CHAPTER VII
The ever-watchful eye of the liveried servant in charge of the door of the club, whose duty it was to recognize a member from a visitor and receive him accordingly past that exclusive threshold, swung open the door to Mr. Enoch Crane to-night with a bow and a respectful smile of greeting.
“Good evening, James,” said Enoch pleasantly.
“Good evening, Mr. Crane,” returned the domestic; “a bad night, sir.”
A page ran up to relieve Enoch of his dripping umbrella, but it was James himself who divested him of his overcoat and white muffler, relieved him as well of his rain-bespattered silk hat, several seasons out of date (Enoch had a horror of new fashions), and having handed them to the page who hurried away with them to the coat-room, knelt down on the marble floor, Enoch steadying himself with one hand on the man’s broad shoulder, while he unbuckled and took off his galoshes.
“I’ve got it for you here, sir,” said James, lowering his voice and glancing furtively around him. Then as a trio of members crossed the hall close to his heels, he added: “A note for you, Mr. Crane,” and he rose and handed Enoch an unsealed white envelope, stamped with the club’s name, and unaddressed.
“Thank you, James,” said Enoch, and left him to his vigil again at the door.
Enoch never forgot to speak to James when he entered. He also bid him a pleasant good night when he left. In fact, it may be said that out of all the members of that stately and time-honored establishment, Enoch was the only one who invariably bid James good evening and good night. Certainly it never occurred to that faultlessly dressed member, Mr. Morton Beresford, to do so—Beresford in his smart London clothes, who knew Europe and talked it, a valuable man at dinner, and a great favorite with the newly elected “money-having” men. Beresford considered those who served him as objects of utility, like the great, soft rugs beneath his feet, or the bell for a fresh cocktail under his big, ringed hand. Neither was Jack Lamont given to these little touches of human kindness, which often mean more to those who serve than tips. His conduct to inferiors was generally overbearing. When he was obliged to ring twice, Lamont swore. So did Seth Van Worden, grain-broker, when the slightest thing disturbed him. Van Worden was proud of his ancestry, having walked one day over a graveyard in Rotterdam and found a de Worden buried there. From that moment Seth began to search among the branches of his family tree for some distinguished fruit. Finally, at the tip end of a forgotten limb, he discovered a certain Van Worden—an admiral. His joy was intense. It left no doubt in his mind that he himself was of straight descent fromthat famous personage, and within twenty-four hours the Van Worden coat-of-arms was conspicuous in gilt upon his note-paper, Mrs. Van Worden adding a few flourishes to her taste which the blazon lacked, while Seth became absorbed in making a collection of early Dutch prints for his library—mostly sea-fights, in which the distinguished admiral could be gloriously detected in the smoke. Seth, however, Enoch knew, was pure New England, Van Worden meaning “from Worden,” a Holland town. His ancestors being part of a shipload bound for Salem, all of them were known when they landed as “Van Wordens,” and most of them being suspicious characters, were glad to lose their identity in Van Worden.
As for that ponderous and florid member, Mr. Samuel Barker, who made his money in glue, and whose truffles, wines, and cigars, were all especially selected for him, only the most capable of club servants could attend to his wants speedily enough to save that gentleman from growing purple with rage.
There were others, too, whose bald heads showed above the window-sills of the big, luxurious room looking out upon Fifth Avenue, and whose habit it was to fill its easy armchairs on fine afternoons and themselves with idle opinions of the public who strolled by them. Enoch knew them all.
Some of the younger members referred to Enoch as “old Crane,” and gave him a wide berth, as being sour, opinioned, and crabbed. They did not forget, however, that he was a member of the advisory committee,and as such they feared more than respected his authority, though they openly discussed the failings of the house committee down to the question of soap and nail-files, and up to the size of the cocktail-glasses, and the quality of the gin. Others assumed that critical air of connoisseurs, who, having been weaned on commonplace nourishment during their early struggles to make a living, were more difficult to please in good fortune than Lucullus in the matter of canvasback ducks, terrapin, and grilled mushrooms. Many of them having reached manhood on cider and elderberry wine, now considered themselves experts in dry champagne, sound red burgundy, and their proper temperatures. Some became both illustrious and conspicuous by inventing concoctions of their own, like little Archie Reynolds, whose long drink known as a “Reynolds pick-me-up,” survived two seasons of popularity, and finally fell flat, to give place to an invention of the barman, whose full name nobody cared about.
As for the elder men, there were many who were glad to meet Enoch, men of distinction and brains, whom New York honored among her citizens in commerce, in law, and in science, in surgery, and in medicine—men whom it was a liberal education to meet, and whose modesty was one of their many virtues.
There were half a dozen other clubs in which Enoch might have chosen to dine to-night, but he chose this one—a club which he rarely went to for dinner.
He glanced into the big front room where the shadeswere drawn back of the heavy velveteen curtains, noted the identity of the men there chatting in groups or screened behind the evening papers, and having assured himself that the man he was looking for was not among them, searched through the silent library and the card-rooms, and without further investigation made his way to the dining-room, where he chose a small table in the corner, commanding a view of the door. A score of dinners were already in progress. Among these he recognized several acquaintances, Morton Beresford and Sam Barker being among them. These he nodded to in passing, and took his seat at the table he had chosen, where he ordered a most excellent little dinner, beginning with a dry Chablis and oysters, and continuing with a bottle of Château de Bécheville, stuffed green peppers, and a salad of cold, firm, sliced tomatoes, which he insisted on dressing himself. He was dressing this salad when the tall, slim figure of a middle-aged man silhouetted in the doorway made him lay aside his spoon and salad-fork and watch the newcomer intently as he scanned the dining-room with his black eyes, caught sight of Seth Van Worden dining alone, and went over and joined him.
There was no mistaking that tall, slim figure, the iron-gray hair shading to silver at the temples, the clean-cut, handsome profile, or that easy manner of a man of the world with which he crossed the dining-room.
Enoch saw Seth Van Worden rise briskly from hischair and stretch out his hand to welcome him. Then the late comer took his seat at Van Worden’s table and unfolded his napkin, with his back to Enoch, who resumed his salad dressing with the grim satisfaction a detective feels in having guessed where to find his man, and found him.
It was Jack Lamont.
Enoch was in no hurry. He raised his eyes to a waiter and quietly asked the man to bring him a copy of theSun, which he refolded by his plate and perused leisurely over his salad, while Lamont, with his back to him, bent over his green-turtle soup, and a waiter poured for him a stiff glass of Bourbon whiskey and soda. Now and then Enoch caught fragments of their conversation, Seth Van Worden’s big voice reaching clearly to his table. Lamont’s was pitched lower and accompanied by a good deal of foreign gesture, which had become a habit with him since his various sojourns abroad, more often in Paris than elsewhere, though he knew that gay little Paris—Brussels—as well as his pocket, and Italy—at least that side of it which appealed to Jack; Florence in the height of the season, and Venice, when a favorite little countess he knew was there to welcome him in her palace so close to the Grand Canal, that you could have thrown a kiss to it in passing. Seth’s eyes brightened as he drank his wine and devoured a slice of cold duck cooked to his liking. Seth was again on his favorite topic of conversation—the Dutch—and his descent from that brave, stolid little nation. He dilated as usual upontheir centuries of prowess on the high seas, their honesty, their ancient blood. Seth, being overblooded by high living, had his full share of it. Presently he launched forth to Lamont, about the Hollanders’ love of flowers, raking up from his shallow knowledge the threadbare history of the black tulip. He informed Lamont that he had picked up two rare volumes on tulip-growing, printed by hand in Rotterdam in 1600, and paid “a sound price for them, by gad,” for which he was not sorry, and had them now safe under a special glass case in his library.
“I knew a Dutch girl once,” intervened Lamont, and he bent over to confide her qualities to Seth out of hearing of the servants. “Titian hair and a skin like ivory”—Enoch overhead him declare.
Thus the best part of an hour passed. Both were speaking freely now, off their guard, the dining-room being nearly deserted.
“Weren’t—you—er—afraid he’d return?” asked Seth.
Lamont’s easy, well-modulated laugh filtered through the room.
“You don’t suppose I was fool enough not to have calculated that,” he returned. “It was a good eight hours from Milan by train—and besides there was old Cesare, my gondolier, and the littlefemme de chambreAnnina to give me warning.”
“Good-looking?” ventured Seth.
“Who—Annina? As pretty a little Venetian as ever paid you a smile for a compliment. I was playingfor high stakes, I’ll admit, old man. But then I knew what I was about—the countess was no fool.”
Again Lamont lapsed intosotto voce.
“Besides,” he declared (again within ear-shot of Enoch), “they manage these little affairs better in Italy than in America. To love is an art there. Very well, they have brought it to afinesse. I’d give ten years of my life to be back there again—Ah! but we were happy! Once I wired her all the way from Verona.”
Again the conversation became inaudible to Enoch.
“And she came?” asked Seth, his voice rising, with a sneaking thought in his mind that he would like to have known her.
“Of course she did; she even brought Annina. There are some women who never can travel without a maid; the Countess Vezzitti was one. She arrived in deep mourning without a jewel. Delicious, wasn’t it? As she whispered to me: ‘You see,amico mio, I have only brought one jewel—Annina.’ I believe that girl would have given her life for her mistress.”
He lowered the candle under its crimson shade between them, and kindled a Russian cigarette over its flame, lighting up his dark, handsome, devil-may-care face and a cabochon emerald ring the countess had given him. Lamont might easily have been mistaken for an Italian. His slim, straight figure, over six feet in height, moved with an easy Latin grace; a dark-skinned, handsome fellow, with the eyes of a Neapolitan, fine hands, a soft persuasion in his voice, and asmile that revealed his perfect teeth, white as milk. At thirty he was all some women could have desired. He was now forty-three.
“Never run after a woman,” Lamont resumed quietly. “Take the advice of an old hand, Van Worden, let them run after you; grande dame or bourgeoise, they are all alike.”
Then they fell into a talk about the theatres, in which Seth gave vent to some heavy opinions about the revival of the “School for Scandal,” at Wallack’s, expatiating upon the art and beauty of Miss Annie Robe, and the consummate acting of John Gilbert as Sir Peter Teazle, which he considered a capital performance.
In lighter vein, he talked over the good old theatre days of the past—Harrigan and Hart in their old theatre, the little Comique, playing the “Mulligan Guards Ball,” the drop-curtain with a picture of theMary Powellat full speed up the Hudson, and a strong smell of chloride of lime permeating the house from gallery to pit. Thus he preambled reminiscently up the Broadway of his younger days. Where was Niblo’s Garden and the “Black Crook”? “Gone,” declared Seth. “Evangeline” and “Babes in the Woods” at the old 14th Street Theatre had vanished likewise, and the San Francisco Minstrels, packed on Saturday afternoons with Wall Street brokers, roaring over the personal jokes, those never-to-be-forgotten end-men, Billy Birch and Charley Backus, had prepared for them overnight.
“All gone,” sighed Seth.
At which Lamont, who had been more familiar with the 23d Street Koster & Bial’s, confided to Seth how many corks he himself had added to the ceiling and walls of its famous cork-room back of the scenes.
Enoch swallowed his salad slowly, his ears on thequi vive, his countenance both grim and attentive, and his whole mind on the man with his back to him, who, if he had seen him on entering, had totally forgotten his existence during dinner. Thus another quarter of an hour slipped by, during which Enoch ordered a long cigar and some black coffee. It was not often he dined alone so lavishly, but whatever it cost him to-night, he was determined to sit Lamont out. In his search for him in the club before dinner he had made up his mind to speak to him privately the instant he sighted him. He had ended in listening. That which rankled deep in his heart did not concern Van Worden. He intended to see Lamontalone. If Lamont had a grain of decency in him, he felt he would understand.
“If he doesn’t understand,” he muttered to himself, as he sipped his coffee, “I’ll make him. I’ll explain to him, that his method of winning the confidence of a young girl scarcely out of her teens is nothing short of damnable; that it’s got to stop.”
“Where?” asked Van Worden a moment later, rousing himself and stretching his long, angular body back in his chair, as the two reached their cigars and liqueurs.
“At the Van Cortlandts’,” confided Lamont.
“The devil you say!”
“Telling you the truth, Seth. At one of her deadly musicales. Dearest little piece of flesh and blood you ever laid eyes on—intelligent, too, frightened out of her wits, but I soon attended to that—got her laughing, and played her accompaniments, Tosti’s ‘Good-by,’ and ‘I Awake from Dreams of Thee,’ and all that sort of stuff. Chuck full of sentimentality, with a pair of blue eyes that would keep you awake.”
“How’d she sing?” put in Van Worden.
The shoulders of Lamont’s well-fitting dress coat lifted in a careless shrug.
“Er—not badly—rather surprised me, in fact, after all the squawkers one hears during a winter; not so badly by any means; a damned nice little voice, not badly pitched either, for her age—what we call in Paris a ‘petite voix.’ She’s only a kid, you know, in the rosebud stage. Lives with her mother and stepfather down in one of those gloomy old houses in Waverly Place. Drove her home. She’s got the prettiest little feet in the world, old man. I tell you as we fellows get older, we begin to prick up our ears over something that is fresh and young; bright and cheery, with a skin like a rose. They’re the best, after all. Why shouldn’t they be? Our hearts never grow old, when we’re young we’re timid and difficult, and by the time we do get some worldly knowledge, the gray hairs begin to hit us, and we go tagging aroundafter a lot of passéd widows, and divorcées, who know as much as we do.”
“And sometimes more,” grunted the grain-broker.
“And sometimes more,” reiterated Lamont, laughing outright.
Enoch clenched down his napkin, and rose quivering. He drew a sharp breath, and strode over to the table where the two men were seated. His eyes fastened savagely upon Lamont, his under lip shot forward, the muscles of his jaw working convulsively, in an effort to command his voice.
“Hello, Crane!” exclaimed Van Worden, who, facing him, was the first to notice his approach. He might as well have addressed a bull about to charge, for he got no reply, and for an instant stared blankly up at him, wondering what was the matter.
Lamont wheeled round in his chair.
“Hello, Crane!” said he. “You here?” Then noticing the state he was in, rose to his feet.
“You’re not ill?” he ventured, with a rapid apprehensive glance at Van Worden, who had risen, his mouth open in astonishment.
“Mr. Lamont,” said Enoch evenly, despite the rage that shook him, “I have something to say to you. Something of the utmost importance, sir—that’swhy I’m here.”
Lamont instinctively started back, like a man on his guard. Then he covered the speaker with his attractive black eyes half closed, a condescending smile playing about his lips.
“Well?” said he. “Out with it, Crane; what’s it all about?”
“You,” said Enoch grimly.
Lamont’s smile broadened under his trim, gray mustache.
“Must be devilish important for you to get into the state you’re in,” he laughed, with a wink to Van Worden that suggested Enoch was drunk.
Enoch’s eyes blazed.
“I’ll have you know, sir,” he declared tensely, “that it was important enough to bring me here. I’ll have you know, sir, that I came here to-night with the express purpose of seeing you”—he turned to Van Worden—“over a matter which does not concern you, Mr. Van Worden. I wish to express to you personally my apology for disturbing you.”
“Oh! well—er—that’s all right,” stammered Van Worden. “Of course if you want to see Lamont in private——”
“In private!” cried Lamont, his black eyes flashing. “What the devil haveyougot to tell me in private, I’d like to know? I decline to be bullied by you, sir, into anything like a conversation in private. No conversations in private for me with a man in your state of mind, thank you, without the presence of a witness. Your age, Crane, prevents me from saying more. What right have you got to disturb us, I’d like to know? Here we are, two gentlemen—dining alone, at the club, and you have the arrogance, the impudence to disturb our dinner!—to make a scene! Youare extraordinary,” he cried with a forced laugh. “Conversation in private—eh? I’ll be damned if I will. What have you got to say, anyway?”
“This,” said Enoch, with slow determination, “that I warn you now, Lamont, it will be to your advantage to grant me an interview, now, at once, over there in the card-room, if you please.”
“Not without Seth,” retorted Lamont, reddening sullenly under Enoch’s dogged insistence. “If that’s a go, say so. If not, you can go to—” The oath did not escape him—something in the elder man’s eyes arrested it.
“Will you grant me an interview, as I desire it, or not?” Enoch demanded.
“Not without Seth,” repeated Lamont stubbornly. He wrenched back his chair and sat down, followed by Seth Van Worden, who slipped into his own.
Though he had scarcely put in a word in an affair which Enoch Crane had assured him he was no part of, but which was rapidly turning from bad to worse, it, nevertheless, made him frightened and so ill at ease that he wished he was anywhere else but where he was. Seth had a horror of scenes, and the scene before him was verging dangerously near a club scandal. There was Mrs. Van Worden to think of. If his name was mentioned with it he knew what to expect from his wife, who was as proud of the name of Van Worden as she was of her solitaire earrings, or her box at the opera, in which she dozed twice weekly during the season.
“WithoutMr. Van Worden,” Enoch continued to demand sternly.
“I’ll be damned if I will!” snapped Lamont, reaching out for the decanter of Bourbon and shakily spilling out for himself a stiff drink.
“You are a member of this club, sir,” declared Enoch. “I, as you may know, am a member of its advisory committee.” Lamont turned sharply.
“Well,” said he, with a careless shrug, “what of it?”
“On December 14,” continued Enoch, “you were over a month in arrears for house charges, amounting to one hundred and forty-two dollars. On December 15 you paid the amount without being posted, a delay having been granted you.”
Again Lamont turned. This time he faced him, silent and anxious.
“On the evening of December 14,” continued Enoch, “you were one of four members—Mr. Blake, Mr. Archie Reynolds, Mr. Raymond Crawford, and yourself—in a game of poker that lasted half the night.” Enoch planted his strong hands on the table. “Late play in this club is forbidden,” he declared. “Play of that kind especially. That night you won close to four hundred dollars.”
“Well, I won it, didn’t I?” snarled Lamont. “And I paid my house charges, too, didn’t I? What more do you want? See here, Crane——”
“You will wait, Lamont, until I have finished,” returned Enoch firmly. “The incident of the pokergame might have been closed, had you not left these in your trail.” Lamont started, a peculiar expression in his eyes. “These,” repeated Enoch. He reached in his coat pocket and drew out the white envelope James had given him. It contained three cards—the ace of clubs, the ace of hearts, and the ace of diamonds. “Look at them carefully, Lamont,” said he. “You no doubt recognize the pin scratches in the corners.”
“You lie!” cried Lamont, springing to his feet, his fists clenched, Van Worden staring at him in amazement.
“I might have expected that,” said Enoch, bending closer to him, and lowering his voice. “If you attempt to strike me, Lamont, I warn you you will find I am a stronger man than you imagine. What I say to you is the truth, and you know it.” Lamont noticed the size of his hands, the stocky breadth of his shoulders. “These cards are yours, marked by you,” continued Enoch. “James, who put you into a cab at daylight that morning, saw them slip out of your pocket—you were drunk—as he propped you back in the seat; he picked them up from the cab floor, discovered they were marked—came to me as a member of the advisory committee, in confidence, and gave me these in evidence.”
Lamont gripped the back of his chair to steady himself, the color had left his face, and the corners of his mouth twitched.
“You will either grant me an interview as I wish it, or I will lay the whole matter before the committee,”continued Enoch. “And now listen to me carefully. If ever I hear of you touching a card again in this club I’ll have you expelled.” And with this he picked up the empty envelope and the three telltale aces at a grasp, and shoved them back in his pocket before Lamont could prevent him. “You have asked for a witness; very well; Mr. Van Worden will bear testimony to what I have told you.”
“Guess you’ve no further need of me,” said Van Worden, who rose and left the dining-room, shaking his head. At the door he said to a sleepy waiter, “Split that dinner,” and rang for the elevator.
“Now that we are alone,” said Enoch, to the man whose honor lay in his hands, and who for a long moment stood staring at his empty glass, “I wish to tell you plainly, that I consider your attentions to Miss Preston a damnable outrage.”
“Preston?—Preston?— What Miss Preston?” stammered Lamont evasively.
“Don’t lie to me,” growled Enoch. “I wouldn’t pursue it, Lamont. It might be dangerous. I overheard nearly your entire conversation at dinner. You played her accompaniments at the Van Cortlandts’; you had the—you, a man of your record among women—had the insolence to bring that child home alone in your brougham. You left her, fortunately, at her mother’s door—my neighbor—we live under the same roof.”
“What do you mean?” returned Lamont thickly. “You don’t think I——”
“Had I a daughter,” declared Enoch, “I would not trust her in your hands.That’swhat I think, and that’s what I came here to tell you to-night. You leave that child alone.” He shot out his under lip. “We manage these little affairs in America better than in Italy,” he cried, slamming his clenched fist down on the table, and, without another word, turned on his heel and strode out of the dining-room.