|JOHN BRUCE closed the door of Larmon's suite, and, taking the elevator,
went up to his own room in the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, two floors above.
Here, he flung himself almost wearily into a chair. Larmon had gone to
bed; but bed offered no appeal to him, John Bruce, in spite of the fact
that he was conscious of great mental fatigue. Bed without sleep was
a horror, and his spirits were too depressed to make sleep even a
possibility.
From a purely selfish standpoint, and he admitted to utter selfishness
now, it had been a hollow victory. Crang was gone, disposed of, and as
far as Larmon was concerned the man no longer existed, for if Crang had
held certain intimate knowledge of Larmon's life over Larmon's head,
Larmon was now in exactly the same position in respect to Crang. And
Crang, too, for the time being at least, was no longer a factor in
Claire's life.
He smiled grimly to himself. Hollow! The victory had been sweeping,
complete, conclusive--for every one but himself! He had not even waited
to leave the dock before he had telephoned Claire. And Claire had---- He
rose suddenly and began to walk feverishly up and down the room. Hollow!
He laughed out shortly. She had curtly refused to talk to him.
He had only meant to telephone to say that he was on the way up to
her house, and he had managed to say that much--and she had coldly,
contemptuously informed him that she would not be at home, and had hung
up the receiver. She had given him no opportunity to say any more.
It was not like Claire. It had been so unexpected that he had left the
dock mentally dazed. The sight of the liner out in the stream had seemed
to mock him ironically. After that, until now, he had followed the line
of least resistance. He had come back here to the hotel, and dined with
Larmon.
He stood still in the middle of the room. Larmon! It had been a singular
evening that he had just spent with Larmon. He had got a new viewpoint
on Larmon--a strange, grave, sympathetic Larmon. He had given Larmon the
details of everything that had happened; and Larmon had led him on to
talk--of everything, and anything, it seemed now, as he looked back upon
it. And somehow, he could not tell why, even while he felt that Larmon
was drawing him out, urging him even to speak of Claire and the most
intimate things of the last few weeks, he had been glad to respond. It
was only when Larmon for a little while had discussed his great chain of
gambling houses that he, John Bruce, had felt curiously detached from it
all and estranged from the other, as though he were masquerading as
some one else, as some one whom Larmon believed to be John Bruce, and as
though he in his true self had no interest in these matters any
longer in a personal sense, as though his connection with them had
automatically ceased with the climax of Crang's removal. It was queer!
But then his mind had been obsessed, elsewhere. And yet here, too, he
had been frank with Larmon--frank enough to admit the feelings that
had prompted him to refrain from actual play only two nights before. He
remembered the quick little tattoo of Larmon's quill toothpick at this
admission, and Larmon's tight little smile.
Yes, it had been a singular evening! In those few hours he seemed to
have grown to know Larmon as though he had known the man all his life,
to be drawn to Larmon in a personal way, to admire Larmon as a man.
There was something of debonair sang-froid about Larmon. He had made
no fuss over his escape that day, and much less been effusive in any
thanks. Larmon's philosophy of life was apparently definitely fixed and
settled; and, in so far as Larmon was concerned, satisfactorily so. The
whole world to Larmon was a gamble--and, consistently enough, his own
activities in that respect were on as vast a scale as possible.
Larmon with his unemotional face and his quill toothpick! No; not
unemotional! When Larmon had finally pleaded fatigue and a desire to
go to bed, there had been something in Larmon's face and Larmon's
“good-night,” that still lingered with him, John Bruce, and which even
now he could not define.
John Bruce's brows gathered into tight furrows. His mind had flown off
at a tangent. There was Claire! It had not been like Claire. Nor had he
meant, nor did he intend now to accept her dismissal as final. But
what was it that had happened? What was it? He could think of only one
thing--the letter he had written to Larmon, and which, on that account,
he had asked for and received back from the other.
It was a certainty that Crang's hand was in this somewhere, and Crang
had said that he had shown the letter to Claire, but----
The telephone rang.
John Bruce stepped to the desk, and picked up the instrument.
“Yes? Hello!” he said.
The clerk's voice from the office answered him:
“There's a man down here, Mr. Bruce, who insists on seeing you. He's
pretty seedy, and looks as though he had been on a bat for a week. I'm
sorry to bother you, but we can't get rid of him. He says his name is
Hawkins.”
“Send him up at once!” said John Bruce sharply.
“Yes, sir.” The clerk coughed deprecatingly. “Very well, Mr. Bruce.
Thank you.”
Hawkins! John Bruce walked to the door of his suite, and opened it. He
looked at his watch. It was getting on now to eleven o'clock. What on
earth had brought Hawkins up here to the Bayne-Miloy at this hour? He
smiled a little grimly as he stood waiting on the threshold, and the
recollection of the night before last came back to him. Well, at least,
he was safe to-night from any kidnaping through the medium of Hawkins!
The elevator door clanged a little way down the corridor, and Hawkins,
followed by a bell boy, stepped out.
“This way, Hawkins!” John Bruce called--and dismissed the bell boy with
a wave of his hand.
And then, as Hawkins reached the door, John Bruce stared in amazement,
and for a moment absolved the clerk for his diagnosis. Hawkins' face
was like parchment, devoid of color; his hands, twisting at the old felt
hat, trembled as with the ague; and the blue eyes, fever-burned they
seemed, stared out in a fixed way from under the shaggy brows.
John Bruce pulled the old man inside the apartment, and closed the door.
“Good Lord, Hawkins!” he exclaimed anxiously. “What's the matter with
you?”
Hawkins caught at John Bruce's arm.
“It's to-morrow morning,” he said hoarsely. “Tomorrow morning at eight
o'clock.”
“What is?” inquired John Bruce. He forced the old cabman gently into a
chair. “You're upset, Hawkins. Here--wait! I'll get you something.”
But Hawkins held him back.
“I don't want a drink.” There was misery, bitterness, in Hawkins' voice.
“I don't want a drink--for once. It's come! It--it's come to the end
now. Crang and--and my little girl are going to be married to-morrow
morning.”
And then John Bruce laughed quietly, and laid his hand reassuringly on
the old cabman's shoulder.
“No, Hawkins,” he said. “I don't know where you got that idea; but
it won't be to-morrow morning, nor for a good many to-morrow mornings
either. Crang at the present moment is on board a ship on his way to
South America.”
“I know,” said Hawkins dully. “But half an hour ago I left him with
Claire in Paul Veniza's house.”
John Bruce's hand tightened on Hawkins' shoulder until the old man
winced.
“You what?” John Bruce cried out.
“Yes,” said Hawkins. “I heard him talking about it in the back room.
They didn't know I was there. He said there was something the matter
with the engines.”
Crang back! John Bruce's face was set as chiselled marble.
“Do you know what you are saying, Hawkins?” he demanded fiercely, as
though to trample down and sweep aside by the brute force of his own
incredulity the other's assertion. “Do you know what you are saying--_do
you?”_
“Yes, I know,” said Hawkins helplessly. “He said you nearly killed him
to-day, and----”
John Bruce's laugh, with a savagery that had him now at its mercy and in
its grip, rang suddenly through the room.
“Then, for once, he told the truth!” he cried. “He tricked me cold with
that old bus last night, and trapped me in the rats' hole where his gang
holds out, but----”
Hawkins stumbled to his feet. His face seemed to have grown grayer
still, more haggard and full of abject misery.
“That's it, then!” he whispered. “I--I understand now. I was drunk last
night. Oh, my God, I'm to blame for this, too!”
John Bruce pushed Hawkins almost roughly back into his chair. Last night
was gone. It was of no significance any more.
“Never mind about that!” he said between his teeth. “It doesn't matter
now. Nothing matters now except Claire. Go on, tell me! What does
it mean? To-morrow morning, you said. Why this sudden decision about
to-morrow morning?”
Hawkins' lips seemed dry. He circled them again and again with his
tongue.
“He said you nearly killed him to-day, as I--I told you,” said Hawkins,
fumbling for his words. “And he said that you had been lovers before
that night when you were stabbed, and that he wasn't going to stand for
it any longer, and--and”--Hawkins' voice broke--“and that she belonged
to him. And he said she was the only one who could stop this trouble
between you and him before it was too late, and that was by marrying him
at once. And--and Claire said she would.”
Hawkins stopped. His old felt hat was on his knees, and he twisted at it
aimlessly with shaking fingers.
John Bruce stood motionless.
“Go on!” he bit off his words.
“That's all,” said Hawkins, “except he made her promise not to let
you know anything about it. They're going to leave the house to-morrow
morning, and are going down to Staten Island to get married because
there's some minister down there he knows, Crang said. And I'm to take
Crang, and--and”--the old man turned away his face--“I--I'm to be best
man. That--that's what he said--best man.”
John Bruce walked abruptly to the window, and stared blindly out into
the night. His brain seemed afire.
For a time neither man spoke.
“You said you loved her,” said Hawkins at last. “I came to you. There
wasn't any other place to go. Paul Veniza can't do anything.”