CHAPTER XXVIIJACK MAKES A RESOLUTION
Foran hour—two hours—Clifford continued to stand in the shadowy doorway near the entrance of the Midnight Café. Presently Mary came down, Jack with her. The light drug which Clifford had slipped into his drink to render him more manageable and prevent his going with his carousing companions, had spent its power. Jack was now sober, though plainly his nerves were still badly shaken.
Clifford stepped out of his doorway. He wanted Mary to see him, that she might have the reassurance which would come of her knowing that he was keeping his promise to watch over her and Jack—to ward off any possible attempt of Loveman and Bradley—until she got Jack safely in the apartment at the Mordona, which, months since, they had occupied as “Mr. and Mrs. Grayson” and which they were again to occupy under that name. Mary saw him; but Jack also saw him, which last Clifford had not wished for.
“Hello, there, Bob,—come here,” Jack called. Clifford crossed to him, and the young man gripped his hand in a hand that twitched. “Bob, old man,” he went on, his unsteady voice full of feeling, “Iwant to thank you. You did me a great turn—and, old man, I’m never going to forget it. Mary told me how you got rid of dad, and then sent for her to take me in charge. It was great.”
Clifford did not look at Mary, but he was conscious of her pale, set face. He fell in with the apocryphal version Mary apparently had given Jack of what had happened while he had lain in a stupor.
“That’s all right, Jack,” Clifford replied.
“And say, Bob, I want you to know that I know I’ve been a fool—and things a lot worse than that. But, Bob,—that’s all past now—and past forever! I don’t deserve what Mary is doing for me. But I’m going to make good. I’m going to be a good boy—for Mary’s sake! Just you watch me!”
There was a frank manliness in the young fellow’s voice and manner. He was deeply moved, and was as much in earnest as it lay within his powers to be.
“Here’s something I wish you’d back me up in, Bob,” Jack went on. “I want to tell dad that Mary and I are married; but she objects. Don’t you think I should?”
Clifford, remembering that scene two hours back where Mary had told the older Morton everything while Jack lay unconscious, shook his head. “I think she’s right, Jack.”
“Well, I’m going to tell soon, no matter what the two of you say!” He gripped Clifford’s hand anew. “Thanks once more, old man. And remember, I’m sure going to make good!”
They stepped into a taxi-cab. All this while Mary had neither spoken nor looked at Clifford, and she did not look at him now. But Clifford saw that her face was still gray, still drawn.
He followed at a distance in another taxi-cab, on the watch for interruption from Loveman or Bradley, or their agents. But there was none; and Jack and Mary passed out of sight into the Mordona.
For a space Clifford gazed after them, thinking. Again he had a profound sense that Jack was fundamentally a fine fellow; that what was chiefly wrong with him was that he had been swept into the resistless current of Big Pleasure—and that also he had been victimized by those who make a subtle business of playing upon the human weaknesses of those whom Big Pleasure sucks in—and that also, before and behind it all, he had never been properly guided by his worldly, masterful father. Clifford wondered whether this frank admission of faults, this declaration to make good, was merely a flare, merely the final spurt, of excellent qualities that were almost spent—or whether this was in truth the beginning of a splendid Jack Morton that was yet to be.
The latter seemed to be the case. Two days later Clifford chanced upon Mr. Morton at the Biltmore. “Jack came back to work this morning,” commenced the financier, “and he’s behaving as though nothing is too hard for him. I guess I owe an awful lot toyou for making me see that Mary was the only person who could straighten him out. She’s a wonderful woman! The way she’s behaved, it’s something I cannot understand!”
“Don’t try to understand her,” said Clifford. “Just try to be thankful.”
A new purpose had come into Clifford’s life since that night at Le Minuit. Rather it was his old purpose, but now more grimly determined on, and unmixed and undeterred by other considerations. He was out to get Loveman, and Bradley, and their fellows—and he was also out to protect Mary. And all this was now nothing more than a purely professional job, since matters were as they were with Jack and Mary.
Clifford’s long-prevailing reason for holding back on Loveman and the others—that Mary might be free to work out her plan, and that Life might have the chance to test her—no longer had any force with him, now that Mary had exposed herself and renounced her ambition, now that she had nothing at stake. His determination to get Loveman was intensified by his certainty that Loveman was trying to get Mary: Loveman’s soft-spoken, cryptic remark in front of Le Minuit, about the game perhaps not being finished, and there perhaps being other cards to play, made him sure that this great spinner of webs had not ceased from spinning. Clifford, putting himself in Loveman’s place, realized that the little lawyer had motives for the most desperateaction. Loveman had lost Mary out of his schemes forever; he realized that she would no longer protect him in order to protect herself; he hated her for having blocked him; and he feared her, feared her daily, for she had it in her power to secure his disbarment, to send him to prison.
There was no doubt in Clifford’s mind that Loveman was planning—that Loveman would act. And he believed that Loveman, in daily fear, would act quickly. But what would Loveman do?
There was but one way to learn, and that was to keep Loveman under constant and discreet surveillance; and this now became the all-consuming routine of Clifford’s life, in which he was aided by Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly and special men supplied him by Commissioner Thorne, and concerning which he took counsel with Uncle George. But days, weeks, went by; nothing happened. As far as the closest scrutiny could reveal, Loveman was going about his daily round of legal business and his nightly round of pleasures, and in no way was he concerning himself about Mary Regan. And likewise Bradley seemed to be confining himself to his own affairs.
This behavior puzzled Clifford. Why were they holding back? But behind this seeming quiet, Clifford knew that things were brewing—and big things. But as to just what they might be, he could get no clue. However, he kept doggedly at his secret watch. There would come a time whenthey would doubtless act, and he must be ready and on the spot to take action when the moment came.
One day when Clifford was talking the situation over with Commissioner Thorne, the Commissioner remarked: “They’re undoubtedly up to something—and you’ll get them in the end, Clifford.” And then: “I hear that young Jack Morton has braced up?”
“Yes.”
“And I understand that it’s the influence of his wife that’s keeping him in the strait and narrow.”
“Yes.”
There was no further reference to Mary Regan. But each understood what was in the other’s mind: Thorne knew of Clifford’s regard for Mary Regan, and Clifford knew that Thorne knew it.
“Clifford,” the Commissioner went on after a moment, “I’ve twice offered you the position of Chief of the Detective Bureau. I have a man in the place now, but he doesn’t like it and I’m going to shift him as soon as I can. Clifford, I’m offering that job to you again.”
“Thanks, Chief. I appreciate the honor”—and he did. In former times Clifford had looked up to that position as the glory-crowned but unattainable peak in his professional career. He hesitated. “It’s a mighty big thing, Chief,—but do you mind if I don’t give you my answer until this job I’m on is closed up?”
“All right, Clifford. But remember—I’m counting on you.”
While Clifford kept at his appointed task—always with the sense that something big was gathering, and always wondering why Loveman was holding back—the summer grew toward its prime. Jack he occasionally saw; the young fellow seemed to be keeping his promise made that night out in front of Le Minuit. And occasionally Clifford saw the elder Morton, who was remaining in town despite the heat, to watch over his son in this latest testing of Jack’s fiber. But all this while Clifford did not again see Mary.
And then in the early days of August there happened what perhaps had been inevitable this long while—something which was perhaps, despite halts and hopeful upward turns, merely a following of the direction in which this affair had been foredoomed to move since he had first come into it. Clifford first learned of it when Mr. Morton sent for him. He found the financier with his grim power of control trying to repress his agitation.
“Day before yesterday was Jack’s twenty-fifth birthday,” said Mr. Morton, “and Jack came into that legacy left him by his aunt—two hundred thousand cash, you remember. That same day it was deposited in his name. And that same afternoon he began drinking. He was at it yesterday; he did not appear at the office at all. And last night he did not go home; Mary has not seen him since yesterdaymorning. God!”—with a burst of emotion—“I don’t like to be asking you this again—but do what you can to find the boy!”
“I’ll get him if I can,” Clifford said quietly, and went away.
Clifford did some quick thinking. Jack at last might just naturally have reached the limit of the endurance of his good resolution—yes, that probably was the case. But even if so, the weakness of the eaten-away structure of Jack’s will was not alone responsible for his break-down and disappearance. All Clifford’s instincts, and all his cold reasoning, told him that Loveman was concerned in this latest relapse of Jack. It was, as he well knew, an easy matter to keep a man—either with or against his consent—hidden in the vast human wilderness of New York.
More intently, and more carefully, than before Clifford now followed the little lawyer—about his downtown legal work by day, about the restaurants and roof-gardens at night. Every hour of the twenty-four either Clifford, or the men assigned to help him, had the little man under surveillance. As far as eye could discern, Loveman was preserving the established routine of his life: a figure at various public resorts until three—then to bed—up at eight—at his office at nine-thirty—then with his dinner at seven beginning the round of pleasure for the night.
But on the fourth evening after Jack’s disappearancethere was a slight variation. Clifford, supping with Uncle George, whose company he found a boon in this late-houred routine, saw Loveman start home at a little before two, an hour earlier than was his wont. In a taxi with Uncle George Clifford followed Loveman’s car, saw Loveman when he came to one of the upper West Forties,—a street of one-time handsome residences,—slip out of his car and walk rapidly through the quiet, deserted cross-street. Clifford also got quickly out of his taxi, and slipped into the dark shadow of a stoop—where Uncle George, showing a surprising quickness, joined him a moment later.
A little way down this street, before a black-windowed house, Clifford noted two empty, shadowy automobiles; he saw that they were alike at least in this, that both were low and long, built evidently for speed and the ability to maintain it.
Having reached this darkened and seemingly empty house, Loveman turned and ran quickly up the high, old-fashioned stoop. The next instant he had let himself in with a latch-key.
“I suppose you know what that place is?” whispered Uncle George, gripping Clifford’s forearm sharply.
“Yes,” breathed Clifford—“the house of Joe Le Bain!”