking of ghosts," said Jim turning to me, "I hear the labor people are asking the governor to pardon Zalnitch."
"A lot of good it will do them," I responded. "If ever a man deserved hanging, he does."
"I know, but labor is awfully strong now, and with the unsettled social conditions in the state, a bigger man than Governor Fallon might find it expedient to let Zalnitch off."
"Who is Zalnitch? Don't think I've met the gentleman," Mary said.
"He's the Russian who was supposed to be the ring-leader of the gang that blew up the Yellow Funnel steamship piers in 1915," I explained.
"Do you mean to say he hasn't been hanged yet?"
"Yes!" Jim answered. "And what's more, I'm afraid he's going to be pardoned."
"Not really, Jim?" I queried.
"Yes! I'm almost sure of it. Fallon is a machine man before everything else, although he was elected on a pro-American ticket. They are threatening to do all kinds of things to him, just as they threatened me, unless Zalnitch goes free, and I think Fallon is afraid of them, not physically perhaps, but politically. He wants reelection."
Jim had helped the prosecuting attorney convict Zalnitch; in fact it was Jim's work more than anything else that had sent the Russian to prison. At the time, Jim had received a lot of threatening letters, just as every other American who denounced the Germans before we entered the war had received them. Nothing had come of it, of course, and after we went in, the whole matter dropped from public attention. Zalnitch had been sent to prison, but his friends had worked constantly for commutation of his sentence. With labor's new power, due to the fear of Bolshevism, they were again bringing influence to bear on the governor.
Wicks had removed the soup plates and was bringing in the roast, whenAnnie appeared. The girl was both frightened and angry.
"Mr. Felderson?"
Jim looked up. "What is it, Annie?"
"Will you come up-stairs, please, sir?"
Mary pushed back her chair, "I'll go, Jim."
"It's Mr. Felderson that's wanted," Annie said with just a touch of asperity.
"Yes, you two better stay here and amuse each other," said Jim."Bupps, you carve!"
"If Bupps carves, I'msureto be amused," laughed Mary.
Jim left, and I went around to his place. If there is one thing I do more badly than another, it is carving. At home it's done in the kitchen, but Jim takes great pride in the neatness and celerity with which he separates the component parts of a fowl and so insists on having the undissected whole brought to the table.
"What is it to-night?" Mary asked as I eyed my task with disfavor.
"Roast duck." I tried to speak casually.
"Wait, Bupps, while Wicks lays the oilcloth and I get an umbrella."
"Smarty!" I responded, grabbing my tools firmly, "you wait and see! I watched Jim the last time he carved one of these and I know just how it's done."
I speared for the duck's back, but the fork skidded down the slippery side of the bird and spattered a drop of gravy in front of me.
"I'm waiting and seeing," Mary chided.
"Well, you wanted some gravy, didn't you?"
"Yes, but on my plate, please."
This time I placed the tines of the fork carefully on the exact middle of the duck's breast and gently pushed, giving some aid and comfort with my knife. The little beast eased over on the platter an inch or two.
"The thing's still alive," I exclaimed, getting mad.
"If you'll let me have full control, I'll carve it for you," Mary spoke up.
"Come on, then," I responded, gladly relinquishing my place. With a deftness and ease that could only be explained by the fact that the duck was ready and willing to be carved, she removed the legs and then demolished the bird altogether.
There was the sound of voices raised in altercation up-stairs, the slamming of a door and the patter of feet rapidly descending the steps. The next moment Helen burst into the room. She was fully dressed for going out and was pinning on her hat with spiteful little jabs.
"Will you take me home, Warren?"
Mary left me and went over to her.
"What has happened, Helen?"
"Oh, I can't stay here another minute. It is bad enough to have to stay in the same house with a man you loathe, but when a husband bribes his wife's servants to spy on her and watch over her as though she were a dangerous lunatic—"
Her eyes were blazing. Mary put her arm around her and tried to quiet her.
"Helen, dear, you don't know how ridiculous that is. No one is spying on you."
Helen tore herself away.
"That's right, stand up for him! You're all against me, I know. The only reason Warren brought you here, was to try to talk me into staying with him. Well, I won't, you understand? I won't! I hate him! I could kill him! If you won't take me home, Warren, I'll go alone." She was almost hysterical.
"Have you thought what this would do to mother?" I asked. "She doesn't know you've quarreled with Jim. If she found out you were contemplating a divorce, it would kill her. You know how weak she is."
I heard Jim's heavy tread coming downstairs.
"Can I stay with you, Mary?" Big tears stood in Helen's eyes and she seemed on the verge of a complete breakdown.
"Of course, Honey-bunch!" Mary responded, kissing her and leading her into the drawing-room. "Just go in there and lie down while I get my things."
As Helen walked from the room, Jim came in. Mary turned toward us, looked us over for the briefest moment and whispered, "You men are brutes!" As she ran up-stairs, Jim gazed after her. That same gray look had come back into his face.
"I guess we are," he said, shaking his head, "but I don't know how or why."
I patted him on the shoulder and went for my coat. Whether he realized it or not, I knew Helen would never come back to him.
I went out to the car and turned on the lights. A white moon was sailing through a sky cluttered with puffy clouds, its soft radiance bathing the house and grounds in mellow loveliness. It all seemed so remote from the sordid quarrel inside that its beauty was enhanced by the contrast. Here was a night when the whole world should be in love. Nature herself conspired to that end. And yet, there were thousands of men and women who were so forgetful of everything except their own petty differences that they turned their backs to the beauty around them, in order to try to hurt each other.
As Helen and Mary came out of the door, I climbed into the car and said to myself, "Damn men, damn women, damn everything!"
I was late getting down to the office the next morning, for I had gone back to Jim's and talked till all hours. It seemed that my instructions to Wicks, to tell Annie to stay with Helen, had been taken quite literally by that estimable pair, for when Helen had told the girl to leave she had refused, saying that Mr. Felderson had ordered her to stay. That was what had precipitated the quarrel.
Even when I left Jim, to go to bed, I had heard him walking back and forth in his room, and once during the night, I heard him shut his door. Thinking perhaps he might want me with him, I went to his door and knocked. Jim was untying his shoes and explained that, unable to sleep, he had gone out for a walk. The clock on the mantel-piece showed half past four.
In spite of the fact he had practically no sleep the night before, he was down at his usual hour, nine o'clock, and when I went into his office to see him, there was no sign of fatigue on his face.
"Any news?" I inquired.
"This may interest you," and he tossed over the morning paper folded to an article on the first page.
Prisoner Upon Release Makes TerrificIndictment Against Those Responsible forHis Imprisonment
I glanced hurriedly down the long article. One paragraph in particular caught my eye. It was part of a quotation from Zalnitch's "speech" to the reporters.
"Those who were responsible for my imprisonment may well regret the fact that justice has at last been given me. I shall not rest until I lay before the working classes the extent to which the processes of law can be distorted in this state, and rouse them to overthrow and drive out those who have the power of depriving them of their rights and their liberty. I shall not rest until I see a full meed of punishment brought to those who have punished me and hundreds like me. Their money and their high position will not help them to escape a just retribution."
"It looks as though our friend was going to have a very restless time,"I commented, after reading the passage aloud to Jim.
"'Vengeance is mine,' saith Zalnitch." Jim's eyes twinkled.
"You're not afraid of him, are you, Jim?" I asked.
"No more now than ever, Bupps."
His face suddenly clouded over. "Wouldn't it clear the air, though, if they did carry out their funny little threats and put me out of the way? When I think of some of the things Helen has said to me during the last month, I almost wish they would."
"That sounds weak and silly," I scoffed; "not a bit like you, Jim. Cheer up! Give Helen a divorce and let her go! She's not worth all this heartache."
Jim sat for a moment thinking. "You don't know what this has done to me, Bupps. It's not as though divorcing Helen would straighten the whole matter out. Ever since I've known Helen I've—idolized her—foolishly, perhaps. She has been the one big thing worth working for; the thing I've built my whole life around. I've got to fight for her, Bupps. I can't let her smash my ideals all to pieces. I've got to make her live up to what I've always believed her to be."
The tone of the man, the dead seriousness of his words, made me want to disown Helen and then kill Woods. I left the room with my eyes a bit misty and did my best, in the case I was working on, to forget.
For two days I was kept so busy I hardly saw Jim except when I had to go into his office for papers, or to consult an authority. I was trying to win a case against the L. L. & G. railroad, and though I knew my client could never pay me a decent fee, even if I should win, I was pitted against some of the best lawyers in the state, and was anxious for the prestige that a verdict in my favor would give me. The case was going my way, or seemed to be, but the opposition was fighting harder every day, so that I had time for little else than food, sleep and work. Frank Woods had apparently left town, either on business or to give Helen a clear field to influence Jim. Helen was still at Mary's, and her presence on a visit there was so natural that it hid her separation from Jim better than if she had gone home to mother.
I was just leaving for court one morning when Jim called me into his office. There was a gleam of triumph in his eyes and his whole attitude was one of cheerful excitement.
"Have you a minute, Bupps?"
"Only a minute, Jim. This is the day of days for me."
There were several letters and telegrams lying on the table. Jim pointed exultantly to them and cried: "I've got him, Bupps! There is enough evidence there to send Woods up for twenty years. I wouldn't have used such underhand methods against any one else, against anything but a snake, but I had to win, I had to win!"
I rushed to the table and rapidly scanned one of the telegrams.
"You've started at the wrong end, but it doesn't matter. Frank Woods has used the money entrusted him by the French Government to gamble with. He counted on the contracts with the International Biplane people to bring him clean and leave him a comfortable fortune besides. The end of the war and the wholesale cancellation of government contracts killed that. To cover his deficits, he borrowed from the Capitol Loan and Trust, and they are hunting for their money now."
"How did you find all this out, Jim?" I demanded breathlessly.
"From friends, good friends, Bupps. Men who knew that if I asked for this unusual information, I had need of it and that I wouldn't abuse their confidence."
"And now that you've got it, what are you going to do with it?"
"I have sent messages to Woods, to his apartment, to the club and to the International plant, saying that I want to see him. I know he is working like the devil to get the contracts to furnish the government with mail planes for next year. If he gets that contract, he may possibly pull through, for the bank would probably extend his credit, but if knowledge of his illegal use of the money entrusted to him by the French Government ever gets out, he knows it's the stripes without the stars for him."
"Be careful when you meet him, Jim," I warned. "He'll go to the limit, you know, to save himself."
"He's all front, Bupps; just like Zalnitch. I'll give him three daysto straighten out his affairs and get away. If he hasn't left by then,I'll put all the evidence I have into the hands of the Capitol Loan andTrust."
"Are you going to tell Helen about this?" I asked.
Jim pondered a moment. "I haven't decided that yet. If I was sure Woods would go away without any trouble, I think I'd leave her in ignorance; but he might use her to save himself."
"How do you mean?"
"I'm not so blind I can't see that Helen's infatuated with the man. If he is blackguard enough to ask her again to go with him, I think she would go, and that would pretty effectively tie my hands."
"You mean that for Helen's sake you wouldn't prosecute Woods?" I demanded. "That's stupid sentimentality."
"It's for Helen's sake that I'm doingallthis," Jim insisted. "Don't think for a moment I would stop the prosecution just because she was with him. The reason my hands would be tied is because Helen's money would pay his obligations."
"Helen's money?" I laughed. "Helen hasn't as much as I have."
Jim flushed. "Helen is quite a wealthy woman, Bupps. When I went into the army I wanted to leave Helen perfectly easy in a financial way while I was gone, so I transferred all my railroad stock to her, so that she might draw the interest. I haven't asked her for it since I came home, because, in the light of our recent differences, I was afraid she might think I didn't trust her."
"And do you suppose Woods knows that?"
"Of course he knows it!" Jim burst out. "She must have told him. Why do you suppose he played around so long before deciding to make love to Helen? Oh, it's all so simple and clear to me now that I wonder at my stupidity."
I glanced at my watch.
"Good lord, Jim! You've almost made me lose my case. I have only three minutes to get to the court-house. Hold up the climax until I get back, if you can."
I jumped for the elevator and rushed to my appointment, getting there just in time. The news of the morning had so raised my spirits that I was filled with an immense enthusiasm. Everything went my way. My summing up was a masterpiece of logic, if I do say so myself, and my client received a substantial judgment.
There is no moment sweeter in a young lawyer's life than when another lawyer, of big reputation, congratulates him on his conduct of a case. My cup was filled to overflowing, and I must confess I had little thought for Jim's affairs when I lunched that day with Stevenson and McGuire, councils for the L. L. & G. The prognostications that they made for my future were so exaggerated that a bigger man than I might well have been excused for increased head and chest measurements.
At half past two I went back to the office to announce the good news to Jim. I had made up my mind before luncheon to spend the afternoon on the links in honor of my victory, but the clouds, which had been heavy during the morning, by two o'clock opened up a steady drizzle. Jim was at his desk when I came in bringing the glad tidings. He got up and gripped my hand.
"Good boy, Bupps! I knew you'd do it. Thank the Lord your affairs are going well anyway."
"Has something happened since I've been out?" I asked.
"Yes. The First National telephoned about eleven o'clock saying that Helen wanted to borrow quite a large sum of money on her railroad stock and asking if I knew about it. They thought the money was probably for me and they wanted to ask if I'd be willing to wait a few days."
"How much was it?"
"Fifty thousand dollars."
"Is the stock worth that much, Jim?"
"Yes," said Jim seriously, "the stock is worth twice that. That's why I have to go slow. She could sell that stock for fifty thousand at any broker's in five minutes."
I whistled. "Gee! Fifty thousand. Woods must have asked her for it because he knew you were after him."
"It's open warfare now. I told the bank I knew what the money was for and that it would cause no inconvenience to me to have them hold up the loan for a few days. In fact I asked Sherwood, the cashier, to wait until he saw me before making the loan."
Just then the telephone rang. Jim answered it.
"Hello—Yes—Woods?—Where are you now?" He listened a moment. "I understand—Eight-thirty promptly?—I'll be there—Yes, I understand—I'll be there."
He hung up the receiver and looked at me with twinkling eyes.
"The shoe is beginning to pinch, Bupps. That was Woods. He asks me to meet him alone this evening at the country-club, at eight-thirty promptly. Says he wants to see me urgently on business that concerns us both."
"Did he ask you to come alone?"
"Yes. He distinctly said that I was to come alone and be prompt."
"Jim," I argued, "you can't go out there alone to meet that man. It's too infernally dangerous."
"There's no danger, Bupps; but I'm not going alone. Helen is going with me."
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a leather portfolio, into which he put all the letters and telegrams that were scattered about his desk.
"I'm going to prove to Helen, in his presence, what kind of man he is; that he loves her only for the money I gave her, and to save his yellow hide. I'm going to tear out of her heart all the affection she ever had for him. I think, after that, she will not only come back to me, but she will love me all the more for having known Frank Woods. No matter how badly a leg or an arm may be shattered, a quick, clean operation may cause the parts to grow together again, stronger than they were before. I think I win, Bupps."
"Still, I believe you ought to carry a gun, in case he gets nasty."
"I will, if you like," he responded; "but I won't use it, no matter what happens."
I left the office, vaguely disquieted with the thought of Jim going out to the club to face a man as dangerous and desperate as Frank Woods. When a fellow of his standing sees the penitentiary looming up in his foreground he's capable of anything. Helen, herself, in the crazed condition I had seen her the other night, was an added element of danger. I didn't like the looks of the situation any way I turned.
I climbed into my car and drove slowly through the wet slippery streets. The windshield was so covered with rain-drops that I lowered it to see the better, and the autumn rain, beating into my face, soon swept away my gloomy forebodings. After all, no man was going to stick his neck into the hangman's noose, no matter how eager he was for revenge. This was the twentieth century, in which no man could deliberately flout the law. Frank Woods would never have invited Jim to a "rendezvous" so public as the country-club, if he planned mischief. When he found out how much Jim knew, realizing the game was up, he would leave town quietly. Helen certainly would shake Woods when she learned of his dishonesty and trickery. Surely, no woman with Helen's pride could learn how she had been duped without hating the man who duped her.
I stopped at the University Union and found the card room well filled with bridge players. The rainy afternoon had driven the golfers to cards, and as one of the men, Terry O'Connel, was on the point of leaving, I took his place. I played till seven and then started home to dinner. The rain had stopped and a fresh chilly wind was rippling the pools in the streets and rapidly drying the sidewalks. The prospect of a cold blustery evening made me look forward with pleasure to the warm comfort of my study, and a good book.
I had just finished a solitary dinner—mother being confined to her room—and had settled down in dressing gown and slippers before my cheerful fire, when the telephone rang. I put down my book and tried to think of some excuse for staying home, in case it was my bridge-playing friends of the afternoon wanting me to come back to the club. A strange voice called from the other end of the wire.
"Mr. Thompson?"
"Yes."
"There has been an accident to your brother-in-law's car."
"What?—Where?—Who is this talking?" I shouted breathlessly.
"This is Captain Wadsworth of the North District Police Station speaking. Your brother-in-law had a very bad accident with his car at the second bridge on the Blandesville Road. Both Mr. and Mrs. Felderson were pretty badly injured."
"Where are they now?" I gasped, fear clutching at my throat.
"They have been taken to St. Mary's Hospital."
I slammed down the receiver and tore into my clothes. I ran out to the car and drove through the dark wet streets regardless of speed laws. From out the gray gloom, the heavy bulk and lighted windows of St. Mary's loomed just ahead. I ran up the steps and went at once to the office. Three nurses were standing there talking.
"Can you tell me where they have taken Mr. and Mrs. Felderson?"
"Were they the people in the automobile accident?"
I nodded my head.
One of the nurses led me to a large room on the second floor. As we neared the door a young interne, so the nurse told me, came out. He was thoughtfully polishing his glasses.
"I am Warren Thompson, Mr. Felderson's brother-in-law," I explained."Can you tell me how badly Mr. and Mrs. Felderson were hurt?"
He put his glasses back on his nose and looked at me sympathetically.
"Mr. Felderson is dead, and Mrs. Felderson is dying," he said.