PLEASURE PRESENTS ITS BILL
Over the black, oiled boulevard that reaches, with many tributaries
and parallels, from Manhattan’s Fifty-ninth Street Bridge to the
twin points of Long Island, Jack Morton’s new racing roadster was
speeding eastward through the heavy three-o’clock night--Jack at the
wheel, Nina Cordova beside him, and Loveman and Hilton in the seat
behind. The little lawyer had thought rapidly; and now, sunk low in
the soft leather, he was counting his chances which had suddenly
grown desperate, but which he still saw as large, if only there were
no more slips and he got his share of luck. And as the car whirred
on, devouring the silent, deserted miles, on and on went his brain,
calculating his chances, shaping the details of his new course--that
brain whose supreme and sole function was to plan--in which function
all other qualities and potentialities of the man had become centered
and concentrated, and for which they and the body itself had come
solely to exist--that brain which would never cease its tireless,
brilliant planning until death should still its mechanism.
He had revised his plans the instant Clifford had entered the
dining-room--had seen instantly what was his best and only way.
Getting Jack where he now sat had been simple. “Come on, Jack,--the
police will get you for this, too!” he had cried. And Jack, befuddled
with drink, and feeling that his lot now lay with these friends, had
obeyed instantly and without question. Into Jack’s waiting car Loveman
had sharply ordered those essential to his revised plan.
“You know the Long Island roads?--the way to Greenport?” he had asked
Jack after they were in their seats.
“Sure.”
“Then make Greenport as quick as you can. Remember that motor yacht
Bradley spoke of?” He spoke with a cunning tone of excitedly pleasant
anticipation. “We’re going to be a bunch of pirates,--going to capture
the old tub--and you and Nina and Hilton and I are going to have a nice
little cruise and wine party all to ourselves. How’s that?”
“Gre’ stuff!” had been Jack’s enthusiastic comment.
The wheel of his new speedster in his hands, there automatically came
on Jack an exhilarating sense that here was another lark. It was just
like so many other parties of months and years before that had started
out hilariously from Broadway for a meteor-like rush through the dark
to distant road-houses--just one more party, but with a thrill and
excitement that topped all others.
Even when drunk--that is, short of insensibility--Jack was a good
driver. His hands seemed to have a peculiar brain of their own--albeit
a reckless brain. Ten minutes after leaving Le Bain’s house they were
across the bridge, and five minutes later they were in the stretches of
the boulevard; and Jack, pointing with his toe to a lighted dial, was
chuckling to Nina:--
“Nice li’l’ piece junk--eh, Nina? Doin’ her li’l’ ole sixty an hour,
an’ ain’t half tryin’.”
“But slow down at the turns, Jack. Please be careful!”
“’M always careful. Never had an accident.” He laughed mischievously.
“Goin’ to show you nice li’l’ breeze when we get out li’l’
farther--goin’ touch her up to ninety.”
In the meanwhile, behind them, little Loveman was planning,
planning--and acting. He drew out a thin morocco wallet, from it took a
stamped envelope, and on this with a pencil he scrawled an address--the
address of a New York bank where he had a personal account which was so
private that there was not a scrap among his papers to indicate that
such an account existed. Into this envelope he slipped the three checks
Nina had given him, sealed it, placed it between the two halves of his
wallet and replaced the wallet in his coat. That letter he would drop
into a mail-box in Greenport.
Once on board the yacht they would make for the ocean--he knew the
vessel to be large and stanch enough to withstand any storm likely to
arise in summer seas--and he knew the government patrol boats guarding
the coast were not interfering with the course of American pleasure
craft. For two days--longer if it suited the exigencies of his plan
as it worked out, and perhaps to the end of the cruise--he would keep
Jack at sea; then he would get rid of him at some convenient port. In
the meantime Jack’s checks would have gone through Jack’s bank. No one
suspected the truth about those checks--so he believed--and it would
be a long time before the truth came out in the routine of business.
Before that he would have managed to draw the funds out of this secret
account--just how he did not yet see--but somehow he would manage it.
And all the while they would be cruising southward along the coast,
slipping into port when necessary to take on oil. And finally they
would make Mexico, where Hilton would find sanctuary--and there or in
some other Latin-American State he would start his career anew--his
and Nina’s. And evading extradition--for what charge could be formed
against him with sufficient evidence to cause a foreign State to give
it serious heed?--they would become great people, people of brilliant
position, he and Nina.
For all the time that he had seemingly been amused at her limitations
and pretensions, and all the time that he had been quite willing to
fit her into his dubious transactions, all this while Loveman had had
one ruling thought concerning Nina--that in the end she should be his.
There had been many women in Peter Loveman’s life, but Nina Cordova,
all of whose flaws he knew and at whom he was ever laughing, Nina was
the only woman he had ever loved.
Thus, as the car spun noiselessly through the heavy night, the shrewd,
tireless brain schemed on and on--as that brain would scheme on and on,
brilliantly, fascinated by its schemes and their working out, until
death should bring its blankness....
* * * * *
In the meanwhile, some miles back, another car was spinning toward the
east and toward the dawn. But before that car had been launched on its
flight several things had happened back on Manhattan.
When Clifford came out of Le Bain’s house, thrusting the scruff-held
Slim Harrison before him, and saw as he had expected that the red car
belonging to Jack was gone, an officer in uniform halted before the
high stoop. He was holding a woman by the arm, and the woman Clifford
saw to be Nan Burdette.
“I saw her sneakin’ out the basement door a few minutes ago,” explained
the officer, “and as she’s a well-known character, and as she was
actin’ suspicious, I thought I’d better see what she’d been up to.”
“So they dropped you, Nan,” said Clifford. “I understand--you weren’t
of use to them any longer. But what did you hang behind for?”
“None of your business,” said the woman.
“I guess I understand--if they were pinched you didn’t want to get
pinched with them, so you waited to make your getaway.” Then, very
sharply: “But what did they do with Mary Regan?”
“I don’t know,” she answered sullenly.
“Hold her, officer,” Clifford ordered. “Lieutenant Kelly may have a
definite charge against her in the morning.”
Just then Jimmie Kelly and Uncle George emerged from a shadowy doorway
beneath the stoop. There was some one between them, and at sight of
this person Clifford stepped quickly toward the two.
“Mary!” he ejaculated. “Mary--where were you?”
“Mr. Loveman pushed me into the pantry and locked the door.”
“I see,” said Clifford rapidly. “Their plan against you would now not
help them--you were now just excess baggage to them--and they merely
wanted to get you out of the way for a while.”
There was no time then for fuller explanations. “We’re just starting
after Loveman and Jack.”
Mr. Morton had moved toward them. “Mary,” he said, his voice steady
only through great effort, “I’d like to have you go along to help bring
Jack back--if Mr. Clifford doesn’t mind.”
She hesitated, then glanced questioningly at Clifford. Clifford nodded.
“All right,” she agreed.
“Here’s where I resign,” said Uncle George--“on the grounds that I’m
too old, that I’m too fat, that I’m not needed, and that there’s no
room for me. The best of luck to you!”
“Thanks, Uncle George!” And Clifford gripped his hand.
They hurried into the long, low, gray car--the car which was to have
borne Mary upon that cunningly devised saturnalia. “Jimmie, if you
don’t mind, sit in front with Slim Harrison,” said Clifford, and
himself took the rear seat with Mr. Morton, Mary between them. He
leaned forward and spoke with harsh dominance into Slim’s ear. “Slim,
I know this is a great machine, and I know that when you want to be
you’re a great driver--and understand this, your only chance of getting
out of this affair halfway easy is for you to get us to Greenport not
later than the car ahead. Now, turn her loose.”
Slim turned her loose. Once he was well across the Fifty-ninth Street
Bridge, he lived up to all that the sporting pages had ever said in
praise of his ability. The new car, clinging tight to the glass-smooth
oiled macadam, flashed in a breath through villages--past dimly seen
summer “cottages” of New York millionaires, grand ducal in their
leisured magnificence--and on over the motor parkway through the humid,
deserted night.
In the rear seat there was silence, except for the gale begotten by
the machine’s great speed. Now and then, by the swift-passing lights
of a village, Clifford saw the face of Mary Regan: it was pale and
set, seemed without expression, and was fixed unchangingly ahead, not
so much upon the brilliantly illumined road before them as upon the
spaces of the night. He wondered what she was thinking of--she who had
experienced so much these last few months, so many things that her
calculations had not foreseen. But the swiftly gone glimpses of her
white face gave him no clue....
And now and again Clifford saw the face of Mr. Morton beside her. Also
the face of this masterful man of business, who ruled his thousands of
men and dominated a score of companies, and yet had failed to direct
his own son in the way he would have him go--also Mr. Morton’s face was
drawn and pale, but it was fixed with straining impatience upon the
roadway. Now and then Clifford saw him turn and gaze at Mary, whose
forward-fixed look never shifted, and then turn back to the road,
wetting his drawn, thinned lips....
All the while Clifford’s own mind was working. The professional part of
Clifford felt the exultation of triumph already won--and the exultant
excitement of the chase, which, if successful, would make triumph
complete. He had already got Bradley; he felt certain that he soon
was to get Loveman and the others. That much done, the dominating
professional purpose would have been achieved. He would have won....
But there was the man element in Clifford, and it also was thinking as
the car flew through the night. His success meant that Loveman, and
Bradley, and Nina, and the others, who had subtly worked to undermine
whatever of good there was in Jack, would be removed as factors in
Jack’s life--and free of their influence and unopposedly under the
influence of Mary, he and Mary might-- Well, that was the way Life
worked out. For long he had expected for himself nothing more....
On, on they sped, always silent, through the August night--the car
relaxing its speed only when there were sharp curves, and then at once
picking up its flashing pace. An hour slipped by--another hour. They
were now come upon the upper of the two fingers into which the eastern
third of Long Island separates--and the blackness of the night had
changed into a thick, sluggish dawn, that murky dawn held back and
muffled by the heavy fogs which lie upon the outer portions of the
island on humid days of late summer and keep the horns and sirens of
the shore at their discordant singing until noon.
Presently Clifford half rose in the machine and pointed forward. “There
they are!” he exclaimed.
Before them in the murk was a swiftly moving something, now visible,
now vanished in a thicker portion of the fog. The others saw, but said
nothing.
Clifford leaned forward and spoke into Slim’s ear. “Just keep about
this distance from them--they’ll have to stop in Greenport and we can
get them before they can go aboard.”
Slim nodded. Keeping this quarter of a mile behind, they rushed on
into the fog--flashed through Southold--over miles of marsh-bordered
road--skirted for a space the single track of the Long Island
Railway--skimmed more miles of marsh-bordered roadbed--swung about a
curve--and then--
They clutched each other, their horrified eyes staring ahead. “My God!”
gasped Clifford; and Mary gave a sharp cry--and a wrenching groan came
from Mr. Morton. Instantly and instinctively Slim had shut off the gas
and applied the brake--and slowly they rolled onward, staring wildly.
That thing which they had seen, happening all in an instant, was
a commonplace of newspaper headlines. Long Island is a choice
speeding-ground for that tribe known as “joy-riders.” “Look out for
Crossings” reads a placard in every passenger-coach of the Long Island
Railroad--and the same placard bears a picture of what may befall
those who do not. Jack, who had taken ten thousand risks and never had
an accident, had risked his fortune just once too often. Driving at
reckless speed, his ears filled with the roar of the wind, he had only
his eyes--and too late had his eyes seen that freight engine thrust
itself out of the fog....
Clifford helped Mary out of their halted car, and silently they all
began the work of examination--soon helped by the crew of the train.
Jack’s new red car was a tangle of twisted steel.... First they
found Nina and Hilton; both were conscious and crying out in their
pain--each shrieked when touched. And then they found Peter Loveman:
he was alive, but unconscious. Not far from him Mr. Morton picked up a
morocco wallet, which he slipped into his pocket, Clifford not seeing
this. And then Clifford and Mary found Jack: he also was alive and also
unconscious. Strangely enough, his clothes were but little disordered,
and there was not a visible scratch upon him. Lying with his pallid
face toward the sky, the hair falling back from his forehead, he looked
handsome and boyish and irresistibly likable and endowed with qualities
which go to make an unusual man. Never to Clifford had that face looked
so promising as it now looked.
There is a good little hospital in Greenport, and in half an hour the
four were in it--and in less than another half-hour two famous New
York specialists were in attendance, for many New York doctors have
summer homes near Greenport, and are professionally connected with this
little hospital. The first report of these two men, based on a hasty
examination, was that Nina and Hilton had many broken bones, but would
undoubtedly in time be as sound as ever; as to Jack and Loveman, a
more careful examination was necessary before they could really tell
anything.
There was nothing Clifford could do but merely wait. Through an open
doorway--all the patients were on the same floor--he saw Mary Regan
sitting at a window. He entered. She gave him a look from her pale
face, and without saying anything looked back out the window. He drew
a chair up beside her, and they both sat gazing out--at the flag with
a white field and a cross of blue which told that this little hospital
had become an auxiliary hospital of the United States Navy--and beyond
at the harbor, with its scores of small white craft, one of which was
doubtless the yacht of Loveman’s visioned voyage--the voyage that now
would never be.
Neither spoke; there were no interruptions--Mr. Morton was at Jack’s
bedside, and had not left it. Clifford felt numb: part of this was
physical weariness, part the shock of what had so swiftly happened, and
part the sense of large issues (he was not then conscious of what they
all were) that remained still in the balance. An hour of this heavy
silence passed--two hours; Mary, with white, set face, continued to
gaze out upon the harbor of tiny ships.
At length Clifford rose mechanically and went out into the corridor,
and paced to and fro. Presently he saw a nurse come from Jack’s room
and enter Loveman’s, and after a moment he saw the doctor who was
with Loveman--Dr. Peters, Clifford knew him to be, a great nerve
specialist,--emerge followed by the two nurses and enter Jack’s room.
He noted that Loveman’s door had been left open; and first, without
purpose, merely as a break in the routine of his walking, he paused and
looked in. Then he entered and crossed to Loveman’s bed.
To his surprise Loveman’s large bright eyes were wide open; they
recognized him--and Clifford saw that they were alive with all of
Loveman’s intelligence. He gazed down at the sheet-covered figure, and
something of the fury revived which had lain dumb in him these last two
or three hours.
“Well, Loveman, I’ve landed you at last!” he said grimly.
The little lawyer made no response.
“Make no mistake about it, Loveman,--I’ve got you for fair this
time--and got you eleven different ways from Sunday!”
Still the little man did not speak, though his eyes showed that he
understood every word. Clifford was provoked at the manner in which
Loveman ignored him.
“Haven’t you any come-back at all, Loveman--you were usually quick
enough with your tongue.”
“See here--what are you doing with my patient?” a sharp voice called
from the door.
Clifford turned. Approaching was Dr. Peters.
“He may be your patient, but he is my prisoner,” Clifford returned
stiffly, still under the influence of his revived fury. But at once
he was himself again. “I beg your pardon, Dr. Peters, but this man
here is responsible for all that has happened.” And then: “He seems to
have very much of a grouch against me--rather natural, I suppose. He
wouldn’t even say a word to me. What’s the matter with him?”
“What’s the matter?” Dr. Peters repeated, looking at him keenly. Then
he drew Clifford aside, out of Loveman’s hearing. “All that’s the
matter with Mr. Loveman,” he answered slowly, “is that the accident
caused a hemorrhage affecting the sensory and motor portions of the
brain causing a permanent aphasia.”
“What’s that mean, doctor, in plain English?”
“It means that he has permanently lost the use of legs and arms, and
that he’ll never speak again.”
Clifford stared. “But he seems to understand!” he cried.
“He understands everything. His brain is as good as it ever was, and
it will be as good as ever for perhaps thirty years to come. But by no
possibility can he ever communicate to a second person what that brain
is thinking of.”
Clifford stared at the doctor, mumbled something, and unsteadily walked
out. In the corridor he leaned against a wall and drew a deep breath.
As the full significance of the doctor’s words sank in, he was awed,
appalled. That great clear brain fated by the momentum of a life’s
habit to go on planning--never to be able to put any of those plans
into action himself--never able to communicate a plan to an agent or
accomplice--but always planning--tirelessly planning--for thirty years
or more!...
After a time he straightened up and entered the room of Hilton, who
was in less pain, but who just then hated all mankind; and with Hilton
he had a few grim, direct words. After that he had a few words with
Jimmie Kelly, who was waiting below. Then he went back and sat down
beside Mary, and briefly he told her what had befallen Loveman.
Again they sat in silence, gazing out upon the harbor. Perhaps another
hour passed. Then Mr. Morton entered. He was haggard and gray of face.
Clifford and Mary rose.
“Jack?” breathed Mary, moving toward him.
Mr. Morton seemed at first unable to speak. But when his voice
did issue, though husky and low, it was controlled and strangely
emotionless.
“Jack never regained consciousness,” he said. “Jack--Jack has just
died.”