THE WAGES OF SIN.
In the private room to which he had led him, Moses Flood paid Kendall
his winnings. As he took a portion of the funds from a huge safe in one
corner, he said coldly:
“I must give you part of the amount in government bonds, Mr. Kendall.”
“Anything—anything easily convertible,” faltered Kendall, half choked
with emotion.
He could hardly realize what had befallen him, that he really had won
all that he required to rectify his deficit at the bank, and that he
then and there was to receive the money that would save him from flight,
a defaulter’s last resort, or the shame of a convict’s cell.
He feared each moment that he would awake, that he would find it all a
dream, and behold again the soul-sickening image of his dreadful crime
leering at him with mocking eyes.
“The package will be quite bulky, and I will loan you a small
portmanteau,” said Flood, placing the satchel mentioned and several
bundles of bank-notes and bonds upon the table.
Kendall tottered nearer, then suddenly gave way to sobs and covered his
face with his hands.
“Oh, God! God above!” he cried brokenly. “Flood, you do not know, you
cannot know, what this means to me!”
Moses Flood drew himself up and laid his hand on the speaker’s shoulder.
“Kendall,” said he, with grave austerity, “you are not rightly tempered
to be a gamester. Take the advice of a gamester, however, and for the
sake of those who love you, if not for your own, never again face a faro
layout or play a card for money.”
“Never, never, so help me God!” cried Kendall, with uplifted hands.
“If you adhere to that vow, I shall not feel to-night that I have
suffered any loss,” said Flood, with a strange light upon his white,
forceful face.
Then he tossed into the satchel the deck of cards with which he had
dealt the game.
“I shall give you those cards also, Kendall,” said he oddly. “They are
the ones I have been using. Keep them until I come and demand them of
you. Some day you may know why I ask you to do this. Some day I may wish
to recall to your mind what I to-night have—— Ah, but it does not
matter.”
“I will keep them,” declared Kendall fervently. “God hearing me, I will
keep them.”
Flood had already closed and tightly strapped the satchel, which he now
hastened to place in Kendall’s hand.
“I pledge my word that the amount is right,” he said, with some feeling.
“Now go as quickly as you can, and remember your promise! Go—go—and
remember!”
Still profoundly agitated, Kendall hurried from the room, ignoring all
observers, forgetful even of his sleeping friend upon the couch, and
thus hastened alone from the house and sought the cool air of the early
evening.
Nick Carter saw him emerge from the room, and Chick leaned nearer,
saying softly:
“Shall I shadow him, Nick?”
The famous detective shook his head.
“No, Chick,” said he quietly. “There is no need of it.”
“Do you think so?”
“I feel assured. The man’s face tells the story. He is, indeed, short at
the bank, but he will use this money to make good the deficit and
conceal his crime. I am as sure of it as if I saw it done.”
Nick was entirely correct as to Kendall’s intentions, and, recalling
Gilsey’s instructions, he saw no occasion to go beyond them. He was
thinking, too, of Dora Royal, of the promise he had made her, and of
what Flood that night had done, believing it to be for her sake. Now,
feeling sure of his man, Nick would not for the world have perverted the
design and desires of Moses Flood.
The latter again appeared upon the scene while Nick was speaking, and at
the same moment the sound of a heavy fall started all hearers. It was
almost immediately followed by a maudlin laugh, and the man who had been
so long sleeping on the couch was seen rising unsteadily from the floor
beside it.
“Ha, ha! I reckon I fell out of bed,” he cried, in half-drunken tones,
as he gained his feet and stared with dazed eyes toward the group of
players at the table.
Though nearly twenty-three Harry Royal looked to be little more than a
youth. When sober, he was a handsome fellow, yet his features indicated
a weak and yielding nature, and he was no sooner loosed from the
restrictions of his home life to attend college than he proved an easy
victim to the temptations which had brought him to his present
condition.
“How are they coming, Kendall?” he continued, swaying unsteadily and
failing to observe that his friend had departed. “Are you winning our
expenses? Have you——”
Then he caught sight of Flood approaching, and he reeled toward him with
extended hand, crying boisterously:
“Hello, Mose, old man! Glad to see you, on my word I am.”
“And I am sorry to see you, Royal, in this condition,” Flood gravely
rejoined.
“Faugh! Cut that out, Mose,” cried Royal, flushing slightly and shaking
his head to clear it of the cobwebs. “It’s only now and then, old man.
We are just back from Beantown, Kendall and I, and winding up a devil’s
own racket.”
“So it appears.”
“We painted Boston crimson, Mose, on my word. I say, Kendall, how are
the cards winning? I’m in with this play, old chap, win or lose.
Partners——”
“What!”
The words broke involuntarily from Flood, with a look of sudden dismay,
but the humpback hastened to cry:
“No, no, Mr. Royal, you’re not! Kendall went broke on your mutual play,
I give you my word. You were not in with the last—you were asleep when
he——”
“You lie! I am in with him!” Royal angrily interrupted. “Where has he
gone? The devil take him, he treats me like a schoolboy. I say I was in
with his play. Did he win? Tell me, did he win?”
Before Flood could respond, one of the players cried a bit derisively:
“No, I guess not, Harry! Only a cool ninety thousand!”
The face of Harry Royal grew dark as a thunder-cloud. He at once
suspected that Kendall had proven false, and was bent upon cheating him
of a part of the winnings, an idea somewhat warranted by the latter’s
apparently secret departure. The possibility of thus being wronged
seemed to arouse the very worst passions of which the intoxicated young
man was capable. With a scream of rage, he darted to the couch and
seized his hat.
“Ninety thousand—and I’ve heard him say he meant to jump the country!”
he cried wildly. “I’ll have my share of it, Mose. Do you hear me—I was
in with his play! He means to do me—curse him; but I know where to find
him! I’ll have my half, or I’ll have his life!”
“Peace!” thundered Flood, with terrible sternness. “Do you know where
you are and what you are saying?”
“Let go—let go my arm!” frothed the frenzied youth, struggling furiously
in the other’s grasp. “You don’t know him as I do. I know where to find
him—he has an appointment to-night with my—— Let go, I say! If he is not
at the rectory, he means to swindle me. Let go, Mose; or I’ll strike
you! I will have what’s coming to me, or I’ll have his life!”
With the infuriated words ringing from his lips he wrenched himself
free, and before he could be prevented he had thrown down the bar from
across the door and fled like a madman down the hall stairs.
“Wayward fool!” exclaimed Flood, thoroughly disgusted, yet anticipating
no serious results from the passionate threats. “He is a crazy ass when
in liquor.”
“I should say so.”
“Bruce, I am going out for about an hour. If he returns before I come
in, ask him to wait for me. I have a few words of advice for his foolish
ears.”
“Very well, sir.”
A strange place is a faro-bank. The excitement had passed, and the game
was again in progress. Not a man had moved from his seat at the table.
With features in no way betraying his feelings, Moses Flood put on his
coat and hat, took a heavy, ironwood cane from a stand in one corner,
and signed for Green to accompany him to the door. On the threshold he
paused for a moment, fixing his piercing eyes upon those of the
humpback, and said, barely above his breath, yet with indescribable
intensity:
“Remember, John! Not one word!”
“Never, sir; so help me God!”
Then Flood was gone, and the door closed with a bang.
Five minutes later Nick Carter, who had not deemed it worth his while to
interfere, which step might have suggested his identity, signed for
Chick to accompany him, and they left the place together.
“There was nothing more for us there,” remarked Nick, as they headed for
home. “If ever a man in a bad corner made a lucky play, Kendall has made
one this night.”
“I’m blessed if I can see through it!” said Chick, perplexedly. “What
has come over Flood that he should do such a thing as that?”
“The sentiment which quite often brings out the very best part of a
man,” replied Nick gravely.
“Love?”
“Precisely.”
“But——”
“Wait till we get home, Chick, and I will then explain.”
“Good enough,” laughed Chick. “I reckon I can wait.”
Seated together in the library of Nick’s residence, half-an-hour later,
the latter took up the subject where he had dropped it on the street.
“Love, that’s it,” said Nick, lighting a cigar. “And it’s just what I
would have expected of Mose Flood. He’s as odd a man as stands in
leather. As grand a man, too, barring his one deplorable vice.”
“He has a legion of friends, Nick, there’s no doubt of that,” observed
Chick. “You say that he is in love with Doctor Royal’s daughter, eh? Was
that what led to his move of to-night?”
“Exactly,” nodded Nick. “There’s a curious side to the affair, however.
Flood has never told the girl of his love, and he has no idea that she
cares for him. He took the rector’s word for it this afternoon that she
loves Kendall and is engaged to marry him.”
“Well?”
“In some way, Chick, he must have learned that Kendall is short in his
accounts to the tune of ninety thousand dollars.”
“So he forced Kendall to win that amount, knowing that he would use it
to square himself? Was that it?”
“No doubt of it.”
“But why did he not give Kendall the money openly, without compelling
him to make a play for it?”
“For several reasons, all characteristic of Moses Flood. First, he aimed
to insure that Dora Royal should never learn of Kendall’s crime, or that
he had saved him in this way for her sake. He does not want the girl to
feel under obligations to him. Possibly he feared that she might object
to her lover’s accepting money from a gambler, even to keep him out of
jail. Second, he aimed to spare Kendall the shame of knowing that his
crime had been discovered, or was at least suspected. So he forced him
to win the money, instead of giving it to him openly.”
“By Jove! that was good of him.”
“It was just like him, Chick. He has saved this man for love of that
girl, and it cost him ninety thousand dollars to do it, with never a
possibility that his magnanimity would be discovered, or that a word of
gratitude would ever be given him. Chick, such a man as that is worthy
of any girl, whether she’s a clergyman’s daughter or not.”
“And I hope he gets her,” cried Chick bluntly.
“We shall see,” smiled Nick significantly. “I reckon I yet may have a
finger in this pie.”
“I now see why you did not wish to arrest Kendall.”
“Surely not, Chick. I am convinced that Kendall will use that money to
adjust his affairs at the bank. Feeling sure of that, I determined not
to pervert Flood’s lofty design, on which he had plainly set his heart.”
“His cuekeeper must have known what came off?”
“The humpback?”
“Yes.”
“That is true,” admitted Nick, “but Flood evidently knows that he can
trust him to say nothing about it. Furthermore, Chick, the cuekeeper is
probably entirely ignorant of Flood’s motive.”
“No doubt of it.”
“There is one feature of the case,” added Nick, rather more grimly,
“concerning which I am very much in the dark.”
“What is that, Nick?”
“How the dickens did Flood learn that Kendall was short at the bank?”
“By Jove! that’s strange.”
“I reckon we have not heard the last of the case, Chick, and that
something serious may yet result from it. There is no evading one fact,
however. Flood has a heart as big as that of an ox, since he would thus
save a man for the sake of a girl he himself loves, instead of jealously
knocking his pins from under him. In days to come I’ll not forget this
in Moses Flood.”
The very next morning, which was sooner than Nick expected, his
prediction concerning the outcome of the case was startlingly verified.
He was seated with Chick in his office, about eight o’clock, when a
district telegraph boy brought in a message. Nick tore it open and read
it, then leaped involuntarily to his feet.
“What is it, Nick?” demanded Chick impulsively.
“The wages of sin is death!” cried Nick, with thrilling accents. “This
message is from Dora Royal, asking me to come at once.”
“For what?”
“Cecil Kendall was found murdered in the rectory grounds this morning!”