“A BEAUTIFUL, PALE DEVIL”
I
ON the day that Louis Hammond left the Nannabijou Limits for Kam City,
Acey Smith and one other were astir long before the young newspaper man
had opened an eye in his comfortable bunk. Acey Smith, as was his usual
custom, shaved before the large mirror opposite the eastern window of his
bedroom, his thoughts busy with a problem that had been agitating him
since his visit to Amethyst Island the day before.
It was while completing the last few deft touches to his toilet that the
Big Boss of the Nannabijou Limits caught momentarily a reflection in the
glass of a face and figure moving past the window back of him.
As if the fleeting reflection in the glass had brought him an
inspiration, he paused in wiping the talc powder from his chin. Then he
smote the little table below with a clenched fist such a blow that the
articles thereon went tottering.
He whirled and turned his attention to a packsack into which he hastily
stowed a number of wrapped packages, strapped the flap of the pack and
slipped his arms through the shoulder pieces. He took a swift survey of
surroundings from the windows, then stepping outside sauntered down to
the bell tent on the water-front occupied by Inspector Little of the
Mounted Police.
He was with the inspector perhaps twenty minutes, when he accompanied the
latter to the dining camp. They had breakfast and returned to the dock,
whence the superintendent soon shot out in his red racing boat which tore
its way out of sight on the rolling expanse of Superior.
II
The tug bearing Hammond to Kam City was well out on the lake when Acey
Smith returned. He tied the red racer up in its berth on the limits
docks and immediately made his way to his office. The enthusiasm that
had sat upon his face when he had departed earlier in the day was gone.
In its place was a tired, worried look.
As he entered the office, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman seated by a
window dropped a book to her lap and looked up.
“Waiting long, Yvonne?”
The inquiry was casual but kindly. He whipped open a drawer of his desk,
filled a silver cigarette case from a large tin box. Then he fitted a
cigarette in an amber holder and lighted it.
“Just since the tug came in.” There was a suggestion of pique in the
girl’s tones that went unnoticed. Her gaze followed his every movement
with fascinated intensity. But when he looked her way her eyes fell
quickly.
Followed a long pause. Acey Smith stood looking out a window, half
turned to her, the while he drew hungrily at the cigarette, his eyes in
an abstracted stare.
“Has something happened? Is—is anything wrong?”
He turned at the deep anxiety in Yvonne’s tones. “No, nothing wrong,
Yvonne—I’m just a bit spent. It’s been a trying morning.”
He tossed the cigarette stub into the stove and drawing a long, sealed
manilla envelope from a pocket handed it to her. “Yvonne,” he said, “I
want you to go over to Kam City with me in the racer this afternoon.
When we land you are to go to J. J. Slack’s office and deliver this
letter from J.C.X. to him. If he asks any questions, tell him the
wireless broke down and it was impossible to get in touch with him.”
“Aren’t you going to see Mr. Slack yourself?”
“Likely, but say nothing to him about it. I am leaving for Montreal
to-night.”
“For Montreal?” She bit her nether lip in the nervous effort it cost her
to follow up: “Alone?”
“Yes, alone. Why do you ask, Yvonne?”
She toyed with the letter he had handed her, her eyes averted.
“Alexander,”—she pronounced the name softly and with a great
diffidence—“who is the girl living on Amethyst Island?”
Acey Smith smiled good-naturedly. “Miss Stone, you mean? She’ll be
leaving here shortly.”
“For where?”
He shrugged. “That—depends on circumstances.”
“Did you know her before she came out here?”
“Never saw her before. But why all this catechism, Yvonne?”
Yvonne Kovenay arose. She threw out her hands in an odd gesture. “I
want to ask you, Alexander, do you think I work for you as I do for the
money you pay me alone?”
His face became suddenly serious. “Why no, Yvonne, such service as yours
could not be bought with a monthly cheque. Love of one’s work alone
could inspire it.”
The girl winced as if she had been struck. “Love of my work?” she cried.
“Great God, did you think it was love of my work?”
III
Acey Smith receded a step as she came forward, a magnificent little
creature under stress of her emotions; her bosom heaving, her long lashes
dank and her great dark eyes brilliant with the tears that forced
themselves.
“Alexander, it has all been for—for _love of you_!”
She flung herself upon him, her soft arms about his neck, her dusky head
with its masses of ebony hair upon his breast.
“Yes, yes,” she cried in sobbing abandon, “a thousand times yes—for you,
my Alexander, king of all men, the strongest of the strong!” The tiger
soul of her cried out for its chosen mate: “All other men are dwarfs
beside you; you crush them with your very smile. Who is there among them
all can stand before your might? How could woman help loving you as I
do?
“Oh, I have tried hard not to do this! I tried to be patient in the hope
that some day you would—would understand. Then, then, she came—that girl
on Amethyst Island with her mincing ways and her haughty airs—to ensnare
you. I have been mad, mad, mad, at thought of your going to her.
Then—then it came to me that I—I was only—your woman spy.”
Gently, he endeavoured to release himself. “Not my woman spy,” he
corrected her. “Remember you came to me and I employed you on behalf of
the North Star Company—for J.C.X.”
“For the North Star—for J.C.X.!” She echoed it derisively. “What is the
North Star to me? Do you think I would work as I have done; run risks of
reputation, even life itself at times, for this J.C.X., a man I have
never seen?”
“But haven’t we treated you fairly?” he argued. “Isn’t your salary next
only to that of the president himself? Hasn’t the North Star done
everything within reason to reward you and show its appreciation of your
services? What—what more is it you could ask, girl?”
“You—your love!”
She whispered it softly with a quick intaking of breath, her eyes opening
momentarily in a quick, melting flash under his.
Acey Smith pushed her from him impatiently, almost roughly. His face
became cold and hard, unutterably cruel for an instant. Then that wisp
of a devil-sneer flickered on his handsome, ruthless features.
“My love!” And he laughed a laugh that was not pleasant to hear. “What
foolishness put it into your head that I could love, Yvonne?”
His scorning tones bit the woman to the quick. Her dark eyes flashed
dangerously. “It was her! It was her!” she flamed at him. “That
baby-faced thing down on Amethyst Island. I thought until she came you
were what you seemed to be—a beautiful, pale devil. And as a devil I
worshipped you, silently and in secret, fondly believing I nor any other
woman could claim you. I thought you were more than human—a being of
destiny to whom all passions and weaknesses were scornful trivialities.
Then—then she came—and I saw the change in you.
“Listen,” she cried, her face chalk-white from the pent-up emotions
surging within her. “Alexander, the thing which that thought awakens
within me I tell you makes me mad—mad! You may never be mine, but you
_never_, _never_ shall be hers. _I will kill_—”
“Don’t say that!”
There came a terrible look into the face of Acey Smith that sent her
staggering back in deadly affright. Only by a supreme effort did the man
appear to get a grip on himself.
But in another instant he was calm and smiling. “Poor, little Yvonne, my
poor, little, faithful Yvonne,” he soothed. “Child, you are just a bit
over-strung; you have been working too hard lately. To-night you are
going up to Winnipeg, to your father, on a month’s vacation, and I am
going to pick out a little present for you when we get over to the
city—something by which in after days you may remember one who was not
what he should have been, but who thought much of you. Let us forget
this little incident for the present. We have work in hand to-day, you
and I—big work—and you are going to Kam City with me now to deliver that
letter, like a good little girl, aren’t you?”
Like a child that has been chastised, then petted, she warmed under the
light caress of his hand, the deep, musical persuasive qualities of his
voice and the tremendous, irresistible magnetism of the man.
She looked up at him as of old, tried to meet those soul-searching black
eyes with their wicked masterfulness, wavered and nodded acquiescence.
“I knew you would, Yvonne. This,” he announced, “will be the beginning
of the North Star’s greatest coup—and its last.”
“Its last?” She echoed it apprehensively.
He did not answer, but sprang to the window, a light of sinister
amusement breaking over his face. “Look, Yvonne,” he called. “Come and
see what is happening to your preacher friend.”
Down by the docks two mounted policemen were half leading, half dragging
the handcuffed Rev. Nathan Stubbs into the police motorboat.
The girl gasped. “Why do you say my friend?” she asked, a quaver in her
voice.
“He pretended to be your friend, and you told him what you should not
have told him.”
“Then you knew?” Her face was scarlet.
“I knew all. The North Star always knows.”
“It was because—because I was crazy with jealousy,” she pleaded. “It was
on account of that Stone girl, and I thought he could tell me who she was
and why you went to see her. I did not tell him all—not your great
secret.”
“My great secret?”
“Yes—that you are not Acey Smith in reality.”
He laughed indulgently. “It would not matter now even if you had,
Yvonne,” he discounted, “because you nor any other could have told him
who Acey Smith really is.
“Only one man knew that secret—and he is dead.”