MAX FARGUS
_By_
OWEN JOHNSON
_Author of_ "Arrows of the Almighty" and
"In the Name of Liberty."
[Illustration: Decoration]
New York
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
UNION SQUARE NORTH
_Copyright, 1906, by_ THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
Published, September, 1906
_The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
[Illustration: "ANY ONE UP THERE?" _Frontispiece_]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HOUSE OF THE TIN SAILOR 9
II. IN THE EYES OF THE LAW 25
III. THE FIRM OF GROLL AND BOFINGER 36
IV. THE LITTLE MAN OF THE SHOVEL HAT 61
V. BOFINGER LOSES HOPE 71
VI. MISS MORISSEY IS MISS VAUGHN 82
VII. THE COMPACT 97
VIII. THE DISCOVERER OF THE OYSTER 109
IX. THE MISANTHROPE IN LOVE 122
X. BOFINGER REPORTS 134
XI. MARRIAGE AS A BATTLEFIELD 145
XII. BOFINGER IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING 160
XIII. SHEILA RETREATS 172
XIV. AS A FLASH IN THE DARK 189
XV. THE IRONICAL MOMENT 203
XVI. CASTLES IN THE AIR 220
XVII. THE SEVEN YEARS 231
XVIII. FARGUS IS DEAD 251
XIX. ROUT AT EVERY POINT 262
XX. BOFINGER IN DESPAIR 278
XXI. SAMMAMON ACTS 293
EPILOGUE 302
ILLUSTRATIONS
"ANY ONE UP THERE?" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"NO, NO, I WON'T SIGN!" 104
"AND HOW'S YOUR MAN, NELL?" 136
FOR MILE AFTER MILE HE SCURRIED THUS 196
"KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF!" 298
MAX FARGUS
CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE OF THE TIN SAILOR
In a street, uniform and dedicated it would seem to commonplace
existences, there was taking place, on a certain evening in March, 187-,
a chapter in one of the most perplexing and mysterious of dramas which
the scramble for wealth has known; whose denouement, unsuspected by
neighbors and hidden from the press, holds the secret of the rise of one
of the most forceful and brutal individualities that have dominated the
city.
Near Stuyvesant Square, which then presented in the waste of New York, a
charming oasis, serene and calm with the quiet of Colonial dignity; in
one of the side streets east of Second Avenue there extended an unbroken
march of red brick houses, uniform as though homes were fashioned
wholesale. The block was clear of the skirts of fashion which gathered
about the square, yet rescued from the squalor into which the street
suddenly sank as it passed east under the brutal yoke of the Elevated.
It belonged to mediocre life, to those who earned two thousand a year,
who paid a third of their income in rent, went rarely to the theater and
always to church, where occasionally the children fetched the family
beer in pail and pitcher; a street of one servant or none at all; one of
those indistinct half-way stations of the city where fortune and
misfortune, ascending and descending, pass; where one finds the small
shopkeeper, the clerk who is rising next to the doctor whose patients
have left him, or the lawyer who has missed his leap. Towards the east a
saloon made the corner, while a few doors nearer a brothel displayed its
red ensign, before which, in the daytime, the children romped without
distinction. Already several doorways invited board and lodging, signs
of the invasion which sooner or later would claim the street.
A third of the way down the block, on the north side, there projected
above a doorway the figure of a tin sailor, balancing two paddles which
the breeze caused to revolve. Some one in whom the instinct of home was
strong had placed it there in protest against the tyranny of uniformity,
while succeeding tenants, grateful for the indication, had left it
undisturbed.
By eleven o'clock of the night on which this story opens, beside the
distant red lantern of the brothel and a few top-story lights there was
only the parlor window, under the odd weather-vane, whose bright edge
cut into the blackness of the street. The shade, contrary to custom, was
lowered, but at each approaching step the silhouette of a woman crossed
it hurriedly in the direction of the door.
Shortly after the bells of a dozen churches had cried the hour, a man
coming from the west passed under the lamp-post, carrying a satchel and
striding with that nervous intensity which the tumult of New York
injects into the legs.
As he perceived the lighted window his advance suddenly relaxed, until
opposite the door, in default of a number, he began to seek in the
shadow the presence of the creaking boatman. Then, noticing the
silhouette on the shade, as though assured of his destination he sprang
up the steps. Before he could seize the bell the door was thrown open
and he passed into the house.
A woman in the thirties, pretty, dressed in white, closed the door after
him and remained weakly leaning against the wall, awaiting in agitation
his first word. He gave her a nod, took a step, turned and looked at her
sharply, then busied himself with his coat. Suddenly the woman stretched
out her hand and cried, with the hopelessness of one for whom the
question can bring but one answer:
"Bofinger, what is it? Tell me!"
"Oh, it's good news," he said laconically, placing his bag on the
floor, "good enough."
"He's alive--my husband is alive!" she stammered, her eyes filling with
nervous, incredulous tears.
"Alive!" he exclaimed, rising his voice to a shout, while his head
jerked about. But in a moment the amazement gave way to unbelief and he
continued, with the irony of one impatient with feminine hypocrisy, "Max
Fargus, my dear Sheila, is dead; done for by bandits, accommodating
little greasers, bless their souls!"
He turned his back on her scornfully, busying himself with finding a
hook in the dark hallway. The woman had received the news like a blow in
the face. She swayed back against the door, her hands went to her lips,
then to her throat as though to stifle a cry, and for a moment she
seemed about to fall. Then suddenly her eyes returned in fear to the
contemptuous back of the lawyer and she controlled herself by a violent
effort, passing before him into the parlor to hide the agitation on her
face.
"Shed a few tears for the public, my dear," he called out, following her
with the impertinence of a man who has a right to dispense with
civilities. "You can afford them; for eventually you'll come into as
tidy a fortune as was ever won in six months' time. But before we get
down to business, Sheila my dear, I am starving; could you get me a
bite."
Seizing further opportunity to prepare herself for the encounter she
passed into the dining-room, after bidding him be seated with a
conventionality as marked as his affectation of intimacy. As he was
settling in a chair he suddenly remembered his bag and returned to the
vestibule.
The parlor breathed an air of imitation and a striving for luxury, which
after the first impression of ridicule had a certain note of pathos.
Everything was of the factory, with the odor of the bargain-counter. One
saw the decoration before the body, overwhelmed by a confused sense of
plush and gilt, of reds and greens, of false cherubs and artificial
flowers, of airy, bejeweled furniture for which, in the department
stores, one imagines in vain a purchaser. In the medallion carpet all
the colors fought, in the portieres the Byzantine wrestled with the
Gothic, the Roman with the Greek.
Before selecting a comfortable chair, Bofinger peeled off a pair of
yellow gloves, looked about in indecision and placed them gingerly on an
étagère. Next, whisking out a lilac handkerchief, he slapped vigorously
the dust from his shoes. Then bringing forth a number of documents from
the bag he smoothed them nervously on his knee, replaced them, and
suddenly raised his head to follow the movements of the woman with a
perplexed intensity, in which there was both irritation and anxiety.
On the body of a dandy was set the head of a comedian. One and the other
produced a like impression of sham. He was too solicitous of his
clothes, too conscious of his manner. His collar was worn with
discomfort, his checked tweed cutaway was too tight, his shoes too new;
while, on establishing himself in his chair, he had thrown open his coat
on a buckskin vest, heavily sealed, and a purple tie, held in
four-in-hand by a fat horseshoe, with the ill-at-ease of the man who
never quite familiarizes himself with his own audacity.
The head had the prominent bones of the Yankee with a suggestion of the
Italian in the sallowness of the complexion and the limpidity of the
eyes, which when most gracious had a warning of treachery. He smiled
much, but the smile was as constrained as his dress. Though not far in
the thirties, his face was sown with lines, while at each thought
flurries showed on the forehead and the cheeks, which from constant
conscription had come to never remaining still. His ears were so small
that they seemed almost a deformity. The nose, which was impressive and
slightly pointed, told more of cunning than of sagacity; the mouth, open
and pliant, was the mouth of the demagogue and the orator, which lets
escape the torrent of phrases.
One divined the man who played at will the tyrant or the servitor, who
browbeat the timid and flattered the strong, who bellowed in a police
court, but who tiptoed for a favor and could on occasion listen
obsequiously. Finally his jet hair, which he enforced into parting in
the middle and plastered to his scalp, in the back rose like the comb of
a cockatoo. This rebellious movement to the repression of the front was
significant of the whole man.
When Mrs. Fargus returned with a tray all traces of emotion had
vanished. Watching her, the lawyer voiced the amazement that had been in
his mind from the first.
"Sheila, you are astonishingly pretty to-night."
"Really!" she said, and despite her alarm she sent a glance to the
mirror.
Over the loose white muslin, free at the throat and at the elbows, she
wore a filmy scarf of red chiffon, subtle as a mist, which, encircling
her shoulders, came to a loose knot and fell to her feet in a sanguine
line. It was a striking effect which perplexed the eye, and threw in
bold relief the waves of her black hair and the rather high color of her
complexion; but emphasized in the general voluptuousness the surprising
contrast of the eyes which, gray with a slight blue tinge, were cold,
without passion or enticement.
Intrigued at the contrast of her indifference with her first agitation,
Bofinger was careful not to open the conversation, knowing that it is
easier to penetrate the hypocrisy of an enforced question than to
discover truth in a guarded answer.
Mrs. Fargus, seeing at last that the situation compelled her to speak,
rested her chin on her palm and said as though to herself:
"So Fargus is dead!"
"Eh, eh!" the lawyer cried instantly, shooting a sharp look, "a moment
ago that overwhelmed you. But you are reconciled already, I suppose."
She showed some confusion, but returned immediately:
"Sure I'm shocked; poor fellow, after all he did love me."
Displeased to find her self-possessed, the lawyer, not to waken her
mistrust, seemed to accept her attitude by launching into a diatribe.
"Yes, yes, cling to your respectability. You women are all the same.
Virtue always! Do you do it to fool us or yourselves? Come now, you know
that old Fargus's death is a stroke of luck! Why the deuce, then, don't
you admit it?"
"You don't understand," she said coldly.
He searched her face with aroused curiosity, saying to himself, "No, my
lady, you bet I don't." Then continuing his plan of battle he occupied
himself with his plate.
"You brought him, the body, back," she asked presently.
"No," he answered irritably, and pushed back his plate with impatience.
"Why not?" she asked, noticing his annoyance.
"That is a long story and goes with the rest," he said rising. "Now, my
dear, we'll get down to it."
In the parlor, as he was taking a chair, he recollected himself and
demanded with a jerk of his head:
"Any one up there?"
"I sent the girl away," she answered, "as you said."
"Nevertheless," he replied slowly, "I guess I'll satisfy myself of
that."
"Yes, I supposed you would," she said with a shrug, "I left the gas on."
The unlooked-for reply halted him. He vacillated a moment suspiciously,
wondering whether to accept the situation, but, the shyster prevailing,
he turned on his heel and went up the stairs.
The woman smiled with the consciousness of a first advantage. But no
sooner did the steps creak than she abandoned herself to a paroxysm of
despair, twisting and turning the scarf in her hands until it cut them,
as though to fight with the physical sting the agony of the mind. Yet in
this violent return to her first agitation there was nothing to suggest
grief for another; rather she seemed a prey to the torments of the
gambler who, by a sudden upset, sees a fortune elude his fingers,
dissipating in the air. She was, at the first glance, of that gay and
fragile class who comprehend nothing but pleasure and see pleasure
bounded only by the narrow limits of youth, into which they wish to
compress all emotions, all desires, and all sensations; who pursue their
ideals, palpitating and with bandaged eyes, and are consumed alike by
their gratification and their hunger. On them weigh perhaps the heaviest
the inequalities of society. Mixtures of desires and scruples,
peculiarly American, swayed by conflicting ideals and prejudices, they
wish to taste of the glittering world at any price except at the price
of outward respectability. A young man attracted to Sheila Fargus by
her facile beauty would have mistaken her for an adventuress or a saint.
A man of the world, knowing her weakness and her fetishes, would have
recognized that she might become either.
As soon as the step of Bofinger was heard returning, she drew herself
hastily together, but the lawyer, to further satisfy himself, passed
into the kitchen.
She rose, inhaled a long breath, extended her arms as though to shake
off the rigidity of her emotion, and finding herself pale, pinched her
cheeks. The lawyer returned too conscious of his tactical disadvantage
to notice the traces of her agitation.
"So you feel at rest now," she said maliciously.
"My dear, take it as a tribute to you," he answered. "You had the air of
truth but you might have been--"
"More clever?"
"Exactly," he said. "You can't be sure with a woman."
To shut off further reference he cast himself back in his chair,
brought his fingers to a cage, and demanded, as though from impulse,
"Sheila, answer this--and carefully, for it is vital. Before Fargus left
for Mexico did he show any suspicion?"
"Why, no," she answered, too visibly surprised not to be telling the
truth; "sure he didn't."
"What, not the slightest suspicion of our relations?" he persisted.
"Think well,--Fargus who was suspicion itself! And he didn't at some
time suspect either you or me!"
She reflected a moment, started to answer, and then shook her head.
"No, no, not once."
The hesitation was not lost on the lawyer, who continued:
"But did he seem much in love?"
"Why, he adored me!" she cried. She examined him curiously, noting again
his restrained irritation, and asked, "What funny questions! Why do you
ask them?"
"On account of a number of suspicious circumstances," he answered
irritably. "Well, you know Fargus; he was not an ordinary man.
However--"
He took up his documents, sifting them to count them. Then, at the
moment when Sheila, preparing to listen, was off her guard, he launched
the question he had held in reserve.
"Did he tell you why he went to Mexico?"
"Why," she said, "I suppose, on business."
"He told you what business."
"No."
The two looked in each other's eyes.
"She lies," thought the lawyer.
"He knows I lie," she said to herself, palpitating, but she did not dare
avert her glance.