XIXThe Ultimatum
ON the day succeeding David Vallory’s midnight visit to the tunnel the guest list of the Alta Vista Inn had a number of additions. Upon the arrival of the stub train from Agorda, David met the three for whose coming Oswald’s letter had prepared him, and even in the moment of welcomings saw his difficulties take on added thorninesses. Oswald, his face set in lines of frowning determination, was evidently anticipating reproaches, or something sharper; but when David saw his sister, and marked her quick little groping for Oswald’s hands in the descent from the car-steps, his heart smote him and he said neither more, nor less, than was meet.
A mountain motor hack was at the service of the Alta Vista group for the drive to the top of the ridge, and with the transfer in process, David had time to observe the other arrivals. One was a well-groomed young man with sleepy eyes and a bored expression, and on one of the numerous traveling-bags obstructing the foot space in thecar David read the initials “F. W.” Another of the newcomers was a rather solemn-faced person in clothes of English cut; he, also, looked bored, and the monocle which he occasionally fitted to an eye with grimaces provocative of subdued mirth in the other passengers, gave him the appearance of a weary owl contemplating sad and depressive surroundings with a single eye. David, sitting with his father and pointing out the various phases of the big job as the car climbed the ridge, needed no additional tags to enable him to identify the pair on the opposite seat. Of Miss Virginia’s retinue at least two, Mr. Frederic Wishart and the Englishman, Cumberleigh, had discovered her retreat.
In the hotel dining-room, where he secured a table for his own party, David ate his heart out under an outward mask of the welcomer’s cheerfulness when he saw Virginia making merry with the owlish Englishman and the son of the multimillionaire breakfast-food king at a table four removes distant. Gone for him were the joyous excursions over the work in the company of a khaki-clad maiden whose interest in the technical activities had been scarcely second to his own. Gone, likewise, were the ecstatic evenings in the secluded porch nook, shadowed by the wall-tappingfir-tree, with no one to interfere and none to distract.
“Yes, we are getting along fairly well,” David was saying, continuing the talk with his father and Oswald and wrenching himself forcibly aside from the heart-consuming spectacle four tables away. “If nothing unforeseen happens, the through trains ought to be running over the new line before snow flies.”
“Accidents, you mean?” queried the sweet-voiced one who sat in darkness.
“Accidents or other hamperings. Of course, on a job as big as this there is always a chance for the unexpected.” And he went on to enumerate some of the hamperings which might cause delay, carefully avoiding, however, any mention of tunnels and caving roofs therein.
Later, the table talk was led to other topics. David wished to know how they had fared on the long journey from Middleboro; he spoke of the satisfaction it gave him to have the family united again; melting a little in the glow of his own galvanized warmth, he was even hypocritical enough to descant upon the good luck which had enabled Oswald to join the vacation party.
After dinner business intruded. Plegg came up to secure his chief’s decision upon certain foundationswhich were being sunk for one of the bridges, and David had to go with him to the bunk-car office to consult the blue-prints. When he was free to return to the Inn he found his family scattered. Eben Grillage had swooped down upon the friend of his youth and had spirited him away; and it was only after some little search on the porches that David discovered his sister and Oswald.
Coming up behind them unnoticed, he went away again without intruding upon them. The after-glow of another of the gorgeous sunsets was spreading itself in the western heavens, and Oswald was describing it for the blind girl. It was the low-spoken admission of the blind one that made David forbear to break in. “You think I am missing it, Herbert, but that is not so. Sometimes it seems as if I could see things through your eyes better than if I had my own.”
On another of the porches David had a glimpse of Virginia and the two newcomers, and a dull fire of resentment was kindled. The daughter of the luxuries was evidently in her gayest mood, and if there were any lingering regret for the change from the technicalities and the duet evenings in the shadow of the fir-tree her manner did not betray it. David turned away when he sawher holding a match to light Wishart’s cigarette. The most infatuated of lovers may be permitted a pang of disappointment at the discovery that he has apparently been useful only as a convenient fill-in.
Having the social—and sentimental—nerve centers thus painfully cauterized, David was fain to fall back upon the job and its requirements. There need be no lack of occupation. He knew that Plegg would be hard at work checking the estimate for the month; and there was always the overseeing round of the night shifts, which one or the other of them usually made before turning in. But there was another urge which fitted in better with the mood of the moment. Plegg’s news, that Lushing was back at the head of the inspection staff, and that Dargin was the possessor of the tunnel secret, had not yet been acted upon. In some less morose frame of mind, David Vallory might have thought twice before yielding to a sudden impulse to carry the war into the enemy’s country. As it was, he turned his back upon the hotel and a short half-hour later was entering the single street of the mining-camp.
The impulse which had sent him across the basin was not very definite in its promptings. In accordance with the minatory promise made toPlegg, he had written to the president of the railroad company, asking that some drastic action be taken in the matter of the nuisances. Something might come of this, in time, but meanwhile Dargin must be prevented from using his weapon. How to go about the preventing presented a rather difficult problem. Things which seem measurably easy of accomplishment at a distance are apt to take on new and difficult aspects in the face-to-face encounter, and as David made his way toward the Dargin lair where he had once looked on with Plegg, he was still undecided as to the manner in which the gambler should be approached.
As he soon found out, an approach of any sort at the moment was plainly impossible. The bi-monthly Grillage pay-day was still a fresh memory and the town and its resorts were filled with the money-scattering workmen. The Dargin place was packed to the doors, and David had some trouble in wedging himself into the gambling room at the rear of the bar. Here the impossibility of getting speech with Dargin became apparent. The master gambler was dealing at the faro table, and his isolation for the time being was safely assured and secure.
As David was shouldering his way back to thestreet entrance for a breath of clean air a man in the bar-room throng touched him upon the shoulder, calling him by name. It was a prompting of the morose demon in possession that made him turn and stare at the questioner half-angrily before he made answer. The man was well-dressed, something below the middle height, and rather heavy set, dark, and with a closely cropped brown beard. The mouth outlined beneath the tightly curled mustaches was full-lipped and gross, and the bulging eyes, with a hint of a hard drinker in them, evenly matched the sensuous lips.
“Vallory is my name, yes,” David admitted, and the bare admission was a challenge.
“Mine is Lushing,” was the curt announcement. “I suppose you have heard of me before this?”
David did not say whether he had or had not. An antagonism of a sort that he had never before experienced was laying hold upon him so fiercely that he scarcely dared trust himself to speak. This was the man who had been audacious enough to make love to Virginia, and who was now boasting that he would break the Grillage Engineering Company.
“You were looking for me?” David said.
Lushing bit the end of a cigar and struck a match.
“Yes; I’ve been wanting to get hold of you,” he rapped out, between puffs. “I want to have a talk with you. It’s too noisy here; let’s go back to one of Jack’s private rooms.”
If David Vallory hesitated it was only because the feeling of antagonism was growing by leaps and bounds, and he was afraid to be alone with the man—afraid for Lushing, not for himself.
“Is it business?” he inquired curtly. Then he added: “I’m waiting to see Dargin.”
“Yes, it’s business. And if you’re waiting for Jack, you’ll wait a long time. When he sits in at the game, he stays to see it out. Let’s get out of this mess.”
David reluctantly followed his guide to one of a series of small card-rooms back of the bar. Lushing snapped the electric light switch as one who knew his surroundings intimately, and sat down at the card-table.
“What’ll you drink?” he demanded brusquely.
“Nothing at all; I’m not thirsty.”
Lushing pressed the bell-push for himself, and when the bar-man came, ordered a whiskey-sour. “Won’t you change your mind?” he suggested, after the drink had been served; and when David shook his head: “All right; every man to his own taste. Here goes,” and he drained his glass.
More and more David was wishing himself well out of it. There could be nothing but enmity between him and this loose-lipped man across the card-table, and the savage prompting to precipitate an open conflict was becoming ungovernable.
“If you’ll say what you wish to say,” he grated. “My time is pretty strictly limited.”
“Not if you’re waiting for Jack Dargin,” said Lushing. “But perhaps you want to get back to the hotel.” Then he added in a tone which seemed to be intentionally insulting: “They tell me you are one of Eben Grillage’s pets.”
David’s anger flamed alive like a flash of dry powder, but he was telling himself in many repetitions that his time had not yet come.
“We shall get along faster, and perhaps farther, if you will cut out the personalities,” he said sourly.
“I was only repeating what I have heard. You are young to be at the head of a job of this size, and people have a way of explaining such things to suit themselves.”
“I might go into the repeating business myself, if I cared to,” David was beginning; but Lushing cut him off with a short laugh.
“I know; some of them have told you that Ihave a personal quarrel with Grillage, and perhaps some others have hinted that I wanted to marry into the company and got kicked out for my impudence. We’ll let that go. What was, is ancient history, and we’re dealing with the here and now. Your company is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and if you don’t know it, you ought to. Its days on this job are numbered.”
“Threats are the cheapest things in the world,” said David.
“You will find that this is more than a threat. You are a new man in the field, and I’ve nothing against you—as yet. What I wanted to see you for was to say to you that you’d better go while the sledding is good.”
“You are advising me to discharge myself?”
“That’s it—quit—throw up the job—climb out while you can get out with a whole skin.”
“But why?”
“Because if you don’t, you’ll be shown up with the other pirates and sneak thieves.”
David glanced again at the flushed face and bibulous eyes. It was evident that the drink tossed off while the bar-man waited was only the latest of a series which had been begun much earlier in the day.
“You are in no condition to talk business withme or with any one,” he said bluntly. “Some other time, perhaps, when you are entirely sober——”
Lushing brought his fist down upon the card-table with an oath.
“No, young fellow; you’ll hear what I’ve got to say now, and then you may take it straight to the fish-eyed old buccaneer you’re working for. Grillage hasn’t a dollar in this world that he has made honestly, and you may tell him I say so. Also, you may tell him that I’m going to make it my business to hound him to his finish. When all the crooked deals he has worked off on this job are shown up, he’ll be lucky if he can stay out of the pen. On top of all that, you may tell him that his daughter will see the day when she’ll beg me on her knees to let up—and I won’t do it!”
David was upon his feet and his eyes were blazing.
“You’ve said enough, and more than enough!” he broke out in hot wrath. “If you were not too drunk to be held accountable, I’d cram your words down your neck for that insult to Miss Grillage! Past that, I’ll say, once for all, that Mr. Grillage is more than my employer; he is my friend and my father’s friend. Go to it when you’re ready, and I shall know how to get back at you.”
At this, Lushing whipped an automatic pistolfrom his pocket and laid it upon the table, covering it with his hand.
“You make any bad breaks and I’ll drill you,” he said viciously. “Take that for a back-sight any time you feel tempted to beat me up. When a man of your size comes at me, I shoot first and shoot quick. I’m out to get your crooked company and the man who owns it. You say you’ll fight for him, and that puts you on the black list. I’m fair enough to give you a tip, and I’ve given it to you. If you don’t get off this job quick and fade away, you’ll wake up some fine morning to find yourself dead.”
What little calm judgment David Vallory still retained was telling him to go away; that there was nothing to be gained by staying and listening to Lushing’s threats. But by this time he was well out of reach of any of the calm voices.
“You’re taking it for granted that I’m unarmed, and you are right,” he flashed back. “I don’t care for your gun. You’ve laid the law down for me, and now I’ll lay a little of it down for you. Your inspectors will be welcome on the job anywhere and at any time, but as for yourself, you’ll stay away from it. If you show up in any camp of mine, you want to bring that gun alongwith you, for I shall take care to have one of my own, and I’ll use it!”
Lushing picked up the weapon and let it lie in his palm.
“Did the little Grillage tell you to kill me off out of the way?” he leered.
That was the final straw. David Vallory flung himself across the card-table in a mad-bull charge, carrying the table with him in his eagerness to close with his antagonist. For a few breathless seconds the battle was obstructed. David’s rush had borne Lushing backward, tilting the chair in which he was sitting until it brought up against the wall and was crushed under his weight and David’s and that of the overturned table. Too furious to fight coolly, David tried to snatch the wreck of the broken chair out of the way so that he could get at the man entangled in it and held down by the tipped table. One good punch he got in, or thought he did, and then there was a stunning crash, a fleeting whiff of powder smoke, and the light went out.