Evan made his way home down the Avenue ruminating upon what had happened. "In the words of Alfred it's a rummy joint," he said to himself. "Father and son are a pair of birds. What do I care? I'm not going to let them get under my skin. I'll give them their money's worth for a month or so, then bid them ta-ta and hike to the blessed country on my savings. Meanwhile the affair has its humorous side. Mystery, too. Like a play."
If Evan had not recollected when he got to Thirtieth street that he needed certain small articles of apparel to make himself presentable in his new job, he would probably not have discovered that he was being followed. But as he retraced his steps to the shops his attention was caught by a man's back, a narrow back clad in grey. The owner of the back was looking in a shop window. It was the little youth that Evan had seen before that morning. The inference was that he had stopped merely to give Evan time to pass him.
"By God! another snooper!" thought Evan. "This one dogged our foot-steps all the way up-town from the fruit-stand. Well, I'll give him a little run for his money."
Entering one of the big stores Evan made his purchases. He then hastened up one aisle and down another. It could have been no easy task to follow him through the crowded store, but his little grey shadow never lost the scent. In their gyrations Evan had an opportunity to get a good look at his tracker. He was not like Alfred; he had a decent look, or rather he looked neither decent nor mean, but simply watchful. An impenetrable mask was drawn over his face, out of which his eyes looked quietly, giving nothing away. In years he was no more than a lad.
"Not a very dangerous customer, anyway," thought Evan.
Issuing from the store Evan jumped on a moving bus bound up-town. He took a seat on top; the youth got in below. At Forty-Second street Evan changed to a cross-town car; his pursuer rode on the platform. At Third avenue he changed again—but without shaking the other. Half an hour later making his way through Waverly place towards Washington Square, he was well aware that the grey figure was still behind him, though pride forbade him turning his head to see.
Reaching the Square, Evan dropped on a bench and waited to see what would happen. The slender figure passed him, eyes calmly bent ahead, and sat down on a bench fifty feet farther on. Evan rose again, and retracing his steps, walked down the east side of the Square, and entering from the Fourth street corner, sat down again. Once more the youth passed him and sat down beyond. There were but few people around; it was hardly possible that he thought his movements had not been perceived by the man he was following. "As a sleuth you're an amateur," thought Evan. "You don't care whether I'm on to you or not. But I must say you have your nerve with you. I'm considerably bigger than you."
He got up and approached the other. The stripling looked straight ahead, affecting to be unconscious of his coming. Evan came to a stand before him and said abruptly:
"What's the idea, kid?"
The youth looked up startled, then quickly drew the mask over his face. "I don't understand you," he said.
"Come off," said Evan mockingly. "Do you think I'm a blind man not to notice the particular interest you are taking in my doings? What's the idea?"
The boy's eyes held to Evan's steadily; they were the eyes of a fanatic rather than a crook. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
"You've been trailing me for the last two hours."
"You're mistaken. I never saw you before."
Evan laughed in exasperation. "That's childish! Do you mean to say you didn't pick me up in Troy street two hours ago, after that row with the fruit vendor?"
"I don't know where Troy street is," was the answer.
Evan changed his tactics. Dropping into the seat beside the boy he said: "Look here, I'm a regular fellow. Loosen up, kid. Give me the dope. What's it all about?"
The other was silent.
"God knows why anybody should take after me," Evan went on. "I haven't committed any crime that I know of. And I don't own a thing in the world anybody could covet. Who hired you to trail me?"
"Nobody," said the boy. "You're mistaken."
Evan began to get hot under the collar. He got up.
"By God——!" he began, clenching his fist. Then he stopped, because his anger rang false to him. In fact he couldn't work up a genuine anger against the strange-eyed boy who neither cringed before him nor defied him but simply looked.
"It would be a shame to hit you," he went on, "you're too little. But I warn you to keep away from me hereafter. The next time I stumble over you I won't be so gentle, see? You keep out of my way, that's all."
He strode off across the Square in the direction of his own place. He felt exasperated and helpless. He was clearly the injured party, yet he had come off second best in an encounter with a mere child. To make matters worse he was perfectly sure that the youth was still trotting after him like a little dog that refuses to be sent home. He would not look around to see. As he passed in the door of 45A he did look around, and there sure enough was his little sleuth across the street. Evan slammed the door and went up-stairs swearing.
The next time he had occasion to leave the house, the youth had gone. He saw him no more—that day. "Perhaps his game was to learn where I lived," thought Evan.
Evan's pal Charley Straiker occupied the adjoining room on the top floor of 45A and the two pooled their household arrangements. It was Evan's week to cook the dinners, consequently when dinner was eaten his was the privilege of occupying the easy chair with the stuffing coming out and cock his feet on the cold stove while Evan washed up.
During the afternoon Evan had painted and delivered a label that had been ordered of him, and had cleaned up generally as if in preparation for a journey. But he had not yet said a word to Charley of the events of the morning. As a matter of fact Evan had a prudent tongue, which Charley most decidedly had not, and it had occurred to Evan that he had better find out where he was at, before entrusting the tale to his garrulous partner.
Evan drew at his pipe and gloomed at the wall. Now that the mild excitement induced by the morning's events was over, a heaviness had returned to his spirit. Meanwhile Charley ran on like a brook.
Charley was a lean and sprawling youth with lank blonde hair, a long nose, and an incorrigible smile that spread to the furthest confines of his face. To quote himself, he was a bum artist and a squarehead. He took people at their own valuation and was consequently a universal favourite.
"Carmen rented her back parlour this afternoon," he was saying—Carmen being their own moniker for their landlady Miss Carmelita Sisson. "To a female. What do you know about it? Carmen hates 'em round the house. Too nosey, she says. But the room's been vacant since spring, and roomers in summertime are as scarce as snowballs. So she succumbed.
"Haven't seen her yet—I mean the new roomer, but my hope and my prayer is that she's a looker. I think she is because Carmen sniffed. Does our Carmen love the beautiful of her sex? She does—not! She's a singing-teacher, Madame Squallerina, Carmen called her, with the rare wit for which she is famed. Already moved in with her piano and all. I heard her moving round, but the door was closed. I'm afraid she's not going to be sociable. Hell! the parlor floor always looks down on the attic! That's a joke in case you don't know it; parlor floor looking down on the attic!
"Wish I could think of a good excuse to knock on her door. It 'ud be a stunt, wouldn't it, to raise an alarm of fire in this old tinder-box. Say, if there's ever a fire I bags the new roomer to save—that is until I get a look at her. If it's over a hundred and fifty, I'll give the job to you, Strong-arm."
This failed to draw a smile from Evan.
"Say, you're as lively as the dressing-room of a defeated team. Wot th' hell's the matter? Come on out and see a movie. I'll blow."
"I'm off pictures," said Evan. "Go on yourself. Maybe you'll meet Squallerina on the stairs. Take her."
"You've said it," said Charley. "I'm off."
The gas made the room hot, and Evan turned it out. The instant he did so, he became aware of the moonlight outside, and he went and rested his elbows on the sill in his customary attitude.
The moon herself was behind the house, but the Square beneath his window was mantled in a tender bloom of light. As every painter knows, moonlight is most beautiful when the moon herself is out of the picture. By moonlight the dejected old trees of the Square were shapes of perfect beauty, the grass was overlaid with a delicate scarf of light; the very figures on the benches were as strangely still as if the moon had laid a spell on them.
But all this beauty only had the effect of putting an edge on Evan's dissatisfaction. The gnawing inside him was a hundred times worse by moonlight. "What's the matter with me?" he thought querulously. "I wished for something to happen. Well, something did happen, but there's no fun in it. There's no fun in anything any more. Moonlight makes me hate myself. Oh, damn moonlight anyhow! It turns a man inside out!"
He flung away from the window and planted himself in his chair with his back to it.
Presently he became aware of a sound new in that house. His door stood open for ventilation and it came floating up the old stairs. He was aware of a vague pleasure before he localised the sound. It was music; a piano—but not the usual rooming-house instrument; a piano in tune, softly played. It drew him to the door and to the banisters outside, a poignant, haunting melody rippling in a minor treble, a melody that queerly sharpened the knife that stabbed him, yet drew him on irresistibly.
He stole down the dark stairs, guiding himself with a hand on the rail, his eyes as abstracted as a sleep walker's. The sounds were issuing from the back parlour of course. The door was partly open—so she was not as unsociable as Charley had feared, or perhaps it was only that it was hot. The room was dark inside. Evan leaned against the banisters with bent head, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of breaking the lovely spell.
The music came to an end and his spirit dropped back to earth. He lingered, silently praying for it to resume and give him wings again. Instead, the door was suddenly opened wider and he saw the tenant of the room on the threshold. All he could see of her was that she was a little woman with a lot of hair. The moonlight shimmering through the edges of her hair made a halo around her head. Moonlight made two square patches on the floor of the room.
It was too late for him to escape. "I—I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I couldn't help listening."
"Oh!" she said. "Who are you?"
"Evan Weir. I live up-stairs."
"Oh!" she said again, but with a different inflection.
By her voice Evan knew she was young and adorable. It was a low-pitched voice for so little a woman, low and thrilling; a mezzo-soprano. His spirit went to meet that voice.
For a moment or two they stood silently facing each other in the dark. Evan was not conscious of any embarrassment; he was too deeply moved. His conscious self was in abeyance. Moonlight, music and woman had bewitched him. He was in the grip of forces that played on him like an instrument. But someone had to speak in the end. It was Evan.
"What was that you were playing?" he asked simply.
"The moonlight sonata," she answered.
"Of course! That's why it sounded so exactly right. Won't you play again—please?"
She could not but have been aware how genuinely moved he was, but however it may have pleased her, womanlike, she sought to pull down the conversation to a safer plane.
"Oh, I can't!" she said. "I have unpacking to do. I was coming out to get a match to light the gas. I can't find any."
"I'll light the gas for you," he said eagerly. She stood aside to let him enter. The simple act thrilled him anew; she was not afraid of him; her spirit greeted his. When she turned around he could see her face etherealised in the moonlight, a lovely pale oval with two dark pools. There was a subtle perfume in the room that made him a little dizzy. In the act of striking a match he paused.
"Oh, it's a shame!" he said involuntarily.
"What is?" she asked.
"To light the gas on such a night."
She laughed. It was a delicious little sound. It seemed to bid him be at home there. "One must!" she said. "What would the landlady say?"
But the tone of the denial encouraged him to insist. "A little more music," he begged. "I never heard anything so lovely."
She went to the piano bench obediently. "Sit down if you can find a place," she said over her shoulder.
Instead he came and leaned his elbows on the edge of the piano case. Once more her fingers rippled over the keys, and another delicate minor air ravished his soul. She did not seem to strike the keys, but to draw out the sounds with the magical waving of her pale hands. She kept her head down, and he could not see into her face. Nor could he be sure of the colour of her hair, but only that it was shining.
In the middle of the piece the flying fingers began to falter. No doubt the intense gaze he was bending on the top of her head confused her. At any rate she broke off abruptly and jumped up.
A cry broke from Evan: "Oh, please go on!"
"I cannot! I cannot!" she said. "Light the gas." As he still hesitated she stamped her foot with delightful imperiousness. "Youmustlight the gas!"
With a sigh he struck the match. The gas flared up with a plop. Their curious eyes flew to each other's faces. Evan saw—well, he was not disappointed. His instinct had rightly told him in the dark that she was adorable. Not regularly beautiful; the most charming women are not. There were fascinating contradictions. The bright hair was gloriously red: the eyes too large for her face and brown, extraordinary eyes revealing a strong soul. They were capable both of melting and of flashing, but especially of flashing; the soul was imperious. As for the rest of her, the dear straight little nose was non-committal, the mouth fresh and childlike, with a slight, appealing droop in the corners. In short, Nature the great experimentalist had in this case endowed a most sweet and kissable little body with the soul of a warrior.
Evan could not have argued this all out, but his inner self perceived it. His feelings as he gazed at her were mixed. The dear little thing! the enchanting playmate; his arms fairly ached to gather her in. At the same time the deeper sight was whispering to him that this was no playmate for a man's idleness, but a soul as strong as his own—or stronger, to whom he must yield all or nothing, and he was afraid.
As for her, she simply looked at him inscrutably. He could not tell if she were pleased with what she saw.
Finally self-consciousness returned to both with a rush. They blushed and turned from each other.
"You must go now," the girl said gently.
He understood from her tone that she did not greatly desire him to go, but that it was up to him to find a reason for staying.
"Let me help you get your things in order," he said eagerly. "You can't shove trunks and furniture around."
She hesitated, thinking perhaps of the censorious landlady.
Evan made haste to follow up his advantage. "This trunk. Where will you have it put?"
She gave in to him with the ghost of a shrug. "It has nothing in it that I shall want," she said. "Shove it as far back in the closet as it will go."
In the closet her dresses were already hanging. The delicate perfume he had already remarked made his head swim again. As he bent down to shove the trunk back, her skirts brushed his cheek like a caress. They were burning when he came out. Perhaps she guessed; at any rate she quickly turned her head.
"You don't want the sofa in the middle of the room," Evan said to create a diversion.
"Put it with its back against the fireplace, please. I shall not be having a fire for months to come. That will leave the space by the window for my writing-table."
While they discussed such safe matters as the disposal of the furniture they never ceased secretly to take stock of each other. What people say to each other at any time only represents a fraction of the intercourse that is taking place. Under cover of the most trifling conversation there may be exciting reconnaisances going on, scout-work and even pitched battles of the spirit.
Evan could not make her out at all. She seemed to single him out, to encourage him as far as a self-respecting woman might, yet an instinct warned him not to bank on it. There was an unflattering impersonal quality in her encouragement; behind it one glimpsed formidable reserves. She was wrapped in reticence like a mantle. Evan had a feeling that if she had been really drawn to him she would not have been so nice to him. On the other hand "coquette" did not fit her at all; not with those eyes. Evan thought he knew a coquette when he saw one; their blandishments were not such as hers.
So for a while all went swimmingly, and the moments flew. Evan managed to make the business of arranging the furniture last out the greater part of the evening. To save her face she bade him go at intervals, but he always contrived to find an excuse to delay his departure.
There was no reticence in Evan. He loved her at sight and his instinct was to open his heart. Of course he was not quite guileless; the portrait of himself that he drew for her was not exactly an unflattering one, but it was a pretty honest one under the circumstances. He was careful not to bore her, and to grace his tale with humour.
Oddly enough the more of himself that he offered her, the less pleased she seemed to be. As the evening wore on she developed a tartness that was inexplicable to Evan. He cast back in his mind in vain to discover the cause of his offense. Yet she would not let him stop talking about himself either, but drew him on with many questions, interested in his tale it would seem, merely for the sake of making sarcastic comments. As for talking about herself, nothing would induce her to do so.
It was a more unamiable side of her character that she revealed, but the enamoured Evan, even while she flouted him, forgave her. "Something is the matter," he said to himself. "This is not her true self." He told her of the black dog that had been on his back all day.
"But now I'm cured," he said, looking at her full.
She chose to ignore the implication.
Evan began leading up to a desire that he had not yet dared to express. "My partner said you were a singer," he said.
"Have you been discussing me?" she said with an affronted air.
"Why, yes. Nothing so exciting as your coming ever happened in this old house."
"I teach singing," she said carelessly.
"Won't you sing me a song?"
She decisively shook her head. "Not to-night."
"But why?"
"Dozens of reasons. One is enough; I don't feel like it."
"To-morrow night, then?"
"Aren't you taking a good deal for granted?"
"But you said not to-night. That suggests another night."
"Oh, one doesn't weigh every word."
"Well, I'll be listening out to-morrow night on the chance."
For some reason this annoyed her excessively. A bright little spot appeared on each cheek-bone. "Then you'll force me to keep silent however I feel."
"Why—what's the matter?" said Evan blankly.
"You imply that if I happen to sing you will regard it as an invitation to come down here."
"Why, I never thought of such a thing," he said in dismay.
His honesty was so unquestionable that she got angry all over again, because she had made the mistake of imputing such a thought to him. Indeed a disinterested observer could not but have seen that some perverse little imp was playing the devil with this charming girl. Angry at him or angry at herself—or both, she had ceased to be mistress of the situation and her forces were thrown into confusion. Whatever she said, it instantly occurred to her that it was the wrong thing to say.
"You're spoiled like all the rest," she said. "A woman cannot be decently civil to you, but you immediately begin to presume upon it." This was said with a smile that was supposed to be tolerant, but she was angry clear through, and of course it showed.
It was all a mystery to Evan. With a hand on the table he had just moved, he was staring down at it as if he had discovered something of absorbing interest in the grain of the wood. He knew she was unreasonable, but he did not blame her; he was merely trying to think how to accommodate himself to her unreasonableness; he was pretty sure that whatever he might say would only make matters worse, so he kept silent.
But no red-haired woman can endure silences either. "If you've nothing further to say you'd better go," she said at last.
"I was wondering what I had done to offend you," said Evan.
She laughed, but it had not a mirthful sound. "How funny you are! Strangers don't quarrel. They've nothing to quarrel about!"
"But you are angry."
"Nonsense!" she said languidly. "I'm very much obliged to you for your help. But there's nothing else you can do."
"Meaning I'd better beat it."
She was magnificently silent.
"I'm going. But it's hard to go, not knowing what's the matter."
She had the air of one dealing with a trying child. "How often must I tell you that there's nothing in the world the matter?"
"You are not the same as you were when I came."
For some reason this flicked her on the raw. She flushed. She stamped her foot. "You're—you're impossible!" she cried. "Willyou go!"
As Evan backed out she all but shut the door in his face. How astonished would he have been could he have seen through the door how she flung herself face down on the sofa and wept. That was the softer girlish part of her. But not for long. She sat up and digging her chin into her palm thought long and hard. That was the warrior.
"I will not give in to him—and spoil everything," she whispered. "I will not!"
Meanwhile, out in the dark hall Evan was leaning against the banisters trying to puzzle out what had happened. At first only a blank dismay faced him. Women were inexplicable. But presently a slow smile began to spread across his face. He said to himself:
"Well, whatever it is, she's not exactly indifferent to me. I've made an impression. That's something for the first meeting. And she's in the house. And to-morrow's another night!"
He went up-stairs with a better heart.
He went straight to his window-sill and cooled his hot cheeks in the night air. The old trees still stood sentry duty in the moonlight, the people sat still as dolls left out all night, the noises of the town were reduced to a pleasant murmur.
"God! what a good old world it is!" thought Evan, unconscious of his perfect inconsistency. "How good it is to be young and alive; to see; to feel; to laugh; to love; to know things! I guess I'm a little drunk on it now, but I want more, more! I shall never have my fill!"
As he lay in bed it suddenly occurred to him that he was head over heels in love with a woman whose name he did not know.
At the Deaves mansion next morning it was Alfred who opened the massive steel grill to admit Evan. The second man favoured him with a sly wink.
"Cheese it, kid," he murmured out of the corner of his mouth. "They're layin' for you."
This meant nothing to Evan.
In the centre of the house where the hall opened up he found George Deaves walking up and down with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back, the very picture of a harassed man of affairs. There was a histrionic quality in all young Deaves' attitudes. The old man in slippers was hunched in a pseudo-mediaeval chair, while a fat servant, Hilton, the butler Evan guessed, was standing at the foot of the stairs. Another man in chauffeur's livery was beside him.
It all had the look of a set scene, and from the way their faces changed at the sight of him, the inference was inescapable that it had been set for Evan. He wondered greatly what it was all about, but felt no particular uneasiness.
George Deaves bent a venomous glance on him. "Follow me," he said hollowly.
The whole procession wended its way up the winding, shallow stairs; first George Deaves, grasping the hand rail and planting his feet virtuously, then old Deaves, his heels coming out of his slippers at every step, then Evan, then the three servants. Evan heard them sniggering behind him.
At the door of the library George Deaves said: "You come in, Papa. Hilton, Wilson and Alfred, you wait outside in case I call you."
"Does he expect me to assault him?" thought Evan.
In the library young Deaves flung himself back in his chair, and placing the tips of his fingers together said pompously: "Now, my man, I advise you to tell the truth."
Evan began to get hot. "That is my custom," he said quietly.
Notwithstanding his pompous air the younger Deaves was visibly nervous; he had not his father's force of character. "It is useless for you to feign innocence," he said.
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Evan.
Deaves said: "I may as well let you know I have a policeman waiting down-stairs."
There is no man however sure of himself that would not be to some degree disconcerted by this announcement. Evan changed colour. Deaves, quick to notice it, smiled disagreeably, and Evan's cheeks grew hot indeed.
"Have him up-stairs," said Evan. "I don't know what this flummery is all about. Hand me over to the police and maybe I'll find out."
"Give me a specimen of your handwriting," said Deaves, shoving writing materials towards him.
"Certainly," said Evan. "I have no reason to be ashamed of it."
"Write five thousand dollars, first in figures, then spelled out."
Evan did so, and shoved the paper back. Deaves compared it with a letter which lay in front of him, the old man peering over his shoulder.
"Nothing like," the latter said disappointed.
"That doesn't prove anything!" snapped the son. "I didn't suppose that he worked this single-handed. He has confederates."
Evan's momentary discomfiture had subsided. The situation was becoming too absurd. Was he accused of forgery or blackmail? He began to grin.
"You said you were an artist," said George Deaves with a sapient air. "Can you prove it?"
"Certainly," said Evan. "If you'll come to my studio. There are dozens of my canvases there."
"But how would I know you painted them?"
"Oh, I'll do you one while you wait."
"Facetiousness won't do you any good," said Deaves severely. "This is a serious matter. Please explain how you came to be in that little obscure street where you met Papa yesterday?"
"There is no explanation," said Evan. "I was just walking about."
The young man sneered. He tossed over the letter that lay before him. "Read that," he said.
Evan applied himself to it with no little curiosity. Meanwhile he was aware that the two were watching him like lynxes. The letter was written in a neatly-formed, highly characteristic hand on a sheet of cheap note-paper without any distinguishing marks. Evan read:
"Mr. George Deaves:
Dear Sir:
We take pleasure in enclosing copy of a humorous little story that has been prepared for the press. None will appreciate it better than you and 'Poppa' we are sure. If you think it is too good to be offered to the public it will cost you five thousand dollars for the exclusive rights, including motion pictures and dramatic. But unless we hear from you before the day is out we will take it that you don't want to buy, and it will be offered to theClarionfor to-morrow's edition. TheClarionis always delighted to get hold of these human interest tales. Copies will be mailed to everybody in the social register, and especially to Mrs. George Deaves.
But if you want to reserve the fun to yourself bring five one-thousand-dollar bills to the reading-room of the New York Public Library this morning. Call for Lockhart's History of the Crimean War in two folio volumes and insert the bills in volume one at the following pages: 19, 69, 119, 169, 219. Then return the books to the desk.
With kindest regards,
Yours very sincerely,THE IKUNAHKATSI."
A noiseless whistle escaped from Evan's lips; his eyes were bright. For the moment he forgot that he was the accused. His sole feeling was one of the keenest curiosity. A fascinating mystery was suggested. The impudent letter was like a challenge.
"May I see the enclosure?" he asked.
"No," said Deaves stiffly.
Evan shrugged. "What's the nature of it?"
"It's a would-be humorous account of the events in that little street down-town."
"Is it a true story?"
Young Deaves turned to his elder. "Is it true, Papa?"
"In a way it's true," was the snarling reply. "From a certain point of view. But it's blackguardly just the same."
Evan stroked his lip to hide a smile. "What makes you think I wrote it?" he asked.
"Nobody else could have known all the circumstances."
"But we were watched and followed every step of the way."
"So you say."
"Why, you're surrounded by spies. I expect every servant in the house is in the pay of this gang. I hadn't been in the house half an hour before they approached me."
"What did I tell you?" the old man snarled to his son. "Why don't you fire them?"
"How many times have I fired them? What good did it do? As fast as we get a new lot they're corrupted from the outside."
"Then it's been going on for some time," said Evan. "I never had any connection with Mr. Deaves until yesterday."
"How do we know that?"
"That's why you were so eager to get a job here," added the old man. "To have a better chance of spying on me."
"Never thought of such a thing. The offer came from you."
"You paid your own fare on the trolley-car, didn't you? Mine, too!"
Evan laughed in exasperation. "Well, if that's an incriminating circumstance I'm guilty!" he said.
"Don't be a fool, Papa," muttered George Deaves.
Evan went on: "If I was a member of the gang would I show my hand so clearly? Would I betray the sources of my information? I tell you Alfred told me yesterday there was good money to be made on the side in this house."
"Why didn't you tell me that yesterday?" demanded Deaves.
"I wanted to find out what was up first. I know now."
George Deaves began to look impressed.
Evan made haste to follow up his advantage. "Have up the policeman. I can tell him no more than I've told you. But the whole affair must be well aired, I suppose."
George Deaves winced. He and his father exchanged a glance. "There's no hurry," he said. "We may have been mistaken. At any rate we don't want any unnecessary publicity."
"You don't mean to say you're going topay!" cried Evan involuntarily.
"Wouldn't you advise it?" asked the old man craftily.
"No! Fight! Call their bluff! The nervy blackguards! Oh, to give up to them would be too tame!"
"I guess he isn't one of them, George," Simeon Deaves said dryly.
George apparently agreed with him, though he made no direct acknowledgment.
Evan struck while the iron was hot. "Look here, here's a proposition for you. This thing interests me a whole lot. That letter was written by a damn clever crook, humorous too. I'd like to match my wits against his. Let me have a try at running them down. Won't cost you a cent more than my salary, and you won't have to let in any outsiders on the affair. Of course I've had no experience, but if I fail you'll be no worse off than you are now. If you go to the police it will be the newspaper sensation of the year."
Father and son looked at each other again. Evan had given them two potent reasons for listening to his proposal. But before they had time to express themselves there was an interruption.
A lady swept into the room like a northwest gale, one whose attire put the rose and the lily to shame; comely in her own person too after a somewhat hard and glassy style. Evan guessed this was Mrs. George Deaves, otherwise Maud. At the sight of her stormy brows father and son looked like two schoolboys caught in the act.
"What's going on?" she peremptorily demanded. "What are all the men servants waiting in the hall for?"
"Nothing, my dear," said George Deaves in a casual tone belied by his anxious eye. "They are merely waiting for their orders."
"My maid told me there was a policeman sitting in the housekeeper's room."
"Must be a friend of Mrs. Liffey's," her husband said with feeble humour.
"Friend nothing!" was the contemptuous reply. She marched up to her father-in-law, who silently snarled and gave ground like a cat. "You've been up to your old tricks!" she cried. "Another disgraceful street scene! I see it in both your faces. Another blackmailing letter, I suppose!"
Young Deaves unobtrusively sought to turn over the letter on his desk, but she caught the movement out of the tail of her eye, and, whirling round, snatched it up.
"Let me see that!"
Her husband looked as helpless as a sheep. He had lost his pomposity. "Happy little family!" thought Evan.
Having read it, she threw back her head and laughed in bitter chagrin. "I thought so!" she cried. "The third time this summer! When is this going to end? Where's the story?"
"My dear, what's the use?" said her husband tremblingly. "It would only anger you."
"Be quiet!" she cried. "I will see it. Where is it?" Her eye picked it out from among the papers on his desk, and she pounced on it. More harsh and bitter laughter accompanied the reading of it.
"Bought a new suit at an immigrant outfitters! I see he has it on. Got into a row with a fruit-vendor over a penny change. Rescued by a young man and taken home. Made his rescuer pay the fares on the trolley. Oh, this is rich, rich!" she cried, trembling with anger. "This is the best story yet. This will be meat and drink to the populace! And this is what they're going to send to theSocial Register, to everybody I know. It's enough to make me wish I'd died before I took the name of Deaves!"
"My dear, we are not alone!" cried George Deaves in a panic.
She threw an indifferent glance at Evan. She thought he was a servant, and she was of that arrogant type which acts as if servants were something less than human. "Do you think anything can be hidden in this house?" she said. "The men-servants are listening at the door."
George Deaves had forgotten about them. He hastened to the door and sent them downstairs.
Mrs. Deaves addressed her father-in-law. "Well, if you can't control your avaricious tendencies you'll have to pay," she said. "Send to the bank and get the money so George can take it to them."
"Pay! Pay! Pay! That's all anybody asks of me!" cried the old man in a passion. "Five thousand dollars! None of you know what that means. Money to you is like the winds of Heaven that come and go. ButIknow what five thousand dollars is. For I have saved it up dollar by dollar at the cost of my sweat and self-denial. And will I give it up to these scoundrels, these sewer rats who threaten me? No! I'd as lief give them my blood!"
Mrs. Deaves' face turned crimson. "You'll pay!" she cried, "or I leave this house!"
"And where will you go?" sneered the old man. "Back to share your father's genteel poverty?"
"Who made him poor?" she cried. "Who robbed him?"
George Deaves, with the tail of his eye on Evan, was sweating with terror. "Maud, I beg of you—!" he whispered.
It did seem to occur to her then that she had gone too far. She glared at Evan as if defying him to judge her, and marching up to him said bluntly: "Who are you?" This woman was magnificent in her insolence if in nothing else.
Evan coolly met her eye. "I'm the young man who paid the fares," he said, smiling.
She scowled at him. Clearly she had no humour.
Evan explained further: "I have been engaged to accompany Mr. Deaves on his walks hereafter."
"Oh, locking the stable door after the horse is stolen," she sneered. "He needs a keeper." She indicated the typewritten sheets. "Then you were present at this affair?"
"I was."
"Is this story true?"
"I have not seen it."
She handed him the pages. Evan skimmed over it hastily. Since the incidents have already been related, the opening paragraph will be sufficient to convey the style of the whole:
"Our esteemed fellow-citizen, Simeon Deaves, is known as a great dandy among his friends. He has always refused to divulge the identity of the creator of the svelte garments that grace his manly form, but yesterday the secret came out. Not in the fashionable purlieus of Fifth Avenue or Madison does Mr. Deaves' tailor hang out his sign. No; it is in Greenwich Street near the Battery where the unwary immigrant makes his first acquaintance with American business methods, that Mr. Deaves buys his clothes. He was seen to buy an elegant mustard coloured suit there yesterday for $4.49. Of course not everybody could afford this sum, but the goods were worth it. Take it from us, high-water pants will be all the rage the coming Fall."
And so on. And so on. Evan bit his lip to keep from smiling, and handed the sheets back. It was easy to understand how the story affected these people like salt in a wound.
"Is it true?" Mrs. Deaves again demanded of Evan.
"The facts are true so far as I know," he replied. "Of course, the humour was supplied by the author."
"This young man has offered to help us," began George Deaves.
The remark was unfortunate; Mrs. Deaves exploded again. "I won't have any bungling amateur detective work here!" she cried. "There's too much at stake. If the story is true there's only one thing to be done, pay!" She addressed the old man. "You understand; you have disgraced us, and you shall pay."
But Simeon Deaves' dander was up and he refused to be intimidated. "What for?" he snarled. "I stand by my own acts. I ain't ashamed of them. If people don't like it they can lump it. What do I care what they say about me? They're only envious. They'd give their eyes to have what I've got. Let them publish their story. Who's hurt by it? Nobody but your feelings. Am I going to pay through the nose to soothe your feelings? Not five thousand dollars' worth! I'll be damned if I'll pay!"
He went out through the smaller door, slamming it behind him.
Mrs. Deaves turned hard inimical eyes on her husband. "Then it's up to you to find the money," she said.
"But, my dear," he whined, "you know my circumstances. How can I? Where? It is out of the question!"
"I don't care where you get it; you get it," she returned callously. "If that story is published I leave this house. You know what that means."
She marched out by the main door.
Evan could not but feel for the poor, crushed, flabby creature at the desk. In Evan's own phrase George got it comingandgoing. He was like a pricked bladder; all his pomposity had escaped like gas.
"What am I to do?" he murmured.
"Get the money together," said Evan, "and pay it over according to their orders. Then let me see if I can't get it back again—and get them, too."