CARRINGTON faced her swiftly. He had not expected this. There was
something in her handsome eyes that barred the way to subterfuge. The
lie died unspoken, and he dropped his gaze and began to dig up the turf
with the toe of his shoe.
"Is it my father, John?"
"Yes. Oh, Kate," with a despairing gesture, "I'm the most miserable
fellow alive! To think that this should fall into my hands, of all hands
in the world!"
"Perhaps it is better so," quietly. "Nothing is without purpose. It
might have come to test your honesty. But you are sure, John; it is not
guess-work?"
"All the evidence is in my pocket. Say the word, and the wind shall
carry it down to the sea. Say the word, heart o' mine!"
He made a quick movement toward his pocket, but she caught his arm.
"Do nothing foolish or hasty, John. Tearing up the evidence would not
undo what is done. Sooner or later murder will out. If my father is
culpable, if in his thoughtless greed for money he has robbed the poor,
he must be made to restore what he has taken. I know my father; what he
has done appears perfectly legitimate to him. Can he be put in prison?"
"It all depends upon how well he defends himself," evasively.
She went on. "I have been dreading something like this; so it is no
great surprise to me. He is money-mad, money-mad; and he hears, sees,
thinks nothing but money. But it hurts, John; I am a proud woman. My
grandfather...." Her lips shut suddenly. "Money!" with a passionate wave
of the hand. "How I hate the name of it, the sound of it, the thought of
it! I love my father," with a defiant pride; "he has always been tender
and kind to me; and I should not be of his flesh and blood had I not the
desire to shield and protect him."
"The remedy is simple and close at hand," suggested Carrington gently.
"Simple, but worthy of neither of us. I abhor anything that is not
wholly honest. It is one of those strange freaks of nature (who holds
herself accountable to no one) to give to me honesty that is the sum
total of what should have been evenly distributed among my ancestors. If
I were to tell all I know, all I have kept locked in my heart...."
"Don't do it, girl; it wouldn't matter in the least. You are you; and
that is all there is to love. Why, I could not love you less if your
great-great-grandfather was a pirate," lightly. "Love asks no questions;
and ancestors worry me not at all; they are all comfortably dead."
"Not always. But if my perception of honor were less keen, I should
laugh at what you call your evidence."
"Laugh?"
"Yes, indeed. I very well understand the tremendous power of money."
"Not more than I," sadly.
She laughed brokenly. "More than you. I can picture to you just what
will happen." She rose. "There will, of course, be a great newspaper
clamor; the interstate commissioners will put their heads together;
there will be investigations by the government. That will be the attack.
The keenest lawyers are on the side of corporations; that is because the
state is niggard with her pay. Let me outline the defense. Father will
resign from his high office, to be reëlected later when the public cools
off! A new directorate will fill the place of the present one. Suddenly
falsified entries will be discovered; the head bookkeeper will have
disappeared. All fingers will point to him. He will be in South America,
having been paid several thousand to go there. All this will make the
passing of the dividend perfectly logical. The matter will never be
tried in court. Money will do all this."
"My dear little woman, you reason like Pythagoras; but," Carrington
added gravely, "when I undertook to untangle this affair, I realized its
huge proportions. For every redoubt your father has, I have an assault,
for every wall a catapult, for every gate a petard. But, as I said
before, you have only to say the word, and for the present nobody will
be any the wiser."
"If I permitted you to do this, I should destroy my faith in both of us.
It would erect a barrier which would be insurmountable. That is not the
way out."
"I have weighed all these things," discouragedly.
He took the document from his pocket and caught it in a way that
indicated how easily it might be ripped into halves, the halves into
quarters, the quarters into infinitesimal squares of meaningless
letters.
"Once more, shall I, Kate?"
"No, John. That would only make our difficulties greater. But I do ask
this one favor; put your evidence into the hands of a strange attorney,
have nothing to do with the prosecution; for my sake."
"I must have the night to think it over. Most of my attacks are not
herein written; I dared keep them only in my head."
"I am very unhappy," said the girl.
He took her hand and kissed it reverently. He longed to console her, but
no words he had in mind seemed adequate.
"Fore!" came lazily over the knoll. They were no longer alone. So
together they wandered slowly back to the club-house. Tea was being
served, and Carrington drank his abstractedly. From time to time he
joined the conversation, but without any heart. Some of the busier
ladies whispered that it looked this time as though Kate had given the
young man his _congé_.
On the way home Norah, with her humorous comment on the weekly budget of
gossip, saved the situation from any possible _contretemps_. Mrs.
Cavenaugh was easy-going, but for all that she possessed remarkably
observant eyes; and her eldest daughter was glad that they were occupied
elsewhere.
Kate was very unhappy; her father was not honest, and the man she loved
had come into the knowledge of the fact. Ah, how quickly shadow can
darken sunshine!
"What did you make it in to-day, Mr. Carrington?" asked Norah.
"Make what?" he counter-questioned absently.
"The course, Mr. Goose! What did you think I meant?"
"Oh," lamely, "I made a bad play at the beginning, and gave it up."
By this time they had arrived at the gates, and everybody was thankful;
Mrs. Cavenaugh, because her nose smarted with sunburn; Norah, because
the gown she was to wear at the dance that night was new; Kate, because
she wanted to be alone; and Carrington, because he wanted to learn
whether the Angel threw Jacob or Jacob threw the Angel. The driver and
the horses were glad to arrive because they were hungry.
It took the young lawyer some time to dress for dinner that night. His
usually direct mind vacillated between right and wrong, wrong and right;
and he floated from one to the other like an unattached cork. He made a
dozen annoying blunders in dressing. And when finally the pier-glass
reflected an irreproachable and finished picture, he searched his
cast-off vest for his growing monster and transferred it to the pocket
of his coat. Monster! Here was no story-monster, like the creature of a
Frankenstein; it was genuine, and was like to turn upon him at any
moment and rend him. He shrugged and proceeded down the stairs. There
are soliloquies that sometimes leave an unpleasant taste behind. So he
pinned his faith to the banner of the late genial and hopeful Micawber:
something might turn up for the benefit of all concerned.
The hall and living-room at the Cavenaugh manor were one and the same.
There were bookcases ranging along the walls, window-seats, a
reading-table and an ancient chimney-seat. As Carrington turned the
first landing he stopped.
"Father, I think it positively dreadful the way you treat poor grandpa."
This was Norah.
There was a crackle of a newspaper.
"Never mind, Norah, darling; your grandpa is used to it. It doesn't
matter at all."
It was the sight of the last speaker that brought Carrington to a stand.
Norah's grandpa was no less a person than the shabbily dressed old man
he had seen at the station that afternoon. What kind of family skeleton
in the closet was he that they kept him _en camera_? He coughed and went
on.
Norah was plucky, whole-hearted, frank and encouraging.
"Mr. Carrington," she said immediately, "this is my grandpa."
Carrington did not hesitate a moment, but smiled and thrust out his
hand, which the other grasped with a questioning air of diffidence.
"Glad to meet you, sir," said Carrington.
Cavenaugh _fils_ glanced over the top of his paper, scowled, and resumed
his reading. Kate hadn't come down yet, so she missed this scene. When
she did appear, there was no visible sign of any previous agitation. She
and Norah were thoroughbreds.
"Why, grandpa!" she cried, extending her hand.
The old man bowed over it and kissed it, and his action was lacking
neither in grace nor gallantry.
"I happened to be down this way on business," said the old man with a
covert glance at his son, "and thought I'd drop in."
"Dinner is served," said the splendid butler, as he slid back the doors
to the dining-room.
The old man looked about him questioningly, and Norah slipped her arm
through his. "You'll have to take me in, grandpa," she laughed.
The old man's eyes shone for a moment, and he patted her hand.
"I'm as proud as a king, Norah."
Now, Carrington could read between the lines. It was manifestly plain
that grandpa was not welcome to Cavenaugh. But why? Mrs. Cavenaugh
scarcely tolerated him. While the girls seldom if ever spoke of him, it
was evident that both held him in their affections. There were many
strange things going on in the Cavenaugh manor; and Carrington entered
the dining-room in a subdued state of mind.
By degrees Norah succeeded in drawing the pariah out of himself.
Carrington was soon listening to an amazing range of adventures. The old
man had seen Cuba in the filibusters' time, he had fought the Canadian
constabulary as a Fenian, he had been a sailor, and had touched the
shores of many strange lands. Grandpa Cavenaugh was anything but
illiterate. Quite often there was a flash of wit, a well-turned phrase,
a quotation. He had, besides, a comprehensive grasp of the politics of
all countries.
Carrington saw at once that his half-formed opinion was a house of
cards. There was no reason in the world why they should be ashamed of
him, shunt him off into the side-track of obscurity, and begrudge him a
plate at the table. Carrington realized that he was very close to some
peculiar mystery, and that the old man's bitterest enemy was his son.
Throughout the meal the millionaire preserved a repelling silence. From
time to time, when there was laughter, he scowled. Once or twice Mrs.
Cavenaugh essayed to pass an observation across the table to him, but a
curt nod was all she received for her pains. Presently Cavenaugh dropped
his knife on his plate, and the pariah retreated meekly into his shell.
In fact, he looked frightened, as if the thought had come to him that he
had made an irreparable blunder in warming under his grandchildren's
smiles.
"Carrington," said Midas, balling his napkin and tossing it on the
table, "your particular branch is corporation law, isn't it?"
"Yes. The firm has some reputation in that branch." Carrington glanced
curiously at his host. What was coming now? Was it possible that
Cavenaugh had in some way learned of his discoveries and was about to
placate him?
"I believe you handled successfully the D. & M. railroad deal?"
"We won in three courts."
"Well," continued Cavenaugh, "I've been thinking of you to-day. The P. &
O. counsel has had to give up on account of poor health, and Matthewson
spoke to me yesterday, asking if I knew a man who could fill his place.
It pays seventeen thousand the year." He paused as if to let this
magnificent salary sink into the deepest crevice of Carrington's soul.
"What would you say to a permanent berth like that?" Cavenaugh
positively beamed.
Kate stared at her father in astonishment. Was it possible that he was
beginning to look favorably upon Carrington? Her glance traveled to
Carrington. His expression she found puzzling.
"Seventeen thousand!" murmured the pariah, rubbing his hands, while his
eyes sparkled.
Carrington deliberated for a space. He was hard put. He did not want to
refuse this peace-offering, but nothing would make him accept it.
"This is very fine of you. Two years ago I should have jumped at the
chance. But my agreement with my partner makes it impossible. I can not
honestly break my contract within five years." He waited for the storm
to burst, for Cavenaugh was not a patient man.
"Are you mad?" whispered Kate. A flush of anger swept over her at the
thought of Carrington's lightly casting aside this evident olive-branch.
"Would you have me accept it?" he returned, in a whisper lower than
hers.
She paled. "I had forgotten," she said, with the pain of quick
recollection.
The dinner came to its end, and everybody rose gratefully, for there
seemed to be something tense in the air.
"Seventeen thousand honest dollars!" murmured the pariah, tagging along
at the millionaire's heels.
Carrington threw him a swift penetrating glance; but the old man was
looking ecstatically at the tinted angels on the ceiling. The old man
might be perfectly guileless; but Carrington scented the faintly bitter
aroma of irony.
Just before the carriage arrived to convey Carrington and the ladies to
the club dance, grandpa appeared, hat in hand and a humble smile on his
face. It was a very attractive face, weather-beaten though it was,
penciled by the onset of seventy years.
"You are not going, are you, grandpa?" asked Norah.
"Yes, my child. I should be very lonesome here alone with your estimable
father. I'll drop in to-morrow for Sunday dinner; that is, if you are
not going to have company. I am glad that I met you, Mr. Carrington."
"Poor old grandpa!" sighed Norah, when the door closed upon him. "He has
the ridiculous idea that he isn't wanted."
Nobody pursued the subject and Norah began to preen herself.
An idea came to Carrington. He wanted to be rid of his document. He
spoke to Kate, who nodded comprehensively. She led him into the
dining-room. In one corner, protected by a low screen, was a small safe.
This she threw open, and Carrington put the envelope into one of the
pigeon-holes. The safe was absolutely empty, a fact which puzzled him
not a little.
"We seldom use this," said the girl, reading the vague unspoken question
in his eyes. "The jewel safe is up-stairs in my room."
"It doesn't matter in the least," he replied, smiling, "so long as I may
safely rid myself of these obnoxious papers. And if you do not mind,
I'll leave them there till Monday morning. I've thought it all out,
Kate. A man's only human, after all. I could never prosecute the case
myself; I'd be thinking of you and the bread I have eaten. I'll turn the
matter over to Challoner, and let him do as he thinks best. Of course, I
shall be called as a witness when the case comes up in court, if it ever
does."
She did not reply, but shut the door of the safe and rose from her
knees.
The south side of the dining-room was made up of long colonial windows
that opened directly upon the lawn. They were more like doors than
windows. She locked each one carefully and drew the curtain.
"Norah is probably growing impatient for us," she said.
With an indescribable impulse he suddenly drew her into his arms and
kissed her. It might be the last he could ever claim.
"John!" she murmured, gently disengaging herself.
"I love you," he said, "and I could not help it. Everything looks so
dark."
* * * * *
The clock in the hall chimed the quarter hour after eleven. Cavenaugh
was in his den. His desk was littered with sheets of paper, upon which
were formidable columns of figures and dollar signs. He sat back in his
chair and listened. He thought he heard a door or window close; he
wasn't certain. It was probably one of the servants. He bit off the end
of a fresh cigar and resumed his work. Let the young people play golf,
if they wanted to, and dance and frivol away the precious hours; they
would never know the joy of seeing one become two, two become four, and
so on, till the adding grew into the ransoms of many kings. Ay, this was
to live. Oh, the beautiful numerals! Brigade after brigade, corps after
corps, they marched at a sign from him; an army greater than that of
kings. To sit in a little room, as in a puppet-booth, and juggle the
policies of the nations! Yes, Kate should have a duke and Norah a
prince; he would show them all some day. Recollecting Carrington, he
frowned. Did the fellow know anything, that he felt the power to refuse
an offer such as he had made at the dinner-table? Bah! It would be like
crushing some insect. He determined that this should be Carrington's
last visit. His pen moved once more, and presently he became lost in his
dreams of calculation.
But Cavenaugh's ears had not deceived him, however, for he had heard the
sound of a closing window. A window had been closed, but none of the
servants had been at hand.
At precisely eleven a man came swiftly but cautiously across the lawn.
When he reached the long windows of the dining-room he paused, but not
irresolutely. There was a sharp rasping sound, followed by the uncertain
glare that makes the light of a dark-lantern separate and individual,
and a window swung noiselessly inward. The room was in total darkness.
The man wore a short mask, a soft felt hat well down over his eyes. He
cupped his hand to his ear and strained to catch any sound. Silence.
Then he dropped behind the screen, consulted a slip of paper by the
light of his lantern, and with a few quick turns of the combination-knob
opened the door of the safe. He extracted the envelope and thrust it
into his pocket, without so much as a glance at its contents. In making
his exit, the window stuck on the sill. In pressing it the lock snapped
loudly. This was the sound Cavenaugh heard. The burglar ran lightly
across the lawn and disappeared beyond the hedges. And none too soon.
The Cavenaugh drag rolled over the hill and went clattering up to the
porte-cochère.
On the way home Carrington, his mind still wavering between this
expedient and that, decided that, after all, he would take charge of the
papers himself. It didn't seem quite fair that Cavenaugh's safe should
protect his ultimate disgrace. So, upon entering the house, he confided
his desire to Kate, who threw aside her wraps and led him into the
dining-room. She had her own reasons for wishing the papers out of the
safe. She turned on the lights and swirled the combination-knob. At this
moment Norah came in.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Mr. Carrington left some valuable papers in the safe, and he wants
them."
Carrington wondered why Norah gazed from him to her sister with so wild
an expression.
"Papers?" she murmured.
Kate opened the door. She sprang to her feet in terror and dismay.
"What is it?" cried Carrington, who saw by her expression that something
extraordinary had happened.
"They ... it is not there!"
Norah sat down and hid her face on her arms.
Carrington rushed over to the safe, stooped and made a hasty
examination. It had been opened by some one who knew the combination! He
stood up, a cold chill wrinkling his spine. He saw it all distinctly.
Cavenaugh knew. He had known all along. Cavenaugh had overheard him
speak to Kate, and had opened the safe after their departure for the
club. It was all very cleverly done. He knew that Kate was utterly
blameless. Then it dawned upon him that, they appeared as though they
accepted the catastrophe as not wholly unexpected! To what did this
labyrinth lead?
[Illustration]
A rattle of the curtain-rings wheeled them about. They beheld Cavenaugh
himself standing in the doorway.
"What's the trouble?" he asked, eying Carrington suspiciously.
Carrington answered him icily. "I left some legal documents of great
value in this safe; they are no longer there."
Cavenaugh's jaw dropped. He stared at Kate, then at Norah. If ever there
was written on a face unfeigned dismay and astonishment, it was on the
millionaire's. A moment before Carrington would have sworn that he was
guilty; now he knew not what to believe. He grew bewildered. There had
certainly been a burglar; but who was he?
"Mr. Carrington," said Cavenaugh, pulling himself together with an
effort, "you need have no worry whatever. I will undertake to restore
your documents. I offer you no explanations." He left them abruptly.
The young lawyer concluded to grope no longer. Somebody else would have
to lead him out of this labyrinthine maze. All at once there came to him
a sense of infinite relief. Providence had kindly taken the matter out
of his hands.
"Never mind, Kate," he said. "For my part, I should be entirely
satisfied if I never saw the miserable thing again."
"Father will find it for you." Her eyes were dim with tears of shame.
"What is it, girl?"
"Nothing that I can explain to you, John. Good night."
When he had gone to his room, Norah turned to her sister and sobbed on
her breast.
"Oh, Kate!"
"What is the matter, child?"
"I told grandpa the combination!"