THE CONCLUSION OF A MATTER
You say, then, you did not make the statements the lady credits you
with? You will take oath to that?"
"Of course I will." Horatio Fielding's shifty brown eyes looked for
a moment into John Maxwell's relentless gray ones, then dropped
uneasily. "What in the devil is all this about, anyhow? You come in
on a fellow with some damned gossip a lot of old cats have been
telling in their sewing society and accuse him of it before he knows
what you're talking about. I don't even know what you're getting at."
"I am getting at the truth or falsehood of certain statements
attributed to you. Cut that out--I prefer to talk to you sober." He
waved his hand toward the table on which were bottles of brandy and
White Rock. "You know what these statements are. To repeat them is
unnecessary. The lady who claims she understood you to make them
has repeated them to, among others, a Mr. Benjamin Brickhouse. Mr.
Brickhouse claims he approached you on the subject and you neither
affirmed nor denied them. You are to do one or the other, and do
it now."
Horatio Fielding's face flushed. "I am--am I? Who says so?"
"I say so."
John Maxwell came closer. He looked down on the short, full figure
with the round, red face, and the round, red face grew redder. The
restraint of the larger man, his height and breadth and radiation
of power and purpose stung him, and for a moment he yielded to
bravado. A look in the face above his checked him, however, and he
changed his manner.
"Oh, I'm perfectly willing to deny what I didn't do!" He shrugged
his shoulders. "To hear you one would think I wasn't a gentleman.
Of course I didn't say I'd furnished Mary Cary with money--"
"We are speaking of Miss Cary."
He bowed smilingly. "Miss Cary with money to spend on people here,
or had bought bonds, or was Yorkburg's unknown friend. I said I'd
be glad to do it, as I was a friend of Yorkburg's and would like
to be a better one."
"Sit down at that table."
"What for?" Horatio Fielding's shoulders went back and the dots in
his tan-colored vest showed plainly. "I prefer to stand."
"I prefer you to sit. There's paper and pen and ink at that table.
Three letters at my dictation, and if you hurry you can catch that
ten-ten train."
"I'll be damned if I do!"
"You'll be damned if you don't. To make you understand what you
have done is impossible. To make you make what amends you can,
isn't. Sit down and write."
Three letters, one to Mr. Benjamin Brickhouse, one to Miss Honoria
Brockenborough, one to Miss Gibbie Gault, were written sulkily and
in words supplied by John Maxwell. Signed and in their envelopes,
John put them in his pocket, then again looked at his watch. "You
have plenty of time," he said, "and if you know what's good for you
you'll get out from here and be quick at it."
"Get out nothing!" With a swift movement of his hand Horatio Fielding
poured out a full measure of brandy and drank it. "I'd like to know
what you've got to do with this thing, anyhow! That's the worst of a
little hell of a town like this. Nothing in it but a lot of relics
and old-maid men and pussy-cat women spying on a girl because she's
young and pretty. That cut-glass icicle with an antique nose asked me
so many questions that I thought I'd let her know all the goods wasn't
in this part of the world. She walked me around the room three times
showing me a bunch of old duffers in wigs and knee-breeches, and
half-dressed women with caps or curls. Said she didn't suppose we had
family portraits in Nevada. I told her what we did have. If she chose
to say I said what she says, she did it because she hates people with
money worse than snake poison. All her class is muggy on money. Thinks
it common to have it. But they've got a long reach all right, and can
be very smirky to the face when they smell the stuff. As for
questions--" John being near the window, he took hastily another drink
of brandy. "She asked enough to make a catechism. I didn't mind her
quizzers. She's on the sour, and I thought I'd help her enjoy herself. I
told her I didn't mind Mary Cary's having been an orphan. I was willing
to marry her, parents or no parents."
/"Willing!"/ John turned. His right arm went out, and from Horatio
Fielding's nose blood spurted over the spotted vest, down the legs of
his well-creased trousers, and settled on his patent-leather shoes.
Howling, he sprang toward the larger man. With his foot John kicked him
in the air, and as he came down on the floor stood over him as he would
a puppy.
"I can't fight you. I'm too much bigger," he said, spitting toward the
fireplace. "To shake a rat would be as easy. But I don't promise to
keep my hands off much longer. You're a liar! If you didn't say all
Miss Brockenborough says you said, you implied it. At college you
cheated, and you'd smirch a good name in a minute if your own interests
could be helped. I'd rather not have blood on my hands, and I haven't
time for a trial, but if you don't get out of this town to-night you'll
be shipped out in a box to-morrow. You're got an hour. Are you going?"
Horatio Fielding got up, his handkerchief to the bleeding nose. "If it
takes the last cent I've got on earth I'll make you pay for this," he
said, thickly. He pulled out another handkerchief and put it to his
cut lip. "I believe you've broken my nose."
"I hope I have. You're lucky it's not your neck." John took a card
out of his pocket-book and handed it to the shaking figure. "That's
my address in New York. If you want to see me again you can find me
without trouble. Next time I'll kill you."
But Horatio Fielding was out of the room. An hour later at the station
John Maxwell saw him step stiffly into the sleeper for the West, and,
shrugging his shoulders, he turned away and went rapidly up the street.
Walking toward Pelham Place, he reached the house in which Miss
Gibbie was waiting, but he could not trust himself to go in. At the
door he left a note, then walked down King Street and into the
Calverton road.
For hours he walked. The moon, clear and serene, hung calmly above
him, and in the sandy road shadows cast by the stripped branches of
trees and shrubs swayed and danced, beckoned or stood still. The air
was cold and stinging, and the silence, soft as the pale light of the
meaningless moon, was unbroken save by the whispering of the wind.
Presently at the top of a hill he sat down under a big bare tree and
leaned his back against it. Far off in the distance the lights of
Yorkburg twinkled like fireflies in the hazy darkness, and at his left
a soft, luminous ball was gathering into shape and brilliance. With a
roar it rushed through the outskirts of the little town before its long
black tail of cars could be defined, and as its vibrations reached him
John struck a match and took out his watch.
"The one-twelve," he said, "and fifteen minutes late." A cigar was
lighted slowly, and a long, deep whiff taken. Watching its spirals of
smoke curl lazily upward, his eyes narrowed and he nodded toward them.
"When the Lord made woman"--he was looking now at a light in a
group of trees not very far away--"I wonder if He ever realized the
trouble she could give a man!"