Judge Kingsley, provided we got under the wire in season, could be
saved from the charge of criminality, but he still had his salvation,
financially, to work out. He needed all that money and more--and I had
volunteered--had forced myself on him as combination courier and savior.
It was all settled in my mind, according to my private code, that I must
hand over the cash.
I will state right here that the decision I had come to about the
money did not rasp my feelings in the slightest. I had read quite a few
story-books in my time. If there was ever a case in the whole realm
of fact and fiction where the final scene would show loving daughter
clasped in adoring lover’s arms, and a benignant father raising his
hands over them with “Bless-you-my-children” sentiment, my affair
seemed to be triumphantly of that sort. Time, effort, and money--it all
belonged in the family!
My heart glowed and my eyes grew moist and it was a wonder that I did
not blurt out the whole thing to the judge--I felt so sure of him!
However, he had his own troubles to take up his mind pretty completely,
I realized. There was no telling what might be happening back home, with
my uncle Deck stirring things. If I had timed trains right, and nothing
tipped upside down, we didn’t have much more than twenty-four hours’
leeway in Levant ahead of that town meeting. I asked the judge if the
town notes were very widely scattered, and he told me they were not. He
had picked special parties whom he could depend on to keep their mouths
shut about their investment, and he felt pretty sure that they would
hand back the notes in exchange for cash and would ask no questions and
would keep still in the future.
“But I can’t eat and I can’t sleep,” he mourned, “not till I have those
papers in my two hands!” He put up his crooked claws and worked them.
“In my hands--all torn into ribbons--and then into the fire! Just think
of it!” He croaked the words and shivered. “Papers--only a few papers!
Scattered around town. Papers with ink-marks! Yet they can send me to
State prison!”
No, that wasn’t the time to talk with the judge about being his partner
or his son-in-law. But I did talk more with him in regard to plans for
gathering in the notes quietly and quickly the moment we struck town. I
had him give me the names so that I could help plan the campaign.
I knew them, of course. They were old tight-wads of farmers in the back
districts who would endure lighted candles at their feet for a long time
before they would leak any information about their money matters; there
were some widows and old maids who didn’t know anything about money
matters, anyway. The judge had picked well, I had to admit to myself.
But there was a lot to do, a mighty short time to do it in, and it
had got to be done with the delicate touch a bashful chap would use in
picking a rose-leaf off a sleeping schoolmarm’s cheek.
Therefore, this was my suggestion to the judge: we’d slip off the train
a station below Levant Comers, hire a hitch, and make our rounds of the
town’s creditors in the back-lots before we showed up in Levant village.
That’s what we did.
The lengthened days of April gave us a full hour and a half of sunlight
for our ride on our quest. Out of cupboards and long wallets and
rosewood boxes the farmers and the old maids dutifully produced their
town notes--“for the judge had called on.” They seemed to believe that
his wish to call in the notes settled the matter beyond all question.
He became once more his dignified, calm, self-contained self, though I
could see that it was only by exercise of all his will power.
I had placed packets of money in his hands and he figured interest and
made payments.
The first man with whom he did business gave the judge his cue and made
me thank the good Lord that I had planted that seed in Dodovah Vose!
“You’re looking better than I have ever seen you, Judge! Younger, too!
What have you been doing to yourself? Oh, your whiskers are cut off!
Improves you!”
The moment we had struck Spokane I bought alcohol and stripped that
grotesque mustache from the judge’s face. In spite of his haggard
countenance, he did look younger.
“It’s said around town,” proceeded Farmer Bailey-- and I held my breath
and did not dare to look at Judge Kingsley--“that you’ve just cleaned up
a lot of money in a big deal. Dod Vose has given out first news! We’re
all glad of it because we have always looked up to you as a financier.”
The judge nodded stiffly in acknowledgment of the compliment.
“And I suppose he has made you rich, too, young Sidney, taking you under
his wing like he has,” suggested the farmer, with a wink. “Your uncle is
giving you a black eye for deserting the family--like he done the first
time you left town--but I guess you haven’t made any mistake by grabbing
in with Judge Kingsley.”
“I’m quite sure of that,” I told Farmer Bailey.
“I hate to take this money, Judge,” said the farmer. “It’s been safe
with you. I ain’t a financier like you be. It hasn’t been taxed. You bet
I have kept my mouth shut!”
“It’s only to clear up town business on account of the special meeting
which has been called for to-morrow,” stated the judge. “I am glad to
hear you have kept the matter private. I merely tried to help a few of
my friends. And I suggest that you say nothing about having received
this money or that you have surrendered a town note. There are
disturbers in town who threaten a high tax-rate.”
“It’s Deck Sidney, thrashing around to make a big show of his authority,
now that he is selectman,” the farmer grumbled. “He ain’t being
backed up by the people, I can tell you that! It’s all right to be
enterprising, but he is too cussed much so. He was around here the other
day, trying to nose out whether I held a town note or not!” I felt a
thrill of fear and the judge grew visibly paler. “Yes, he hung on and
coaxed and threatened and argued. But I knew what he was up to!”
He winked at the shrinking judge.
“He said if I didn’t bring my town note into the meeting I’d never be
able to collect.”
“How did he know you held a town note?” croaked the judge.
“He didn’t know! He was round town guessing. I never let on. I knew he
wasn’t any financier. I knew that you’d protect me, no matter what Deck
Sidney might say. I smelled him out, all right! He thinks he is running
this town and he tried to bamboozle me so that he could find some more
property to tax. I reckon we’ll show him where he belongs when it
comes to next annual meeting. He’s getting altogether too big for his
britches!” We learned much more about my uncle’s recent activities
before we finished our ride. Evidently, when he had held his nose in
the air he had sniffed town notes; but when he had set his nose to the
ground and had tried to run those notes to their lairs he had failed. At
any rate, the holders protested to the judge that they had not dropped
one word--all of them suspecting that my uncle was merely digging out
property to tax. The resentful farmers had replied to his anathema with
some of their own and the frightened old maids had been too scared to
say anything to him. We heard enough to know that he had traveled more
or less by guesswork, and had made his quest general, hoping to corner
somebody by chance. If we could believe the protestations of the parties
concerned, Judge Kingsley’s defenses still presented a fair front to the
world..
At last, before the evening was old, the judge had taken into his hands
the last note.
Then we ordered our driver to hurry us to the village.
“Mr. Sidney,” said the judge, when he had paid the driver and stood in
the shadows at the edge of the square, “this is not the time to talk
over our affairs, but I do want you to step into my office for a few
moments.”
He led the way.
The big house was dark and a queer kind of a shiver ran through me when
I looked at it.
“The devil must have had me in his clutch all these days,” muttered the
judge. “I have been worse than a lunatic. Not a word from me to my poor
folks at home!”
To tell the truth, I had not been giving much thought to our remissness
in that duty. I have never been much of a letter-writer in my life--I
had been so long without folks who cared to hear from me that the matter
of keeping anybody posted on my whereabouts never came into my mind.
To be sure, I had Celene Kingsley in my mind all the time, even in the
stress of our adventures, but I had not presumed to write to her.
During our travels it had not occurred to me that it was any part of my
business to prompt Judge Kingsley in any of his family affairs. But now
that we were back, in front of that gloomy house, I realized just how
brutal the whole thing was.
The judge went to his office door and his hand trembled so violently
that the key clattered all around the hole; what with the darkness
and his agitation, he could not unlock the door, and I did it for him,
gently taking the key from his hand.
I lighted his lamp when we were within. We stood there for a few moments
and looked at each other.
“It’s so still!” he mumbled. “It seems early for them to be in bed.”
“But your folks must be all right,” I ventured. “If there was anything
wrong we would have heard about it while we have been riding about
town.”
“Probably! Probably!” His voice quavered and he was all a-tremble. “But
it seems so still!”
He sat down at his table and pulled out the notes he had been gathering.
“You are entitled to look on, Mr. Sidney! I wanted you to see me do it.
I don’t just understand all the reasons yet why you have helped me as
you have. We will talk about that some day when my head is clearer. It’s
all a dream--a dream--a dream--so it seems now.” He sort of maundered
along in his talk. He did not seem to be at all sure of himself. If the
thought did come to me with any force that then was a good time to tell
him why I had volunteered as I had done, I put the idea away when I
looked at him.
He dumped papers out of a tin tray which stood on the table. He piled
the notes in the tray.
“Touch a match to them, sir,” he told me. “You are entitled to do it. We
will watch them burn. I signed them as town treasurer. One of them would
put me into prison. Hurry! Set the match to them!” And I obeyed.
Then, almost before the red embers were dark, he dove his hands into the
ashes of the papers and scrufled them about and out of him came the most
dreadful cackle of laughter I ever heard.
I was anxious to end that scene as quickly as I could. I pulled a packet
from my coat and laid it on the table; I tapped my finger on it to get
his attention.
“Here is something I have held out, Judge Kingsley,”
I informed him. “There’s a thousand dollars tied up in this paper. Five
hundred of it I accepted from Dodo-vah Vose, agreeing to put him in
right in our speculation. I took it when I started West.”
In spite of his emotion the old judge’s business sense flared just as
the fire had flared in the tray a moment before.
“But there was no speculation--there was no business deal! Why did you
take money in that way?”
“I had special reasons of my own, sir.”
“But you had no right--it was a private affair--it--”
“And I also had reasons of your own to consider, sir,” I broke in. “Mr.
Vose asked me to invest for him. I wanted your name to stand well after
we were gone. I was under obligations to Mr. Vose and when I told him we
had a big deal on I could give him no good reason why I would not turn
a little profit his way. That’s why the man Bailey is so sure that your
credit is now good. You’ll find that the news has gone all about the
section--”
“They’ll be jumping on me for the money I owe!” snarled the judge. “Vose
has ruined me if he has bragged. You have--”
“Just a moment, sir, before you say something you’ll be sorry for. It’s
just the other way, I’ll warrant! Men will bring more money to you. You
can be shrewd and work out of your troubles. Your credit is established.
I made a good play when I did it.”
“You say there’s a thousand dollars in that envelope?”
“Yes, sir! I have handed the other packets to you. I propose to give Mr.
Vose five hundred dollars profit--and after I have done that you’ll get
the best advertising you ever had. They’ll rate you mighty high in these
parts. Five hundred is a cheap price for what you’ll get.”
“But I need every cent just now to tide me over,” he whined. “You are
throwing money away recklessly. Vose can be taken care of some time.
Give him his own five hundred--or--or--say it has been invested for him.
I will attend to his case later.”
And do you know what that old rhinoceros did? He reached out his paw to
take that packet. I had to pound my fist on his fingers to make him let
go.
He stood up and called me names--said that I was taking money he needed.
I suppose I ought to have made allowances for the state of mind he was
in--his fears--his weakness of old age--his dreadful anxiety which still
goaded him.
But I was in a bad way, myself, and I could not pardon that selfishness.
“Confound you,” I yelled, “I have a mind to back you against the wall
and strip every dollar out of your pockets!”
And then we heard a noise and we turned around, and there stood Celene
Kingsley looking at us--looking at me especially with hatred and horror.
“Father!” she cried. “Shall I run and call help? He is robbing you!”
I certainly could not say a word just then, and the judge sat down and
gasped and gaped at her.
She came into the room. She was white and pale and thin, but she was no
shrinking and anguished maiden. She was showing the female’s ferocity in
guarding her own.
“I heard you! Confessing that you’re a robber out of your own mouth!
Where have you been with my poor father? What devilish spell have you
put on him--you and the rest of your gang?”
She turned away from me.
“Father, don’t you realize that you have come home when it is too late?
Oh, God in heaven, why did you not break away from those rogues and come
home--or write so that we could ransom you? I know. They have kept you a
prisoner!”
“Too late?” he looked at his office safe. I knew what he was afraid of.
“Too late?”
She began to sob. “It has killed mother!”
He got up and staggered to her and took her in his arms.
“Your mother dead?”
“It’s worse than that! It’s her mind--it has gone, and her body is
following. She hasn’t known me for days. She lies there dying.”
I was shocked, but I must confess I did not feel like a murderer. Mrs.
Kingsley had been ill when we went away--she had so declared in my
hearing.
“Miss Kingsley,” I put in, “I’m sorry, but your father and I--”
Her tears ceased and she turned on me in a fury. I knew something about
the Kingsley disposition, but I did not know before that she had so much
of it in her.
“Sorry! You sorry? I know about you, you miserable low-lived wretch! I
have been hunting for my father. Do you think I would look down on my
dying mother and not spend every cent I had in trying to find where you
had taken him? My detectives have been on that trail you left in the
city!”
Able detectives! On the cold and easy trail instead of nosing on the
warm one!
“But please listen to me--”
“To more of your lies? No! I know you for what you are--hiding from the
police in the city--coming back here to finish the ruin of my innocent
father after your friends had been, sent here by you to rob him. You
don’t dare to deny what you have been in the city! Your face convicts
you!” >
I was perfectly conscious that I was not presenting any lamb-like
picture of innocence. She certainly had me on the run when she burst out
with that exposure of my city record. But I did not propose to lie down
and stick up my feet like a calf ticketed for the butcher.
“Miss Kingsley,” I said, slapping the packet of money across my
palm--and that was a poor tool to use for emphasis after she had heard
my talk to her father, “you must listen--”
“I have been listening just now! I heard you threaten to strip my poor
father of every cent he has in the world! Do you deny you said it?”
“No, but--”
“Do you deny that you have been the sort of a man I have said you were?”
She rushed at me, her hands like claws. I was reminded of a sight I
had witnessed in boyhood--a shrieking meadow-thrush defending her nest
against a sneaking snake.
I looked past her toward the judge. I did hope he would say something,
even though I did not expect that he would come out with the whole
truth. Honestly, I would have stopped him short if he had started to
confess to her anything about the real reason why I was mixed into his
affairs. Had not the whole expedition been planned so that the women
folks would not know?
Nevertheless, a decent man in his right senses could have made some sort
of talk to help me out. But it was plain enough that Judge Kingsley was
not in his right senses--he did not seem to have much of any sense
left in him; he was doddering around the room, twisting his hands and
accusing himself of having killed his wife.
“Please listen,” I implored. “You have heard only one side--”
“I will not listen! You, your uncle, the renegades you associate with,
you have tried to ruin my father. You weren’t even decent enough to be
an open enemy--you came sneaking into our home to lie to us and deceive
us.”
“By the gods,” I shouted, “you will listen to me! I don’t propose to be
kicked around from pillar to post all my life. I am the best friend the
Kingsley family ever had. If your father doesn’t tell you so, I will.
Judge Kingsley, why don’t you be a man?”
But he gave me a fishy look and went on lamenting.
She started for the door. “There are honest men in this village--I’m
going to call them!”
But I got to the door ahead of her.
“There’s another time coming--a better time for an explanation--and
you’ll be the sorriest girl in the world.”
“I can never be as sorry as I am now--sorry and ashamed! To think that I
ever put confidence in a creature by the name of Sidney!”
What a glorious home-coming for the paragon of selfsacrifice!
I walked around the square half a dozen times before I dared to go into
the tavern. I don’t know how I ever got through that interview with
Dodovah Vose without betraying my state of mind, but I managed it and
excused my peculiarity by saying that I was all worn out by my trip.
And he had too much on his own mind in a few minutes to pay special
attention to me, for I handed him one thousand dollars and went up to
my room without bothering to contradict his excited guessings that the
judge and I had cleaned up a fortune. Kingsley, I reflected, might as
well have the benefit of the guessing. And, it must be known, hope was
not dead in me in spite of my agony.
Something else was very much alive in me. Blackleg, eh? Flashy rogue!
Barker for gamblers!
I took off that plug-hat, held it in both hands, and put my foot through
the crown; then I kicked it all around the room. I stripped off that
frock-coat, grabbed the tails and ripped it into two parts.
Then I went to the closet and surveyed that ready-made suit and the
billycock hat with content.
In the morning I would be Ross Sidney, professional diver, ready to go
back on the job if there was any such thing as a job for me in all the
world. I hoped I would be sane once more when I opened my eyes on a new
day. I yanked that fancy waistcoat into ribbons, threw the pearl-gray
trousers under the bed, and hurried to go to sleep so that I would not
become completely crazy before I could forget my troubles.