“It is as irregular a document as your operations have been irregular. I
will give you a deed, taking back your note and a mortgage--”
“But I want no deed, sir. I said so to you last evening. I don’t want
the land. You keep it.”
He gave me a chilly stare. “My price of two thousand dollars was on the
lot--not merely the wood on the lot. The land will be yours when we
have passed our papers. I don’t know why I should place myself under
obligations to you by any such foolish child’s play as you suggest.”
Say, I felt myself slipping out of the Kingsley family circle as if
I were going down a cellar slide in a puddle of soft soap. I made a
desperate clutch.
“Judge Kingsley,” I said, “I made you another offer last night. I
offered to turn the whole proposition over to you--profits and all! I
had no business starting in on the operation. If you are in some sort of
trouble--”
“Who said I was in trouble?”
“You said so last evening,” I faltered.
“Have you told anybody I said so, sir?” he demanded, sharply.
“No, sir! Certainly not.”
“If you permit yourself to hint that to anybody I shall promptly brand
you as a falsifier and have you before the court on the charge of
slander. You must realize that I could secure large damages because a
financial man’s reputation forms his stock in trade. I could have you
sent to prison on a criminal charge.”
“I don’t see any need of your sitting there and threatening me in that
fashion,” I protested, with some heat. “I have tried to help you--”
“I have not asked for any of your help--I do not need it, sir.”
“I don’t suppose you do,” I admitted, sourly.
“Certainly not!”
I couldn’t figure what his game was--it was his own business,
anyway--but I did not propose to have him sneering at me. His manner
when he said, “Certainly not!” was mighty nasty. I rose and kicked my
chair away from me.
“You needn’t show any gratitude if you don’t feel like it, Judge
Kingsley. You’ll never hear a word from me about anything that has
happened, but I’m not keeping still because you have threatened me. I’m
keeping my mouth shut because I’m man enough to do so! And, by gad! I
hope you’re man enough, on your side, to show me a little decency and to
remember that you have a wife and daughter to protect from scandal and
shame. Good day!” I put on my hat and marched out.
I’m making due allowance for the judge’s state of mind, but truly that
old hyampus did have the natural ability to stir a man’s temper. A
Kingsley and a Sidney got along together about as well as the two parts
of a Seidlitz powder do when they meet in a glass of water!
I slammed the door after me, but I had gone only a few feet when I
remembered that I had left behind my contracts. Furthermore, I had
not finished my business in regard to the deed and the payments. So I
whirled and went back in without stopping to knock.
It was as if he had been playing a part with me with a mask to hide his
face! He had laid down the mask.
I looked on a fairly hideous scroll of awful, utter woe. That was his
face. He was crumpled down in his chair. He did not look at me. I picked
up the packet.
“Are you ready to attend to the matter of the deed, sir?”
He wagged his head weakly from side to side. “Later!” he muttered. “Come
later. Come this evening, perhaps.”
I went down into the woods and hunted for hours until I found those two
revolvers. That face of his was before me all the time. I expected to
look up and find him hunting, too. There were other ways of committing
suicide than by shooting, but I did not propose to leave those revolvers
around loose, seeing that he had made up his mind to use that means of
shuffling off. That face which he had exposed to me showed that Judge
Kingsley’s soul was near the limit of endurance.
I went about that day sick with fear. My helplessness in the matter was
maddening. He was holding me off with his disdain like a man holding an
enemy at bay with a pitchfork. And I knew that even if he gave me his
confidence there was little a poor devil of my caliber could do in
affairs such as his must be.
I wondered if the knowledge that he was ruined was behind his desperate
resolve to die. Of course he had a lot of pride, but other proud men had
failed in business and lived through it.
I was obliged to confess to myself that the judge must have a deeper
motive. I remembered my uncle’s threats and wondered what that disturber
had up his sleeve.
I almost whipped my courage up to the point of tackling him on the
subject, but when I met him on the street in the afternoon and fronted
his savage scowl I walked right on past, minding my own little business.
His face had an extra touch of flame in it that day. That he had
something special on the docket was plain to be seen. I went down to the
wood-lot and checked up with Henshaw Hook so as to be out of my uncle’s
way. His looks rather scared me. Just as I was walking away from the
wood-lot at dusk he hopped out of his wagon ahead of me and tacked a
printed paper to a wayside tree, glowering at me while I waited at a
little distance. It was evident that he meant that paper especially for
my attention.
So I walked up and had a look at it when he was out of the way.
It called a special town meeting thirty days from that date. As was
necessary in a call of that sort, the purpose of the meeting was stated:
“To see what action the town will take to pay off its indebtedness in
full. Notice is hereby given that all creditors of the town must present
notes or other evidences of claims at that meeting on the 15th day of
April.”
What did that call signify in the case of Zebulon Kingsley, town
treasurer? I had seen behind his mask and I guessed! If I guessed
rightly he would feel, when his eyes fell on that paper, like a man who
had been notified of the date of his execution.
I started on toward the village, and when I passed Brickett’s duck-pond
I threw the revolvers into the water.
I hurried to Judge Kingsley’s house, for I had the excuse of business,
and he himself had made the appointment. There was a light in his
office, but it went out suddenly when I was some distance away. I
started to run, and then I checked myself. I decided that caution rather
than haste was needed. I was right. Standing behind a tree, I saw him
come out of the office door in a sneaking fashion, the early evening
hiding him. He went around the house, and I followed. Young eyes can see
in the dark better than old ones, and he did not spy me where I stood
in the dusk, watching him hack off with a jack-knife a section of the
family clothes-line.
Stooping and almost staggering he went down into the orchard, and I trod
close behind him undetected, for the trees plastered shadows into which
I dodged. I waited until he had settled a noose around his neck and had
thrown an end of the cord over a limb. I was taking no chances on having
any misunderstanding between Judge Kingsley and myself that trip. In my
own way I was just about as desperate as he was. I marched up to him,
took him by both arms and pushed him against the tree-trunk.
He was in such a state, physically and mentally, that he did not protest
or resist; it did not seem to frighten him specially to be overhauled
in that fashion. Honestly, I felt like spanking his face as I would
have whipped a child. This game of “tag the suicide” was getting on my
nerves.
“Judge Kingsley, you need a guardian and I have appointed myself one,” I
told him, and I was mighty resolute, for I had determined to brace up to
him with all the power in me. “You have no right to kill yourself, and
you’re not going to kill yourself, by gad! not if I have to camp with
you day and night till you get back your nerve. I’m going to take
you straight to your folks and tell ’em you’re out of your head
temporarily and will have to be taken to a hospital!”
That brought him out of his numbness, and I knew it would. I believe he
would have struck me if his arms had been free. But I needed to have him
in another mood than the fighting one. I hit him hard.
“You’re an embezzler!” I cracked out. “How much?” He crumpled, and I let
him slide down and sit on the ground, his back against the tree. It was
the first time he had ever had that word put to him from man’s mouth,
even though he may have confessed to himself in his heart.
“Judge Kingsley,” I said, bravely, knowing that I had an advantage from
then on, “I’m only a young man and I know you don’t think much of me.
But I’m going to grab in on this thing, whether you want me to or not.
I have special reasons of my own. I’ll do everything I can to balk my
uncle.”
“You’re a spy he has set on me!”
“You’re a liar!” I wasn’t going to take any of his sneers or his abuse.
I hated to talk to him as I did, but only by being coarse and rough and
bossy could I hope to pound anything helpful into him.
He stared up at me with his jaw hanging down and I did not let up on my
punches.
“I have tried to head off my uncle Deck. I have told him straight out
that I am for you and against him. He and I don’t speak to each other. I
have promised your wife and your daughter that I’ll do everything I can
to beat my uncle out in this thing. They don’t understand it! I don’t
understand it all. But, before God, my promise to them is holy, even if
you do not believe in me! I’m in this affair and I’m in to stay.”
He began to wag his head as he had done before that day. “Brace up,
Judge Kingsley! You’re not licked yet!”
“Those three selectmen have signed my death-warrant. That notice which
has been posted!”
I saw that I had him going and I kept him going. “But when an embezzler
stays alive and does his best to straighten matters--”
“Don’t call me that name!” he groaned.
“If you will take me into your confidence, Judge Kingsley, so that I can
turn to and help you, I swear before Almighty Jehovah that I will set to
work for you with body and soul. I _can_ help you--I know I can help. No
man can feel as I feel and be useless! But let me tell you this much on
the other side!” I bent down and snapped my finger under his nose. That
was no time for half-way and mealy-mouthed stuff. “If you throw me down
after this honest offer, it means that you think I’m too cheap to be
of use and too low to associate with. And that’s an insult I’ll never
swallow! So help me, I’ll drag you up into the village with that rope
around your neck and blow the whole business and hand you over to
those who will take care of you. I will! My mind is made up. Take your
choice!”
I am sure that with no less bitter alternative could I have jounced any
of his secrets out of Zebulon Kingsley.
“I’m just enough of a hellion to do that very thing if you don’t treat
me right,” I warned him, angrily.
“You leave me no choice in the matter,” he mourned. “You are--”
“Look out, sir! I’m doing what I’m doing out of pure and honest desire
to help you. I want fair treatment.”
“Nothing can make my situation worse than it is, I suppose,” he stated,
after meditating for a time. “On the fifteenth day of April it will
become known in town meeting that more than ten thousand dollars of town
notes are out, drawing interest and bearing my name as town treasurer. I
have issued those notes without warrant.”
“But the people who hold them know they are out!” He was coldly, numbly
patient with me, the untamed animal who had promised to pounce on him
and drag him to his shame in the village.
“I have borrowed the money in various small lots and in each case the
note-holder is keeping absolutely still in order to escape taxation.”
“But great Scott! Judge Kingsley, ten thousand dollars for a rich man
like you--”
“I am no longer rich. I am ruined. I cannot take up those town notes
prior to the meeting. So I shall be arrested as a criminal! I have lost
money intrusted to me for investment, but though I have lost it I cannot
be prosecuted criminally--it was breach of trust. I hoped to get money
to stave off exposure in the criminal matter so that I could set myself
to earning more money and restoring what I owe to the investors. But
I have not been able to raise that money. That’s why I decided to kill
myself. I knew I couldn’t face it!”
“Did you just find out that you couldn’t raise the money, sir?”
He looked up at me, shame and agony in his face showing even in the
dark. It began to swell in him--I could see it in his eyes--that longing
which comes to every man in deep trouble--the wild hankering to confide
in somebody--to rush into confession, to unload the heart, to speak the
words which have been pressing to the lips. I was only Ross Sidney, to
be sure, but I was a man and Judge Kingsley had been bottling his grief
for a long time.
“What I did last was worst of all! Nobody could have convinced me that
I would ever do such a piece of folly. Think of me doing such a thing--a
man used to the ways of money! A financier! Oh, I have been dreading the
scorn, the sneers, the ridicule more than I have dreaded the exposure of
my town notes! I want to die!”
“What have you done, sir?”
“My investments were good in years past! I knew how to handle money--but
what I did a few days ago!”
“What was it, Judge?” He had been hesitating between his declarations,
and therefore I kept prodding him. But confession of his last affair
seemed to stick in his throat.
“Oh, I am not guilty--I am not ashamed because I lost money in my
investments! The pirates who have manipulated this country’s industrials
and wrecked the railroads are the guilty ones--they should be ashamed of
what they did to the honest investors! But that I should run the scale
of speculation as I have--to the depths! Down, down, as I got more
desperate! And that I should do what I have just done when I was most
desperate--when your uncle was rushing me toward a cell door!”
He twisted his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.
I felt like a man waiting for a woodchuck to come out of his
hole--getting an occasional glimpse of a nose and seeing it
everlastingly dodging back.
“But I had to have money quick. I had lost my grip. I could not raise
more money in a regular way.”
“When I was in the city I heard swindlers talk about such men, sir.
There are blacklegs who go about the country hunting for such men. Have
you been swindled?”
“Foully--vilely!”
“How?”
He hooked his fingers inside his collar as if speech had stuck in his
throat.
“Laugh!” he advised me. He was as hoarse as a crow and looked as crazy
as a coot. “Go ahead and laugh! I may as well get used to the ridicule.”
“I don’t feel much like laughing at anything these days, Judge Kingsley.
I wish that you could understand me better and know how sorry--”
“Yes, and you and everybody else will pity me as a fool to be classed in
with the other fools who are gulled by the shell-and-pea game.”
“For the sake of Mike, what have you done?” I demanded with a bit of
temper, for I was in no frame of mind to guess riddles.
“I--Zebulon Kingsley--a financier, a man supposed to be in his right
mind,” he squealed, beating his breast as he struggled to his feet, “I
bought a gold brick!”