SWORDS DRAWN
David, meantime, also by cab, was off to Porchester Gardens, a certain
hurry and fluster now in his usually self-possessed bosom. He looked at
his face in the cab-mirror, and adjusted his tie. A young man who acts
in that way betrays a symptom of heart-disease. At 60A he sent up his
card.
Violet knew from Dibbin the name of David Harcourt, but when she read it
she seemed startled, and turned a little pale. "Show him up," she said,
in a flurry.
"You will excuse my calling," explained David, without shaking hands,
"though we have met before--you remember?"
She inclined her head a little, standing, as it were, shrunk from him,
some way off.
"But my visit has to do with a small matter which admits of no delay."
"My mother--" she began.
"Is out, I know," said he, "but as the affair is urgent, I am here. You
know that I am the tenant of No. 7, Eddystone Mansions, and you know
also, that, without seeking it, I have some knowledge of your history. I
wish to ask whether, without troubling your mind with a lot of details,
you care to authorize me to spend at once, in your interests, a sum of
one hundred pounds."
She scrutinized him with a certain furtiveness, weighing him.
"In my interests?" said she.
"Yours and your mother's."
"One hundred pounds?"
"Yes."
"It seems a strange request."
"It isn't a request. If you haven't confidence in me to the extent of
one hundred pounds, I am not deeply concerned."
"But you come like a storm, and speak like one."
"On a purely business matter of your own--remember."
"You were at the pains to come," she said with a smile. "You cannot both
care and not care."
"I used the word 'concern,' you know."
"Is it a gracious way to approach me?"
"Is it charming to be mistrusted?"
"Did I say that I mistrusted you?"
"With your eyes."
"Well, I say now with my lips that I do not. Which will you believe?"
"No doubt they can both deceive."
"Oh, now you are verging on rudeness."
"There are worse things than rudeness, when one thinks of it."
"I have no idea to what you refer."
"That may be because I know more about you than you think."
At this she started guiltily, visibly, and at that start again she
appeared before the eye of David's memory gliding through the moonlight
at three in the morning, a ghost hastening back to the tomb. Yet, in her
presence, the resentment which rankled in him softened to pity. A look
of appeal came into her dark eyes, and a certain essence of honesty and
purity in her being communicated itself to his instincts, putting it out
of his power to think any ill of her for the moment.
He said hurriedly: "I fear I have begun badly. All this is neither here
nor there."
She sat down, slung a knee between her clasped fingers in her habitual
manner, and said: "Please tell me, what do you mean?" Then she looked up
at him again with a troubled light in her eyes.
He walked quickly nearer to her, saying: "Now, don't let that get into
your head as a serious statement. It was a mere manner of speaking, what
I said, and of no importance. Moreover, there's this question of one
hundred pounds, and time is a vital consideration."
"Nevertheless, you were definite enough, and must have had some
meaning," she went on. "Did I not hear you say that you know more about
me than I think? Well, then, have the goodness to tell me what."
"Now I have put my foot in it, I suppose," said David, "and you will
never rest till I find something to tell you. But not now, if you will
bear with me. In a few days I shall, perhaps, call on your mother, or
see you again at a place which you no doubt visit pretty often at about
the same hour, and to which I, too, somehow am strangely drawn. The
question now before us is whether I am to spend the one hundred pounds
for you."
"As to that, what can one say? You tell me nothing of your reason, my
mother is out, and I am afraid that I have not at the moment one hundred
pounds of my own. I am about to be married, and--"
"Married?"
"I am myself rather surprised at it. Yet I fail to see why you should be
immoderately surprised."
"I? Surprised?" said he in a dazed way, still standing with one foot
drawn back a step. "I was merely taken aback, because--"
"Well?"
"Because--nothing. I was simply taken aback, that's all. Or rather
because I had not heard of it before."
"It was only fully decided upon yesterday," said she, bending down over
her knee.
"Oh, only yesterday. And the happy event takes place when? for I am at
least interested."
"Soon. Within two or three weeks. I don't quite know when."
"And the happy man?"
"The same whom you saw come to take me from Kensal Green."
"Mr. Van Hupfeldt?"
"Oh, you know his name. Yes; Mr. Van Hupfeldt."
David chuckled grimly.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked.
"But whatever is your motive?" he cried sharply.
"You are strange to venture to inquire into my motive," she said, with
downcast eyes. Then her lip trembled, and she added in a low voice: "My
motive is known only to the dead."
"Ah, don't cry!" he almost shouted at her, with a sudden brand of red
anger across his brow. "There's no need for tears! It shan't ever
happen, this thing!"
"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing tremulously at him.
"What I say. This marriage can't happen. I'll see to that. But
stop--perhaps I am talking too soon. 'Let not him boast that putteth his
armor on as he that taketh it off.' Good-day, Miss Mordaunt. I shall not
trouble you any more about the one hundred pounds. I will spend it out
of my own pocket pocket--"
"Please stay!" she cried after him. "Everything that you say bewilders
me! How am I to believe you honest when you say such things?"
"What things? Honest? You may believe me honest or not, just as you
will. I told you before that I am not greatly concerned. If I bewilder
_you_, you anger _me_."
"I am sorry for that. But how so?"
"What, is it nothing for a man to hear it doubted whether he is honest
or not? And, apart from that, admit that your sister is not very long
dead, and that you have been easily drawn into this engagement--"
"But what can all this matter to you?" she asked, with a wrinkled brow.
"Why should my private conduct anger you at all? I have not, in fact, as
you think, been so easily won into this engagement; yet, if I had, it is
amazing that you should lecture me. If it was any one but you, I should
be cross."
"What, am I in special favor, then?"
"You have an honest face."
"Then why is my poor honesty constantly doubted."
"Because you say extraordinary things. It is not, for instance, usual
for people to pay one hundred pounds for the benefit of a casual
acquaintance as you just volunteered to do. Either you have some trick
or motive in view, or you are very wonderfully disinterested."
"Which do you think?"
"I may think one thing now, and the other after you are gone."
"Well, it is useless arguing. I should be here all day, if I let myself.
We were not made to agree, you see. Some people are like that. I shall
just pay the one hundred pounds out of my own pocket--"
"You are not to do that, please."
"Then, will you?"
"I think not."
"You have no idea what is in question!"
"Then, give me some idea."
"And lose more time. However, you may as well hear. It is this: that the
tenant in the flat before me, one Miss L'Estrange, found concealed in a
picture a certificate of a marriage and one of a birth, and I wish to
buy them for you from Miss L'Estrange's servant, who has them."
Violet sprang upright with an adoring face, murmuring: "Heaven be
thanked!"
"I didn't tell you before," said David, "because I haven't secured the
papers yet. I have left the girl in my flat--"
"But where--where do you say she found them?" she asked, with a keener
interest than the question quite seemed to call for.
"It was in a picture-frame, between the picture and the boards at the
back," he answered. "The picture dropped, and the certificates fell
out."
"Heaven be praised!" she breathed again. "Was there nothing else that
fell out?"
"Nothing else, apparently."
"That was enough. Why should I want more? Oh, get them for me quickly,
will you?" she cried, all animated and pink. "With these in my hand
everything will be different. Even your prophecy against my marriage,
which you seemed not to desire, will very likely come true."
"So now I have your authority to spend the one hundred pounds?" he
asked, with a smile.
"Of course! Ten times as much!"
"But blessed is she who has not seen, and yet has believed!"
"Forgive me! I do thank and trust you!" She put out her hand. He took
it, and bent some time over it.
"Good-by, Miss Mordaunt."
"Not for long--an hour--two?"
"I am glad to have pleased you. I shall always remember how the brunette
type of angels look when they thank Providence."
"It is not fair to flatter when one is highly happy and deeply thankful,
for then one hears everything as music. Tell me of it some other time,
when I shall have a sharper answer ready. But stay--one word. It is of
these certificates that Mr. Van Hupfeldt, too, must somehow have got
wind. Does the girl say that any one else knows of them?"
"A man named Strauss knows of them."
At that name her eyelids fell as if her modesty had been hurt. "Does not
Mr. Van Hupfeldt know of them?" she asked, with face averted.
"I cannot tell you--yet," he answered, turning a little from her lest
she caught the grim smile on his lips. "Why do you think that he may
know?"
"Because some days ago he wrote me a note--it is this. It can refer only
to these certificates, I suppose."
She handed to David his own note--"It is now a pretty certain thing that
your sister was a duly wedded wife"--and David, looking at it, asked
with something of a flush: "Did Mr. Van Hupfeldt say that it was he who
sent you this? I see that it has no signature."
"Yes, it was he," said Violet.
"Ah!" murmured David, and said no more.
"If it was these certificates which he had in his mind when he wrote
that note," said she, "then he, too, as well as you, must have a chance
of securing them from the girl. So you had better be careful that he is
not beforehand with you."
David looked squarely at her. "So long as you obtain them, what does it
matter from whom they come?"
"Of course," she replied, with her eyes on the ground, "I shall owe much
gratitude to the person who hands them to me."
He took a step forward, whispering: "Must I be the winner?"
He received no answer from her; only, a wave of blood, a blush that
flooded her being from her toes to the roots of her hair all of a
sudden, suffused Violet, while he stood awaiting her reply. He put out
his hand with a fine self-control. "Well, I must try," he cried lightly.
She just touched his fingers with hers, and the next moment he was
striding from her.
His cab was waiting outside. Calling, "Quick as you can!" to the
driver, he sprang in, and they started briskly away. He was well content
inwardly. Something bird-like seemed new-fledged and fluttering a little
somewhere inside. He had tasted the sweet poison of honey-dew.
As for doubt, he had none at the moment. Jenny he had left safe with
Mrs. Grover; he was sure that she had the certificates with her. But
when he reached the middle of Oxford-St., he saw that which made him
start--Van Hupfeldt in a landau driving eastward, and, sitting beside
the coachman, the valet Neil. What spurred David's interest was the pace
at which the landau's horses were racing through the traffic, and also
the face of the man in the carriage, so gaunt and wild, leaning forward
with his two hands clenched on his knees, as if to press the carriage
faster forward by the strain of his soul.
At once a host of speculations crowded upon David's mind. Now, for the
first time, it occurred to him that Neil may have shadowed him and the
girl to the flat, that Van Hupfeldt might have the daring to be on the
way to the flat to win Jenny from him. He felt that he could hardly
prevail against Van Hupfeldt with Jenny--Van Hupfeldt being rich--and
the two high-steppers in the landau were fast leaving the cab-horse
behind. An eagerness to be quickly at his flat rose in David, so without
stopping his cab he stood out near the splash-board and cried to his
amazed driver: "I say! You come inside, and let me drive."
"Mustn't do that, sir. It is more than my place is worth," began the
cabman.
"Two pounds for you, and I pay all fines--quick now!" said David.
The driver hesitated, but pulled up. He climbed down, went into the cab,
and David was on the perch, reins in hand. Though some persons were
astonished, luckily no policeman saw them. The horse, as if conscious of
something from Wyoming behind him, began to run. David bolted northward
out of the traffic, and careered through the emptier streets, while the
old cab-horse wondered what London was coming to when such things could
be, and praised the days of his youth. When David drew up at Eddystone
Mansions, there was no sign of the landau. He ran up the stairs three at
a time. He would not await the tardy elevator. In moments of stress we
return to nature and cast off the artificial. Opening his door with his
key, he made straight into the drawing-room where he had left Jenny.
Then his heart sank miserably, for she was not there.
"Mrs. Grover!" he called, and when Mrs. Grover hurried from the kitchen,
her hands leprous with pastry-dough, David looked at her so thunderously
that she drew back.
"Where's the girl, Mrs. Grover?" he growled.
"She's gone, sir."
"I see that. You let her go, Mrs. Grover?"
"Why, sir, a man came here, saying he had a message from you for the
girl, and I let him in. They had a talk together, then she said she must
be going. I couldn't stop her."
David groaned.
The man who had called was Neil, who, on hurrying to tell his master
where Jenny was, had been sent back with instructions to try and induce
her to leave the flat and come to Hanover Square. Neil had accomplished
this to the extent of getting Jenny to leave Eddystone Mansions; but
she would not go to Strauss, for David's threat of the police if she
disposed of the papers to any one else than their lawful owner was in
her mind, and she now feared to sell the papers to Strauss, as she
knew that she would certainly do if she once went to his rooms. Yet
she was sorely tempted to sell to the lavish rich man rather than to
the bargainer, and so, making a compromise between her fears and her
temptation, she had told Neil that she would wait in a certain cafe, and
there discuss the matter with Strauss, if Strauss would come to her. She
was waiting there, and Strauss was going to her, led by Neil, when David
had seen him in the landau.
At any rate, the girl was gone. David felt as if he had lost all things.
He had promised the certificates; and Violet had said: "I shall owe much
gratitude to the person who hands them to me."
Now Van Hupfeldt had, or would have, them. While he had been dallying
and bandying words in Porchester Gardens, Van Hupfeldt had been acting,
and he groaned to himself in a pain of self-reproach: "Too much Violet,
David!"
He strode to and fro in the dining-room with a quick step, pacing with
the lightness of a caged bear, his fists clenched, keen to act, yet not
knowing what to do. The girl was gone, the certificates gone with her.
One thing, however, he had gained by the adventure, namely, the almost
certainty that Van Hupfeldt was Strauss--for he had seen the valet,
Neil, who at Piccadilly Circus had declared that he was Strauss's
servant, sitting on the box-seat of the landau in which was the man whom
David had heard Violet at the grave call "Mr. Van Hupfeldt." This seemed
a sort of proof that Van Hupfeldt and Strauss were one. The same man who
had been so bound up with the one sister, and had somehow brought her to
her death, was now about to marry the other! The thought of such a thing
struck lightning from David's eyes.
"Never that!" he vowed in his frenzy. "However it goes, not that!"
And then he was angry afresh with her, thinking: "He can't be much good,
this man--she must be easily won."
He could not guess that Van Hupfeldt had promised to clear her sister's
name six months after the marriage, and that this was her motive, and
not love, for being won. He did not realize that the certificates now
lost by him would have freed Violet from Van Hupfeldt. He believed that
she was entering lightly into marriage with a man of great wealth.
Again, in this unreasoning mood, he saw her in her nocturnal wanderings.
But bitterness and regrets could not bring back the certificates, in the
gaining of which her honor was almost at stake. If he had known where
Van Hupfeldt lived, he would have gone straight there. Nevertheless, Van
Hupfeldt was not at home, was hurrying away from home, in fact. Here,
then, was another point. Jenny had clearly not gone to Van Hupfeldt's on
leaving the flat, or why should Van Hupfeldt be racing eastward? It
seemed that Jenny and Van Hupfeldt were to meet somewhere else, perhaps
somewhere not far from the mansions. If David had only kept the landau
in sight, he might have tracked Van Hupfeldt to that meeting! He felt
now that, if he could come upon them, then, by the mere force and
whirlwind of his will, he should have his way. On a sudden he went out
again into the streets.
He ran southward at a venture. If there was a conference going on in
any house near by, and if the landau was waiting outside, he should
recognize it by the horses and by Neil on the box. But, as it turned
out, even this recognition was not necessary, for, running down
Bloomsbury-St., toward a carriage of which he caught sight standing
before a French chocolate-shop at the Oxford-St. corner, he saw a man
and a girl come out of the shop. The man lifted his hat and nodded
toward the girl with his foot on the carriage-step, and then was driven
off westward. Half a minute afterward David had overtaken the girl.
"You wretched creature!" he said, in the fierce heat of his anger and
haste: "Hand me those certificates, and be quick about it!"
"I haven't the faintest idea which certificates you mean," said Jenny,
as bold now as brass, for she had no doubt been strengthened by the
interview in the shop, and assured of Van Hupfeldt's protection.
This was enough for David. He understood from her words that the papers
were now in Van Hupfeldt's hands; whereat a flood of rage surged within
him, and, without any definite purpose, he rushed after the carriage.
It had not gone far, because of a block of traffic near Tottenham Court
Road, and his hot face was soon thrust over the carriage-door. Van
Hupfeldt shrank back into the farthest corner with a look of blank
dismay.
"Yes, you can have them, Mr. Strauss--" began David, hotly.
"What is it?" muttered Van Hupfeldt, crouching, with his hand on the
opposite door-handle. "That is not my name."
"Whatever your name, or however many names you may own, you can have
those papers now; but there may be other things where they came from,
and if they're there, I'm the man in possession, mark you, and I'll be
finding them--"
"Papers! What papers? Find what?" asked Van Hupfeldt, with a scared face
that belied his words.
"You cur!" cried David, his heart burning hot within him; "make amends
for your crimes while you may. If you don't, I tell you, I shall have no
mercy. Soon I shall have my hands on you--"
"Drive on!" screamed Van Hupfeldt to his coachman, and, the block of
traffic having now cleared, the horses trotted on, and left David
red-faced with fury, in imminent danger of being run over by the press
of vehicles behind.