THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER
Alone in the ebbing twilight, John Valiant found his hamper, spread a
napkin on the broad stone steps and took out a glass, a spoon and part
of a loaf of bread. The thermos flask was filled with milk. It was not a
splendid banquet, yet he ate it with as great content as the bulldog at
his feet gnawed his share of the crust. He broke his bread into the milk
as he had not done since he was a child, and ate the luscious pulp with
a keen relish bred of the long outdoor day. When the last drop was gone
he brushed up the very crumbs from the cloth, laughing to himself as he
did so. It had been a long time since he remembered being so hungry!
It was almost dark when the meal was done and, depleted hamper in hand,
he reentered the empty echoing house. He went into the library, lighted
the great brass lamp from the motor and began to rummage. The drawers of
the dining-room sideboard yielded nothing; on a shelf of the butler's
pantry, however, was a tin box which proved to be half full of wax
candles, perfectly preserved.
"The very thing!" he said triumphantly. Carrying them back, he fixed
several in the glass-candlesticks and set them, lighted, all about the
somber room till the soft glow flooded its every corner. "There," he
said, "that is as it should be. No big blatant search-light here! And no
glare of modern electricity would suit that old wainscoting, either." He
looked up at the painting on the wall; it seemed as if the sneer had
smoothed out, the hard cruel eye softened. "You needn't be afraid," he
said, nodding. "I understand."
He dragged the leather settee to the porch and by the light of the
motor-lamp dusted it thoroughly, and wheeling it back, set it under the
portrait. He washed the glass from which he had dined and filled it at
the cup of the garden fountain, put into it the rose from his hat and
set it on the reading-stand. The small china dog caught his eye and he
picked it up casually. The head came off in his hands. It had been a
bon-bon box and was empty save for a narrow strip of yellowed paper, on
which were written some meaningless figures: 17-28-94-0. He pondered
this a moment, then thrust it into one of the empty pigeonholes of the
desk. On the latter stood an old-fashioned leaf-calendar; the date
it exposed was May 14th. Curiously enough the same date would recur
to-morrow. The page bore a quotation: "Every man carries his fate on
a riband about his neck." The line had been quoted in his father's
letter. May 14th!--how much that date and that motto may have meant for
him!
He put the calendar back, filled his pipe and sat down facing the open
bow-window. The dark was mysteriously lifting, the air filling with a
soft silver-gray translucence that touched the wild growth as with a
fairy gossamer. Presently, from between the still elms, the new sickle
moon climbed into view. From the garden came a plaintive bird-cry,
long-drawn and wavering and then, from farther away, the triple mellow
whistle of a whippoorwill.
The place was alive now with bird-notes, and he listened with a new
delight. He thought suddenly, with a kind of impatient wonder, that
never in his life had he sat perfectly alone in a solitude and listened
to the voices of the night. The only out-of-doors he knew had been
comprised in motor-whirls on frequented highroads, seashore, or mountain
months where bridge and dancing were forever on the cards, or else such
up-to-date "camping" as was indulged in at the Fargos' "shack" on the
St. Lawrence. He sat now with his senses alert to a new world that his
sophisticated eye and ear had never known. Something new was entering
into him that seemed the spirit of the place; the blessing of the tall
silver poplars outside, the musical scented gardens and the moonlight
laid like a placid benediction over all.
He rose to push the shutter wider and in the movement his elbow sent a
shallow case of morocco leather that had lain on the desk crashing to
the floor. It opened and a heavy metallic object rolled almost to his
feet. He saw at a glance that it was an old-fashioned rusted
dueling-pistol.
The box had originally held two pistols. He shuddered as he stooped to
pick up the weapon, and with the crawling repugnance mingled a panging
anger and humiliation. From his very babyhood it had always been
so--that unconquerable aversion to the touch of a firearm. There had
been moments in his youth when this unreasoning shrinking had filled him
with a blind fury, had driven him to strange self-tests of courage. He
had never been able to overcome it. He had always had a natural distaste
for the taking of life; hunting was an unthinkable sport to him, and
he regarded the lusty pursuit of small feathered or furry things for
pleasure with a mingled wonder and contempt. But analyzation had told
him that his peculiar abhorrence was no mere outgrowth of this. It lay
far deeper. He had rarely, of recent years, met the test. Now, as he
stood in these unaccustomed surroundings, with the cold touch of the
metal the old shuddering held him, and the sweat broke in beads on his
forehead. Setting his teeth hard, he crossed the room, slipped the box
with its pistol between the volumes of the bookcase, and returned to his
seat.
The bulldog, aroused from a nap, thrust a warm muzzle between his knees.
"It's uncanny, Chum!" he said, as his hand caressed the velvety head.
"Why should the touch of that fool thing chill my spine and make my
flesh tiptoe over my bones? Is it a mere peculiarity of temperament?
Some men hate cats'-eyes. Some can't abide sitting on plush. I knew a
chap once who couldn't see milk poured from a pitcher without getting
goose-flesh. People are born that way, but there must be a cause. Why
should I hate a pistol? Do you suppose I was shot in one of my previous
existences?"
For a long while he sat there, his pipe dead, his eyes on the
moonlighted out-of-doors. The eery feeling that had gripped him had
gone as quickly as it had come. At last he rose, stretching himself
with a great boyish yawn, put out all save one of the candles and taking
a bath-robe, sandals and a huge fuzzy towel from the steamer-trunk,
stripped leisurely. He donned the bath-robe and sandals and went out
through the window to the garden and down to where lay the little lake
ruffling silverly under the moon. On its brink he stopped, and tossing
back his head, tried to imitate one of the bird-calls but was
unsuccessful. With a rueful laugh he threw off the bath-robe and stood
an instant glistening, poised in the moonlight like a marble faun,
before he dove, straight down out of sight.
Five minutes later he pulled himself up over the edge, his flesh
tingling with the chill of the water, and drew the robe about his cool
white shoulders. Then he thrust his feet into his sandals and sped
quickly back. He rubbed himself to a glow, and blowing out the remaining
candle, stretched himself luxuriously between the warm blankets on the
couch. The dog sniffed inquiringly at his hand, then leaped up and
snuggled down close to his feet.
The soft flooding moonlight sent its radiance into the gloomy room,
touching lovingly its dark carven furniture and bringing into sharp
relief the lithe contour of the figure under the fleecy coverlid, the
crisp damp hair, the expressive face, and the wide-open dreamy eyes.
John Valiant's thoughts had fled a thousand miles away, to the tall girl
who all his life had seemed to stand out from his world, aloof and
unsurpassed--Katharine Fargo. He tried to picture her, a perfect
chatelaine, graceful and gracious as a tall, white, splendid lily, in
this dead house that seemed still to throb with living passions. But the
picture subtly eluded him and he stirred uneasily under the blanket.
After a time his hand stretched out to the reading-stand and drew the
glass with its vivid blossom nearer, till, in his nostrils, its musky
odor mingled with the dew-wet scent of the honeysuckle from the garden.
At last his eyes closed. "Every man carries his fate ... on a riband
about his neck," he muttered drowsily, and then, "Roses ... red
roses...."
And so he fell asleep.