Chapter IX

Chapter IX

Procrastination is the thief of more than time;—it is only too often the thief of opportunity. Vickers, who knew very well that he might have made his escape any time in the course of the last month, if only he had been sure he wanted to, now saw before him the prospect of making a more hurried flight than suited his purpose. He had allowed himself to drift, had asked how the present situation was to end, without attempting any answer. And now he had to give an answer within a few days.

He found Overton in his library. Books, mostly in calf-skin covers, stood on shelves that ran almost to the ceiling. Overton was reading—not one of those heavy volumes, but a modern novel in a flaming cover.

“Well, young man,” he said, looking up without surprise, for it was no longer unusual for Vickers to come in like this, “I warn you that I am in a romantic mood. I don’t know that I care to talk to common, everyday mortals like you. I wish I had lived when men wore ruffles and a sword. Then you got romance at first hand.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what it is, Balby G. Overton,” said Vickers, “there is just one place you don’t want romance, and that is right here in your own life, and that is where I have got it at the moment, and I’ve come to you to help me get it out.”

“You talk as if it were a bad tooth,” returned Overton.

“Will you extract it?”

The other smiled. “Not a little of a lawyer’s business,” he said, “is extracting romance from the lives of his clients.”

“It’s a lawyer’s business, too, to knowwhen people are lying, and when they are telling the truth, isn’t it? I hope so, for I am going to tell you a yarn which sounds uncommonly impossible.”

“You encourage me to think it may be amusing.”

Vickers laughed. “Well, it begins well,” he said. “In the first place, I am not Bob Lee.”

“Indeed,” said Overton. “Let me congratulate you.”

It was impossible to tell, from his tone, whether he believed the statement or not, and Vickers made no attempt to determine, but went on with his story.

He told, with a gravity unusual in him, of the death of Lee, and the incidents which had led him to assume the dead man’s personality. When he had finished there was a pause. Overton smoked on without looking at him, until at last he observed:

“Vickers—I was once counsel for a railroad that had a station of that name, I think.”

“Vickers’s Crossing. It was called after my grandfather, Lemuel Vickers. The name is well known in the northern part of New York.”

“But there is still one point not clear to me,” said Overton. “Why is it that you did not come home under the interesting and well-known name of Vickers?”

“Is that really difficult for the legal mind to guess?”

But Overton would not guess. “A desire for change?” he suggested; “an attraction to the name of Lee?”

“The simple fact that I had committed a crime.”

“Of which a jury acquitted you?”

“I had not sufficient confidence in the jury to leave it to them.”

“What! You ran away?”

“I did.”

“And what was the crime?”

“I had killed a man.”

Nothing could be calmer than Overton’s expression, but at this he raised his eyebrows. “Murder?” he said, “manslaughter? homicide? With what intent?”

“With none. I did not mean to kill the fellow; I knocked him down in a good cause.”

“A woman, of course.”

“At the earnest entreaty of his wife, whom he was chasing round the room with a knife.”

“And is it possible,” said Overton, “that the juries in the northern part of the State of New York are so unchivalrous as to convict a man who kills in such circumstances?”

“So little did I suppose so,” returned Vickers, “that I gave myself up as soon as I found the man was dead.”

“But later you regretted having done so?”

“You bet I did. The lady in the case went on the stand and testified that my attack was unprovoked and murderous——”

“These people were your friends?”

“Well, the woman was.”

“I understand. That made it more awkward.”

“Oh, lots of things made it awkward. You see I had broken in a window when I heard her screams. Besides, every one wanted to know how I came to be passing along an unfrequented road at one o’clock in the morning. In short, I saw that there was only one thing for me to do, if I wanted to save my precious neck. I broke jail one night, and slipped over the Canadian border, and from there managed to get to Central America.”

“You still had some friends left, I see,” said Overton with a smile. “I suppose it is for legal advice that you have come to me.”

“No, you are wrong,” answered Vickers. “I have not finished my story. I came north with a real desire to settle down—with a real enthusiasm for a northern home. I thought I should like to jolly an old father, and a pretty cousin, for the rest of my life.”

“How did you know she was pretty?”

“Well, I wasn’t mistaken, was I? But what happened? Lee turned out to be a rotten bad lot. I have been very much disappointed in Bob Lee, Mr. Overton. He is not a pleasant fellow to impersonate, I can tell you.”

“His record is not a desirable one, I believe,” answered the lawyer.

“I don’t know whether you have heard that, among other things, he stole the small capital left to his cousin,” Vickers went on.

“Yes, I have heard it rumored.”

“As you may imagine, that did not help the home atmosphere. It did not tend tomake Nellie cordial. In fact, you must often have wondered at my indifference to your offers of better positions. Nellie had threatened to have me arrested as a thief if I should attempt to leave Hilltop; and though it would not have been very difficult to prove that I was not Lee, it would have been confoundedly awkward to defend myself as Vickers, and be extradited back to New York.”

“Yes, it is a pretty predicament,” said Overton, “but there are still some minor points I do not understand. For instance, I can’t see any reason why you have not told your cousin—Miss Nellie, I mean—that you are not Lee.”

“Why, I have. I did at once. She laughed in my face and intimated that I had always been an infernal liar. You see, one of the troubles is that as soon as I told them that I was Lee, every one remembered me perfectly. Why, sir, it was like a ray oflight when you said you found me changed. No one else did.”

“I see,” said Overton. “And now one thing more. Why didn’t you bolt at once?”

“I’ve just told you.”

“What, a threat of arrest? Hardly strong enough as a motive for a man like you. You have taken bigger risks than that, in your time. Why did you not take the chance now?”

Vickers paused, and a slight frown contracted his brow. “It would be hard to say—” he began, and stopped again. The two men looked at each other and Overton smiled.

“Might I offer a possible explanation?” he said.

“Oh, very well,” returned Vickers. “Yes. I don’t want to leave her. Is that so odd?”

“So natural that I guessed before you said it. You are, in fact, in love with her?”

“I suppose that is about what it amounts to,” the other said; and added with more vigor, “and if I stay here another day, I shall do bodily violence to the man she is engaged to.”

“In that case,” remarked Overton dispassionately, “I advise you to go. Emmons is an honest, able little fellow, who will take care of her, and her life has not been an easy one.”

“Don’t say that to me,” said Vickers; “the mere idea of his taking care of her sickens me. For that matter, I could take care of her myself.”

“Possibly,” said Overton, “but by your own showing you would have to choose your State.”

Vickers rose and began to walk up and down the room. “Well,” he observed at length, “if you advise me to go without even having heard the offer that tempts me—Thisevening a very good old friend of mine turned up from Central America. It seems they have been having an election down there—an election which bears some resemblance to a revolution. A fellow called Cortez has been elected——”

“Odd,” murmured the lawyer. “I read the item in the paper, without the smallest interest.”

“I have known Cortez for some time, and served him once or twice. He sends up to offer me a generalship in his little army—a general of cavalry. But I must take Saturday’s steamer.”

“Plenty of time. This is only Monday.”

“Plenty of time—if I am going.”

“Is it a pretty uniform?”

“I tell you the offer tempts me,” retorted Vickers.

Overton rose, too. “My dear fellow,” he said, “of course you are going to accept it.Heaven knows I shall be sorry to see you leave Hilltop, but no good will come of your staying. Go to-night—at once. Be on the safe side. Let me see.” He drew out his watch. “The last train has gone a few minutes since, on this road, but there is a branch about five miles from here that has a train about ten. You can catch that. Get into my trap, and I’ll drive you over there with one of my trotters.”

“Why the deuce should I go to-night?” said Vickers, stepping back as if to avoid Overton’s enthusiasm.

“The sooner the better. If you don’t go now, how do we know you will ever go?”

Vickers did not look at his friend. “At least,” he said, “I must go back to the house and get my things.”

“My dear man, she won’t be up at this time of night.”

“I don’t expect to see her. I don’t evenknow that I want to see her again. But I must get some money and clothes. I won’t trouble you. I’ll walk the five miles.” He moved toward the door.

Overton held out his hand. “Good-by,” he said with a good deal of feeling.

“Good-by, sir,” said Vickers, and he added: “By the way, did you believe that story of mine?”

“Yes,” said Overton, “I did.”

After the door closed, he repeated to himself: “Yes, by Jove, I did; but I wonder if I shan’t think myself a damned fool in the morning.”

But the processes of belief and disbelief are obscure, and Overton, so far from finding his confidence shaken, woke the next morning with a strong sense of the reality of Vickers’s story; so strong, indeed, that he turned a little aside from his shortest road to the station in order to drive past the Lees’ house,and see if there were any signs of catastrophe there.

There were. Nellie was standing at the door, and though to the casual observer she might have seemed to be standing calmly, to Overton’s eyes she betrayed a sort of tense anxiety. He pulled up.

“Anything wrong, Miss Nellie?”

“My uncle is ill—very ill, I’m afraid,” she answered, and then, as he jumped out of his brougham and came to her side, she went on, “It’s his heart. The doctor is not very hopeful.”

“Dear! dear!” said Overton, “I am very sorry to hear that”; but inwardly he was wondering whether he had not advised Vickers wrongly. If the old man died, he would have been free to go openly under the name of Lee. “Can I do anything for you?” he asked aloud.

“No, thank you,” Nellie answered. “Myuncle is asleep now, and Dr. Briggs will be back before long.” And then, a sudden thought striking her, she asked: “Have you a spare minute, Mr. Overton?”

He said that all his time was at her disposal.

“Then you can do something for me. Come into the house. I want to say something to you. If my uncle had not been taken ill, I should have come to pay you a visit to-day.”

“I am sorry I was done out of a visit from you,” he returned. He signaled to his man to wait, and followed her into the little library where only the evening before Vickers had had his interview with Nuñez.

She shut the door, and though she smiled a little as she did so, plainly it was only to relieve the effect of her fateful manner.

“It wasn’t going to be just a friendly call,” she said. “I have something to tell you, andI hate to say it.” She hesitated and then went on again. “You have been very kind to Bob, Mr. Overton.”

Overton’s conscience gave a twinge. Did she know that he had advised his escape? “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I have had an extraordinary amount of pleasure out of his company.”

“He is a pleasant companion,” said the girl, “but I do not know whether you know much about his real self.”

Overton laughed. “Why, Miss Nellie,” he said, “I was just thinking that same thing about you.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “of course it must be absurd to you for me to be offering advice, considering your knowledge of the world and my ignorance——”

“Knowledge of the world,” said Overton, “is not entirely a matter of experience. I should often prefer to trust the opinion ofthe most innocent women to that of experienced men. Am I to understand that you entirely distrust your cousin?”

How was it possible that she could be ignorant of Vickers’s escape? Or had it failed?

“No,” answered Nellie. “I don’t distrust him entirely. But you see in small superficial things Bob has such unusually nice qualities that one forgets. Last night when my uncle was taken ill——”

Overton looked up quickly. “Oh, your uncle was taken ill last night, was he? At what hour?”

“About one, I think. I went and called Bob and asked him to go for the doctor—I was very much alarmed at my uncle’s condition—and in the most surprisingly short time Bob had dressed and gone out and come back again. It was like a conjuror’s trick. And he has been so kind throughout thisdreadful night; and yet—” She paused, and gave a little sigh.

“Where is Bob at this moment?” said Overton.

“Oh, with his father. Uncle Robert will not let him leave him for an instant.”

Overton did not answer. He felt unreasonably annoyed with Nellie for her attitude toward Vickers. The younger man’s avowal of love rang in his ears. She ought to be able to tell a man when she saw one, he thought.

He stood up. “Well, I suppose I can’t see him, then.”

His tone did not please Nellie, nor the ease with which he dismissed her warning.

“But I have not finished what I wanted to say,” she returned.

“Forgive me. You wished to warn me still further against the contaminating influence of your cousin?”

“I wanted to do nothing so futile,” said Nellie, with spirit. “I had not come to the point yet. It was of Louisa that I was thinking.”

“Of Louisa?” he repeated.

Nellie nodded. “I do not think that he is a good or safe friend for Louisa,” she said. “You may tell me it is none of my business, but I am largely responsible for his being here, and James and I both thought I ought to speak to you.”

“Am I to understand that Emmons thinks your cousin likely to attract Louisa?”

“James? Oh, I don’t know whether James’s opinion on that point would be very valuable. But I do.”

“You surprise me,” said Overton.

“I know. It must surprise you to realize that women should ever be attracted by men they can not respect, and yet it does sometimes happen, Mr. Overton. For myself Ican not imagine it, but I know there are girls to whom a man’s mere charm——”

“Oh, but you misunderstand me entirely,” said Overton. “Of course I have seen quantities of just such cases as you have in mind—handsome scoundrels who fascinated every woman they came in contact with. But surely you do not think your cousin such a person.”

“Very much such a person.”

Overton wagged his head. “Well, well, you surprise me,” he returned. “A jovial, amusing fellow—a favorite with men, perhaps. But what would you say a girl could see in him?”

His malice was rewarded as malice ought not to be.

“Why,” said Nellie rather contemptuously, “think a moment. In the first place his looks. Any girl, at least any very young girl, might easily be carried away by such striking good looks.”

“Humph!” said Overton, pushing out his lips dubiously. “You think him good-looking?”

“Don’t you?”

“A well-built figure,” he answered, yielding a point.

“An unusually well-shaped head, and a wonderful line of jaw,” said Nellie. “I may be prejudiced against Bob, but I never denied him looks.”

“Well,” said Overton, “we’ll grant him looks. Has he anything else?”

“Yes,” replied the girl, “the fact that he is amusing. Seeing him as I do, day in and day out, I realize how unfailingly pleasant and kind he is—in small things. And then he has another quality more difficult to define—a sort of humorous understanding of another person’s point of view, which leads to a kind of intimacy, whatever your intention may be.”

“Bless me,” cried Overton, “you begin to alarm me. I fear you are describing a pretty dangerous fellow. My only consolation is that Louisa has never mentioned his name, nor indeed done anything to make me think she was interested in him.”

Nellie did not look relieved. “Perhaps,” she answered, “it is not the sort of thing that a father is the first person to know.”

Overton shook his head sadly as he rose to go.

“Perhaps not,” he agreed. “Perhaps one is not always the first person to know it oneself.” And he hastily took his departure.

As he was going out he met Emmons, who stopped him, and after a brief interchange on the subject of Mr. Lee’s illness, observed that he had been wanting a few words with Mr. Overton for some days.

“About Bob Lee, Mr. Overton. Do you know his past history?”

“I do,” said Overton. He held up his hand and signaled to his coachman.

To so simple an answer Emmons for a moment could think of nothing to say, but feeling that so important a matter could not be so quickly settled he went on:

“Oh, of course, in that case I have nothing to say. It is no business of mine.”

Overton was pulling on his gloves and did not reply.

“But have you ever thought, Mr. Overton, what sort of example your friendship with such a man offered to the community?”

“A very good example, I should think.”

Again Emmons was confused. “Of Christian charity?” he asked.

“Of an even rarer virtue, Mr. Emmons—common-sense.” And the great man got into his brougham and drove away.

Back to IndexNext