For months Beverly Carlysle had remained a remote and semi-mysterious
figure. She had been in some hearts and in many minds, but to most of
them she was a name only. She had been the motive behind events she
never heard of, the quiet center in a tornado of emotions that circled
about without touching her.
On the whole she found her life, with the settling down of the piece to
a successful, run, one of prosperous monotony. She had re-opened and was
living in the 56th Street house, keeping a simple establishment of
cook, butler and maid, and in the early fall she added a town car and a
driver. After that she drove out every afternoon except on matinee days,
almost always alone, but sometimes with a young girl from the company.
She was very lonely. The kaleidoscope that is theatrical New York
had altered since she left it. Only one or two of her former friends
remained, and she found them uninteresting and narrow with the
narrowness of their own absorbing world. She had forgotten that the
theater was like an island, cut off from the rest of the world, having
its own politics, its own society divided by caste, almost its own
religion. Out of its insularity it made occasional excursions to dinners
and week-ends; even into marriage, now and then with an outlander. But
almost always it went back, eager for its home of dressing-room and
footlights, of stage entrances up dirty alleys, of door-keepers and
managers and parts and costumes.
Occasionally she had callers, men she had met or who were brought to
see her. She saw them over a tea-table, judged them remorselessly, and
eliminated gradually all but one or two. She watched her dignity and her
reputation with the care of an ambitious woman trying to live down the
past, and she succeeded measurably well. Now and then a critic spoke of
her as a second Maude Adams, and those notices she kept and treasured.
But she was always uneasy. Never since the night he had seen Judson
Clark in the theater had they rung up without her brother having
carefully combed the house with his eyes. She knew her limitations; they
would have to ring down if she ever saw him over the footlights. And
the season had brought its incidents, to connect her with the past. One
night Gregory had come back and told her Jean Melis was in the balcony.
The valet was older and heavier, but he had recognized him.
“Did he see you?” was her first question.
“Yes. What about it? He never saw me but once, and that was at night and
out of doors.”
“Sometimes I think I can't stand it, Fred. The eternal suspense, the
waiting for something to happen.”
“If anything was going to happen it would have happened months ago.
Bassett has given it up. And Jud's dead. Even Wilkins knows that.”
She turned on him angrily.
“You haven't a heart, have you? You're glad he's dead.”
“Not at all. As long as he kept under cover he was all right. But if he
is, I don't see why you should fool yourself into thinking you're sorry.
It's the best solution to a number of things.”
“What do you suppose brought Jean Melis here?”
“What? To see the best play in New York. Besides, why not allow the man
a healthy curiosity? He was pretty closely connected with a hectic part
of your life, my dear. Now buck up, and for the Lord's sake forget the
Frenchman. He's got nothing.”
“He saw me that night, on the stairs. He never took his eyes off me at
the inquest.”
She gave, however, an excellent performance that night, and nothing more
was heard of the valet.
There were other alarms, all of them without foundation. She went on her
way, rejected an offer or two of marriage, spent her mornings in bed and
her afternoons driving or in the hands of her hair-dresser and manicure,
cared for the flowers that came in long casket-like boxes, and began
to feel a sense of security again. She did not intend to marry, or to
become interested in any one man.
She had hardly given a thought to Leslie Ward. He had come and gone,
one of that steady procession of men, mostly married, who battered their
heads now and then like night beetles outside a window, against the hard
glass of her ambition. Because her business was to charm, she had been
charming to him. And could not always remember his name!
As the months went by she began to accept Fred's verdict that nothing
was going to happen. Bassett was back and at work. Either dead or a
fugitive somewhere was Judson Clark, but that thought she had to keep
out of her mind. Sometimes, as the play went on, and she was able to
make her solid investments out of it, she wondered if her ten years of
retirement had been all the price she was to pay for his ruin; but
she put that thought away too, although she never minimized her
responsibility when she faced it.
But her price had been heavy at that. She was childless and alone,
lavishing her aborted maternity on a brother who was living his
prosperous, cheerful and not too moral life at her expense. Fred was,
she knew, slightly drunk with success; he attended to his minimum of
labor with the least possible effort, had an expensive apartment on the
Drive, and neglected her except, when he needed money. She began to see,
as other women had seen before her, that her success had, by taking away
the necessity for initiative, been extremely bad for him.
That was the situation when, one night late in October, the trap of
Bassett's devising began to close in. It had been raining, but in spite
of that they had sold standing room to the fire limit. Having got the
treasurer's report on the night's business and sent it to Beverly's
dressing-room, Gregory wandered into his small, low-ceiled office
under the balcony staircase, and closing the door sat down. It was the
interval after the second act, and above the hum of voices outside the
sound of the orchestra penetrated faintly.
He was entirely serene. He had a supper engagement after the show,
he had a neat car waiting outside to take him to it, and the night's
business had been extraordinary. He consulted his watch and then picked
up an evening paper. A few moments later he found himself reading over
and over a small notice inserted among the personals.
“Personal: Jean Melis, who was in Norada, Wyoming, during the early fall
of 1911 please communicate with L 22, this office.”
The orchestra was still playing outside; the silly, giggling crowds were
moving back to their seats, and somewhere Jean Melis, or the friends of
Jean Melis, who would tell him of it, were reading that message.
He got his hat and went out, forgetful of the neat car at the curb, of
the supper engagement, of the night's business, and wandered down the
street through the rain. But his first uneasiness passed quickly. He
saw Bassett in the affair, and probably Clark himself, still living
and tardily determined to clear his name. But if the worst came to the
worst, what could they do? They could go only so far, and then they
would have to quit.
It would be better, however, if they did not see Melis. Much better;
there was no use involving a simple situation. And Bev could be kept out
of it altogether, until it was over. Ashamed of his panic he went back
to the theater, got a railway schedule and looked up trains. He should
have done it long before, he recognized, have gone to Bassett in the
spring. But how could he have known then that Bassett was going to make
a life-work of the case?
He had only one uncertainty. Suppose that Bassett had learned about
Clifton Hines?
By the time the curtain rang down on the last act he was his dapper,
debonair self again, made his supper engagement, danced half the night,
and even dozed a little on the way home. But he slept badly and was up
early, struggling with the necessity for keeping Jean Melis out of the
way.
He wondered through what formalities L 22, for instance, would have
to go in order to secure a letter addressed to him? Whether he had to
present a card or whether he walked in demanded his mail and went away.
That thought brought another with it. Wasn't it probable that Bassett
was in New York, and would call for his mail himself?
He determined finally to take the chance, claim to be L 22, and if Melis
had seen the advertisement and replied, get the letter. It would be easy
to square it with the valet, by saying that he had recognized him in the
theater and that Miss Carlysle wished to send him a box.
He had small hope of a letter at his first call, unless the Frenchman
had himself seen the notice, but his anxiety drove him early to the
office. There was nothing there, but he learned one thing. He had to
go through with no formalities. The clerk merely looked in a box, said
“Nothing here,” and went on about his business. At eleven o'clock he
went back again, and after a careful scrutiny of the crowd presented
himself once more.
“L 22? Here you are.”
He had the letter in his hand. He had glanced at it and had thrust it
deep in his pocket, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He wheeled and
faced Bassett.
“I thought I recognized that back,” said the reporter, cheerfully. “Come
over here, old man. I want to talk to you.”
But he held to Gregory's shoulder. In a corner Bassett dropped the
friendliness he had assumed for the clerk's benefit, and faced him with
cold anger.
“I'll have that letter now, Gregory,” he said. “And I've got a damned
good notion to lodge an information against you.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Forget it. I was behind you when you asked for that letter. Give it
here. I want to show you something.”
Suddenly, with the letter in his hand, Bassett laughed and then tore it
open. There was only a sheet of blank paper inside.
“I wasn't sure you'd see it, and I didn't think you'd fall for it if
you did,” he observed. “But I was pretty sure you didn't want me to see
Melis. Now I know it.”
“Well, I didn't,” Gregory said sullenly.
“Just the same, I expect to see him. The day's early yet, and that's
not a common name. But I'll take darned good care you don't get any more
letters from here.”
“What do you think Melis can tell you, that you don't know?”
“I'll explain that to you some day,” Bassett said cheerfully. “Some day
when you are in a more receptive mood than you are now. The point at
this moment seems to me to be, what does Melis know that you don't want
me to know? I suppose you don't intend to tell me.”
“Not here. You may believe it or not, Bassett, but I was going to your
town to-night to see you.”
“Well,” Bassett said sceptically, “I've got your word for it. And I've
got nothing to do all day but to listen to you.”
To his proposition that they go to his hotel Gregory assented sullenly,
and they moved out to find a taxicab. On the pavement, however, he held
back.
“I've got a right to know something,” he said, “considering what he's
done to me and mine. Clark's alive, I suppose?”
“He's alive all right.”
“Then I'll trade you, Bassett. I'll come over with what I know, if
you'll tell me one thing. What sent him into hiding for ten years, and
makes him turn up now, yelling for help?”
Bassett reflected. The offer of a statement from Gregory was valuable,
but, on the other hand, he was anxious not to influence his narrative.
And Gregory saw his uncertainty. He planted himself firmly on the
pavement.
“How about it?” he demanded.
“I'll tell you this much, Gregory. He never meant to bring the thing up
again. In a way, it's me you're up against. Not Clark. And you can be
pretty sure I know what I'm doing. I've got Clark, and I've got the
report of the coroner's inquest, and I'll get Melis. I'm going to get to
the bottom of this if I have to dig a hole that buries me.”
In a taxicab Gregory sat tense and erect, gnawing at his blond mustache.
After a time he said:
“What are you after, in all this? The story, I suppose. And the money. I
daresay you're not doing it for love.”
Bassett surveyed him appraisingly.
“You wouldn't understand my motives if I told you. As a matter of fact,
he doesn't want the money.”
Gregory sneered.
“Don't kid yourself,” he said. “However, as a matter of fact I don't
think he'll take it. It might cost too much. Where is he? Shooting pills
again?”
“You'll see him in about five minutes.”
If the news was a surprise Gregory gave no evidence of it, except to
comment:
“You're a capable person, aren't you? I'll bet you could tune a piano if
you were put to it.”
He carried the situation well, the reporter had to admit; the only
evidence he gave of strain was that the hands with which he lighted a
cigarette were unsteady. He surveyed the obscure hotel at which the cab
stopped with a sneering smile, and settled his collar as he looked it
over.
“Not advertising to the world that you're in town, I see.”
“We'll do that, just as soon as we're ready. Don't worry.”
The laugh he gave at that struck unpleasantly on Bassett's ears. But
inside the building he lost some of his jauntiness. “Queer place to find
Judson Clark,” he said once.
And again:
“You'd better watch him when I go in. He may bite me.”
To which Bassett grimly returned: “He's probably rather particular what
he bites.”
He was uneasily conscious that Gregory, while nervous and tense, was
carrying the situation with a certain assurance. If he was acting it was
very good acting. And that opinion was strengthened when he threw open
the door and Gregory advanced into the room.
“Well, Clark,” he said, coolly. “I guess you didn't expect to see me,
did you?”
He made no offer to shake hands as Dick turned from the window, nor
did Dick make any overtures. But there was no enmity at first in either
face; Gregory was easy and assured, Dick grave, and, Bassett thought,
slightly impatient. From that night in his apartment the reporter had
realized that he was constantly fighting a sort of passive resistance in
Dick, a determination not at any cost to involve Beverly. Behind that,
too, he felt that still another battle was going on, one at which he
could only guess, but which made Dick somber at times and grimly quiet
always.
“I meant to look you up,” was his reply to Gregory's nonchalant
greeting.
“Well, your friend here did that for you,” Gregory said, and smiled
across at Bassett. “He has his own methods, and I'll say they're
effectual.”
He took off his overcoat and flung it on the bed, and threw a swift,
appraising glance at Dick. It was on Dick that he was banking, not on
Bassett. He hated and feared Bassett. He hated Dick, but he was not
afraid of him. He lighted a cigarette and faced Dick with a malicious
smile.
“So here we are, again, Jud!” he said. “But with this change, that
now it's you who are the respectable member of the community, and I'm
the--well, we'll call it the butterfly.”
There was unmistakable insult in his tone, and Dick caught it.
“Then I take it you're still living off your sister?”
The contempt in Dick's voice whipped the color to Gregory's face and
clenched his fist. But he relaxed in a moment and laughed.
“Don't worry, Bassett,” he said, his eyes on Dick. “We haven't any
reason to like each other, but he's bigger than I am. I won't hit him.”
Then he hardened his voice. “But I'll remind you, Clark, that personally
I don't give a God-damn whether you swing or not. Also that I can keep
my mouth shut, walk out of here, and have you in quod in the next hour,
if I decide to.”
“But you won't,” Bassett said smoothly. “You won't, any more than you
did it last spring, when you sent that little letter of yours to David
Livingstone.”
“No. You're right. I won't. But if I tell you what I came here to say,
Bassett, get this straight. It's not because I'm afraid of you, or of
him. Donaldson's dead. What value would Melis's testimony have after ten
years, if you put him on the stand? It's not that. It's because you'll
put your blundering foot into it and ruin Bev's career, unless I tell
you the truth.”
It was to Bassett then that he told his story, he and Bassett sitting,
Dick standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece, tall and weary and
almost detached.
“I've got to make my own position plain in this,” he said. “I didn't
like Clark, and I kept her from marrying him. There was one time, before
she met Lucas, when she almost did it. I was away when she decided on
that fool trip to the Clark ranch. We couldn't get a New York theater
until November, and she had some time, so they went. I've got her story
of what happened there. You can check it up with what you know.”
He turned to Dick for a moment.
“You were drinking pretty hard that night, but you may remember this:
She had quarreled with Lucas at dinner that night and with you. That's
true, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“She went to her room and began to pack her things. Then she thought
it over, and she decided to try to persuade Lucas to go too. Things had
begun all right, but they were getting strained and unpleasant. She went
down the stairs, and Melis saw her, the valet. The living-room was dark,
but there was a light coming through the billiard room door, and against
it she saw the figure of a man in the doorway. He had his back to her,
and he had a revolver in his hand. She ran across the room when he
heard her and when he turned she saw it was Lucas. Do you remember, Jud,
having a revolver and Lucas taking it from you?”
“No. Donaldson testified I'd had a revolver.”
“Well, that's how we figure he'd got the gun. She thought at once that
Lucas and you had quarreled, and that he was going to shoot. She tried
to take it from him, but he was drunk and stubborn. It went off and
killed him.”
Bassett leaned forward.
“That's straight, is it?”
“I'm telling you.”
“Then why in God's name didn't she say that at the inquest?”
“She was afraid it wouldn't be believed. Look at the facts. She'd
quarreled with Lucas. There had been a notorious situation with regard
to Clark. And remember this. She had done it. I know her well enough,
however, to say that she would have confessed, eventually, but Clark
had beaten it. It was reasonably sure that he was lost in the blizzard.
You've got to allow for that.”
Bassett said nothing. After a silence Dick spoke:
“What about the revolver?”
“She had it in her hand. She dropped it and stood still, too stunned to
scream. Lucas, she says, took a step or two forward, and fell through
the doorway. Donaldson came running in, and you know the rest.”
Bassett was the first to break the silence.
“She will be willing to testify to that now, of course?”
“And stand trial?”
“Not necessarily. Clark would be on trial. He's been indicted. He has to
be tried.”
“Why does he have to be tried? He's free now. He's been free for ten
years. And I tell you as an honest opinion that the thing would kill
her. Accident and all, she did it. And there would be some who'd never
believe she hadn't tired of Lucas, and wanted the Clark money.”
“That's a chance she'll have to take,” Bassett said doggedly. “The only
living witness who could be called would be the valet. And remember
this: for ten years he has believed that she did it. He'll have built up
a story by this time, perhaps unconsciously, that might damn her.”
Dick moved.
“There's only one thing to do. You're right, Gregory. I'll never expose
her to that.”
“You're crazy,” Bassett said angrily.
“Not at all. I told you I wouldn't hide behind a woman. As a matter of
fact, I've learned what I wanted. Lucas wasn't murdered. I didn't shoot
him. That's what really matters. I'm no worse off than I was before;
considerably better, in fact. And I don't see what's to be gained by
going any further.”
In spite of his protests, Bassett was compelled finally to agree. He was
sulky and dispirited. He saw the profound anticlimax to all his effort
of Dick wandering out again, legally dead and legally guilty, and he
swore roundly under his breath.
“All right,” he grunted at last. “I guess that's the last word, Gregory.
But you tell her from me that if she doesn't reopen the matter of her
own accord, she'll have a man's life on her conscience.”
“I'll not tell her anything about it. I'm not only her brother; I'm her
manager now. And I'm not kicking any hole in the boat that floats me.”
He was self-confident and slightly insolent; the hands with which he
lighted a fresh cigarette no longer trembled, and the glance he threw at
Dick was triumphant and hostile.
“As a man sows, Clark!” he said. “You sowed hell for a number of people
once.”
Bassett had to restrain an impulse to kick him out of the door. When he
had gone Bassett turned to Dick with assumed lightness.
“Well,” he said, “here we are, all dressed up and nowhere to go!”
He wandered around the room, restless and disappointed. He knew, and
Dick knew, that they had come to the end of the road, and that nothing
lay beyond. In his own unpleasant way Fred Gregory had made a case for
his sister that tied their hands, and the crux of the matter had lain
in his final gibe: “As a man sows, Clark, so shall he reap.” The moral
issue was there.
“I suppose the Hines story goes by the board, eh?” he commented after a
pause.
“Yes. Except that I wish I'd known about him when I could have done
something. He's my half-brother, any way you look at it, and he had a
rotten deal. Sometimes a man sows,” he added, with a wry smile, “and the
other fellow reaps.”
Bassett went out after that, going to the office on the chance of a
letter from Melis, but there was none. When he came back he found Dick
standing over a partially packed suitcase, and knew that they had come
to the end of the road indeed.
“What's the next step?” he asked bluntly.
“I'll have to leave here. It's too expensive.”
“And after that, what?”
“I'll get a job. I suppose a man is as well hidden here as anywhere. I
can grow a beard--that's the usual thing, isn't it?”
Bassett made an impatient gesture, and fell to pacing the floor. “It's
incredible,” he said. “It's monstrous. It's a joke. Here you are,
without a thing against you, and hung like Mahomet's coffin between
heaven and earth. It makes me sick.”
He went home that night, leaving word to have any letters for L 22
forwarded, but without much hope. His last clutch of Dick's hand had a
sort of desperate finality in it, and he carried with him most of the
way home the tall, worn and rather shabby figure that saw him off with a
smile.
By the next afternoon's mail he received a note from New York, with a
few words of comment penciled on it in Dick's writing. “This came this
evening. I sent back the money. D.” The note was from Gregory and
had evidently enclosed a one-hundred dollar bill. It began without
superscription: “Enclosed find a hundred dollars, as I imagine funds may
be short. If I were you I'd get out of here. There has been considerable
excitement, and you know too many people in this burg.”
Bassett sat back in his chair and studied the note.
“Now why the devil did he do that?” he reflected. He sat for some time,
thinking deeply, and he came to one important conclusion. The story
Gregory had told was the one which was absolutely calculated to shut
off all further inquiry. They had had ten years; ten years to plan,
eliminate and construct; ten years to prepare their defense, in case
Clark turned up. Wasn't that why Gregory had been so assured? But he had
not been content to let well enough alone; he had perhaps overreached
himself.
Then what was the answer? She had killed Lucas, but was it an accident?
And there must have been a witness, or they would have had nothing to
fear. He wrote out on a bit of paper three names, and sat looking at
them: