DAVID’S suddenly formed resolution carried him swiftly to the one big
house of the village, where he rang the bell. The night being warm the
outer door stood open and he could look through the screen into the
dimly lighted hall. To the left of the passage was Jarvis’s library,
and David, waiting impatiently before the outer door, perceived that
the master of the house was within, quietly reading by a shaded lamp.
Somehow the sight stirred the unreasoning anger within him to a hotter
glow. His unanswered summons appeared in the guise of a deliberate
insult. Raising his walking-stick he smote the door. He saw the man
within raise his eyes from his book, as if to listen, and repeated his
knock smartly; then as Jarvis rose and came hastily toward the door, he
spoke:
“Good-evening, Mr. Jarvis,” he said, mumbling the prefix so that it was
little more than an inarticulate sound. “Guess your door-bell isn’t in
working order.”
Jarvis recognized his visitor with an involuntary start, which David
perceived with ill-disguised triumph.
“The fellow’s afraid of me,” he told himself, and hung up his hat on
the rack as if quite at his ease.
He followed Jarvis into the library and sat down, looking about him
with cool curiosity.
“You’ve been expecting to see me, I dare say,” he began, his eyes
returning from their tour of inspection to the other man’s face.
Jarvis returned the look doubtfully.
“It occurred to me that you might wish——”
“Yes; I do,” interrupted David. “You’re entirely right, sir.”
Having said this much in a loud, aggressive tone, David stopped short.
He had become suddenly aware that Jarvis was looking at—or rather,
through—him, in a way which made him irritably conscious of his hands,
his feet, the set of his collar, and the material of his light summer
clothes. Then those strange eyes went deeper; they were busying
themselves with his thoughts, his motives, they even saw his fears,
which crowded forward, a cloud of gibbering shapes, out of his past.
He spoke again, hurriedly, and backed up his words with a laugh, which
sounded foolishly loud in the quiet room.
“Well,” he said, “now that you’ve had time to look me over, how d’ you
like me? Think I’ll do—eh?”
“No,” Jarvis said quietly, almost sadly. “I’m afraid not. But I don’t
intend to trust my own judgment—entirely.”
He sighed deeply and looked down, as if there was nothing more to be
seen or said.
David straightened himself in his chair with a jerk.
“See here,” he said truculently. “I was joking, you know; you were
staring at me as if you’d never seen a human being before. But now I’d
like you to answer me straight. What d’you mean by saying I ‘won’t do’?
What business is it of yours what I——”
He choked a little with the rage that was consuming him.
“Why, confound your impudence!” he cried, his face flaming with anger.
“I owe you an apology, sir,” said Jarvis, with stately composure. “I
ought not to have spoken as I did. But there is much at stake.”
“Not for you,” said David insolently.
He fell to staring at Jarvis, striving to imitate the other’s
disconcerting look.
“She loves me, you know.”
He had not intended to taunt his rival, but the words slipped out
without volition. He was glad of it, in view of the blighting change
that swept over the other’s face.
“Yes,” Jarvis said dully, “I know that.”
He was realizing all at once that the blow that felled Whitcomb must
reach her tender breast also.
“There’s no use of beating about the bush,” David went on. “She told
me about your visit to her the other night. At first I didn’t catch on
about that remarkable client of yours and the care of the interesting
child and all that. But when I got out of her the fact that you had
been courting her while I was away, of course I was on to your little
game.”
He paused to allow his words their full weight, exulting in the look of
quiet despair that appeared to have settled upon Jarvis’s face.
“You thought if you couldn’t catch and hold her one way you would
another. You planned to keep her from me! Deny it if you dare!”
Jarvis looked up, opened his lips as if minded to reply; then his head
drooped, and again he sighed deeply. He was striving to master himself;
that self which even now struggled like a leashed hound under his iron
hand.
“I must be fair,” he groaned half aloud. “I must—I must, for her sake.”
“What’s that?” inquired David smartly. “We may as well have it out
first as last, you know.”
“Yes,” agreed Jarvis, rousing himself. “I didn’t mean to—yet. But——”
He looked calmly at David.
“Can we not talk this over in a reasonable way?” he asked. “There is
really no need of anger or——”
“Oh, come, man; let’s get down to business!” cried David, vastly
pleased with himself and his own acumen.
He had not been at all certain as to the money, which he was now
convinced Jarvis had given Barbara out of his own pocket. That he had
surprised, compelled, browbeaten Jarvis, in what he was pleased to call
“the fellow’s own game,” was a matter for pride, exultation. Who was
Jarvis, anyway, that a whole countryside should stand in awe of him and
his achievements? He, Whitcomb, had met the man and conquered him on
his own ground. He even began to feel a sort of complacent pity for his
abased rival, as his spirits rose from the depths of the humiliation
falsely put upon him by Jarvis.
“‘You can fool some of the people all of the time,’ you know,” he
quoted, with a confident laugh; “and you did succeed in fooling Barbara
nicely; but the minute I heard you were in love with her, of course I——”
“One thing first,” interrupted Jarvis; “did she tell you—what had
passed between us of her own free will?”
David burst into a laugh.
“Oh, that’s where the shoe pinches, is it?” he said good-humoredly.
“Well, I don’t mind informing you that Barbara didn’t tell me a single
thing about you—not at first. She’s a good little scout, Barbie is, and
she saved your pride all right for you. She’d never have told me, I
guess; but I taxed her with it, and, of course, she couldn’t deny it.
Some girls would have snapped you up quick, with all your money and
everything, and with me supposedly buried up in the Klondyke. But not
Barbara. She’s worth while, that girl.”
“Yes,” mused Jarvis, “she is—worth while.”
“You wouldn’t catch me loafing around this dead and alive hole for
many women,” David went on, drumming with his fingers on the edge of
his chair. “As it is, I’ve had about all I can stand of it; and she
won’t give in and marry me—won’t even wear my ring, till that client
of yours—that peculiar, hard-to-get-along-with individual you’re
representing—can be either bought off, or disposed of in some way.
Naturally, neither of us want to be under obligations to—_you_!” he
finished dramatically.
“Does she—suppose that I——”
David laughed again.
“No,” he said. “Oh, no! Barbie isn’t gifted with a very keen
imagination. She swallowed all you told her about that singular,
out-of-town client of yours. She seems to have implicit faith in you.”
A subtle lightning flash leaped from Jarvis’s eyes.
“She’s quite right to trust me,” he said calmly. “I’ll be glad if you
can do the same.”
“Oh, come now, it’s too late for any more joking between us!” cried
David roughly. “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You gave her that
money, Jarvis, you know you did. And you did it just so as to tie her
down. It’s a damned shame!”
Jarvis had risen, and David sprang eagerly from his chair to face him.
The two men were of equal height, and for an instant David’s boyish
blue eyes strove to master Jarvis, glance to glance. Then he drew back,
baffled, furious.
“You aren’t going to stick to that cock-and-bull story a minute longer
with me,” he blustered. “You know very well where the money came from!”
Jarvis bowed ceremoniously.
“Certainly I know,” he acknowledged.
“Didn’t you give it to her?”
“I shall not answer you.”
“Well, you did, and I can prove it.”
“How?”
David sprang forward with a triumphant laugh and snatched a small
object from the desk.
“I have been sitting where I could look at your writing traps,” he
exulted. “And I saw—this!”
Jarvis appeared quite unmoved.
“That is my seal,” he observed, “with my family crest. What of it?”
“What of it?” shouted David. “Why, it’s the thing that was used to sign
that damned contract. It’s proof positive. That’s what it is!”
“My client,” said Jarvis coolly, “did not wish to use his own name. I
suggested the seal. He used it—at my request.”
“Well, you’re the man, anyway,” David retorted violently. “I insist
that you release her—at once. Do you hear? At once!”
“So that she can be free to marry you?” Jarvis asked. His eyes were
fixed and glittered strangely.
“Yes! Why not? She’s my promised wife.”
Jarvis stood silent for a long minute, as if considering David’s words.
Then he looked up, moving a little toward the door with the manifest
intention of bringing the unfruitful interview to an end.
“I cannot say more at present than that I will endeavor to so arrange
matters with my client as to meet Miss Preston’s wishes,” he said.
He looked calmly, dispassionately at David, and again the young man
felt himself vaguely humiliated. He had meant to say more, much more;
but quite unexpectedly he found himself bidding Jarvis good-night. The
door closed quietly upon his wrath and discomfiture.
Stephen Jarvis did not at once resume the reading of the thin blue
volume which lay face down in the bright circle of lamp-light. Instead
he walked slowly up and down the room, his brows knit, his sinewy hands
locked behind him. He was trying as conscientiously as possible to
look at the situation from the view-point of the young man; to find,
if possible, in his own conduct some valid excuse for the (to him)
intolerable behavior of Whitcomb. While he yet strove with himself a
second visitor was announced.
Jarvis received this person with visible reluctance, bade him be
seated, and sat down himself, before he opened the conversation with a
tentative, “Well!” rather impatiently uttered.
“I arrived this afternoon, Mr. Jarvis, and quite fortunately fell in at
once with the person in question,” the newcomer said.
“Yes,” said Jarvis dryly.
“As I understand my commission,” pursued Mr. Todd, “I am to inform
myself as to the person’s past, his present occupation and habits,
and——”
Jarvis made an impatient gesture of assent.
“I want to know all about him,” he said. “It is important that I should
be informed as to whether he is fitted for a position of trust.”
The other man nodded.
“I understand,” he said.
“I want to know,” pursued Jarvis in a harsh voice, “if the man is
truthful, honest, temperate. If, in short, he is the man to be
implicitly trusted with—interests of the highest value and importance.”
Mr. Todd again assented, his sharp ferret eyes taking in the details of
his employer’s face and person with professional acumen.
“Mercantile?” he asked briskly, “or professional? There’s a difference,
you know. Now a man might be something of a braggart, addicted to
cigarette smoking, not averse to a temperate use of intoxicants, an
occasional—er——”
“Do you see all this in him already?” demanded Jarvis.
Mr. Todd considered.
“I dined with the young man,” he said slowly, “and acquired certain
information which may or may not have a bearing on your case.”
Jarvis leaned forward, glistening drops of moisture starting out on his
forehead.
“Is the man merely a weak fool—weak because untried by any of the
deeper experiences of life, and foolish only because he is young? or
is he—worse?” he asked, in a low voice; “that is what I want to know.
Temperamentally the person in question is at odds with myself. I—don’t
like him. But, understand, I must not rely on my likes and dislikes in
this matter. I—am obliged to be—fair to him, at all costs.”
“I understand, Mr. Jarvis,” assented the detective. “And I will tell
you frankly that my own initial impressions—and I have learned to rely
somewhat on first impressions as being in the main correct—are that
the person referred to is somewhat inconstant, easily led, excitable,
with all the faults of youth and—quite possibly”—he paused to again
study the face before him, “—many of its virtues. He is, on his own
testimony, selfish, extravagant, passionate.” He shook his head slowly.
“I should not,” he went on, “care to trust such a man with interests
calling for a high degree of business sagacity or—er—let us say sober
industry. I believe it was something of the sort you questioned.”
Jarvis threw himself back in his chair. His haggard eyes met the
detective’s squarely.
“Is the fellow fit to marry a good and pure woman?” he asked. “Could he
command her respect and hold her affection? That’s test enough for me.”
Mr. Todd moved uneasily in his chair.
“Oh, as to that,” he hesitated, “there are all sorts of women, you
know. Some of ’em like a man all the better—or appear to—if he—well; if
he isn’t too good, you know. I’ve known a woman,” he went on strongly,
“to marry a man who’d drink and abuse her, and yet she’d love him and
stick to him to the last. There’s something queer about women, when it
comes to loving a man. His character doesn’t seem to count for so much
as you’d suppose.”
Jarvis assented dryly.
“You think the person in question would be likely to—do as you
suggested?”
“It would be a toss-up,” said Mr. Todd thoughtfully, “as to whether
he’d settle down into a steady, respectable sort of a citizen, or—” he
paused to button his coat painstakingly “—the opposite. I’ll follow him
up a while longer,” he went on, “and report from day to day. In a case
like this, where you don’t feel like trusting your own judgment, it’s
best to let facts talk.”
Mr. Todd looked searchingly into the depths of his hat.
“Facts will talk, you know,” he said confidently. “They’re bound to.
Sooner or later, something comes along that tells the story. I’ve
shadowed many a person in the past as could tell you that, sir, from
behind prison bars.”