A PROPOSAL
Maurice Trask took up his reins of government with a firm hand. He left
all housekeeping and domestic matters to Mrs. Peyton, but the business
affairs of Doctor Waring, he concluded to clean up as rapidly as
possible.
“It’s astonishing,” he said to Lockwood, “what a lot of varied interests
my cousin had. This morning’s mail brings all sorts of things from Rare
Book Catalogues to Mining Prospectuses. By the way, I think I shall have
an auction of his rare books. Such things don’t interest me, and I
believe they have a big money value.”
“Some of them have,” Lockwood returned, indifferently.
He could not bring himself to like his new employer, but as he had agreed
to stay with him for a time, he did his best to meet requirements.
“Take this lot, now,” and Trask indicated a bookcase full of old volumes
of the classics. “They mean nothing to me—I can’t read Latin or Greek,
and wouldn’t if I could. My good heavens! Look at this one!”
Trask had taken down the volume that had been on Doctor Waring’s desk the
night of his death. As he flipped over the pages, two were stuck
together, and the ghastly red stains showed only too clearly that they
were the spilled blood of the dying man.
“Ugh!” he said, holding out the volume to Lockwood, “burn that up. How
could anyone have put it back on the shelf? Never let me see it again!”
The secretary took it, noting that it was a copy of Martial, to which
Doctor Waring had been greatly attached. Indeed, it had, to Lockwood’s
knowledge, been lying on the Doctor’s desk for a week or more before his
death.
Laying the stained volume aside in his own desk, Lockwood proceeded to
assist in the examination of the books.
He was not at all surprised to find Trask discarding the ones he would
have retained and keeping the most worthless—though there was little that
could really be called trash in the Waring library.
“Where are the story books?” the new owner grumbled. “No detective
stories? No spicy novels? No joke-books?”
“Doctor Waring was serious-minded,” Lockwood reminded him. “He cared
little for lighter reading. He was a scholar.”
“He sure was—to judge from these old dry-as-dust tomes. But, I’ll fire a
lot of the poky old stuff, and so make room for more entertaining books.
You see, Lockwood, I hope—and I expect to get me a wife before long.”
Gordon’s heart seemed to contract, for he divined what was coming.
“Yeppy, that’s so. Little Old Maurice wants a wifie—and—who do you
suppose has caught my fancy?”
“Who?” was the mechanical response.
“Why, none other than the little Miss Mystery. Oh, yes, I know she is
under a cloud—but I can get her off—I’m a bird of a lawyer, you know—and
we’ll fix up all that. Then, I’ll elevate that little nonentity to the
elevated position of the missus of Maurice Trask. Hey, my boy, how’s
that?”
Had Lockwood’s calm not been habitual with him, he could scarcely have
maintained it through this scene. As it was, he was a boiling, seething
furnace inside him, but his judgment told him that any exhibition of
surprise or annoyance would only irritate the other man without doing any
good.
Moreover, if Trask were really a shrewd lawyer, and if he knew something
that would make any trouble for Anita—and she had hinted that he
did—then, Lockwood argued, he must keep friendly with Trask, at least
until he found out more of the matter.
So he said, lightly, “Has the lady agreed?”
“Well—not yet; but—I say, Lockwood, you’re hit in that same direction,
eh?”
“I admire Miss Austin very much, yes.”
“Well—you keep off—do you hear?”
“I hear,” said Lockwood, in his imperturbable way, but when Trask looked
up and caught the cold stare of his secretary, he dropped the subject and
returned to the books.
Since Doctor Waring’s death, Lockwood had formed the habit of going back
to the Adams house for his luncheon. This, of course, in the hope of
seeing something of Anita, and also, because his new employer preferred
it that way.
At luncheon, Trask took occasion to eulogize Miss Austin.
Helen Peyton stood it as long as she could, and then broke out with: “I
don’t see what you can find to admire in that thin, sallow little thing!
And, beside, she is a wicked girl. I think she killed Doctor Waring, but
even if she didn’t, she came over here to see him, secretly, late at
night, and if that isn’t wrong-doing, I don’t know what is! But just
because she puts up a helpless bluff, all the men fall for her!”
“Jealous, Miss Peyton?” and Trask looked at her shrewdly.
“No,” Helen tossed her head. “I’ve no reason to be. That girl is nothing
to me, and the sooner she gets out of Corinth the better. If the police
will let her go!”
“Now then, Miss Peyton,” Trask began, in his most emphatic manner, “and
Mrs. Peyton, too, once for all, I will hear no word against Miss Austin
in my house. Put any meaning you like into that, but remember it. One
word against Anita Austin, and the speaker of it goes out of my door
never to return. Am I clear?”
“Clear? Yes; but I can tell you—”
“Hush, Helen,” said her mother. “We want to stay here, don’t we? Well,
then, as Mr. Trask is evidently much in earnest, I insist that you obey
his wishes—as I shall.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Peyton. And if your daughter forgets my hints I trust
to you to keep her reminded. That’s all about that.”
In this fashion Maurice Trask settled every question that arose. His word
was law, and he spoke no unnecessary words.
The servants could obey or leave. The housekeeper had been told the same,
and the secretary understood it, too.
Returning to the library after luncheon, Trask sat at the desk in deep
thought.
“Got to get the girl,” he told himself. “Plenty to hold over her head—but
she’s skittish, that’s plain to be seen. Also, she’s in love with
Lockwood. Got to get him out of town. Nothing doing while he’s around.
Now, how? Morton hinted of his being deeply in debt. If so, he’s got some
past history, guess I can get something on him—got to, whether I can or
not. H’m. Wonder if the little girl did do the sticking. Hard to believe
it, and yet that kid’s got it in her. She sure has! And she’s a Truesdell
all right. Nobody ever had those beetling brows, almost joining above
those dark eyes, in that level line—why, if she’s a Truesdell—! Good
Lord, I’ve got to marry her! I’ll have to scare her into it! Now,
Maurice, my boy, get in some of your finest work.”
Clapping on his hat, he started for the Adams house.
As luck would have it, he met Anita and his secretary walking toward him.
“Playing truant?” he called out gaily to Lockwood.
“I’m just on my way to your house,” Gordon returned, coldly.
“You too, Miss Mystery?” and Trask gave her a wide smile.
“No; I’m going to the post-office.”
“Ah, I see. Then, on your way, Lockwood—and I’ll step along with Miss
Austin.”
There was no good way out of this arrangement, so it obtained, and Trask
fell into step with the girl, as Lockwood turned off toward the Waring
house.
“Now, my dear young lady,” Trask began, unheeding her look of aversion,
“you may as well understand me first as last. I’ve got the whip hand—or,
as that isn’t a very graceful expression, let us say, I hold the trumps.
I know all about you, you see. I know why you went to the doctor’s
library that night, and—I know what happened there.”
“You don’t,” said Anita, coolly. “You’re bluffing, and I know it.”
“No, I’m not bluffing—not entirely, anyway. True, there are some things I
don’t know yet, but—I soon will! Don’t think you can keep anything from
me! I’m going to take a week for investigation. Also, to give you your
chance. If I find out what I fully expect to find out I shall make it all
public—how will you like that?”
A great fear showed in Anita’s eyes, and she murmured, brokenly:
“Don’t—oh, Mr. Trask, don’t!”
“Hah! Scared, are you? I thought you’d be! Now, you know my price. You
marry me—promise to marry me, that is, and I’ll get you through this
thing with bells on. No shadow of suspicion shall remain attached to
you—or, to any one you care for.”
“I heard you were not going to rest until you learned who killed Doctor
Waring,” Anita temporized.
“Yes, yes; but that was before I saw you. Now, I don’t care if you have
killed half the people in Corinth, I want you all the same. You’ve
bewitched me. You, a silly little slip of a girl, with no particular
claim to beauty, except your big, mournful eyes, and your peach of a
mouth! I’ll bring the smiles to that sad little face. Oh, Anita, I’m not
a brute, and I do love you so. Give up your foolish fancy for Lockwood,
for it is only a passing attraction. And he hasn’t any money, and he’s
deeply in debt, and oh, I’m a thousand times a better catch!”
“If you knew how you damaged your cause by talking like that—” the girl
began, her eyes cold with scorn.
“Then I won’t talk like that,” Trask said, humbly. “Only take me, Anita,
and you can make me over to suit yourself. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll
read the books you want me to, I’ll get cultured and refined—and all
that.”
Anita almost laughed. “You are so funny,” she said.
But this was a little too much for Trask’s self-love.
“Funny, am I?” he stormed. “Funny! You’ll see how funny I am when I tell
the police why you killed that man! You’ll see if I’m funny when I refuse
the evidence that might help you out. When I keep still instead of
speakin’ out in meetin’! You look here, Anita Austin, I hold you in the
hollow of my hand, and don’t you forget it! You’ve got a deep dark
secret—and though I don’t know quite all of it—I’ll know it soon. What M.
Trask sets out to find out, he finds out. See? Now, do you want to tell
me who you are—or not? Want to tell me who your father was? Your mother
was a Truesdell—I’ll bet on that!”
Miss Mystery’s face fell. Abject despair was written on every line of it.
She glanced at Trask, and his own determined expression showed her that
she could hope for nothing from him save on his own terms.
And those terms were too hard for her. Just aware of loving Lockwood,
just learning to know what love meant and how sweet it could be, just
realizing, too, the awfulness of her own position, the dire necessity for
secrecy, the terrible result of Trask’s revelations, should they be made,
altogether Miss Mystery faced a dangerous crisis.
“You say you’ll give me a week?” she said, at last, grasping at a hope of
reprieve.
Trask looked at her with curiosity.
“What good’ll that do you? Better put yourself under my protection at
once. Every day you lose is that much nearer discovery.”
“All right, I’ll dare it! They won’t—won’t condemn me, anyhow.”
“Ho, ho. Banking on your sex to save you! Well, honestly, I don’t really
think they’d send a pretty girl like you to the chair, but a trial would
convict you in the eyes of the world, even if twelve men were too
soft-hearted to see you electrocuted. And there’d be imprisonment—”
“Oh, hush! Mr. Trask, have you no pity?”
“Plenty for the girl that is to be my wife. None for any other. And
especially none for a girl who scorns me and throws me over for my own
secretary. I’m a red-blooded man, I am, and you can’t play fast and loose
with me and get away with it!”
“I don’t mean to play fast and loose with you, if by that you mean
changing my mind. But, I do ask for a few days to think it over. That’s
not unreasonable, is it?”
Miss Mystery’s little smile was cajoling, and Trask couldn’t resist it.
“All right,” he said, as he looked hungrily at her bewitching face, “take
a coupla days, then. But, only on condition that you don’t let Lockwood
make love to you. Promise me that for the forty-eight hours, you won’t
see that man alone.”
“How can I promise that?”
“You’ll have to, whether you can or not.”
“All right, I promise.”
He looked at her sternly.
“And you’ll keep that promise, or you’ll be sorry! I haven’t much opinion
of your promises, you’re not the sort to keep faith. But, remember I’m a
power. Maurice Trask can do whatever he sets out to do. And if you forget
that, you’re mighty apt to regret it.”
“I gave you a promise,” Anita said, looking at him coldly, “and I fully
intend to keep it. It’s not such a very hard one to keep.”
Her lip curled, and though he guessed the tumult in her heart, there was
no sign of it on her face.
Trask accompanied her to the postoffice, and then, bidding him a careless
good afternoon, Anita went into a large drygoods shop and he made no
attempt to follow her.
He would have been interested, however, had he noted her proceedings. For
she went straight to a telephone booth, and called up the Waring house.
Ito answered and when she asked to be connected with Mr. Lockwood, the
butler gave the connection without question.
“Gordon?” came the soft little voice. “This is Anita.”
And then she told him quickly but fully all that had passed between her
and Trask.
“So you see,” she concluded, “I do want these two days to think things
out, and I mustn’t see you alone, for he’s sure to know of it.”
“All right,” Lockwood said, “We’ll do our courting over the telephone.
Let me see, I’ll go down town this evening and telephone you—”
“No, that won’t do. I can’t talk to you in the Adams front hall! Here’s a
better plan. Tomorrow, when Mr. Trask goes out, you call me up there, and
I’ll go out to a pay station and call you up where you are now. And the
day after tomorrow the time will be up.”
“Yes, and what are you going to do then?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl, her voice suddenly losing its brightness.
“I’m going to think it out. Good-by.”
“Oh, wait a minute. I’ll see you at dinner, shan’t I?”
“Oh, yes; and this evening, I suppose, but only with others present.”
And after a few more words Anita left the booth and walked slowly home.
When Trask returned to his library he said to Lockwood, “Get busy on
those old books at once, will you? I want the shelves cleared for some of
my own books that I’ve sent for.”
“Very well,” returned the secretary, thinking of the probable difference
between the expected books and those they would replace.
“Do you mind, Mr Trask, if I take a few of these old ones myself? I’ll
pay you whatever price a first class dealer sets on them.”
“Oh, take what you want, without pay. I’m in a good humor today,
Lockwood, better take advantage of it. Help yourself from the shelves.”
“Thank you, I’ll not impose on your kindness and generosity.”
Nor did he, but among the few volumes he chose was the crimson stained
copy of Martial’s Epigrams.
Distasteful though it was, Lockwood looked at the book with a feeling of
reverence and opened the volume at the page that had last held the
interest of its owner’s scholarly mind.
The crimson stain completely obscured the print, but Lockwood gazed long
at the defaced page.
“I wonder,” he said to himself, “if a crack detective could get anything
from this. There’s that Stone, Mercer is always raving over—I suppose
he’s terribly expensive—yet this strange case might intrigue him—and
yet—there’s Anita to be considered. If it should turn the tide against
her—”
Later that afternoon, Trask went out again and Lockwood seized his
chance.
Calling Anita at the Adams house, he said, “Listen, dear, you needn’t say
anything but yes or no, and then no one will understand.”
“All right,” came the reply.
“I’ve just about come to the conclusion I’ll get a clever detective and
put him on the case. I mean a real detective—in fact, Fleming Stone.”
“Oh, no!” Anita’s voice was one of utter dismay.
“Why not?”
“I—I can’t tell you this way! You said—”
“So I did. Well, here, I’ll ask questions. Don’t you want me to do this?”
“No!” very emphatically.
“You’d rather I wouldn’t?”
“Very much rather.”
“Because you fear ill effects to yourself?”
“Yes.”
“You are sure you’re not overestimating the danger of that?”
“I am sure.”
“Then there’s no more to be said. Good-by.”
Lockwood hung up the receiver, and turned around to see Trask frowning at
him.
“So that’s the way you and Miss Austin whip the devil around the stump!”
“That’s the way,” returned Lockwood, coolly.
“She promised not to see you alone—is this how she keeps the letter of
her promise and breaks it in spirit?”
“Leave her out of this. I called her up, she did not call me.”
“All the same. Now, I gather from the interesting talk I overheard that
Miss Austin does not wish to have Fleming Stone take up this case.”
“You are at liberty to gather anything you choose.”
“See here, Lockwood, you make a mistake when you try to antagonize me.
I’d be a better friend to you than an enemy.”
“I’ve no reason to want you for either.” Lockwood was by no means
impertinent, he merely spoke indifferently. Trask noted this, and went
on, more suavely:
“Now, my dear Lockwood, what I propose to do now, is to employ Fleming
Stone myself.”
Lockwood was astounded. At first he was glad, for he felt sure Stone
could solve the whole mystery. But, then, suppose it incriminated Anita,
and though Lockwood was sure of her innocence, he was just enough so to
realize that his surety was largely because of his affection for her.
Suppose Stone should prove her to be the criminal!
It couldn’t be—and yet—
He looked up to find Trask smiling broadly.
“You’ve the reputation of being of an impassive countenance, Lockwood,
but to me your face is as an open book! However, it’s only because you
are up against a difficult problem. You want Stone to come, yet you’re
afraid he’ll find out that Miss Austin is pretty deep in this murder
mystery. But I’ve made up my mind, and I think you’ll see that any
attempt on your part to change my decision would look bad for Miss
Austin.”
“You let her name alone, Trask, or I’ll reason with you myself.”
“Have you any real right to tell me to leave her name alone?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Are you and she engaged?”
“So far as I am concerned, we are. Miss Austin prefers to wait until
later to announce it, but I can answer for her to you in confidence.”
“Oh, it’s in confidence, all right. Don’t fear I’ll breathe the news.
For, you see, I’ve made up my mind to marry Anita Austin myself; and if
Fleming Stone proves that she is a murderess, I’ll marry her all the
same. She’ll escape punishment—what woman doesn’t?”
“Then, look here,” Lockwood’s manner changed. “If you’re going to get
Stone anyway, why can’t we work with each other and not at odds? Whatever
else we think or feel we both want to save Miss Austin all the trouble or
distress we can. Let’s be friends, then, and talk things over with Stone,
and then—”
“I’m on! Then if we see things are going against her, shut him off!”
“Well, yes, if we can.”
“Of course we can. I’ve money enough for anything—even to buy off Fleming
Stone. No man’s too big to be bought.”
“I don’t mean all this exactly as you do, but I do mean this: if Stone
can solve the mystery and clear Anita, let him do it. If he finds her
implicated, let it be understood by him beforehand, he is to cease
investigations.”
Trask thought a minute.
“That goes,” he said; “I agree.”