Webster. “It’s plain enough now, old boy. Balmacenso would have grasped
right bravely all the things that puzzled you so, that night in
Selden’s Square. No doubt but that old Mr. Austin had sent him all the
information which the conspirators supposed you to have had. If, now,
you only had come upon the rascal’s papers!”
“I did make a search among his effects, thinking to get track of some
relatives to whom I could send the news of his death. But there was not
a scrap of writing to be found.”
“He had been at pains to secrete carefully anything of the kind, I
suppose,” remarked Austin. “The villain!”
“Why, he had been a very decent sort all along,” said Kenyon, beginning
to resume his things. “It was being moneyless in a strange country
that broke his nerve and drove him to rascality, like as not. There
are types of men who cannot bear up under poverty, you know.” He drew
on his gloves and took up his stick and hat. “At any rate, I prefer to
look at it so, for as I told you some time ago, Garry, he once saved my
life.”
He stood with his hand upon the door-knob, about to go, nodding over
his shoulder at the two at the table. Then a sudden smile crossed his
face, and he turned once more.
“That reminds me,” said he. “You know that we were all rather puzzled
by the statement of Farbush’s made the other night, that he had seen us
together,” to Austin, “on the night of the adventure on the East River.
Well, a chance remark of Anna’s to-day shed some light upon that.”
“Let us have it,” pleaded Webster.
“It seems that Anna once had a glimpse of you in ’Frisco,” continued
Kenyon to Austin. “She was walking with Forrester when you went by in a
motor-car; and he pointed you out.” Then the speaker turned to Webster.
“Do you recall the night that we dined downstairs--the night that
Farbush first appeared?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the girl in the heavy veil was Anna. And she mistook you for
Austin. She had had only one glimpse of you,” to Austin. “And I suppose
the only impression left by it was that you were rather short, somewhat
stout and had reddish hair. Well, if you’ll notice it, Webster has the
same general characteristics; and what more natural mistake could she
make when she saw him with me at such a stage in the proceedings? So
she told Farbush that Webster was Austin.”
“But about the night upon the river?” demanded Webster, perplexed.
“It’s very simple. When the searchlight from the fort swept the deck of
the Vixen, you were plainly in sight. Farbush saw you; but I thought at
the time that it was Miss Gilbert whom he had recognized.”
“Life in large cities is a peculiar thing,” mused Webster, sotto voce,
and in an exaggerated attitude of melodrama. “It is, really!”
“And Farbush’s hurried note to you that evening below, congratulating
you upon your celerity and warning you against overboldness, was all
upon the strength of your supposed rapid finding of me,” laughed
Austin. “Well, well! That was a curious turn enough.”
“Have you learned anything as to why old Mr. Austin’s body was removed
secretly, in the night, from the house in Selden’s Square?” asked
Webster. “I could never understand that move, among others.”
“They did not desire, so Farbush has told me, to have Austin, here,
know of his grandfather’s death until they could so manipulate the
matter of the securities, and some other things connected with the
business, that even if his life were spared in the end, he would
never suspect any tampering with the accounts. Toward the last, the
correspondence having been interrupted, they had about given up hope
of my arrival, and so they planned delays, until I should get upon the
ground. These plans were under way when I arrived; and so, I suppose,
they did not think it worth while to alter them.”
“When they had your three namesakes assaulted that night in Selden’s
Square,” said Austin, “I think the conspirators took a great risk of
betraying themselves to the police. I can’t see why the thing was
necessary.”
“You forget that the man from Butte knew their game. He got his
information from a second letter, written in reply to one from him
before they heard from Balmacenso. After Balmacenso’s letter was
received, they felt sure that _he_ was the man they were looking for,
and they realized that the Butte man was dangerous and must be removed.
It is more than likely that the other two had never written, but
just came on at the time appointed. We know this to be the case with
Saginaw. His letter only reached him thirty-six hours ahead. So three
men came to Selden’s Square instead of one; and as the plotters did not
know which of them was the man from Butte, they did for all three, to
make sure.”
“What do you suppose was to be your part in their game,” asked Webster.
“That of a traitor, almost entirely. I was thought to be stuffed to the
neck with information that would throw the matter directly into their
hands, when I was ready to act; all the secrets of old Stephen Austin
were believed to be at my finger ends, you see. Of course, they knew
that Forrester possessed the old man’s confidence; but they knew that
it was only in a limited degree, and that it would be worth little
unless coupled with what I was supposed to know.”
When Kenyon left the Waldorf-Astoria he walked up Fifth Avenue some
little distance, and then crossed to Madison. In a quiet, old-fashioned
room, where there were potted plants at the windows, he waited for
Dallas Gilbert.
When she appeared she was dressed in white and with a single red rose
at her breast. She held out her hand to him, silently; but her face
was flushed and her eyes were shining. Never had he seen her more
beautiful, and his admiration must have been plain to her, for she
dropped her eyes quickly.
“Anna has gone?” she asked, after they had seated themselves.
“I saw her and Forrester off in the noon train,” answered Kenyon. “She
cried a little when I told her how you had pleaded for Forrester
with Austin, and she sends her thanks. She also begs you not to think
harshly of her, nor of him. She said that neither of them had ever
meditated any wrong against you.”
“I feel sure of that,” replied Dallas. “I feel quite sure of it.” Then,
eagerly: “And you think they will be happy together!”
“They love one another very much,” returned Kenyon. “And, in my
opinion, that is everything.”
There was a brief pause; and then the girl said:
“I hope you are right, for I wish her all that is good. We have always
been together, you see.”
“You are really related, then?”
“She is my step-sister, and is a few years younger than myself. When
our parents died, Mr. Austin, who was my father’s friend, took us in
and cared for us, for we were very small at the time.”
“You lived with him at Seattle, then?”
“Not altogether. Mr. Farbush and he were our joint guardians; most of
the time we lived at the Fifth Avenue house.”
“I would have thought that life with such a man as Farbush would have
been far from pleasant.”
“He was never really unkind until lately. Indeed, he has always been
rather inclined to be generous. You see he had social pretensions; he
entertained a great deal, and Anna and I were useful. And, then, all
his life Mr. Farbush has been regarded as a model of integrity.”
“I fancy that you believed this of him and the others--at first.”
“Yes; Mr. Austin had always been eccentric, and when, toward the last,
he began to whisper to me of his partners’ plotting against him, I
thought it must be the result of his age and his illness--that his
suspicions were imaginings.”
“He made a confidante of you, then?”
“Always; but especially so during his last illness. I believe he told
me everything, including the whereabouts of his grandson, Philip
Austin. He always insisted that his partners would endeavor to
accomplish the death of Philip after he, old Mr. Austin, had passed
away.”
“So that Philip’s cousin, Scott, would come into the business?”
“Yes. It appears that Philip had expressed himself as being against
certain illegal features of the trade; but Scott had no such scruples.
Indeed, he would have been more likely to have tried to extend them
than otherwise. But Mr. Austin would whisper these things to me; no
one ever suspected that I was so entirely in his confidence.”
“But you did not consider the things told you as being worthy of
serious consideration. That is, you did not really suspect the partners
of wrong doing.”
“None but Hong Yo. I disliked him from the first. Griscom Forrester
I always regarded as honest--but rather weak. Mr. Farbush I did not
suspect for an instant, until he denied knowledge of the securities
which Mr. Austin had entrusted to him. It was then that I first became
convinced that there was really something wrong. I demanded to be
allowed to search the safe in Mr. Farbush’s office. He laughed at me,
but I could see that he was astonished at my knowledge, and frightened
also. Then I determined to appeal to Griscom Forrester. I followed him
one night, that I might have a chance to speak to him, privately. At
Union Square he began to trail after a man who had just passed. It was
you, and the fact startled me.”
“Of course,” said Kenyon, coolly. “You had small confidence in me then.”
The girl flushed.
“I had every reason in the world to hate you,” she said.
“I fancied that there was someone following Forrester and me, that
night,” said Kenyon, thoughtfully. From his expression and voice one
would have thought that he had not heard her words. Nevertheless, he
had, and was pondering them.
“After you turned into that brilliantly lighted street in the Chinese
quarter, I lost track of you,” she went on. “Then suddenly I came upon
the man swathed in bandages, looking deathly pale and unable to arise
from a doorway into which he had fallen. I was frightened, but I helped
him up, there being no one else at hand. He was like one demented,
for he kept muttering and vowing vengeance. Then I caught the names
of Farbush and Forrester, and heard him mention the house in Selden’s
Square. I questioned him. In a few moments I knew the outline of his
story, and of that of the others who lay injured in Bellevue.
“He said that he was going to the place called the ‘Far East’ to see
Hong Yo and have a settlement. I helped him there, for it agreed with
my plans, and shortly afterwards we were shown into another building
near at hand.”
“How did Forrester know that you were thereabouts?”
“It must have been accidental.”
“It was not. He and I were in a rear room of the ‘Far East.’ As I was
leaving it, I saw him go eagerly to a curtained window overlooking the
restaurant; I’m convinced that he expected to see you; and was greatly
disappointed at your departure. He immediately darted from the room by
way of the door leading to the street.”
There was a pause. Kenyon saw that she was thinking deeply. Then her
face lighted up.
“Hong Yo must have, in some way, discovered my presence with the
wounded man. Mr. Forrester may have heard it from him.”
“That’s it,” cried Kenyon. “He had been talking with Hong just before.
It was after he returned from this talk that he looked through the
curtains and ran out. In the midst of his plottings, the blood-horror
was strong upon him. He feared that some harm would befall you and the
man from Butte, and he was on his way to save you when he disappeared
from the rear room.”
“And he did save me--he and you!” She spoke in a lower voice, and he
could see a misty trouble in her eyes. “Will you forgive me for what I
said that night?” she pleaded, softly. “It was so very, very cruel! It
must have cut you to the heart to have me say such a thing to you, and
at a moment, too, when you were generously risking, perhaps, your life
to help me.”
“It _did_ hurt,” replied he. “It would be foolish for me to deny it.
But, then, I realized what your convictions must necessarily be. And
so,” smiling, “that eased it, you see.”
“At any rate, I realized, afterwards, what you had done for me, and so
began to doubt that you were to be classed among my enemies. When I
opened the packet of securities that night, after snatching them from
you in front of the safe, I found some letters with your name signed to
them.”
“Ah, yes,” said Kenyon with interest. “So you saw them, too?”
“There was something about them, I don’t know what, that caused me
to distrust them. That night when you came to the Club, in Mulberry
Street, a way of convincing myself as to this suddenly occurred to me.”
“You asked me to write my name in a book,” said Kenyon, quietly. “I
remember wondering about that at the time. I was quite confident though
that you had a secret motive.”
“The writing was not the same!” she cried, in triumph. “It was nothing
at all like that of the letters. And so,” with a laugh, “I was then
sure that--that you had not written them--that someone had used your
name, that you had spoken the truth that night in the cab when you
denied all knowledge of the Austin affair.”
“Clever!” commented Kenyon.
He watched the play of the lights in her brilliant face. When she
smiled, her teeth seemed perfection; and her eyes fairly set him
dreaming.
“I was pleased,” she said. “Indeed, I was quite delighted. And yet I
was frightened. I could not altogether--”
She hesitated painfully, now; so Kenyon finished the sentence for her.
“You could not altogether trust me,” said he, good-naturedly. “But that
was only natural. One seldom trusts, at the outset, persons whom one
has suspected of affiliation with the enemy. It’s a sort of military
instinct. Perhaps you get it from an ancestor, who may have been a
soldier.”
She laughed at this.
“And you must have thought me a most unaccountable person, all along!”
she cried. “Even to the very end I no doubt seemed a sort of fay,
appearing so strangely, as I did. Take the incident of a few nights ago
at the old house outside South Norwalk, for example.”
“I was astonished when you darted out so suddenly. But I had an
intimation that some unlooked-for person was on the ground, before us.
One of Forrester’s men saw, or heard, you in the road.”
“I heard his signal,” said Dallas, “and oh, I was so frightened. But I
hid myself and did not answer; later I stole away up the road.”
“But why did you walk all that distance; it was a good five miles.”
“I dreaded attracting attention by engaging a carriage. I thought
Forrester might have someone on the watch.”
“His watchers were scarcely trustworthy,” said Kenyon, grimly. “You
need not have been afraid. He must have instructed some of them to be
on hand if his visitors offered him violence; but they failed him. I
had no trouble about entering the house secretly; and I suppose you had
none, either.”
“No; and when I heard Anna and Mr. Forrester approaching the room that
I had entered, I hid in a sort of closet that was at the upper end.”
“Ah! that was when you went tip-toeing so cautiously across the floor.”
“You did not see me?”
“No; but Austin did. But, of course, he did not know who you were. But,
tell me: How did you learn that Forrester had gone to that particular
place?”
“The young man from Saginaw telephoned me. You see, I had left word
with him to keep me informed as to anything that he might discover.”
“Of course, of course! I remember, now, his telling me of that, at the
Hotel Suisse.”
There was a short silence. He was looking at her, and there was the
same question in his eyes that had been there in one form or another
ever since he had first seen her that night in the hansom cab. All the
other problems that the case had presented, he had approached with a
native and nonchalant boldness. But as he came to this one, he was
aware of a strange timorousness, a quick, short thumping of the heart,
an odd lack of control of the situation that was most unusual.
“There is a thing,” said he, with a little effort, “that has had me
wondering since our first meeting. I have often thought it over, but
could never make anything of it.”
There is nothing more certain in the world than an agitated mind’s
communicating its unrest to a neighboring one that is in any way
sensitive. This was now plainly the case. She instinctively seized the
thought before he had put it into words; the rich color flooded her
face; her heavy, dark lashes hid her eyes.
“Why were you so scornful that night?” asked he, leaning toward her.
“But no! When I come to think of it, it was not scorn, really; it was
contempt!”
“Oh, please!” she begged, lifting her eyes, imploringly.
“Tell me,” insisted he. “There was a reason for it. You had never seen
me before. And it could hardly have been a sudden aversion. It was too
complete for that.”
The color was still deep in her face; her slim hands were clasping
and unclasping nervously. But while her voice was low and her manner
confused, her eyes were brave.
“It was because of your friend, Balmacenso. When Mr. Austin wrote the
letter urging you to come to New York, the man answered asking what was
to be his--his reward.”
“And your guardian replied--?” eagerly.
If it were possible the exquisite color in her cheeks deepened.
“He sent Anna’s portrait, and mine. He offered either of us in
marriage. To give him peace we had consented to this. I--I was the
one selected; but the reward was, apparently, not great enough for
Balmacenso.”
“Not great enough!”
“He wanted money as well.”
The truth flashed upon Kenyon.
“And that was his price--that check that you gave me in the cab?”
“Yes,” she answered, almost in a whisper.
His eyes searched her face for a space. Heavens! Balmacenso must have
been a fool as well as a knave.
“What sort of a portrait of you was it that was sent him?” asked Kenyon.
“A very good one.”
“It couldn’t have been,” disagreed he, briefly.
Then he took a folded slip of paper from his pocket. Opening it he
said: “Then Hong Yo signed the checks for Austin & Co.?”
“Either he or Mr. Forrester.”
Kenyon touched one end of the slip to a flame that shot up from the
grate. In an instant the check was in ashes.
[Illustration: KENYON TOUCHED ONE END OF THE SLIP TO A FLAME]
“I don’t want anything to boot,” said he. “You are enough for me.”
“Oh!” She was upon her feet quickly, startled.
“Wait!” He, also, arose, and stood before her, very calmly, and quite
master of himself once more. “The man who so deceived your guardian
and impersonated me was an unscrupulous villain. But he showed a taste
that I would not have credited him with.”
She made an involuntary movement away from him; he put out his hand as
though to touch her, but let it fall without doing so.
“It is not often,” he said, “that a man has another select his wife
for him, and without his knowing anything about it.” He waited for an
answer; but as none came he proceeded: “But more seldom still, when it
does occur, is the right girl selected.”
Again he paused, and still there was silence.
“I would not have allowed this man to select a sword blade for me.
I would not have had sufficient confidence in him. And yet he has
selected for me the one woman in the world whom I would make my wife.”
One step took him to her side, and he looked down into her face. “Will
you?” asked he.
“Are you--are you sure that you want me?” she whispered.
And the next instant she was in his arms and his first kiss was upon
her lips.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.