|UNDER the shaded light on his table, in his private sitting room in
the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, John Bruce had been writing steadily for half an
hour--but the sheets of paper over which his pen had traveled freely and
swiftly were virgin white. He paused now, remained a moment in thought,
and then added a line to the last sheet. No mark was left, but from the
movement of the pen this appeared to be a signature.
He gathered the sheets together, folded them neatly, and slipped them
into an envelope. He replaced the cap on the fountain pen he had been
using, placed the pen in his vest pocket, and from another pocket took
out another pen that was apparently identical with the first. With
this second pen, in black ink, he addressed the envelope to one Gilbert
Larmon in San Francisco. He sealed the envelope, stamped it, put it in
his pocket, returned the second fountain pen to his vest pocket, lighted
a cigarette leaned back in his chair, and frowned at the ascending
spirals of smoke from the cigarette's tip.
The report which he had just written to Larmon, explaining his inaction
during the past weeks, had been an effort--not physical, but mental. He
had somehow, curiously, felt no personal regret for the enforced absence
from his “work,” and he now felt no enthusiasm at the prospect of
resuming it. He had had no right to tinge or color his letter to Larmon
with these views; nor had he intended to do so. Perhaps he had not;
perhaps he had. He did not know. The ink originated by the old Samoan
Islander had its disadvantages as well as its advantages. He could not
now read the letter over once it was written!
He flicked the ash irritably from his cigarette. He had been back here
in the hotel now for two days and that feeling had been constantly
growing upon him. Why? He did not know except that the cause seemed to
insist on associating itself with his recent illness, his life in the
one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza. But, logically, that did not hold
water. Why should it? He had met a pawnbroker who roamed the streets at
night in a fantastic motor car, driven by a drunkard; and he had fallen
in love with a girl who was glad she was going to marry a dope-eating
criminal. Good God, it was a spectacle to make----
John Bruce's fist crashed suddenly down on the desk beside him, and he
rose from his chair and stood there staring unseeingly before him.
That was not fair! What was uppermost now was the recrudescence of the
bitterness that had possessed him two nights ago when he had returned
from Paul Veniza's to the hotel here. Nor was it any more true than
it was fair! What of the days and nights of nursing, of care, of the
ungrudging and kindly hospitality they had given to an utter stranger?
Yes, he knew! Only--only she had said she was _glad!_
He began to pace the room. He had left Veniza's in bitterness. He had
not seen Claire. It was a strange sort of love he boasted, little of
unselfishness in it, much of impatience, and still more of intolerance!
That it was a hopeless love in so far as he was concerned did not place
him before himself in any better light. If he cared for her, if there
was any depth of feeling in this love he claimed to have, then at least
her happiness, her welfare and her future could not be extraneous
and indifferent considerations to him. And on the spur of the moment,
piqued, in spite of Paul Veniza's protestations, he had left that night
without seeing Claire again!
He had been ashamed of himself. Yesterday, he had telephoned Claire. He
had begged her forgiveness. He had not meant to say more--but he had!
Something in her voice had--no, not invited; he could not say that--but
had brought the passion, pleading almost, back into his own. It had
seemed to him that she was in tears at the other end of the wire; at
least, bravely as she had evidently tried to do so, she had been unable
to keep her voice under control. But she had evaded an answer. There had
been nothing to forgive, she had said. He had told her that he must see
her, that he would see her again. And then almost hysterically, over
and over again, she had begged him to attempt nothing of the sort, but
instead to leave New York because she insisted that it was not safe for
him to stay even in the city.
John Bruce hurled the butt of his cigarette in the direction of the
cuspidor, and clenched his fist. Crang! Safe from Crang! He laughed
aloud harshly. He asked nothing better than to meet Crang again. He
would not be so weak the next time! And the sooner the better!
He gnawed at his under lip, as he continued to pace the room. To-day, he
had telephoned Claire again--but he had not spoken to her this time. He
had not been surprised at the news he had received, for he remembered
that Hawkins had once told him that the old pawnbroker was in reality
far from well. Some one, he did not know who, some neighbor probably,
had answered the phone. Paul Veniza had been taken ill. Claire had been
up with him all the previous night, and was then resting.
John Bruce paused abruptly before the desk at which he had been writing,
and looked at his watch. It was a little after ten o'clock. He was
going back to “work” again to-night. He smiled suddenly, and a little
quizzically, as he caught sight of himself in a mirror. What would they
say--the white-haired negro butler, and the exquisite Monsieur Henri
de Lavergne, for instance--when the millionaire plunger, usually so
immaculate in evening clothes, presented himself at their door in a suit
of business tweeds?
He shrugged his shoulders. Down at Ratti's that night his apparel--it
was a matter of viewpoint--had been a source of eminent displeasure, and
as such had been very effectively disposed of. He had had no opportunity
to be measured for new clothes.
The smile faded, and he stood staring at the desk. The millionaire
plunger! It seemed to jar somehow on his sensibilities. Work! That was a
queer way, too, to designate it. He was going to take up his work again
to-night, pick up the threads of his life again where he had dropped
them. A bit ragged those threads, weren't they? Frayed, as it were!
What the devil was the matter with him, anyway?
There was money in it, a princely existence. What more could any one
ask? What did Claire, his love for a girl who was glad to marry some
one else infinitely worse than he was, have to do with it? Ah, she _did_
have something to do with it, then! Nonsense! It was absurd!
He took a key abruptly from his pocket, and unlocked one of the drawers
of the desk. From the drawer he took out a large roll of bills. The
hotel management had sent to the bank and cashed a check for him that
afternoon. He had not forgotten that he would need money, and plenty of
it, at the tables this evening. Well, he was quite ready to go now, and
it was time; it would be halfpast ten before he got there, and----
“The devil!” said John Bruce savagely--and suddenly tossed the money
back into the drawer, and locked the drawer. “If I don't feel like
it to-night, why should I? I guess I'll just drop around for a little
convalescent visit, and let it go at that.”
John Bruce put on a light overcoat, and left the room. In the lobby
downstairs he posted his letter to Gilbert Larmon. He stepped out on the
street, and from the rank in front of the hotel secured a taxi. Twenty
minutes later he entered Gilbert Larmon's New York gambling hell.
Here he received a sort of rhapsodical welcome from the exquisite
Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, which embraced poignant regret at the
accident that had befallen him, and unspeakable joy at his so-splendid
recovery. It was a delight so great to shake the hand of Mr. Bruce again
that Monsieur Henri de Lavergne complained bitterly at the poverty of
language which prevented an adequate expression of his true and sincere
feelings. Also, Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, if he were not trespassing,
would be flattered indeed with Mr. Bruce's confidence, if Mr. Bruce
should see fit to honor him with an account of how the accident had
happened. He would be desolated if in any way it could be attributable
to any suggestion that he, Monsieur de Lavergne, on behalf of the house
which he had the honor to represent as manager, had made to Mr. Bruce
which might have induced----
“Not at all!” John Bruce assured him heartily. He smiled at Monsieur de
Lavergne. The other knew nothing of Claire's presence in the car that
night, and for Claire's sake it was necessary to set the man's mind so
completely at rest that the subject would lack further interest. The
only way to accomplish that was to appear whole-heartedly frank. John
Bruce became egregiously frank. “It was just my own damned curiosity,”
he said with a wry smile. “I got out of that ingenious contraption at
the corner after going around the block, and, well, my curiosity, as I
said, got the better of me. I followed the thing, and found out where
Mr. Veniza lived. I started on my way back, but I didn't get very far.
I got into trouble with a rather tough crowd just around the corner, who
didn't like my shirt front, I believe they said. The fight ended by
my being backed into a wine shop where I was stabbed, but from which I
managed to escape into the lane. I was about all in, and the only chance
I could see was a lighted window on the other side of a low fence. I
crawled in the window, and flopped on the floor. It proved to be Mr.
Veniza's house.”
“_Pour l'amour du dieu!_” exclaimed Monsieur Henri de Lavergne
breathlessly.
“And which also accounts,” said John Bruce pleasantly, “for the apology
I must offer you for my appearance this evening in these clothes. The
mob in that respect was quite successful.”
“But that you are back!” Monsieur de Lavergne's hands were raised in
protest. “That is alone what matters. Monsieur Bruce knows that in any
attire it is the same here for monsieur as though he were at home.”
“Thank you!” said John Bruce cordially. “I have only dropped in through
the urge of old habits, I guess. I'm hardly on my feet yet, and I
thought I'd just watch the play for a little while to-night.”
“And that, too,” said Monsieur Henri de Lavergne with a bow, as John
Bruce moved toward the staircase, “is entirely as monsieur desires.”
John Bruce mounted the stairs, and began a stroll through the roulette
and card rooms. The croupiers and dealers nodded to him genially; those
of the “guests” Whom he knew did likewise. He was treated with marked
courtesy and consideration by every attendant in the establishment.
Everything was exactly as it had been on his previous visits. There were
the soft mellow lights; the siren pur of the roulette wheel, the musical
_click_ of the ball as it spun around on its little fateful orbit; the
low, quiet voices of the croupiers and dealers; the well-dressed
players grouped around the tables, the hilarious and the grim, the
devil-may-care laugh from one, the thin smile from another. It was
exactly the same, all exactly the same, even to the table in the supper
room, free to all though laden with every wine and delicacy that money
could procure; but somehow, even at the end of half an hour, where he
was wont to be engrossed till daylight, John Bruce became excessively
bored.
Perhaps it was because he was simply an on-looker, and not playing
himself. He had drawn close to a group around a faro bank. The play was
grim earnest and for high stakes. No, it wasn't that! He did not want
to play. Somehow, rather, he knew a slight sense both of contempt and
disgust at the eager clutch and grasp of hands, the hoarse, short laugh
of victory, the snarl of defeat, the trembling fingers of the more
timorous who staked with Chance and demanded that the god be charitable
in its omnipotence and toss them crumbs!
Well, what was he caviling about? It was the life he had chosen. It was
his life work. Wasn't he pleased with it? He had certainly liked it well
enough in the old days to squander upon it the fair-sized fortune
his father had left him. He decidedly had not gone into that infernal
compact with Larmon blindfolded. Perhaps it was because in those days
he played when he wanted to; and in these, and hereafter, he would play
because he had to. Perhaps it was only that, to-night, there was upon
him the feeling, which was natural enough, and which was immeasurably
human too, that it was irksome to be a slave, to be fettered and
shackled and bound to anything, even to what one, with one's freedom his
own, was ordinarily out of choice most prone to do and delight in. Well,
maybe! But that was not entirely a satisfactory or conclusive solution
either.
He looked around him. There seemed to be something hollow to-night in
these trappings of tinsel; and something not only hollow, but sardonic
in his connection with them--that he should act as a monitor over the
honesty of those who in turn acted as the agents of Larmon in an already
illicit traffic.
“Oh, hell!” said John Bruce suddenly.
The dealer looked up from the table, surprise mingling with polite
disapproval. Several of the players screwed around their heads.
“That's what I say!” snarled one of the latter with an added oath, as a
large stack of chips was swept away from him.
Some one touched John Bruce on the elbow. He turned around. It was one
of the attendants.
“You are being asked for downstairs, Mr. Bruce,” the man informed him.
John Bruce followed the attendant. In the hall below the white-haired
negro doorkeeper came toward him.
“I done let him in, Mistuh Bruce, suh,” the old darky explained a little
anxiously, “'cause he done say, Mistuh Bruce, that it was a case of
most particular illness, suh, and----”
John Bruce did not wait for more. It was Veniza probably--a turn for the
worse. He nodded, and passed hurriedly along the hall to where, near the
door, a poorly dressed man, hat in hand and apparently somewhat ill at
ease in his luxurious surroundings, stood waiting.
“I am Mr. Bruce,” he said quickly. “Some one is critically ill, you say?
Is it Mr. Veniza?”
“No, sir,” the man answered. “I don't know anything about Mr. Veniza.
It's Hawkins.”
“Hawkins!” ejaculated John Bruce.
“Yes, sir,” said the man. He shuffled his feet. “I--I guess you know,
sir.”
John Bruce for a moment made no comment. Hawkins! Yes, he knew! Hawkins
had even renounced his pledge, hadn't he? Not, perhaps, that that would
have made any difference!
“Bad?” he asked tersely.
“I'm afraid so, sir,” the man replied. “I've seen a good bit of Hawkins
off and on in the last two years, sir, because I room in the same house;
but I've never seen him like this. He's been out of his head and clawing
the air, sir, if you know what I mean. He's over that now, but that weak
he had me scared once, sir, that he'd gone.”
“What does the doctor say?” John Bruce bit off his words.
The man shook his head.
“He wouldn't have one, sir. It's you he wants. You'll understand, sir,
that he's been alone. I don't know how long ago he started on this
spree. It was only by luck that I walked into his room to-night. I was
for getting a doctor at once, of course, but he wouldn't have it; he
wanted you. At times, sir, he was crying like a baby, only he hadn't
the strength of one left. Knowing I could run her, me being a motortruck
driver, he told me to take that car he drives and go to the hotel for
you, and if you weren't there to try here--which I've done, sir, as
you see, and I hope you'll come back with me. I don't know what to do,
though I'm for picking up a doctor on the way back whether he wants one
or not.”
John Bruce turned abruptly, secured his coat and hat, motioned the man
to lead the way, and followed the other out of the house and down the
steps to the sidewalk.
The traveling pawn-shop was at the curb. The man opened the door, and
John Bruce stepped inside--and was instantly flung violently down upon a
seat. The door closed. The car started forward. And in a sudden glare of
light John Bruce stared into the muzzle of a revolver, and, behind the
revolver, into a bruised and battered face, which was the face of Doctor
Crang.