a moment at the keyhole, and then; seizing his traveling-bag, emptied
it on the bed. From a confusion of socks and shirts he rooted out a
small tin box, set it aside, put back the bag, and composed himself on
the edge of the bed. His slightest movement had become eager, stealthy.
Holding the tin box on his knee, he patted it fondly. He produced a
key, and chuckled as it grated in the lock. His hands were shaking as
he threw back the cover and carefully took out the contents. Not gold
or precious stones rolled out before him, not the hoard of a miser, the
collection of a seeker of rare things, or the sacred relics of a family
trust, but a heap of photographs! On the bed he spread them, arranged
in some accustomed order, and as he bent over each his breath came with
a low, hissing sound. His eyes, half shut, blazed queerly--eyes that
looked not upon memoirs of love, but of hate.
It was a full minute before he moved. Then he snatched one of the
photographs and held it from him, tearing the edges with his clenched
hands. It was a full-length picture of a straight, soldierly looking
man who might be called good looking were it not for the curl of his
mouth. Below it was written:
“_Léon Giron, taken upon his arrival in New York._”
As he gazed at the man’s straight and powerful figure, Lescault’s
mutilated face became savage in its hate.
“And I’d have been like you, Léon Giron, if you’d played square,” he
accused the picture. “I’d have been like you, with my body whole and
young and vigorous. Bah!” He threw it from him and picked up another.
“Ho!” he cried, “this is how you looked when you won the Grand Prix,
when they pelted you with flowers after you had crossed the line, when
with your dirty driving you sent me into a ditch and left me out on
that road, dying, as you thought. But I didn’t die, Léon Giron.”
His voice had fallen to a whisper, strained, harsh, the way a man talks
when some overpowering emotion takes him. He snatched up picture after
picture,--racing scenes all of them,--only to examine each feverishly
and fling it away.
“Here you are when you won the Targa Floria,--” he was talking rapidly,
addressing one picture after another,--“when you won the Berlin cup,
the Czar’s trophy, all _my_ races, all of them--mine, if you’d played
square. And this is after you won at Brooklands. That was a year ago. I
could have beaten you then, Giron. For three years I’ve been training a
boy for you, teaching him all I know, more than you’ll ever know, about
racing. I’ve given him every trick that used to beat you, confound you!
that maddened on into throwing me into the ditch.
“And I’ve given that boy more. I’ve devised new tricks, new strategies,
skill you’ve never dreamed of; and he’ll beat you, Léon Giron. He’ll
beat you in the Vanderbilt. He’ll break you on the greatest day of your
career. He, a boy, will make you a laughing-stock--you, the favorite.
You’ve come from Europe, your great reputation preceding you but you’ll
fail. And it’ll be the clean, strong body of young Stevenson, like mine
was. But more than that, the brain of Jean Lescault will break you,
Giron--the brain of poor old Lescault, working down in the pits.”
As he dropped the pictures one by one back into the box, as, trembling
and leering, he gazed and spat upon the image of Giron, it seemed as
though the beast in him might be trying to overpower the God. Thus it
was Lescault’s custom to drink deeply of the vials of hate, to nurse
his spleen, to envenom his whole being against this one man.
The idea had come to him one winter morning seven years before, when
he had just left the hospital at Lariboisière. In a shop-window he
had seen the photograph of Giron, flower-showered, coolly triumphant
in his Grand Prix car. With rancor slowly filling his soul, Lescault
had bought the picture, carried it to his room, brooded over it,
conceived his awful hate, planned the reckoning that alone could
satisfy it. Then he happened upon another picture in which Giron was
again the central figure, and bought that, too, placed it alongside
the other, and brooded. The overthrow of Giron became an obsession, in
time a paranœa. Indeed, during the days immediately preceding the
Vanderbilt race, Lescault, when not busy with Stevenson, spent most
of his time in his room; and the pictures, shrine of his hatred, were
always before him.
Meanwhile Giron had become a byword with those thousands and thousands
who a day hence would swarm Hempstead plains and watch him guide the
big Saturn on its quest for the cup. The newspapers were full of him.
They told of his rise, of his quarters at Jericho, of his mannerisms,
of the almost slavish obedience that he exacted of his helpers; but
they always spoke, too, of his nerve, his utter fearlessness, his
immobile face, his calmness when the wind was singing in his ears and
the wheels were sweeping the ground beneath him, as the whirlwind
sweeps chaff. Yet of all the “stories” there was only one that
presented Giron as he actually was. And that was done by a noted writer
who had visited the course for “color.” This man saw beyond Giron’s
indifference and coldness, and guessed ruthlessness and cruelty to
be a strong part of him. Telltale lines had long ago written their
revelations on Giron’s mouth, so that all might read who could.
And so came the eve of the race, with Giron the word on the public’s
lips. The favorite, conceded beyond all doubt as the winner, he sat
alone in his quarters at Jericho, scorning the gossip of the camps,
hearing no word of the cripple who had been seen on the course with
Stevenson, coolly confident, an eternal sneer on his lips, the ruthless
fires of a _Messala_ in his eyes. No man could come between him and
this greatest triumph of his career; no man could do it and live. He
unconsciously felt it.
All that night the spectators descended upon the course, coming by
train and trolley, luncheon-boxes and blankets in hand. Numberless
droves of them came by motor, an endless, fiery-scaled snake that
writhed slowly down the roads from New York, coiled round the course,
moaned constantly, and waited. At dawn the race was to start; thirty of
the most powerful automobiles ever made would pit their speed for three
hundred miles, a harsh test, over an oblong of country road, with half
a million people looking on.
Lescault, shivering despite his warm wraps, was in the repair pits
as the cars began to come to the line. Tints of violet and pink were
creeping over the fields, and in the growing light of morning the
headlights of a row of automobiles drawn up behind the grand-stand
fence began to look self-conscious and absurd. Behind him, in a box,
he saw a party of men, their eyes heavy-lidded for want of sleep. They
were drinking something from a metal bottle. Lescault decided it was
coffee, and wished he had some. Then he forgot about the coffee, for
far in the distance a sound, deep and droning, caught his ear. It was
the voice of the Saturn. Lescault recognized it instantly.
In perfect control of himself he waited. He had left hysteria behind
at Krugs, locked it in the same drawer with the pictures. Now, if
never before, he must restrain himself. This day he must become again
the old Lescault of the race-course, calm, emotionless. It would be
hard at the sight of Giron, but he must be cool. And now he heard the
booming of an engine; saw the fires of the Saturn’s exhausts burning
the morning; saw the big red car come nearer and nearer, its engine,
shutting off, thundering intermittently; saw it advance with its speed
throttled, calmly, majestically, as a car of triumph should come; and
on the conqueror’s seat sat Giron. Slowly it rolled past the repair
trenches, past the Jupiter, the Green Dragon; now it was almost abreast
the Mercury, and Lescault, timing his move, scrambled suddenly from the
pit, and stood waiting on the road.
That Giron had seen him he knew. Lescault had caught the momentary
surprise on his face, the exclamation on his lips. But Giron had
swiftly regained his habitual sneer--a sneer that curled his lips as he
passed the pit and spit deliberately at the feet of the man below him.
But Lescault’s self-control was superb, and as the Saturn rolled past,
he looked after it, smiled, and spoke as he had spoken to the pictures,
saying sweetly under his breath:
“Léon Giron, I’ve got you.”
The road was now jammed with masses of shaking, smoking steel. One
car followed another, manœuvered for position, choked the course,
thickened the bluish haze that, rising from the exhausts, hung almost
as motionless as a canopy. Here were the trim-looking Vegas and their
French drivers; the Green Dragons, with fierce-looking Italians
behind the wheels; a curious cartridge-shaped car entered by an
American concern; and the Mercury, called the “Ninety,” because of its
tremendous horse-power. Stevenson was at the wheel, and as the grand
stand saw his boyish, good-looking face, there were exclamations, then
a rattle of applause, growing into steady cheering. Waving his hand
and grinning, Stevenson stopped before the pit and, swinging himself
over the rail, joined Lescault. He was dressed in white,--suit and
skull-piece,--with black gloves, black streamers trailing from his hat,
black puttees to his knees, a picturesque figure with his broad chest
and shoulders. It had been Lescault’s wish that Stevenson, like the
car, be in white and black. He remembered that some of the crusaders of
old used to dress that way.
During those last minutes Lescault’s words to Stevenson were as an
exhortation. Of technic he could give the boy no more, for his skill
had been transmitted completely, astoundingly to him. So now, with
his voice lowered, Lescault spoke with all his long-growing, loosened
emotions; he impressed upon him that Giron was the one to beat, the
only rival he need fear, and commanded him particularly to obey orders,
do all that he said, nothing more. And Stevenson, who long ago had
caught the fervor of this broken-bodied little Frenchman, felt a fierce
yearning to be at the wheel, to be riding the wind, with all others
falling as he rode. With an exclamation he sprang from the pit and
scrambled into the car. The soul of jean Lescault would be driving the
“Ninety” that day.
By this time chaos had opened its gates. Thirty engines were roaring,
their steel throats belching. Flame and smoke burst from them. A clamor
of machinery smote the ear. Gears rattled shrilly, levers ground and
rasped. A stench of oil assailed the nostrils. Now the bluish canopy,
thickening, descended as a curtain. Through it Lescault saw the
“Ninety” sliding like a great specter, creeping along until its front
wheels almost touched the red tanks of the Saturn.
Above the crash of machinery he heard a man’s voice intoning the
seconds from one to ten backward. He could not see the man, for the
drifting smoke shrouded all; but he listened, and suddenly a voice
shouted “Go!” Then came a rattling from the Saturn, a succession of
sharp reports, a deep boom, a savage cry from Giron: the Vanderbilt was
on.
Three minutes later the white “Ninety” loomed through the smoke, paused
on the line, licked at the starter with thin tongues of yellow flame,
and, snorting eagerly, crashed away.
Twenty-seven other cars followed, but upon none of them would Lescault
deign to glance. With pad and pencil in hand he was busy figuring how
fast Stevenson would have to go to lead Giron at the end of the first
lap. He knew that the best Giron had done in practice was a circuit
of the twenty-mile course in eighteen minutes. This was at the rate
of sixty-seven miles an hour. And Lescault grinned, for he had told
Stevenson to keep his speedometer at seventy-five miles an hour, gain
a two-minute lead at the outset, and confound Giron when the race was
only a lap old.
His figures verified, Lescault waited impatiently for the Saturn to
appear. If it came just one minute ahead of the “Ninety,” his schedule
was true. Time dragged; the crowd settled back; the tense vigil
disintegrated into stretchings and yawnings. The stage of a Vanderbilt
is not reset quickly, but long before the signal “Car coming!” passed
for miles from mouth to mouth, grew from a murmur to a shout, and
threw the grand stand into tumult, Lescault’s trained ear had caught
the distant rumble of the Saturn. Giron was driving hard. Lescault saw
that he passed the grand stand with the engine “wide open,” forcing
the car to its utmost. Then the Saturn roared away, and out of the
distance came another apparition that, flashing by in a blur of white,
cast up dust and was gone. Down in the pits, Lescault, one of few who
had recognized the white car, so great was its speed, drew his hideous
features into a smile.
His stop-watch had told him that Stevenson’s first lap was at
seventy-seven miles an hour, a gain of more than two minutes on the
unbeaten Giron! And he grinned again when back of him men began to ask
of one another in surprise:
“Who is this Stevenson? He’s beaten the life out of Giron. Who is he?”
No one knew anything but what the program had printed, and down in the
pits the crippled little Frenchman was enjoying himself as he never had
before. Each bewildered question was as music to his ears.
Quarter of an hour later the white “Ninety” and the red Saturn again
crashed past, only this time Giron was behind. Even the advantage that
his starting position had given him was gone, and Stevenson led by five
minutes. So one lap followed another, a whirligig of blurred wheels
and flaming hoods, sweeping round and round that oblong of Long Island
country-side, strewing men and machines as it went.
Soon reports of accidents began to come in. In trying to keep up with
the awful pace, the other drivers were overtaxing their machines.
Already two cars had collapsed on the course, burying their crews
beneath them. Others,--a score of them, with the Vegas, and the
Germans, painted gray,--limping, had stopped at the repair pits, and
Lescault had laughed. What chance had they with the white “Ninety” and
his brain?
Complacently he saw Stevenson push his car past the Saturn a second
time. Near Westbury he had driven wonderfully, and obtained a lead of
more than a length of the course over the favorite. And this time, when
the Saturn rushed by, Lescault saw that Giron had stopped his waving to
the grand stand. Clever driver that he was, Giron now realized that the
early lead of the “Ninety” was more than a fluke, more than sensational
forcing of a car beyond its limits, only to have it collapse with the
goal miles away. In Stevenson he had come to recognize a new driver
of rare power, a rival worthy of his steel. All Giron’s attention was
demanded on the wheel.
Another swift rimming of the course, and Lescault saw the “Ninety”
slacken speed coming up the stretch. Stevenson would stop, probably for
gasolene or water. And Lescault was glad. Indeed, fortune seemed to be
favoring him that day. It was tremendously important that he have a
word with Stevenson at this stage of the race. Lescault had remembered
that it was at such a time in the Grand Prix that Giron had broken
him--waited on a lonely stretch of road until he had tried to pass and
then had ditched him.
“Don’t,” he told Stevenson, while mechanics swarmed about the throbbing
“Ninety”--“don’t pass Giron again unless you can do it in front of the
judges’ stand.”
Stevenson showed his amazement. A question was on his lips.
“Obey me!” snapped Lescault, anticipating him. “Remember you’re pledged
to that--to carry out my commands. I’ve made you, and you must do just
what I say,” he added.
And Stevenson, excited, abashed, regretting his moment of doubt,
nodded, and turned to the men who were pouring gasolene down the
thirsty throat of the “Ninety.” Then he swung into the seat, threw in
his clutch, and went snorting away. Jean Lescault would be obeyed.
As though by telepathy, there came to Giron at this time the same
thought that had made Lescault speak his warning. Stevenson must
be done away with. As Giron had seen him draw steadily away lap by
lap, displaying more and more daring and skill; as he had seen him
manœuver as only a master could manœuver, put trick against
trick, and, winning, outdo all who would cut him down; as he had
watched the big “Ninety” roar by again and again, always about the same
time, a “limited” on schedule, the keen Frenchman admitted finally that
Stevenson’s was no half-charged sensation, but a decided menace.
Setting his mouth in a thin, cruel line, he made his plans. He would
wait for this boy--wait as he had waited for Lescault years before. To
him it was only an incident, a sweeping aside of an unforeseen obstacle
that had risen between him and victory. That Stevenson might die, that
a young and wonderfully brilliant driver might he maimed for life, did
not interest him. The boy was in the way. He must go.
Giron waited patiently for the “Ninety” to draw near. Just as he
was about to pass he would obey the law of the race--turn out and
give room. Then he would veer in suddenly, and, to avoid collision,
Stevenson would be forced into the ditch. In just that way he had
disposed of Lescault and of others whose names do not matter. Snarling
at his mechanician to warn him of the approach of the “Ninety,” Giron
drove on. The wait, he felt, would not be long.
[Illustration: Drawn by William H. Foster
“ON IT CAME, FASTER THAN THE WIND” (SEE PAGE 213)]
But for some reason the “Ninety” never overtook him. It hung so close
to his rear wheels that Giron could hear the crunch of the tires, the
cries of its mechanician; but it came no nearer. Its front wheels were
always just out of reach; but it never came farther. Stubbornly and
tenaciously it hung like a shadow that would not shorten.
In his desperation Giron began jockeying. Slackening his speed almost
imperceptibly, he waited grimly; but the “Ninety” slackened, too. For
a moment Giron was puzzled; then, thinking it might be a coincidence,
he lowered his pace even more, but the “Ninety” lowered, too. Suddenly
suspicious, he tried again; but still the “Ninety” hung back. Then it
burst upon Giron amazingly clear. How blind he had been! This was not
Stevenson who refused to be tricked; this was no impetuous, lusty boy
who couldn’t be tempted into the ditch. This was the cool mind of the
master driver, the calm, scheming mind of Lescault--old Lescault back
in the pits, the hideous cripple at whom he had spat, now pulling him
down at the top of his career.
So they rushed into the straightaway, headed for the grand stand, and
came booming and pounding until a report from one of the “Ninety’s”
rear tires brought that car to a stop while the red Saturn whirled
away in a screen of dust. Stevenson drove in on a flat tire, and,
reaching the pits, shouted to his mechanics to hurry their work; and
while he waited, chafing and fretting, Lescault clutched at his arm and
said impressively:
“Remember, don’t pass Giron unless it’s in front of the judges’ stand.
Remember you promised to obey.”
Then the “Ninety” rushed away. Somewhat nervous now, for the race was
drawing to a close, Lescault saw the Saturn appear again and knew
that Stevenson must come soon after. Impatiently he strained his ear,
hoping to catch the rumble of the “Ninety” before it swung round the
“Hairpin” into view of the stands. But no rumble came. Soon Stevenson
was overdue. Concern and worry, then fear, followed upon impatience.
Seconds grew into minutes, and to Lescault the minutes were as ages. He
began to ask himself questions. What was wrong? Had Stevenson disobeyed
orders?
Lescault feverishly jotted down some figures. Yes, the boy could have
passed Giron over by Westbury; but Giron had swept by, and Stevenson--
The pitmen, now alarmed at the delay, had climbed out upon the side of
the track. One of them, a little fellow, standing on the shoulders of
the others, was trying to see far down the road. Lescault watched his
face for some expression of relief, but the pitman’s worry seemed to
grow.
“Stevenson’s hurt!”
In a trice the rumor had spread among the crowd. Wild stories spread.
The minutes were now dragging on feet of lead--agonizing minutes
to Lescault, who felt an overpowering weakness coming over him, a
sickening of the heart, an overwhelming of conscience that undermined
his iron nerve. Giron had beaten him again! His painstaking work, his
self-denials, all the plans of years, had been for naught. And by using
Stevenson,--God help him!--he had sent the boy to a fate perhaps worse
than his own. Into the scarred face came sorrow.
Then he heard an exclamation; he saw the pitmen dancing about like
children.
“He’s coming! He’s coming!” they cried.
Far down the road Lescault made out the white blur of the “Ninety.”
“Busted valve!” cried Stevenson as he jumped down. “Thought we’d never
fix it.”
Lescault saw that the boyish face looked old, ages old, that his hands
were moving nervously, his whole body tense with repressed eagerness.
“You’ve lost the lead,” a tireman shouted. “Giron’s a minute ahead!”
Lescault could have killed the speaker. The effect of his words was
obvious. Stevenson’s nervousness increased.
“As bad as that!” he exclaimed. “Hurry it up, boys! Only two more
laps--just enough to catch Giron.”
Swinging into the car, he threw on the engine, drowning the warning
that Lescault was shouting, and rushed away. The grand stand was in an
uproar as he swept past, but Stevenson did not hear. He heard only the
words of the tireman, and kept repeating them:
“Giron’s a minute ahead. Giron’s a minute ahead.”
He now opened his engine to the limit, and driving faster than he had
ever driven before, burst into the “S” turn and reeled round it on two
wheels. Past Massapequa he whirled, dirt and oil flying in a trembling
wall of brown. Downhill, over bridges, he rushed, the wind shrieking
in his ears. Into the straight stretch of the Parkway he burst, the
“Ninety” gathering momentum on the smooth road, faster and faster,
until the front wheels, bending to the sonorous rhythm of the engine,
jumped up and down in a weird dance.
[Illustration: Drawn by William H. Foster
“‘DON’T PASS GIRON AGAIN UNLESS YOU CAN DO IT IN FRONT OF THE JUDGES’
STAND’”]
Yes, no speck of red had taken shape on the road ahead. The lead of
the Saturn was even greater than he had feared. It must be still miles
away, and Giron, supreme again, driving like the wind. That streak of
red! If he could only see it, just to know that it really was within
reach.
Then Stevenson caught a glimpse of car far ahead. An exclamation
escaped him, only to leave him more grimly silent; for the car was
gray, one of the Germans. Then he made out other cars,--white, green,
and blue cars, the Jupiter, the Vegas, and the Crowns,--and soon he
had overtaken them, roared past them, with their crews appalled at the
awful speed, the awful daring. Now he began to curse the “Ninety” for
not bearing him more swiftly, for not bringing to him that red-painted
goal. And so he crashed, skidded, and battered through mile after mile,
forgot the perils of “the Jericho,” the “S,” and the “Hairpin,” and
drove in the grip of a mania, a boyish giant on whom the race had laid
its spell.
Out of the distance there finally came to him the speck of red, a
vague, blurry shape that quickly took on the lines of the Saturn. It
gave him a sense of fierce pleasure, an unnatural desire to laugh
aloud; and then he thought of Lescault, of his warning:
“Don’t pass Giron unless it’s in front of the judges’ stand.”
But surely Lescault could not mean for him to wait now--now when he
was behind, when he had caught the red car and in a trice could snatch
back a race almost lost! Of course Lescault didn’t mean that. Stevenson
compressed his lips, pressed down on the accelerator, leaned slightly
forward, his eyes peering over the steering-wheel.
A minute of terrific driving, and the “Ninety” had come near enough
for Giron to hear the thunder of its exhausts. Employing a signal that
racing crews have, he ordered his mechanician to watch its approach.
The mechanician, after craning his head, turned swiftly around.
“He’s coming like the wind,” he bawled in Giron’s ear. “He’s driving
like a madman!”
And Giron, who had waited patiently for this moment, who knew even when
he had gained the lead that he could not hold it, that the “Ninety” was
faster, the brain guiding it craftier, parted his lips as a panther
does before the leap; for he thought again that the soul of Lescault
was no longer driving the “Ninety,” that lusty, unthinking youth, mad
with speed, had risen, overwhelming caution and sending Stevenson down
into the ditch, as it had another years before.
“I’ll get him,” he murmured, and bent lower over the wheel.
Past Hicksville came the two cars, the “Ninety” creeping up at every
turn of the wheel.
“Not here,” Giron told himself; “the crowd might see.”