to the window, pouring water from the inner lavatory, calling for
brandy, loosening the collar. So vivid was this vision that it seemed
he must be doing all this, actually, and he stood vacant-eyed, staring
at the dead man. Once he tried to take a step, but his very muscles
seemed paralysed, and a voice, steady as the clock, seemed to tell him:
"How senseless! The man is dead. Dead. You know it. Let him alone.
Think what to do. How can you escape? Think! Think!"
Suddenly his mind cleared and he laughed shortly, with relief. He had
felt literally guilty. But he had not killed the president. It was
the president who would have killed him. What had he done but protect
himself? If the shock of his defensive lunge had done for Mr. Deeping,
how could he help that? The man's time had come, that was all. And it
was a quick death, a good way. He moved toward the body again and
tried to lift it, but had not the strength. He could not do it
decently. The revolver was still in his hand, and with a quick
exclamation he pushed it into the hip pocket again, considered a
moment, took it out, felt for his folded list at the bottom of the
pocket, got it, and restored the revolver. Moving toward the little
mirror in the lavatory, he straightened his tie, wiped his face, then
stood, thinking, between the body and the door.
Curiously enough, the figure on the floor hardly disturbed his
consciousness. It was difficult for him to take Mr. Deeping seriously,
even in death. He had, always been an absurdity; posturing,
phrase-making, repellant. Death conferred a dignity, he had supposed,
but death had not done this for the president. Another time-worn
superstition, that: humanity had invented so many. Suppose all those
old ideas should turn out, on the event, to be as threadbare, and
empty? Remorse, for instance? Would one dishonesty, one violent break
with the canons of honour, never repeated, _oh, surely never repeated!_
tincture all the future with a slow, spreading black drop? If so ...
but why imagine it? It was unlikely. A whip in the closet to frighten
the timid children....
He shook himself briskly. A clever business, to stand philosophising,
with a dead man in the room, and all his work to do! Now, what was the
next step? To see the directors? There was Webb; would he be clever
enough for Webb? And yet, if Webb had not been able to detect the
frauds that juggled along under his nose, how should Webb be a match
for him, who had thus detected them? It would certainly be to Webb's
interest to keep this quiet till they could straighten it all out.
Then they could divide what the president would have got. And nobody
would be a penny the poorer. It was absurd to call it a crime--if the
event proved successful. And it would be more than absurd to refuse
him the reasonable amount he would ask for: their gain would far exceed
his, even if five of them should divide the whole.
Stop a moment! Suppose he could confront them with Deeping's own
memoranda? Suppose he should control the material the president must
have had ready, in case ... why, he must have an incredible sum by him,
all ready at a moment's notice, something he could convert in an hour
into cash, before he fled. He kept the revolver: he would have kept
this. He was ready for anything. His pockets...
Weldon pushed aside the coat flap, but his hands refused the further
motions. To go through another man's pockets! And yet Deeping had
done worse than this: what sums had he not twisted and turned, added
and subtracted, borrowed and replaced? But not an actual pocket. No,
no. He cursed himself for a weak fool, but the pockets he could not
touch. The spirit indeed was willing, but the flesh, tyrant after
years of honest, deep-indenting habit, travelled its accustomed grooves
and would none of such muscular innovations. Well, he must take his
chance with the Board. He flung open the door and seized a
brass-buttoned official of many years' inferior but faithful service.
"Run," he muttered, "run, Henry, for Mr. Dupont! Mr. Deeping has had
some sort of stroke. Get him and call a doctor quickly--don't make any
row now about it, you understand. I'll stay here."
The man touched his cap and hurried off and Weldon stood nervously by
the door. A minute passed, two minutes. Suddenly he turned, slipped
the ornate brass bolt above the Yale lock, stepped quickly to the dead
man's side, and went with rapid, tactful fingers from one pocket to
another. The clock ticked leisurely, and unconsciously he muttered,
counting the strokes,
"Seven, eight, nine ... he must have them here...."
A low knock at the door caught his strained ear. His hand held a thick
time-table; _New York, New Haven and Hartford_ stared him in the face.
The leaves fell apart as his hand for the first time shook, and between
them--ah! there they were! "Memoranda, etc.," was written on the top
paper. Thrusting the slender sheaf into his pocket, he threw the
time-table on the desk and drew the bolt slowly, peering out between
the bronze curtains with caution.
"How is he--gone?" whispered Dupont, the dead man's brother-in-law,
tiptoeing across the room. "Heart, I suppose. Henry's called the
doctor, but he said he guessed it was no good, from your face. Nobody
has an idea of it--you managed very well, Mr. Weldon."
He glanced at the body and said a few perfunctory words.
"Well, well, we all have to go. Sixty-one, I think. Has any one sent
for Webb? I think Webb should be sent for."
Weldon glanced curiously at the mild, unimportant brother-in-law. He
was always thought of and mentioned in his capacity of brother-in-law.
Why should he think of Webb? Common-sense answered, why not? Webb was
immeasurably the head of them all. Opening the door to discover if
there were yet any disturbance in the bank, he confronted Potter, a
fat, red-faced, many-millioned man, who puffed excitedly by him.
"Terrible thing, isn't it, Dupont? Great shock to you. Naturally.
Has--has Webb been informed? Quite right, quite right."
He dropped into a chair and wiped his pink, fat forehead, looked once
sharply at the body on the floor, then obstinately at his knees. He
appeared very excited to Weldon; more so than the death of his
associate could properly explain, perhaps? No, no: what folly!
Probably it made them all feel rather shaky--overfed, weak-hearted old
fellows, all of them. They saw their end.
A soft tap on the door followed, and as the two older men looked with
one accord at Weldon, he pushed aside the portieres and admitted Mr.
Fayles, a thin, aristocratic, iron-grey man, who made himself one of
them without a word. Stepping to the body he looked a moment, then
sank into the chair Weldon had occupied during his interview, fitted
his gloves into his top hat, dropped it beside him, and with an
extraordinary convulsion of countenance buried his face in his hands.
After a moment's annoyed contemplation of his motionless figure, Weldon
met Dupont's eyes inquiringly. The brother-in-law shook his head, no
wiser, evidently. Weldon gestured imperiously toward the fat man, and
Dupont tiptoed over to him, whispering hoarsely, "I didn't know he was
so attached to Edward, did you, Potter?"
Potter pressed his puffy hands together till they streaked red and
white.
"Good heavens! Good heavens!" he burst out, "this is awful! Where can
Webb be?"
Dupont stared, then shrugged his shoulders vaguely and returned to his
seat. "I really didn't know he was so attached to Edward," he murmured
to Weldon confidentially.
They sat in silence. The president's great bulk stretched among them
like some sleeping, foreign animal in a zoological garden. It was like
a funeral; the funeral of some associate, attended with perfunctory
punctiliousness. The blow was financial, not human: it was the death
of so much bank stock.
Another knock. Again Weldon, recognised master of ceremonies now,
opened the door, this time for the doctor. It was the president's own
doctor; Weldon wondered why it was that important men's doctors were
always to be got so quickly. Did they have a secret call in the event
of a bank president's death? What would happen in case one were called
from the birth, say, of another bank president's son? Imagine the
doctor's state of mind ... he shook himself to dissipate such idiotic
thoughts: his mind worked as the mind of one in a worried, hurried
dream.
"Good-day, gentlemen, a sad errand for me," said the doctor gravely.
"Ah, yes, a little more light, please? Ah, yes. Instantaneous, of
course. Half an hour, forty minutes, I should say? Ah, yes. I
supposed so. Any one present ... any shock or excitement?"
Weldon spoke briefly. He had been discussing bank matters with Mr.
Deeping. He had mentioned a few of the matters in discussion when Mr.
Deeping had put his hand into his pocket, appeared to sustain some
stroke, slipped back in his chair, and fallen dead-weight on the bent
arm. Just as they saw him. It was impossible to move him, except to
free him from the chair. He appeared to have died instantly. It had
been made known immediately.
"Ah, yes," said the doctor. "Just as I expected. I warned him of it.
Not a month ago. A great loss to the community, gentlemen. All the
arrangements, now ... Mr. Dupont, I suppose you ... or if you had
rather that I...."
"If you would, please," said the brother-in-law gratefully, "I am bad
at that sort of thing--I--my head----"
"Ah, yes. Perfectly natural. I will have the body removed, then, as
soon as possible----"
"Not till Webb gets here!" Potter broke out, twisting his hands
convulsively, "wait for Webb. I insist on Webb!"
The doctor stared.
"Mr. Potter, I believe?" he inquired courteously. Then turning to the
others generally, "Do I understand that there is any reason----"
"No reason at all," Dupont interrupted irritably, "not the least. Webb
will be informed, fast enough. If you are kind enough, doctor----"
It was obvious that he dreaded the chance of any personal
responsibility. What a rabbit of a man he was! Weldon remembered
suddenly that a night watchman had been dismissed for saying that Mrs.
Dupont blew her husband's nose for him! One could almost believe it.
Hear him, now.
"Mr. Fayles will, I am sure, agree with me----"
"With you? With _you_?"
Mr. Fayles's voice was hollow, tortured. His face was wet. He turned
his red-rimmed eyes on the man before him.
"What in God's name are you?" he said ferociously. "Wait for Webb, of
course."
His head went back in his hands and they stared at one another.
Fayles, the cold aristocrat. Fayles, the unruffled! The doctor's
glance settled finally on Weldon, as a possible clew to the situation.
"This is--this is--we make every allowance, of course," he began, "for
such an unsettling occurrence. Of course. Mr. Webb, of course, would
naturally ... and yet I hardly like the idea ... it seems..."
There was a strange sense of tension in the room, not to be accounted
for by that dead creature on the floor. No, there was something else.
Weldon with difficulty repressed a smile. That fool of a
brother-in-law knew nothing, clearly. Potter was merely irritable and
at sea generally, he was sure. He could swear that whatever alarmed
Potter alarmed him only through Fayles, whose collapse was
unprecedented. Did Fayles know? Impossible. Fayles stood for
old-fashioned, delicate scruples, finical standards. "As straight as
Joseph Fayles," they said. And yet, why.... He remembered that he had
not yet answered the doctor. How his thoughts ran away with him!
"Mr. Webb's connection, of course," he murmured, "principal director,
you might say, made it natural to lean on him ... to depend ...
undoubtedly he would have been notified. Probably if the doctor were
to send for the body, Mr. Webb would have got there before, and his
colleagues be satisfied. They depended on his judgment to such an
extent..."
The air of the room seemed to tighten round them. That doctor was no
fool. He must feel something--what, how much? He pursed his lips.
"Just as you like, of course," he said briefly. "It would seem that
there can be very little difference in judgment as to the expediency of
burying a dead man, however. If that is what you mean. I will do as
this young man suggests. These matters, of course, have a certain
formality. There are precedents.... Ah, yes. Good-day, gentlemen."
He looked toward the door, which Weldon, in his capacity of master of
ceremonies, opened for him, and passed out, drawing a deep breath as he
crossed the threshold and hurrying, it seemed to Weldon, down the
corridor. Did he want to be rid of them? It seemed so.
There they were. All the directors but Webb. All that counted, that
is. One would imagine it a meeting of the board. Then why was he
here? Suddenly he lost himself in a great yawn, and realized that he
was dying of sleepiness. Neither last night nor the night before had
he closed his eyes.
"As there seems nothing more for me to do, gentlemen," he said
abruptly, "I think I will go now. There is no more assistance----"
"Wait for Webb," cried Potter nervously, "wait, won't you? I--I insist
on it!"
One felt really sorry for this rich, fat man. How ludicrously he
resembled his caricatures!
"I really wish you would wait for Mr. Webb, Mr. Weldon," Dupont assured
him, "it would be a great convenience. You could tell him just how it
happened, you know. Just. You see, your being there, you know...."
"Of course I will stay, if you desire it," Weldon answered gravely,
wondering if he could keep awake. His eyeballs fairly dragged down.
The tall clock's tick confused itself with his thoughts: _one, two!
one, two! one, two!_ Suppose he were to run now, with the "memoranda,
etc.," and take whatever Mr. Deeping had been going to take? That was
folly, if the rest didn't know. Then he would be a common criminal.
If they did know, then he could leave his memoranda slip and they would
understand and make up the sum amongst them. Let Webb and Potter fork
out, for once. Let them bleed the depositors. _One, two! one, two!
one, two!_ Why not? why not? why not? His eyes fairly closed for a
second.
But a soft click of the door opened them. There was no knocking here.
The curtain moved and Mr. Webb was in the room. Involuntarily they
rose to meet him, and Fayles for the first time took his hands down.
Tall and unnaturally thin, his sallow cheeks framed in lank, sandy
hair, his eyes turned down, it was hard to realise that this almost
slouching fellow held the attention of the shrewd in these matters as
the certain head of them all, when the present great leader should have
dropped his sceptre. But this was the Webb in whose labyrinthine
meshes the cartoonists delighted to picture the unhappy flies of their
country's financial system; this was the weaver whose warp was of
railroads and his woof the unhappy populace, in yet other pictorial
fancies. This was that Webb before which many patient Penelopes had
sat through many Sunday editions, dressed in stars and stripes, a
sorrowing, perplexed America, and gaped to find it unwoven by day,
though thick patterned with rich promises in the evening.
"All over, is it?" he said in his dry, sceptical voice, "too bad, too
bad."
His eye shot out from its heavy lid and took them all in. It lingered
on Weldon.
"This the young man with him at the time? Sudden shock, eh?"
Weldon told his story again. They had talked of business. The
president had put his hand in his pocket. Handkerchief, probably. Had
experienced some shock and fallen, dead-weight, on his bent arm. As
you see him now. Unable to lift him. Notified Mr. Dupont immediately.
Nothing more.
"Dear, dear!" said Mr. Webb. "As quickly as that! Hard on you.
Nothing handy, I suppose; only window up and water and such things?"
For the life of him Weldon could not help the slow red in his face. He
glanced at the window: it was locked. For Heaven's sake, why lie? He
was no murderer. And yet--any one, _any one_ would have opened that
window.
"I did what I could," he said in a low voice, "but it was plain that
Mr. Deeping was dead. He never drew another breath."
"No brandy about, I suppose?" pursued Webb.
But Potter interrupted.
"For Heaven's sake, Webb," he implored, "let all that go! He's gone.
You know he never touched a drop of anything. Of course there was no
brandy."
"Of course," Weldon interrupted, relieved. Every one knew the
president's views on that subject; he had forgotten them.
"Of course," repeated Mr. Webb softly and glanced again at the window.
An intense irritation flared up in Weldon: this man flicked him on the
raw with every syllable.
"If you have no further use for me, gentlemen," he began, but Webb
waved his thin, small-boned hand negligently.
"One moment, Mr.--Mr. Weldon, I think? What business did you say you
were discussing with my poor friend?"
Mr. Fayles took a quick step and grasped his colleague's arm.
"For God's sake, Webb," he muttered huskily, "look at us! Where are
we? What's to be done? They've sent for the body by now."
Potter seized the other arm.
"Will you tell me what all this means, Webb?" he blustered, "what's the
matter with Joe Fayles? Is it possible that--is anything----"
Webb's lids lifted and the snake-like swiftness of his glance at Fayles
was not lost on the others.
"If Mr. Fayles," he began slowly, "has occupied himself in spreading
the disquiet he has endured since he discovered (and imparted to me)
the fact that my poor friend here carried a revolver about with him, he
has done a mighty foolish job. That's all I have to say."
Even Dupont was alarmed now. It was with a grim amusement that Weldon
watched them all. Dupont suspected Potter, was staring malevolently at
him and chewing his slight moustache nervously. Potter never took his
eyes from Fayles, whose clutch on Webb was the anguished clutch of the
drowning man that has caught at sea-weeds. They seemed to Weldon like
actors in a play, and he was the spectator. He observed them from his
red plush seat, almost despising them for the entertainment they gave
him. How absurd they were, with their dead president and their
suspicions. They were mad to get at the pockets--he knew! But they
hadn't the nerve. And Webb, crafty old Webb, was holding them in like
dogs on a leash.
"Did he really carry a pistol?" he said gently, "let's see."
He leaned over the body.
"I wonder why he wanted the pistol pocket?" he went on casually, "any
idea, Mr. Weldon?"
A tiny, fine chill tingled at Weldon's heels and flew up to his hair.
He had a sudden flashing sense of being in a net that was softly
tightening. In an agony of regret he wished that he had not that sheaf
of "memoranda, etc." It was suddenly clear to him that he had stolen
them.
"I have no idea, sir," his tongue answered stolidly.
"No, ... of course not," said Mr. Webb thoughtfully. "Well, gentlemen,
I can't see the need for any more discussion. This is very
deplorable--a great shock. He was very methodical and no doubt
everything is in easy shape...."
They drew close to him and Weldon, though he caught the murmur of
voices, distinguished nothing but the steady notes of the clock: _one,
two! one, two!_ His head nodded a trifle and for one blissful second
his eyelids fell. The clock began to strike eleven. _One!_ he
struggled, but it was too sweet. _Two!_ He became dimly conscious of
a rustling and movement by him. _Three!_ there was a light touch on
his arm and Webb stood near the chair he had dropped into. The others
must have gone.
"You seem exhausted, Mr. Weldon," he said quietly.
"I--I have missed my sleep lately," Weldon stammered, trying to control
the motions of his mouth, his voice striking his own ear as mechanical,
far away, laboured.
"Exactly," said Webb suavely. "And now, Mr. Weldon, _how much do you
expect for those papers_?"
* * * * *
Weldon drew his chair across the broad verandah in an aimless,
leisurely way, anchored it in the shadow of a wicker table laden with
cool glass pitchers and iced fruits, and sank into it, sighing
restlessly. The pillars of coral that supported the verandah roof
framed, each pair of them, an oblong of sapphire bay; vivid masses of
pink oleanders hedged the foreground; the tremulous sapphire crawled
softly over a creamy crescent beach. In the pleasant noon stillness
the mild whine of a patient puppy, broken by the chuckles of some young
human thing, rose on the air. Jars of sweet flowers sent out their
almost tropical odours with each tiny, invisible wind current: they
seemed to puff it into his face.
A great green and flame-coloured parrot, hung head downward in his
yellow cage, began suddenly a mechanical, dry litany:
"_Manana! manana! manana!_" It was like a clock--passionless, regular,
meditative. Weldon shrugged his shoulders distastefully; he had never
been able to conquer his dislike of steady, measured sounds. It was an
unreasonable weakness, but incurable. He twisted uneasily in his white
flannels as the bird droned on,
"_Manana! manana! manana!_"
"Be still, Chico, be still, sir!"
A fair, finely grown boy took the coral steps two at a bound and
threatened the parrot.
"Daddy, keep him quiet, won't you? He frightens my white mice awfully.
Why do mice hate parrots? Do you know, daddy?"
Weldon's face cleared and he threw his arm over the slender shoulders.
"I don't know, Pippo, I can't guess," he said. "Where's your mother?"
"Just beyond you," and the boy slipped away to his pets, grudging the
time for her kiss in passing.
She stood softly behind the wicker chair and laid her hand on his
forehead. Her lips were only a little smoother.
"Still troubled, dearest?" she asked him in her pleasant voice. "Still
dreaming?"
She was very dark, with reddish lights in her thick, low-growing hair,
and brown, broad eyebrows. Under them her eyes shone, a frank, dark
brown; she bore a curious likeness to that nurse he had seen in the
doctor's office, so many years ago. How strange that a passing fate
should have set his ideal of dear and loving women forever! She had
even the same small dimple at the left of her mouth.
She slipped to the floor beside him and laid her head in her wifely way
against his knee.
"I'm so sorry it bothers you, Phil," she murmured, her cheek against
his hand. "One would think you were a superstitious boy, you silly!
Hear baby--he's playing so dearly with those puppies! He pats them and
then pinches their tails so slyly! Oh, Ted! Oh, baby! Call to mummy!"
From the balcony above a shrill crow drowned the complaint of the
puppies.
"Doesn't he say it plainly!" she cried, flushing a beautiful
mother-rose. "And he is so strong, Phil!"
He caressed her absently. Ten years gone, and a dream had swept those
years to one side as one would draw a bronze curtain, had opened the
past as one would open a heavy mahogany door! All night a tall, carved
clock had ticked, ticked through his dreams, _one, two! one, two! one,
two!_ A sinister, sandy face had mocked and probed him, a fat, animal
face had irritated him, a pale, haunted face had pleaded with him. He
had tossed himself awake, had listened thankfully to the soft breathing
beside him, had kissed the fragrant braid across his face, and sunk
again into heavy, sultry nightmare, doomed to live that shameful day
through every clock-tick. And now his brain was cloudy with it. His
hand lay listless on her shoulder.
A five-year-old girl, lovely as a tea rose, stood doubtfully in the
cedar-wood door, poised for flight either way, sucking in the dimple at
the left of her mouth. Running at his call she flew into his arms and
dropped her buttercup head on his shoulder. For the first time he
smiled, and the wise wife slipped quietly away and watched them from
the door, guessing at their murmurs, counting their kisses. Later she
disturbed them reluctantly.
"I want to say you are not at home," she said, "but I daren't quite do
that, for he is from the States, dear, and it is important business.
His name," dropping her eyes to the white rectangle in her hand, "is
Webb. Shall I send him out here?"
Weldon put the child down from his knees and half rose.
"Yes," he said, clearing his throat, "send him out here. And keep the
children away."
So this was it. It had not been for nothing, that dream.