She shut the door and locked it with a hasty movement and came back.
“Who was it?” he said, with rising excitement.
“Only Mr. Drinkwater.”
“Drinkwater! What can he want here?”
Neither had the slightest suspicion of the lawyer’s complicity in
the events of the night before. The scraping knock began again.
“We’ll see him,” he said, all at once, his curiosity whetted, and,
in obedience to his signal, she went to the door and opened it
cautiously--far enough to permit Drinkwater’s slipping into the
room. Dangerfield was at the further end, standing by the head of
the table, where the light of two candlesticks lit up his round,
shaggy head and deep eyes.
Drinkwater glided across the room until only the table separated
them, before jerking his head backward to where Inga in the shadow
stood guard at the door.
“Mr. Dangerfield,” he said, “I have come here with a message from
some one--” he stopped, blew nervously through his nose, and
continued--“some one you may guess--some one close to you. The
message is strictly private.”
“Go on. I’ll hear it,” said Dangerfield, bending his brows down and
playing with a paper-weight that happened to be near by. The whole
attitude held so much threat that the lawyer’s eyes calculated the
proportions of the table that served him as a barricade.
“But”--he glanced a second time toward Inga with a raising of his
eyebrows--“do you wish any one to be a third to our conversation?
It is, of course----”
“Inga, wait! I wish you to stay,” said Dangerfield, as he heard in
the shadows the slight rustle of her dress. “There is nothing to
show that he has anything of importance.”
“It is from your wife,” said Drinkwater, with a smile, and his
glance went down to his fingers, which were pressed on the black,
glossy surface of the table as though in the act of striking some
resounding chord.
“Perhaps I had better--I can wait just outside,” she said hurriedly.
“No--no--if what he says is true,” said Dangerfield peremptorily,
“all the more reason. I want you to hear what passes between this
man and myself.”
“Very well.” She left the door and, seeing the excitement which had
begun to work in him at the lawyer’s announcement, came to his side
to control him.
Drinkwater’s glance rose from the table and rested on them with a
certain malicious enjoyment.
“First, I have a surprise, an agreeable surprise, for you,” he
said, with a flicker of a smile, and his manner of accenting his
phrase made them feel that he had referred to them both. “Mr.
Dangerfield, you are a free man; your divorce was granted this
afternoon.”
Of the two, Inga showed the more emotion. She started and drew away
from Dangerfield as though suddenly conscious of the intimacy of
their attitude, while her companion received the announcement with
a shrug.
“That can’t be true. And it is impossible for you to know it.”
“It is true,” said Drinkwater. “And to show that I have ways of
knowing that may surprise you, the action was held in Rhode Island
under a referee appointed by Judge Chough, of the----”
“You know this!” exclaimed Dangerfield, in amazement.
“Don’t worry--no one else will know,” said Drinkwater suavely. “I
know, because I made it my business to know.”
“So you have been spying on me all this while,” said Dangerfield,
with a sudden contraction of the eyes that brought the brows down
into a lowering, menacing line.
“I have been fulfilling my duties,” said Drinkwater coolly enough,
though he stopped to puff through his thin, hooked nose; “duties
as an attorney retained by the interests of your wife--Mrs. Daniel
Garford.”
At this mention of his real name, Dangerfield’s anger, curiously
enough, seemed to subside. Indeed, in the succeeding quiet and the
mildness of his voice, there was almost a premeditated cunning.
“Well, it is quite evident that you are well-informed,” he said.
“You say that the divorce was pronounced this afternoon--may I ask
how you should be the one to inform me, instead of my own lawyer?”
“Because I received the news by telephone twenty minutes ago.”
“And you have communicated the news to my--to Mrs. Garford?”
“I have not.”
“You said you had a message to me from her,” said Dangerfield
slowly. “What is it?”
“That is not quite correct,” said Drinkwater, and, for the first
time, he displayed a touch of nervousness, for he did not answer
directly. “First, I believe I have rendered you a service in giving
this information.”
“How so?”
“You have now, of course, nothing further to fear from any
attempt on your wife’s part to shut you up under plea of medical
necessity,” said Drinkwater rapidly, “an attempt that had a
certain legal plausibility under order of a court for your
committal for examination.”
“What, there was such an order?” said Dangerfield, trembling with
excitement “They went that far?”
“I have reason to believe so,” said Drinkwater, smiling. “Nothing
more easy to obtain. You, of course, realize that the object was to
prevent the granting of the divorce. As I say, much as Mrs. Garford
or _others_”--he paused and glanced at them significantly--“or
others might desire to have you out of the way, any attempt now
would be a most serious offense. It will not be made. Therefore,
you may be assured that you can now circulate without danger.”
“Very probably,” said Dangerfield, with a contemptuous smile, “it
would please Doctor Fortier to have me make the attempt--to-night?”
“You do not believe me?” said Drinkwater, shrugging his shoulders.
“You will be convinced to-morrow.”
“What is your message from Mrs. Garford?” said Inga suddenly. She
had been watching the lawyer with a growing apprehension, which had
showed itself in her frequent strained listenings to sounds from
the hall.
Drinkwater pursed his lips, studied solemnly the Winged Victory in
the dark corner, frowned, and looked point-blank at Dangerfield.
“Mr. Garford, haven’t I said enough to convince you of my
familiarity with your affairs? I really must ask you to hear what I
have to say without the presence of witnesses.”
To his surprise, it was Inga herself who opposed him.
“I don’t trust him,” she said emphatically. “Don’t see him
alone.”
“Quite right,” said Dangerfield. “If you have anything to say to
me, say it now.”
This was plainly not to the other’s liking, for he drew back and
jerked nervously at his cuff, with an evil glance at the girl who,
alert and watchful, kept her deep eyes on his every movement.
“The agreement was,” he said slowly, “that your wife should
marry--” He paused and looked at Dangerfield. “Shall I go on?”
“Go on!” said Dangerfield roughly, though he was plainly startled
at the extent of the lawyer’s knowledge.
“Should marry a certain party--a certain Mr. Bowden--you see I
am informed--within forty-eight hours after the granting of the
decree.”
Dangerfield gazed at him in astonishment. Twice he started to speak
and twice he stopped; finally he managed to say:
“You have come from my wife, that’s evident. It must be some dirty
work or she would not have sent you. What is it?”
Drinkwater, as though fairly in, took this remark without offense
and said, in a businesslike voice quite different from the
affectation of his former manner.
“Your wife does not desire this marriage. That is not news to you;
but if you will relinquish your purpose, she agrees to forego all
the settlements you have made on her and in addition----”
“What! She sent you here to bribe me!” exclaimed Dangerfield, in
such a voice that the other drew back instinctively.
“Mr. Garford, I haven’t told you the truth,” he said hastily. “I
represent Mr. David Macklin.”
“Who?” said Dangerfield, drawing back in turn.
“Mr. David Macklin!”
“Not a word--not a word!” said Dangerfield, in whom the name roused
a sudden fury. “Don’t you dare----”
“My client offers you one hundred thousand dollars if you will not
insist on this marriage to Mr. Bowden.”
Dangerfield’s anger, which for a moment had threatened to burst
into a rage, turned all at once into something cold and ominously
calm.
“My answer to your client--not Mr. David Macklin, but Mrs. Garford,
is No! Mrs. Garford will marry Mr. Bowden within the limit I have
set, or----”
“Listen, Mr. Garford,” said Drinkwater desperately, his eyes
flashing greedily with the thought of escaping commissions. “Take
my advice--refuse!”
“What do you mean?” said Dangerfield sharply. “You tell me to
refuse?”
“Refuse! Refuse!” said the lawyer excitedly. “You have stripped
yourself; you have made yourself a beggar for a ridiculous point of
honor--refuse all offers, put yourself in my hands. I’ll show you
how to get revenge and mulct them, too. Then Mr. Macklin will pay
not one hundred but three--four times that much--half a mill----”
“Ah, you vermin!”
Dangerfield, with a cry, had taken a frame from the table and
brought it down on the greedy head, and as the lawyer struggled
back, he caught him by the throat in a frenzy of rage and disgust.
Inga, terrified at what he might do, clung to him, striving to
drag him from his grip. At the noise of the scuffle, O’Leary and
the others came precipitately in from the studio, believing that
another assault was on.
“Tear him away--oh, get him away--he’ll kill him,” Inga shouted, as
they burst in.
“Hands off!” said Dangerfield, in a voice like a thunder-clap. “I
know what I’m doing! Killing’s too good for this scum. Make way
there!” Still with his hand on the other’s throat, he dragged him
down the hall to the top of the stairs. “Go back to your clients
and let them know what I’ll do if they fail me by one hour!”
With which, as though the man had been an old shoe, he flung him
down the stairs and returned like a stalking fury through the group
which watched him breathlessly.