then agin maybe I didn't!"
"I hope you like this, Marsh; it's the sort of thing I been up against,"
said Gilmore.
By way of answer Langham made a weary gesture. The horror of the
situation was now a thing beyond fear.
"I'm for sending the drunken loafer to the other side of the continent,"
said Gilmore.
"What's the use of that?" asked Langham dully.
"Every use," rejoined Gilmore with fresh confidence. "It's enough, ain't
it, that he's talked to your father; we can't take chances on his
talking to any one else. There's the west-bound express; I'm for putting
him on that--there's time enough. We can give him a couple of hundred
dollars and that will be the end of him, for if he ever shows his face
here in Mount Hope, I'll break every bone in his body. What do you say?"
"Perhaps you are right!" And Langham glanced uncertainly at the
handy-man.
"Well, it's either that, or else I can knock him over the head. Perhaps
you had rather do that, it's more in your line."
"Boss, you give me the money and let me go now, and I won't _ever_ come
back!" cried Montgomery eagerly. "I been lookin' for the chance to get
clear of this bum town! I'll stay away, don't you lose no sleep about
that; I ain't got nothin' to ever bring me back."
And on the moment Mr. Montgomery banished from his mind and heart all
idea of the pure joys of domestic life. It was as if his old woman had
never been. He was sure travel was what he required, and a great deal
of it, and all in one direction--away from Mount Hope.
No unnecessary time was wasted on Montgomery's appearance. A wet towel
in the not too gentle hands of Mr. Gilmore removed the blood stains from
his face, and then he was led forth into the night,--the night which so
completely swallowed up all trace of him that his old woman and her
brood sought his accustomed haunts in vain. Nor was Mr. Moxlow any more
successful in his efforts to discover the handy-man's whereabouts. As
for Mount Hope she saw in the mysterious disappearance of the star
witness only the devious activities of John North's friends.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FATHER AND SON
While Mr. Gilmore was an exceedingly capable accomplice, at once
resourceful, energetic, unsentimental and conscienceless, he yet
combined with these solid merits, certain characteristics which rendered
uninterrupted intercourse with him a horror and a shame to Marshall
Langham who was daily and almost hourly paying the price the gambler had
set on his silence. And what a price it was! Gilmore was his master,
coarse, brutal, and fiercely exacting. How he hated him, and yet how
necessary he had become; for the gambler never faltered, was never
uncertain; he met each difficulty with a callous readiness which Langham
knew he himself would utterly have lacked. He decided this was because
Gilmore was without imagination, since in his own many fearful, doubting
moments, he saw always what he had come to believe as the inevitable
time when the wicked fabric they were building would collapse like a
house of cards in a gale of wind, and his terrible secret would be
revealed to all men.
All this while, step by step, Gilmore, without haste but without pause,
was moving toward his desires. He came and went in the Langham house as
if he were master there.
When Marshall had first informed Evelyn that he expected to have Mr.
Gilmore in to dinner, there had been a scene, and she had threatened to
appeal to the judge; but he told her fiercely that he would bring home
whom he pleased, that it suited him to be decent to Andy and that was
all there was to it. And apparently she soon found something to like in
this strange intimate of her husband's; at least she had made no protest
after the gambler's first visit to the house.
On his part Gilmore was quickly conscious of the subtle encouragement
she extended him. She understood him, she saw into his soul, she divined
his passion for her and she was not shocked by it. In his unholy musings
he told himself that here was a woman who was dead game--and a lady,
too, with all the pretty ways and refinements that were so lacking in
the other women he had known.
Montgomery was some two days gone toward the West and Gilmore had
dropped around ostensibly to see Marshall Langham, but in reality to
make love to Marshall Langham's wife, when the judge, looking gray and
old, walked in on the little group unobserved. He paused for an instant
near the door.
Evelyn was seated before the piano and Gilmore was bending above her,
while Marshall, with an unread book in his hands and with a half-smoked
cigar between his teeth, was lounging in front of the fire. The judge's
glance rested questioningly on Gilmore, but only for a moment. Then an
angry flame of recognition colored his thin cheeks.
Aware now of his father's presence, Marshall tossed aside his book and
quitted his chair. For two days he had been dreading this meeting, and
for two days he had done what he could to avert it.
"You must have had a rather cold walk, father; let me draw a chair up
close to the fire for you," he said.
Evelyn had risen to greet the judge, while the gambler turned to give
him an easy nod. A smile hid itself in the shadow of his black mustache;
he was feeling very sure of himself and surer still of Evelyn. The
disfavor or approval of this slight man of sixty meant nothing to him.
"How do you do, sir!" said the judge with icy civility.
Had he met Gilmore on the street he would not have spoken to him. As he
slowly withdrew his eyes from the gambler, he said to his son:
"Can you spare me a moment or two, Marshall?"
"Come into the library," and Marshall led the way from the room.
They walked the length of the hall in silence, Marshall a step or two in
advance of the judge. He knew his father was there on no trivial errand.
This visit was the result of his interview with Joe Montgomery. How
much had the handy-man told him? This was the question that had been
revolving in his mind for the last two days, and he was about to find an
answer to it.
The father and son entered the room, each heavily preoccupied. Marshall
seated himself and stared moodily into the fire. Already the judge had
found a chair and his glance was fixed on the carpet at his feet.
Presently looking up he asked:
"Will you be good enough to tell me what that fellow is doing here?"
"Andy?"
The single word came from Langham as with a weary acceptance of his
father's anger.
"Yes, certainly--Gilmore--of whom do you imagine me to be speaking?"
"Give a dog a bad name--"
"He has earned his name. I had heard something of this but did not
credit it!" said the judge.
There was another pause.
"Perhaps you will be good enough to explain how I happen to meet that
fellow here?"
The judge regarded his son fixedly. There had always existed a cordial
frankness in their intercourse, for though the judge was a man of few
intimacies, family ties meant much to him, and these ties were now all
centered in his son. He had shown infinite patience with Marshall's
turbulent youth; an even greater patience with his dissipated manhood;
he believed that in spite of the terrible drafts he was making on his
energies, his future would not be lacking in solid and worthy
achievement. In his own case the traditional vice of the Langhams had
passed him by. He was grateful for this, but it had never provoked in
him any spirit of self-righteousness; indeed, it had only made him the
more tender in his judgment of his son's lapses.
"Marshall--" and the tone of anger had quite faded from his
voice--"Marshall, what is that fellow's hold on you?"
"You would not appreciate Andy's peculiar virtues even if I were to try
to describe them," said Marshall with a smile of sardonic humor.
"Do you consider him the right sort of a person to bring into your
home?"
"It won't hurt him!" said Marshall.
The judge, with a look on his face that mingled astonishment and injury,
sank back in his chair. He never attempted anything that even faintly
suggested flippancy, and he was unappreciative of this tendency in
others.
"You have not told me what this fellow's hold on you is?" he said, after
a moment's silence.
"Oh, he's done me one or two good turns."
"You mean in the way of money?"
Marshall nodded.
"Are you in his debt now, may I ask?"
"No," and Marshall moved restlessly.
"Are you quite frank with me, Marshall?" asked the judge with that rare
gentleness of voice and manner that only his son knew.
"Quite."
"Because it would be better to make every sacrifice and be rid of the
obligation."
Another long pause followed in which there came to the ears of the two
men the sound of a noisy waltz that Evelyn was playing. Again it was the
judge who broke the oppressive silence.
"I came here to-night, Marshall, because there is a matter I must
discuss with you. Perhaps you will tell me what you and Gilmore have
done with Joe Montgomery?"
Marshall had sought to prepare himself against the time when this very
question should be asked him, but the color left his cheeks.
"I don't think I know what you mean," he said slowly.
His father made an impatient gesture.
"Don't tell me that! What has become of Montgomery? Look at me! Two
nights ago he came to see me; I had sent for him; I had learned from
Nellie that he had practically deserted her. I learned further from the
man himself that you and Gilmore were largely responsible for this."
"He was drunk, of course."
"He had been drinking--yes--"
"Doesn't that explain his remarkable statement? What reason could Andy
or any one have for wishing to keep him from his wife?" asked Marshall
who had recovered his accustomed steadiness.
"He was ready with an answer for that question when I asked it. Do you
wish to know what that answer was?" said the judge.
Marshall did not trust himself to speak; he felt the judge's eyes on him
and could not meet them. He saw himself cowering there in his chair with
his guilt stamped large on every feature. His throat was dry and his
lips were parched, he did not know whether he could speak. His shoulders
drooped and his chin rested on his breast. What was the use--was it
worth the struggle? Suppose Montgomery, in spite of his promises, came
back to Mount Hope, suppose Gilmore's iron nerve failed him!
"You don't answer me, Marshall," said the judge.
"I don't understand you--" evaded Marshall.
"From my soul I wish I could believe you!" exclaimed his father. "If
it's not debt, what is the nature of your discreditable connection with
Gilmore?"
Marshall glanced up quickly; he seemed to breathe again; perhaps after
all Montgomery had said less than he supposed him to have said!
"I have already told you that I owe Gilmore nothing!"
"I should be glad to think it, but I warn you to stand clear of him and
his concerns, for I am going to investigate the truth of Montgomery's
story," declared the judge.
"What did he tell you?" Marshall spoke with an effort.
"That his evidence in the North case was false, that it was inspired by
Gilmore."
Marshall passed a shaking hand across his face.
"Nonsense!" he said.
"His story will be worth looking into. He stood for the truth of what he
said in part, he insisted that he saw a man cross McBride's shed on the
night of the murder and drop into the alley, and the man was not John
North. He seemed unwilling that North, through any instrumentality of
his, should suffer for a crime of which he was innocent; his feeling on
this point was unfeigned and unmistakable."
There was silence again, while the two men stared at each other. From
the parlor the jarring sound of the music reached them, inconceivably
out of harmony with the seriousness of their mood.
"I have wished to take no action in the matter of Montgomery's
disappearance until I saw you, Marshall," said the judge. "I have been
sick with this thing! Now I am going to lay such facts as I have before
Moxlow."
Marshall stared moodily into the fire. He told himself that the
prosecuting attorney would be in great luck if he got anything out of
Gilmore.
"I purpose to suggest to Moxlow a fresh line of investigation where this
important witness is concerned, and Mr. Gilmore as the man most likely
to clear up the mystery surrounding his disappearance from Mount Hope.
We may not be able to get anything very tangible out of him in the way
of information, but I imagine we may cause him some little anxiety and
annoyance. You can't afford to be mixed up in this affair, and I warn
you again to stand clear of Gilmore! If there is any truth in
Montgomery's statement it can only have the most sinister significance,
for I don't need to tell you that some powerful motive must be back of
Gilmore's activity. If North was not responsible for McBride's death,
where do the indications all point? Who more likely to commit such a
crime than a social outcast--a man plying an illegal trade in defiance
of the laws?"
"Hush! For God's sake speak lower!" cried Marshall, giving way to an
uncontrollable emotion of terror.
Racked and shaken, he stared about him as if he feared another presence
in the room. The judge leaned forward and rested a thin hand on his
son's knee.
"Marshall, what do you know of Gilmore's connection with this matter?"
"I want him let alone! To lay such stress on Montgomery's drunken talk
is absurd!"
The judge's lips met in a determined line.
"I scarcely expected to hear that from you! I am not likely, as you
know, to be influenced in the discharge of my duty by any private
consideration."
He quitted his chair and stood erect, his figure drawn to its fullest
height.
"Wait--I didn't mean that," protested Marshall.
The judge resumed his chair.
"What did you mean?" he asked.
"What's the use of throwing Moxlow off on a fresh scent?"
"That's a very remarkable point of view!" said the judge, with a
mirthless laugh.
In the utter selfishness that his fear had engendered, it seemed a
monstrous thing to Langham that any one should wish to clear North, in
whose conviction lay his own salvation. More than this, he had every
reason to hate North, and if he were hanged it would be but a roundabout
meting out of justice for that hideous wrong he had done him, the shame
of which was ever present. He saw one other thing clearly, the necessity
that Gilmore should be left alone; for the very moment the gambler felt
the judge was moving against him, that moment would come his fierce
demands that he be called off--that Marshall quiet him, no matter how.
"Have you been near North since his arrest?" asked the judge, apparently
speaking at random.
"No," said Marshall.
"May I ask if you are offended because of his choice of counsel?"
"That has nothing to do with it!" said the younger man, moving
impatiently in his chair.
"I do not like your attitude in this matter, Marshall; I like it as
little as I understand it. But I have given my warning. Keep clear of
that fellow Gilmore, do not involve yourself in his fortunes, or the
result may prove disastrous to you!"
"I want him let alone!" said Marshall doggedly, speaking with desperate
resolution.
"Why?" asked the judge.
"Because it is better for all concerned; you--you don't know what you're
meddling with--"
He quitted his chair and fell to pacing to and fro. His father's glance,
uncertain and uneasy, followed him as he crossed and recrossed the room.
"I find I can not agree with you, Marshall!" said the judge at length.
"I do not like hints, and unless you can deal with me with greater
frankness than you have yet done, there is not much use in prolonging
this discussion."
"As you like, then," replied Marshall, wheeling on him with sudden
recklessness. "I want to tell you just this--you'll not hurt Gilmore,
but--"
Words failed him, and his voice died away on his white and twitching
lips into an inarticulate murmur.
He struggled vainly to recover the mastery of himself, but his fear, now
the growth of his many days and nights of torture, would not let him
finish what he had started to say.
"Very good, I don't want to hurt anybody, but I do want to find that
man, whoever he is, that you and Gilmore are shielding; the man Joe
Montgomery saw cross those sheds the night of the murder; I am going to
bend my every energy to learning who that man is, and when I have
discovered his identity--"
"You'll want to see him in North's place, will you?" asked Marshall. The
words came from him in a hoarse whisper and his arm was extended
threateningly toward his father. "You're sure about that? You can't
conceive of the possibility that you'd be glad not to know? You want to
have John North out of his cell and this other man there in his place;
you want to face him day after day in the court room--you're sure?" His
shaking arm continued to menace the judge. "Well, you don't need to find
Montgomery, and you don't need to hound Gilmore; I can tell you more
than they can--"
His bloodshot eyes, fixed and staring, seemed starting from their
sockets.
"The facts you want to know are hidden here!" He struck his hand
savagely against his breast and lurched half-way across the room, then
he swung about and once more faced the judge. "Why haven't you had the
wisdom to keep out of this,--or have you expected to find some one it
would be easier to pronounce sentence on than North? Did you think it
would be Gilmore?"
He scowled down on his father. It was appalling and unnatural, after all
his frightful suffering, his fear, and his remorse which never left him,
that his safety should be jeopardized by his own father! He had only
asked that the law be left to deal with John North, who, he believed,
had so wronged him that no death he could die would atone for the injury
he had done.
Slowly but inexorably the full significance of Marshall's words dawned
on the judge. He had risen from his chair dumb and terror-stricken. For
a moment they stood without speech, each staring into the other's face.
Presently the judge stole to Marshall's side.
"Tell me that I misunderstand you!" he whispered in entreaty, resting a
tremulous hand on his son's arm.
But the latter was bitterly resentful. His father had forced this
confession, from him, he had given him no choice!
"Why should I tell you that now?" he asked, as he roughly shook off his
father's hand.
"Tell me I misunderstand you!" repeated the judge, in a tone of abject
entreaty.
"It's too late!" said Marshall, his voice a mere whisper between parched
lips. He tossed up his arms in a gesture that betokened his utter
weariness of soul. "My God, how I've suffered!" he said chokingly, and
his eyes were wet with the sudden anguish of self-pity.
"Marshall!"
The judge spoke in protest of his words. Marshall turned abruptly from
him and crossed the room. The spirit of his fierce resentment was dying
within him, for, after all, what did it signify how his father learned
his secret!
From the parlor there still came the strains of light music; these and
Marshall's echoing tread as he strode to and fro, filled in the ghastly
silence that succeeded. Then at length he paused before his father, and
once more they looked deep into each other's eyes, and the little space
between was for both as an open grave filled with dead things--hopes,
ambitions, future days and months and years--days and months and years
when they should be for ever mindful of his crime! For henceforth they
were to dwell in the chill of this direful shadow that would tower above
all the concerns of life whether great or small; that would add despair
to every sorrow, and take the very soul and substance from every joy.
The judge dropped into his chair, but his wavering glance still searched
his son's face for some sign that should tell him, not what he already
knew but what he hoped might be,--that Marshall was either drunk or
crazed; but he only saw there the reflection of his own terror. He
buried his head in his hands and bitter age-worn sobs shook his bent
shoulders. After a moment of sullen waiting for him to recover, Marshall
approached and touched him on the arm.
"Father--" he whispered gently.
The judge glanced up.
"It's a lie, Marshall!"
But Marshall only stared at him until the judge again covered his face
with his hands.
When he glanced up a few moments later, he found himself alone. Marshall
had stolen from the room.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHRIMPLIN TO THE RESCUE
Beyond the flats and the railroad tracks and over across the new high,
iron bridge, was a low-lying region much affected by the drivers of
dump-carts, whose activity was visibly attested by the cinders, the
ashes, the tin cans, the staved-in barrels and the lidless boxes that
everywhere met the eye.
On the verge of this waste, which civilization had builded and shaped
with its discarded odds and ends, were the meager beginnings of a poor
suburb. Here an enterprising landlord had erected a solitary row of
slab-sided dwellings of a uniform ugliness; and had given to each a
single coat of yellow paint of such exceeding thinness, that it was
possible to determine by the whiter daubs of putty showing through, just
where every nail had been driven.
Only the very poorest or the most shiftless of Mount Hope's population
found a refuge in this quarter. The Montgomerys being strictly eligible,
it was but natural that Joe should have taken up his abode here on the
day the first of the eight houses had been finished. Joe was burdened by
no troublesome convictions touching the advantages of a gravelly soil
or a southern exposure, and the word sanitation had it been spoken in
his presence would have conveyed no meaning to his mind. He had never
heard of germs, and he had as little prejudice concerning stagnant water
as he had predilection for clear water. He knew in a general way that
all water was wet, but further than this he gave the element no thought.
Thus it came about that his was the very oldest family seated in this
delectable spot. The young Montgomerys could with perfect propriety
claim precedence at all the stagnant pools that offered superior
advantages as yielding a rich harvest of tadpoles. While the mature
intelligence might have considered these miniature lakes as highly
undesirable, the young Montgomerys were not unmindful of their
blessings. As babies, clothed in shapeless garments, they launched upon
the green slime their tiny fleet of chips, and, grown a little older, it
was here they waded in the happy summer days. The very dump-carts came
and went like perpetual argosies, bringing riches--discarded furniture
and cast-off clothing--to their very door.
In merciful defiance of those hidden perils that lurk where sanitation
and hygiene are unpractised sciences, Joe's numerous family throve and
multiplied. The baby carriage which had held his firstborn,--Arthur, now
aged fourteen,--was still in use, the luster of its paint much dimmed
and its upholstery but a memory. It had trundled a succession of little
Montgomerys among the cinder piles; indeed, it was almost a feature of
the landscape, for Joe's family was his chiefest contribution to the
wealth of his country.
There had been periods varying from a few days to a few weeks when the
Montgomerys were sole tenants of that row of slab-sided houses; their
poverty being a fixed condition, they were merely sometimes poorer. No
transient gleam of a larger prosperity had ever illuminated the horizon
of their lives, and they had never been tempted to move to other parts
of the town where the ground and the rents were higher.
Residents of this locality, not being burdened with any means of
locomotion beyond their own legs, usually came and went by way of the
high iron bridge; their legal right of way however was by a neglected
thoroughfare that had ambitiously set out to be a street, but having
failed of its intention, presently dwindled to a pleasant country road
which not far beyond crossed the river by the old wooden bridge below
the depot.
It was the iron bridge which Mrs. Montgomery, escorted by the daring
Shrimplin, had crossed that fateful night of her interview with Judge
Langham, and it was toward it that her glance was turned for many days
after in the hope that she might see Joe's bulk of bone and muscle as he
slouched in the direction of the home and family he had so wanted only
forsaken. But a veil of mystery obscured every fact that bore on the
handy-man's disappearance; no eye penetrated it, no hand lifted it.