THE DAY OF TEMPTATION
THE dawn had long passed and the milkmen had awakened their unwilling
clients two hours agone before Anthony Trent finished his story. He was
not a quick worker. His was a mind that labored heavily unless the
details of his work were accurate. This time he was satisfied. It was a
good story and the editor for whom he was doing a series would be
pleased. He might even increase his rates.
Crosbeigh, the editor of the magazine which sought Anthony Trent’s crook
stories, was an amiable being who had won a reputation for profundity by
reason of eloquent silences. He would have done well in any line of work
where originality was not desired. He knew, from what his circulation
manager told him, that Trent’s stories made circulation and he liked the
writer apart from his work. Perhaps because he was not a disappointed
author he was free from certain editorial prejudices.
“Sit down,” he cried cordially, when Anthony Trent was shown in. “Take a
cigarette and I’ll read this right away.” Crosbeigh was a nervous man
who battled daily with subway crowds and was apt to be irritable.
“It’s great,” he said when he had finished it, “Great! Doyle, Hornung,
well--there you are!” It was one of his moments of silent eloquence.
The listener might have inferred anything.
“But they are paid real money,” replied Anthony Trent gloomily.
“You get two cents a word,” Crosbeigh reminded him, “you haven’t a wife
and children to support.”
“I’d be a gay little adventurer to try it on what I make at writing,”
Trent told him. “It takes me almost a month to write one of those yarns
and I get a hundred and fifty each.”
“You are a slow worker,” his editor declared.
“I have to be,” he retorted. “If I were writing love slush and pretty
heroine stuff it would be different. Do you know, Crosbeigh, there isn’t
a thing in these stories of mine that is impossible? I take the most
particular care that my details are correct. When I began I didn’t know
anything about burglar alarms. What did I do? I got a job in the shop
that makes the best known one. I’m worth more than two cents a word!”
“That’s our maximum,” Crosbeigh asserted. “These are not good days for
the magazine business. Shot to pieces. If I said what I knew. If you
knew what _I_ got and how much I had to do with it!”
Anthony Trent looked at him critically. He saw a very carefully dressed
Crosbeigh to-day, a man whose trousers were pressed, whose shoes were
shined, who exuded prosperity. Never had he seen him so apparently
affluent.
“Come into money?” he enquired. “Whence the prosperity? Whose wardrobe
have you robbed?”
“These are my own clothes,” returned Crosbeigh with dignity, “at least
leave me my clothes.”
“Sure,” said Trent amiably, “if I took ’em you’d be arrested. But tell
me why this sartorial display. Are you going to be photographed for the
‘great editors’ series?”
“I’m lunching with an old friend,” Crosbeigh answered, “a man of
affairs, a man of millions, a man about whom I could say many things.”
“Say them,” his contributor demanded, “let me in on a man for whom you
have arrayed yourself in all your glory. Who is your friend? Is she
pretty? I don’t believe it’s a man at all.”
“It’s a man I know and respect,” he said, a trifle nettled at the
comments his apparel had drawn. “It’s the man who takes me every year to
the Yale-Harvard boat race.”
“Your annual jag party? He’s no fit company for a respectable editor.”
“It is college spirit,” Crosbeigh explained.
“You can call it by any name but it’s too strong for you. What is the
name of your honored friend?”
“Conington Warren,” Crosbeigh said proudly.
“That’s the millionaire sportsman with the stable of steeple-chasers,
isn’t it?” Trent demanded.
“He wins all the big races,” Crosbeigh elaborated.
“He’s enormously rich, splendidly generous, has everything. Only one
thing--drink.” Crosbeigh fell into silence.
“You’ve led him astray you mean?” The spectacle of the sober editor
consorting with reckless bloods of the Conington Warren type amused
Trent.
“Same year at college,” Crosbeigh explained, “and he has always been
friendly. God knows why,” the editor said gloomily. The difference in
their lot seemed suddenly to appal him.
“There must be something unsuspectedly bad in your make-up,” Trent
declared, “which attracts him to you. It can’t be he wants to sell you a
story.”
“There are all sorts of rumors about him,” Crosbeigh went on
meditatively, “started by his wife’s people, I believe. He was wild.
Sometimes he has hinted at it. I know him well enough to call him
‘Connie’ and go up to his dressing-room sometimes. That’s a mark of
intimacy. My Lord, Trent, but it makes me envious to see with what
luxury the rich can live. He has a Japanese valet and masseur, Togoyama,
and an imported butler who looks like a bishop. They know him at his
worst and worship him. He’s magnetic, that’s what Connie is, magnetic.
Have you ever thought what having a million a year means?”
“Ye Gods,” groaned Trent, “don’t you read my lamentations in every story
you buy from me at bargain rates?”
“And a shooting box in Scotland which he uses two weeks a year in the
grouse season. A great Tudor residence in Devonshire overlooking Exmoor,
a town house in Park Lane which is London’s Fifth Avenue! And you know
what he’s got here in his own country. Can you imagine it?”
“Not on forty dollars a week,” said Anthony Trent gloomily.
“You’d make more if you were the hero of your own stories,” Crosbeigh
told him.
Anthony Trent turned on him quickly, “What do you mean?”
“Why this crook you are making famous gets away with enough plunder to
live as well as Conington Warren.”
“Ah, but that’s in a story,” returned the author.
“Then you mean they aren’t as exact and possible as you’ve been telling
me?”
“They are what I said they were,” their author declared. “They could be
worked out, with ordinary luck, by any man with an active body, good
education and address. The typical thick-witted criminal wouldn’t have a
chance.”
It was a curious thing, thought Anthony Trent, that Crosbeigh should
mention the very thing that had been running in his mind for weeks. To
live in such an elaborate manner as Conington Warren was not his
ambition. The squandering of large sums of money on stage favorites of
the moment was not to his taste; but he wanted certainly more than he
was earning. Trent had a passion for fishing, golf and music. Not the
fishing that may be indulged in on Sunday and week-day on fishing
steamers, making excursions to the banks where one may lose an ear on
another angler’s far flung hook, but the fly fishing where the gallant
trout has a chance to escape, the highest type of fishing that may
appeal to man.
And his ambitions to lower his golf handicap until it should be scratch
could not well be accomplished by his weekly visit to Van Cortlandt
Park. He wished to be able to join Garden City or Baltusrol and play a
round a day in fast company. And this could not be accomplished on what
he was making.
And as to music, he longed to compose an opera. It was a laudable
ambition and would commence, he told himself, with a grand piano. He had
only a hard-mouthed hired upright so far. Sometimes he had seen himself
in the rôle of his hero amply able to indulge himself in his moderate
ambitions. It was of this he had been thinking when Mr. Lund came to his
room. And now the very editor for whom he had created his characters was
making the suggestion.
“I was only joking,” Crosbeigh assured him.
“It is not a good thing to joke about,” Anthony Trent answered, “and an
honest man at forty a week is better than an outlaw with four hundred.”
He made this remark to set his thoughts in less dangerous channels, but
it sounded dreadfully hollow and false. He half expected that Crosbeigh
would laugh aloud at such a hackneyed sentiment, but Crosbeigh looked
grave and earnest. “Very true,” he answered. “A man couldn’t think of
it.”
“And why not?” Anthony Trent demanded; “would the fictional character I
created do as much harm to humanity as some cotton mill owner who
enslaved little children and gave millions to charity?”
A telephone call relieved Crosbeigh of the need to answer. Trent swept
into his brief case the carbon copy of his story which he had brought by
mistake.
“Where are you going?” the editor demanded.
“Van Cortlandt,” the contributor answered; “I’m going to try and get my
drive back. I’ve been slicing for a month.”
“Conington Warren has a private eighteen-hole course on his Long Island
place,” Crosbeigh said with pride. “I’ve been invited to play.”
“You’re bent on driving me to a life of crime,” Trent exclaimed
frowning. “An eighteen-hole private course while I struggle to get a
permit for a public one!”
But Anthony Trent did not play golf that afternoon at Van Cortlandt
Park. As a matter of fact he never again invaded that popular field of
play.
Outside Crosbeigh’s office he was hailed by an old Dartmouth chum, one
Horace Weems.
“Just in time for lunch,” said Weems wringing his hand. Weems had always
admired Anthony Trent and had it been possible would have remodeled
himself physically and mentally in the form of another Trent. Weems was
short, blond and perspired profusely.
“Hello, Tubby,” said Trent without much cordiality, “you look as though
the world had been treating you right.”
“It has,” said Weems happily. “Steel went to a hundred and twelve last
week and it carried me up with it.”
Weems had been, as Trent remembered, a bond salesman. Weems could sell
anything. He had an ingratiating manner and a disability to perceive
snubs or insults when intent on making sales. He had paid his way
through college by selling books. Trent had been a frequent victim.
“What do you want to sell me this time?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” Weems retorted, “I’m going to buy you the best little lunch
that Manhattan has to offer. Anywhere you say and anything you like to
eat and drink.” Weems stopped a cruising taxi. “Hop in, old scout, and
tell the pirate where to go.”
Trent directed the man to one of the three famous and more or less
exclusive restaurants New York possesses.
“I hope you have the price,” he commented, “otherwise I shall have to
cash a check I’ve just received for a story.”
“Keep your old check,” jeered Weems, “I’m full of money. Why, boy, I own
an estate and have a twelve-cylinder car of my own.”
Over the luncheon Horace Weems babbled cheerfully. He had made over
three hundred thousand dollars and was on his way to millionairedom.
“You ought to see my place up in Maine,” he said presently.
“Maine?” queried his guest. It was in Maine that Anthony Trent, were he
fortunate enough, would one day erect a camp. “Where?”
“On Kennebago lake,” Weems told him and stopped when an expression of
pain crossed the other’s face. “What’s the matter? That sauce wrong?”
“Just sheer envy,” Trent admitted, “you’ve got what I want. I know every
camp on the Lake. Which is it?”
“The Stanley place,” said Weems. “The finest camp on the whole Lake. I
bought it furnished and it’s some furniture believe me. There’s a grand
piano--that would please you--and pictures that are worth thousands, one
of ’em by some one named Constable. Ever hear of him?”
“Yes,” Trent grunted, “I have. Fancy you with a Constable and a grand
piano when you don’t know one school of painting from another and think
the phonograph the only instrument worth listening to!”
“I earned it,” Weems said, a little huffily. “Why don’t you make money
instead of getting mad because I do?”
“Because I haven’t your ability, I suppose,” Trent admitted. “It’s a
gift and the gods forgot me.”
“Some of the boys used to look down on me,” said Weems, “but all I ask
is ‘where is little Horace to-day?’ This money making game is the only
thing that counts, believe me. Up in Hanover I wasn’t one, two, three,
compared with you. Your father was well off and mine hadn’t a nickel.
You graduated _magna cum laude_ and I had to work like a horse to slide
by. You were popular because you made the football team and could sing
and play.” Weems paused reflectively, “I never did hear any one who
could mimic like you. You should have taken it up and gone into
vaudeville. How much do you make a week?”
“Forty--with luck.”
“I give that to my chauffeur and I’m not rich yet. But I shall be. I’m
out to be as rich as that fellow over there.”
He pointed to a rather high colored extremely well dressed man about
town to whom the waiters were paying extreme deference.
“That’s Conington Warren,” Weems said with admiration in his voice,
“he’s worth a million per annum.”
Anthony Trent turned to look at him. There was no doubt that Conington
Warren was a personage. Just now he was engaged in an argument with the
head waiter concerning _Château Y’Quem_. Trent noticed his gesture of
dismissal when he had finished. It was an imperious wave of his hand. It
was his final remark as it were.
“Some spender,” Weems commented. “Who’s the funny old dodger with him?
Some other millionaire I suppose.”
“I’ll tell him that next time I see him,” laughed Trent beholding
Crosbeigh, Crosbeigh who looked wise where vintages were discussed and
knew not one from another. A well-dressed man paused at Warren’s side
and Weems, always anxious to acquire information, begged his guest to be
silent.
“Did you get that?” he asked when the man had moved away.
“I don’t make it a habit to listen to private conversations,” Trent
returned stiffly.
“Well I do,” said Weems unabashed. “If I hadn’t I shouldn’t have got in
on this Steel stuff. I’m a great little listener. That fellow who spoke
is Reginald Camplyn, the man who drives a coach and four and wins blue
ribbons at the horse show. Warren asked him to a dinner here to-morrow
night at half past eight in honor of some horse who’s done a fast
trial.” Weems made an entry in his engagement book.
“Are you going, too?” Trent demanded.
“I’m putting down the plug’s name,” said Weems, “Sambo,” he said.
“That’s no name for a thoroughbred. Say couldn’t you introduce me?”
“I don’t know him,” Trent asserted.
“You know the man with him. That’s enough for me. If you do it right the
other fellow’s bound to introduce you. Then you beckon me over and we’ll
all sit down together.”
“That isn’t my way of doing things,” replied Trent with a frown.
Weems made a gesture of despair and resignation.
“That’s why you’ll always be poor. That’s why you’ll never have a grand
piano and a Constable and a swell place up in Maine.”
Anthony Trent looked at him and smiled.
“There may be other ways,” he said slowly.
“You try ’em,” Weems retorted crossly. “Here you are almost thirty years
old, highly educated, prep school and college and you make a week what I
give my chauffeur.”
“I think I will,” Trent answered.
Weems attacked his salad angrily. If only Trent had been what he termed
aggressive, an introduction could easily have been effected. Then Weems
would have seen to it that he and Warren left the restaurant together.
Some one would be bound to see them. Then, for Weems had an expansive
fancy, it would be rumored that he, Horace Weems, who cleaned up on
Steel, was friendly with the great Conington Warren. It might lead to
anything!
“Well,” he commented, “I’d rather be little Horace Weems, who can’t tell
a phonograph from a grand piano than Mr. Anthony Trent, who makes with
luck two thousand a year.”
“I’m in bad company to-day,” replied Trent. “First Crosbeigh and now you
tempting me. You know very well I haven’t that magic money making
ability you have. My father hadn’t it or he would have left money when
he died and not debts.”
“Magic!” Weems snorted. “Common sense, that’s what it is.”
“It’s magic,” the other insisted, “as a boy you exchanged a jack knife
for a fishing pole and the fishing pole for a camera and the camera for
a phonograph and the phonograph for a canoe and the canoe for a sailing
boat and so on till you’ve got your place in Maine and a chauffeur who
makes more than I do! Magic’s the only name for it.”
“You must come up and see me in Maine,” Weems said, later.
“Make your mind easy,” Trent assured him, “I will.”