THE SWELLING OF JORDAN
Laroque almost skipped with delight as he hurried back to the Three
Crowns. The prospect of making plenty of money without working for it
acted like champagne on his restless, reckless mind. Before he had
walked a hundred steps he was building air-castles to be inhabited
four or five years hence. He had no intention of remaining long as an
employé of Messrs. Perissard and Merivel. The pay was good and the
percentage of the two "missions" that had already been unfolded to him
would be larger. He told himself that the first really big sum of money
that he collected he would brazenly put in his pocket and whistle at
the partners. Then he would buy out a small café somewhere in a paying
neighborhood and settle down to a life of ease.
And if the woman at the hotel had really brought her husband a dower
of considerable size, as Perissard's logic seemed to prove, here was
the chance made right to his hand. He would get the money, abandon the
woman, and the rest of his years would be a pathway of ease.
So he sprang up the stairs, three at a time and threw open the door of
the room, singing a song of the dance-halls. Jacqueline glanced up as
he came in and then went on with her reading of the future.
He tossed his hat on to the bed, kicked a chair up to the table and
dropped into it with a cheery:
"Do you know, old girl, this man Perissard is a wonderful old chap?"
"Is he?" she asked, absent-mindedly, without raising her head.
"I should think he was!" was the enthusiastic response. "Brimful of
ideas!"
"Has he got anything for you?"
"Rather! He's offered me a place in his office?"
"What does he do in his office?"
"Oh--business!"
At the evasive reply, Jacqueline raised her head curiously.
"What kind of business?" she asked, with a trace of interest in the
thick voice.
"Oh, business of all kinds! He really is an extraordinary man! Do you
know, the moment he set eyes on you he saw that you were a woman of
good family?"
These were the first words that she seemed to hear clearly, and her
face displayed a foolish smile of gratified vanity.
"Did he really?"
"Yes! 'There's blood in her,' he said," went on Laroque, impressively.
"Those were the very words he used."
Jacqueline raised the ether bottle.
"Here's his health!" she cried, taking another drink.
"I told him he could go and bet on it!" continued Laroque.
"You--you didn't tell him--who I was!" exclaimed Jacqueline, a dawning
fright in her bleared eyes. She had forgotten for the moment that
Laroque did not really know.
"Not much!" was the emphatic reply. "No," he laughed. "I told him,
after making him promise to keep it secret, that you were the daughter
of a general--that your father and mother were very rich--that your
husband was a marquis and you had brought him 300,000 francs on your
marriage!"
Jacqueline's hysterical cackle was added to his laugh.
"That's good! Veree good!" she chuckled. "And he b'lieved it, did he?"
"Every word of it! What do you think of that? Three hundred thousand
francs! Ha, ha! And I suppose you didn't bring him a son, did you?"
Jacqueline fell into the trap without a thought. She stiffened with
drunken dignity.
"I beg your pardon!" she said, with a haughtiness somewhat impaired
by her difficulty of enunciation. "I did not bring my husband 300,000
francs on my marriage, certainly! But I did bring him 125,000!"
Laroque hid the gleam in his eyes.
"Oh, nonsense! You're joking!" he laughed, "125,000 francs!"
"I 'sure you it's true!" declared Jacqueline, solemnly.
"Tut, tut! You're stretching it some!"
"Not a sou--more nor less!"
"Truth and honor?" he cried, laughing and raising his hand in the
gesture of the oath.
"Truth _an_' honor!"
"A hundred and twenty-five thousand francs?"
"A hundred and twenty-five thousand francs!" And she nodded her head
with heavy importance.
"Then where's the money?" he suddenly demanded. Jacqueline stared at
him in mild surprise.
"Wha'd'you mean?"
"Did your husband give the money back to you?" His voice had changed
from a bantering tone to excited harshness.
"No, of course not!" she replied roughly.
Laroque sprang up, pretended anger in his face.
"I can't believe you were such a fool as that! Do you mean to tell me
that when your husband turned you out you didn't ask him for the money?"
"The money's not mine!" she mumbled, her eyes wandering.
"Whose is it, then?"
"My son's!" The words were barely audible.
"But you're alive still!" he protested angrily. "Your son will get it
when you die!"
"My son thinks I'm dead," she replied, wearily. "His father told him I
was. And when he was twenty-one he probably came into my fortune."
Laroque half-turned away with a quick gesture of impatience.
"What a fool you are!" he cried, disgustedly. "I don't suppose he saw
a sou of it!" He was racking his mind for some lure that would draw
her husband's name from her. But this last lead was fatal. Jacqueline
glared at him suddenly, her eyes wild.
"What the hell's it to you?" she blazed out fiercely. "You've got
nothing to do with it, have you? What business is it o' yours, anyway?"
"But you ought to clear it up!" protested Laroque, in a milder tone, as
he saw that he had erred. "That's what Perissard thinks, and Perissard
knows what he's talking about."
"What business is it of Perissard's?" she shouted. Laroque extended his
hands soothingly.
"He only spoke in your interests!" he hastily explained. "When I told
him you had brought your husband 300,000 francs, he asked me whether
you had got them back again. I said I didn't know, and he declared that
you had a perfect right to the money."
"Well, I shan't claim it!" declared Jacqueline, sullenly sinking back
into her chair.
"Why not?" he persisted.
"Because I don't--want to!"
"But why?"
Jacqueline burst into tears again.
"I'd rather beg in the streets!" she wept in a high whine. "I'd rather
starve in the gutter man ask that man for a son!"
"Yes! yes! Of course, I understand that!" he agreed, eagerly. "That's
natural pride, that is! But you might get somebody else to get your
money for you. You might give somebody the power of attorney."
The sobs stopped abruptly and she stared at him in drunken scorn.
"Signed with my name and address, eh? No, thanks!"
"Well, a letter then," he suggested. "I should think a letter would
do just as well. Look here! Give me a letter and I'll go and get your
money for you!"
"I'd rather die than let my son know I'm alive!" she cried, her voice
hoarse with passion and weeping. "He's not to know at any price! I'd
rather kill myself! Yes, I would! Kill myself!"
"But he'll never know!" protested Laroque. He was fairly dancing with
excitement. But Jacqueline apparently did not hear him.
"If he ever thinks of me," she went on between raging and sobbing, "I
want him to regret me and I want him to feel sorry now and then because
I'm not with him. He never knew me! I want him to respect my memory and
love me!"
"Now, don't get excited!" interrupted Laroque soothingly.
"I don't want him to know what kind of a woman his mother is. And he
shan't know it!" she shouted with sudden fury. "He shall never know
it, I tell you! _Never_! I tell you! _Never!"_
"All right! Don't lose your temper! Who on earth is going to tell him?
I certainly won't, and It isn't likely his father will."
Jacqueline sank back into her chair and glowered at him.
"I don't want to talk about it any more!"
"But the money's worth the trouble!" he insisted, trying to hide his
exasperation.
"D----n the money!"
"A hundred and twenty-five thousand francs! Think what a difference
they'd make to us!"
"Oh, shut your d----d mouth!" she growled. "I don't want to talk about
the money, I tell you!" Laroque's eyes sparkled.
"Look here, my girl!" he cried, threateningly. "You keep a civil tongue
in your head or I'll teach you who you're talking to!"
Jacqueline measured him with that boundless contempt that is given only
the very drunk to feel.
"You can't teach me any more than I know about you!" she retorted with
unmistakably insulting meaning.
Laroque elected to ignore this last thrust and ostentatiously looked at
his watch.
"Will you write me a letter so I can get the money?" he demanded with
an air of finality.
"_No_!" she screamed. He took off his coat and vest and went into the
dressing-room with the remark that "he could do without the letter."
Jacqueline did not at first catch its significance but an idea slowly
worked into her brain.
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
"Oh, there's no trouble about finding a Deputy Attorney!" was the
cheerful reply, accompanied by noise of splashing. She rose unsteadily.
"What are you doing in there?"
"Dressing."
"Are you going out?"
"Yes, my girl, I'm going out."
"Where are you going?" she demanded.
"To Paris," he replied, calmly, through the open door.
"This evening?"
"Right away!"
"Then I'll come with you!" she declared, determinedly.
"No, you won't!" he replied, coolly, returning into the room.
"Perissard objects."
Jacqueline faced him with dilated eyes.
"You're not to try and find my husband!" she cried, between anger and
dread. She swayed on her feet. The thick slur had disappeared from her
voice in the instant.
"Mind your own business!" snapped Laroque, picking up his hat and coat,
"and I'll mind mine!"
"You are not to ask him for that money!" she cried, her voice rising
shrilly.
"I'll do just as I like!" he sneered. Jacqueline clutched the lapel of
his coat with both hands and glared into his face with blazing eyes.
"You shall not go!" she screamed furiously.
"What kind of a fool do you think I am?" he cried, roughly, trying to
break away from her grip. "Who'll stop me?"
Jacqueline, with clenched teeth, clung grimly to his coat.
"Take care, my girl!" he cried, threateningly, as he tried to wrench
his coat out of her hands. "Take care or you'll regret it!"
"You shall not go, I tell you! You shan't go into that house and see my
child. I won't let you go!"
Laroque jerked his coat out of her grip and in the same motion threw
her violently against the bed.
"Let me alone!" he snarled, and stalked into the dressing-room to get
his traveling bag.
Jacqueline lurched to her feet and staggered over toward the hall
door.... The room was reeling around her in crimson streaks. He must
not pass that door! At the price of her life, he must not pass that
door! ... There was no key! ... He would go and tell her husband of her
shame!... Her boy would blush now for the mother, for whose memory he
had wept.... Crazed with rage and horror and drugs she put her back to
the door and stared helplessly around the room. The dresser was at her
right, and there within easy reach was his revolver! With a gasp she
clutched it as Macbeth might have reached for the phantom dagger....
What was his life compared with the thought that her boy would know his
mother's shame?... She heard him coming and hid the revolver in the
folds of her skirt.
Bag in hand, he walked briskly up to the door and attempted to push her
to one side.
"No! You shan't go! you shan't go!" she panted, struggling.
"We'll see!" he laughed, derisively, getting his hand on the knob.
[Illustration: "You shan't go" she panted struggling.]
"Take care!"
"Don't be a fool!" he snarled. "Get out of the way or I'll _make_ you!"
And at the word he shoved her roughly against the foot of the bed. With
an effort she regained her balance.
"_There_--then!"
The pistol flashed up and at the same instant the report rang through
the house.
Laroque dropped his bag, and his right hand went up to his left side.
She gazed at him fearfully and he stared back for a few moments with a
look of blank amazement.
Then his eyes suddenly glazed and he pitched forward on his face at her
feet, rolled over and was still.
There was a rush of footsteps up the stairs and down the hall and
frightened voices calling back and forth. Then the door was thrown open
and Victor, followed by a dozen guests and servants, dashed into the
room.
Jacqueline was still standing with the warm pistol in her hand, looking
down at the face of the dead man. She did not even lift her head when
they entered. Victor took the pistol out of her limp fingers and called
in a shaking voice: "She's killed him! Run for the police, somebody.
Quick!"
Jacqueline did not take her eyes off Laroque's still, white face.
"There's no hurry," she said, in dull, passionless tones. "I shan't try
to get away!"