Gray, sluggish, slow in coming and sullen of aspect, a reluctant dawn
succeeded the night. A wet mist clung everywhere in the windless
atmosphere, muffling sound as well as light. There was not even a
servant stirring in the Rose house, when Gerard descended the dark
stairs and went out into the chill, damp park.
In the garage one bright point shone out; under a swinging electric lamp
Rupert was preparing his machine to go out, a solitary figure in the
expanse of wavering shadows and dim bulks.
"Where are Rose and his man?" Gerard questioned, as he came across the
floor.
His voice rolled startlingly loud in the lofty, echoing room. Moving to
reply, the mechanician let fall a tool and the crash repeated itself
sharply from every stone arch and angle.
"Rose won't be out at the course till late; I guess our peaceful life
ain't what he's used to, exactly. He 'phoned over last night to Dean,
who's sleeping yet."
Gerard nodded, eyeing the Mercury racer with affectionate attention.
"All right, is she?" he asked.
Rupert straightened himself and proceeded to close the hood.
"I ain't supposing we'll need to be towed," he conceded sarcastically.
"But I'll put in a rope, if you're worried bad, and take my copy of
_Motor Repairing at a Glance_."
"Do," Gerard urged. "I'd like to have it found on you, Rupert. Start her
up, then, if you're ready."
He crossed, with the last word, to the shelf where lay his racing mask
and gauntlets. The melancholy drip from moist eaves and trees, the
dreary half-light and heavy air had absolutely no depressing power upon
his flawless nerves and vigor of life. By the open door he paused to
look out, unconsciously clasping his hands behind his head with the
leisurely grace and relaxation of one who found pleasure in mere
movement.
"There'll be a wet course," Rupert's muffled tones came from the
opposite end of the room.
"Well?" Gerard queried lazily. "What of it?"
There was no answer. Instead sounded the click of moving throttle and
spark, and the place burst into thunderous tumult; violet flames darted
from the exhausts and enfolded the hood of the vibrating car as it
moved forward to its master's side.
"I don't like this morning, and I don't like this course," stated
Rupert, sombrely definite, through the roar and rattle of irregular
reports from the cut-down motor. "But I guess I've got to stand for
them. Anyhow, I couldn't have a classier Friday-the-thirteenth emotion
equipment if I had been to a voodoo fortune teller who had a grudge
against me. What are we waiting for?"
Gerard lingered in taking his seat, his amazed eyes travelling over the
small, discontented dark face of his companion.
"Something's wrong, Rupert?"
"I ain't saying so--yet."
The driver's own expression shadowed slightly; he looked again and more
searchingly at the other. In common with most men who had lived in the
tense atmosphere of the most dangerous form of racing yet evolved, he
had witnessed more than one case where a presentiment did not fail of
fulfilment. Irrespective of whether catalogued as coincidence, occult
foresight or absurdity, the facts did exist, occasionally to be read in
the prosaic columns of a newspaper, more often lost except in camp
annals. He knew, and Rupert knew, of a mechanician who suddenly refused
absolutely to go out with the driver by whose side he had ridden
countless miles, having no better reason than a disinclination for the
trip. And they both had seen the substitute who took his place brought
in dead, an hour later, after his car's wreck. A widely-known victor of
many races, one of Gerard's close friends, had come to shake hands with
him in a state of causeless nervousness that would have shamed a novice,
just before starting on the ride from which he never returned. The price
of debate is too high to argue with some things; Gerard temporized.
"I don't want to take you out feeling like that. Give yourself a day
off," he suggested. "I'll find one of the factory men to go out with me
for the morning's practice."
"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician acidly, and flung himself
back in his narrow seat.
The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding drives, plunged into the
sandy Long Island road, and sped lurching toward the course.
There was nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the
Motor Parkway. Before the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted
some of the cars, surrounded by their force of workers; in other camps
the men stood, watch in hand, timing the machines already out.
Reporters vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring group, two
world-famous French and Italian drivers were pitching pennies for the
last cigarettes from a box of special brand. Only the tiers of empty
seats in the grand-stand and the absence of spectators in fields and
parking-spaces distinguished this practice morning from the actual race.
There was a general movement of greeting as the Mercury rolled in and
Gerard sprang out at his own camp.
"Where's your pink pet, Allan?" called a driver, from the starting line.
"What's up--mornin' air too crude for millionaire kids?"
"He _isn't_ up," was the blithe reply. "Never mind Rose, he's coming;
tell me where you got your five-cylinder machine, Jack."
"A late Rose, eh? Oh, I've got six cylinders here, all right, but I
daren't run on all of them now for fear my speed would make the rest of
you quit, discouraged. I'm goin' to make your yesterday's record look
like a last year's timetable, this mornin'."
"You look out that you don't break your neck. Rupert says it's a hoodoo
day. We don't want you in the hospital twice this season."
"Is Rupert sad?" questioned the big blonde pilot of the neighboring
camp, leaning over the railing.
"I ain't been so near it since I put my foot in a hole and sprained my
ankle ten minutes before the start, when I was racing with Darling
French at Philadelphia," admitted the mechanician. "It hurt me fierce."
"Your ankle?"
"No, seeing him start without me."
"Say, Gerard, there's your pink Rambler," a distant voice signified.
About to send his car forward, Gerard paused to glance over his
shoulder, and caught the pink flash behind a row of mist-draped trees
edging the cross-road. Sudden mischief curved his lips, his amber eyes
laughed behind their goggles.
"Tell Corrie Rose I'll give him that game of auto tag, if he happens
along while I'm on a straight stretch," he called across to one of
Corrie's men, by way of farewell.
A little breeze stirred the mist, as the Mercury shot down the course;
the gray light was brightening by slow gradations.
There was small probability that Gerard's car and the rose-colored
machine would soon find themselves together on the twelve-mile circuit,
allowing for their difference in starting time. But as the Mercury
turned into the straight stretch of back road, on the second time
around, there sounded a sharp report, the car staggered perilously, and
a tire tore itself loose from a rear wheel to hurtle, a vicious
projectile of rubber and steel, far across the stubble fields. Reeling,
but held to its course by the driver's trained hand, the Mercury
slackened its flight and was brought to a stop. Rupert was already
leaning over the back, dragging free a spare tire; Gerard slipped out of
his seat.
For experts the task was not long. A white car thundered past the
workers, leaving a swirl of dust and flying pebbles, its mechanician
turning to survey the halted Mercury. As Rupert swept the last tool into
its place with precise swiftness, the throbbing of a second motor
drifted to them, a pink streak darted around a distant curve.
"It's Corrie," identified Gerard. "Get in, Rupert. If he wasn't forced
by his money into the amateur ranks, that boy would make some of us work
to keep our laurels, all right."
The panther-agile figure swung into place beside him.
"I ain't a market gardener," Rupert drawled, fitting one small foot in a
strap support, as the car leaped forward. "But I guess those plants
ain't apt to flourish in too rich soil."
The Mercury did not gather speed too rapidly, rather it lingered until
the pink car bore close down upon it.
"How near?" suddenly demanded Gerard, above the noise of the motor.
The mechanician reconnoitred.
"Hundred feet," he made report.
"Wave to him."
Rupert raised his hand obediently. The Mercury sprang ahead under
Gerard's touch, and with an answering roar the rose-colored machine sped
in pursuit.
There was no doubt that Corrie understood the play; nor that his car was
easily capable of passing the sixty-mile an hour gait now held by the
Mercury. But he was not allowed to pass. Each time he essayed it, the
other racer swerved in front and cut off the road.
It was as dangerous a game as could well be designed, had either driver
been less skilled, but it was safe enough now. Gerard was laughing as he
drove, when the first tiny missile rattled against his car.
"He's pitching spare bolts," shouted Rupert, at his companion's ear,
himself grimly amused. "Peevish, ain't he?"
Gerard nodded, and crossed the narrow road with an unexpected turn that
drew a baffled explosion from the checked car behind. A brass nut
smacked the Mercury's gasoline tank. It was not difficult to imagine
Corrie's excited tempest of defeat, to those who knew him.
"The turn's ahead--we'll call it off there," Gerard answered mirthfully.
"Give her some oil."
The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile of straight road.
Rupert was stooping to reach the oil pump when the pink car made its
final attempt to pass and was again forced back, but across his
outstretched arm he glanced up to Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying
missile as it came.
"_Duck!_" he shouted harshly, "Look out----"
There was no time for action. As Gerard turned his head, the heavy steel
wrench struck him below the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was
too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel before the
mechanician could snatch it from the inert grasp. With a lurch the
speeding Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the road and, leaping a
yard-high embankment, crashed through a row of trees to roll over and
over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage over the
farmhouse enclosure beyond.
The light breeze of half an hour earlier had freshened and gained
strength, the pale-gray sky was changing to delicate blue. When the
horrified knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the nearby
Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard to join the pale-faced farmer
already there, the sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds,
glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the still figure that lay
beneath it, illumining the dishevelled, gasping mechanician who
struggled dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to safety, fifty
feet from the wreck.
It is difficult for any group of men, however willing, to work without a
leader. While the inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the verge
of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing costume sprang up the bank,
his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood
where his teeth had bitten through.
"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to
be jacked up. Hurry up--do you want him to die under there? _Jump!_"
His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor
transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's
brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such
aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the
semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.
Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes
later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed
lithograph of _The Trial of John Knox_. A plush photograph album was
jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove
upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the
flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with
dull red here and there.
"They stopped here yesterday for some water," sobbed the mistress of the
house hysterically. "Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard at
the little dark one, he was, and both of them making fun."
The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first
of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room,
stripping off his coat while appraising with keen eyes the unconscious
patient.
"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely. "Here, I want a helper--you,
Rose?"
Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up and dragged himself
erect. Gerard's face was no more drawn and colorless than his, but he
answered to the call, as half an hour before he had answered the demand
of the situation for a guide.
"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I deserve it."
Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest of the men were
retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly
thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and
pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across the threshold.
"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive? What?"
"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve, Rose--gently! Clear out,
you; the ambulance men will take care of you when they get here."
Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the scene, and encountered Corrie.
"You----" he snarled, choking, and whirled to face the witnesses,
extending one slim shaking hand toward the workers beside the couch.
"Here, I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing headlines for
paper rags--print down that Allan Gerard was killed by that man. I'm
saying it; Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he pitched a wrench
that knocked him out. Go down to the course and you'll get the wrench to
Missouri you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard and our car ran
wild."
The concentrated vehemence and force of the arraignment stupefied even
the reportorial instinct. Dazed, the hearers stared from the
mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale young driver who
offered neither surprise nor defense, but went steadily on with his
unsteadying task.
"He wrecked us----" Rupert made a limping step forward. "Well? Did you
guess I was reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you taking him
out of here? Put _his_ mechanician through the third degree and get his
story--who nailed you fast here? Why don't you _move_?"
The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from Corrie's grasp. Livid
with wrath, the surgeon stood up.
"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you," he stormed. "Not a word;
I don't care if Rose has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now.
Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."
He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert into the retiring group,
and the door closed.
Outside, the reporters became themselves. While ambulances dashed up,
motor cycles, official cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around
the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was hurried apart and his
story coaxed from him in detail.
The last automobile to come up, an hour after the accident, was a
gilt-monogramed foreign limousine. From it descended a gentleman who,
after a comprehensive glance over the disordered, crowded orchard,
crossed straight to where Rupert sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite
the shattered car.
"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's shoulder. "Rupert,
what's been happening here?"
Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face, its grimness not lessened
by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical
exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard resolve.
"Your son's finished Gerard, Mr. Rose," he stated, monotonously
explicit. "He slipped his temper and fired a wrench at Gerard for not
giving him the road. It hit him, and we ran wild without a driver till
we struck here. Ask him--he's in there with what's left of Gerard--why
he's sent Dean where he ain't to be found, if I'm lying."
Mr. Rose released Rupert's shoulder, both men equally oblivious of the
pain his grasp had inflicted on bruised flesh and muscle, and turned his
gray face to the surrounding group in dumb quest of confirmation. Then,
moving stiffly, he walked toward the house.
There was an authority in his bearing that gained him unopposed
entrance. In the hall, nauseating with the ominous odor of antiseptics,
he was met by one of the doctors.
"You can turn my house into a hospital," Mr. Rose said briefly. "I want
Gerard taken there instead of to your places. You can have all the money
you like."
The man looked at the card presented, his professional impassivity
flickering, but shook his head.
"He would better not be moved at all, sir; at least, not to-day. He can
be asked, if you wish."
"He is conscious, then?"
"Just about," he shrugged, reaching for the door. "Here, if you care to
go in."
The room was glaring with light, the lace curtains were dragged wide
apart from the windows and the shades rolled high. Idle now in the
presence of more skilled attendants, but recognized as one who had
earned the right to be there, Corrie stood near the foot of the
improvised bed, leaning against the wall with his fair head slightly
bent. At the sound of the door he turned that way, as Mr. Rose stopped
on the threshold.
The snapping latch, or some more subtle influence, aroused someone else.
Slowly Gerard's heavy lashes lifted, and he saw father and son looking
at each other across the parlor strewn with the tragic litter of the
last hour's work. There was nothing to interrupt the triple regard; it
endured long, with steadfast intensity.
In a corner two surgeons were holding a subdued consultation, a third
was busied at the marble table, the attention of all fully engaged.
"Put a pillow under my head, someone," suddenly bade the shadow of Allan
Gerard's voice, across the hush. "And give me a cigarette."
There was a startled flurry in the room. Familiar enough with the last
request from his masculine patients, the man at the table took a case
from his own pocket and, lighting one of the cigarettes, stooped over
the bed.
"Keep your grip on yourself," he approved brusquely. "But don't move."
It was in his left hand that Gerard took the tiny narcotic, his right
arm and shoulder were a mere bulk of splints and linen bandages.
"Thanks," his difficult voice spoke again. "Now open that door and let
everyone in--I want to talk to them."
"Mr. Gerard!"
His clear eyes, dark with suffering but absolutely collected, met the
surgeon's.
"I've got to talk to them, doctor, and I may be out of my head or in a
box, to-morrow. Let them in--the reporters, I mean."
The listeners gazed at each other, a shock ran through the group. Every
man there knew Rupert's story of the accident, every man guessed that it
was Gerard's own version that was to be given now. Someone offered Mr.
Rose one of the horse-hair chairs, during the moment of rearrangement
before the youngest of the doctors left the room. Only Corrie remained
unmoved, not changing his position or looking at Gerard. There was a
certain dignity of utter quiescence in his pose that comprehended
neither defiance nor submission, but a strange, aloof patience.
The representative reporters from the city journals filed in, avidly
expectant. With them came two officials of the racing association, and a
metallic-eyed man whose plain clothes were contradicted by the badge
visible under his coat. There was silent orderliness; the grim
significance of the room, the presence of the watchful surgeons, the
central figure of the driver so well known to all of those who entered,
were subduing to the least sensitive. Nor was the effect less hushing
because of that other driver who attended in the background, the strong
sunlight shining on his glistening pink garb and still face.
Gerard let fall the hand holding the cigarette, when the company was
complete, and slowly turned his brown head on the pillow to face them.
"You newspaper men have been first-class to me for a good while; it's my
chance to reciprocate now," he asserted. "Well, I'll give what copy I
can. I know you want it, boys--you've often been after me for less."
The familiar gayety rippled above his aching effort of speech, his will
locked to composure each rebellious line of expression. No one stirred
in the room.
"I wish it were a better yarn. But when two tires blow out at the same
time, while a car's turning----"
This time, there was a general sigh of quick-drawn breath. Mr. Rose
stood up.
"When two tires let go, at ninety miles an hour, there's apt to be a
wreck. I----" his lashes fell wearily. "I couldn't hold the machine to
the road. The shock broke my control--there's no one to blame but
me----" The cigarette crumpled in his clenching fingers, his straight
brows knotted.
"Gerard," burst forth the racing official, excitedly urgent in his
suspense. "Your tires wrecked you? That's your last word? Gerard, if you
can speak, do!"
The amber eyes re-opened in answer, to meet the fixed gaze of the eager
men who waited opposite.
"Yes," gasped Gerard, casually definite. "What else? Corrie, leave me
your smokes, they're a better brand----"
If there had been any doubt left the witnesses, that comrade request
beat it down. The surgeon flung out his hand in a sweeping gesture of
dismissal, as he sprang toward his fainting patient. Gerard had
finished.
Mr. Rose went out with the other men. Some of his florid color had come
back, he walked more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness. On
the narrow porch the referee from the racing association held out his
hand with frank congratulation.
"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before they got any further, Mr.
Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in
the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country,
crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank.
They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up
to-morrow sane as ever. Nice way your son took it."
"Oh, Corwin B. is straight," declared Mr. Rose, proudly self-contained
in his relief. "I guess there wasn't much need to worry about that part.
I'll wait here and take him home with me, now; he's had about all of
that room he ought to stand, fond of Gerard as he is."
"He looked done up, yes. Well----"
A long shout sounded down the course, a clamor of excited speech. A
troup of men appeared, running toward the house in the wake of a
chauffeur who held up some object that glittered in the sun.
"I've got it!" the leader called ahead. "I've got it where he said,
beside the road!"
The thing in his hand was a small, heavy nickel wrench. The men on the
porch and the men in the yard stared at each other, mute. After a moment
Mr. Rose drew out his handkerchief, passed it across his forehead and
lips, then went down to his limousine, got in and sank back against the
cushions.
"Home," he issued his order.
"Mr. Corwin is not coming, sir?"
"Home."