There was no handsomer bachelor rooms in the city of Philadelphia, than
were those of Schuyler Cluett, the handsome young gallant and "man about
town."
Society said he was very rich, that he had been left a large fortune by
an uncle, and many were the young ladies who sought to win favour in his
eyes.
His rooms consisted of a _suite_ of five, for there was his parlour,
combined with sitting-room, his bed-chamber, a spare one for a belated
guest, a snug little kitchen, that was also used as a breakfast-room,
and a sleeping place for a servant.
All were delightfully furnished, and the young bachelor was wont to take
his breakfast at ten, his _valet_ getting the meals for him, while his
dinners and suppers he always took at the fashionable True Blue Club, of
which he was a popular member.
At a stable near he kept his _coupe_ and riding-horse, with a coachman,
so that he lived in very great comfort; in fact, it amounted to luxury.
His bills were always promptly paid at the end of the month; he dressed
with elegance, took the best seat at the opera and theatres, was able to
take a run around to Long Branch, Cape May, Newport, Saratoga and the
White Mountains in the summer, and having spare money always with him to
lend a friend an X or a XX, he was rated a good fellow among the men.
One night, about one, a.m., Schuyler Cluett was preparing to retire, and
a friend who had accompanied him home had been shown to the spare room,
which also opened into the parlour, so that the two talked as they
undressed.
"That deuced valet of mine is always away when I need him most," growled
the young bachelor.
"Now, here he is off at a ball, and why servants must have balls I
cannot understand, and both you and I, Rayford, are half drunk, and need
him to look after our comfort."
"It's too bad!" sang out Rayford from his room.
"I'd discharge him, Schuyler."
"I will, and I do. I discharge him every day, but I hire him over again
before he gets off, and that spoils him; so I'll discharge him some time
for a week, and it will teach him a lesson--ah! there he is now, and
I'll have to go out in the hall and let him in, for he's forgotten his
night key," and Schuyler Cluett went to the door to answer a ring.
As the door opened, he began to berate his valet, as he supposed it was,
but was considerably taken aback at beholding a stranger enter the hall.
He failed to recognise him at first, but suddenly beheld him in the full
light of the parlour, whither the stranger had strode with the remark:
"I wish to see you, Mr. Schuyler Cluett."
"Ho, Lomax, my dear fellow, I did not know you; but you look ill and
something has surely happened, for you are as haggard as though after a
long illness," and Schuyler Cluett held out his hand.
"No, Cluett, I do not take the hand of a villain," was the stern reply
of the young farmer.
"By Heaven! are you drunk? What do you mean?" and the eyes of the young
aristocrat flashed, while his friend Rayford, half-dressed, peered out
of his door, startled at the turn affairs had taken.
"I mean, Schuyler Cluett, that you, like a snake that you are,
fascinated poor little Ruby Raymond, she that was to have been my wife.
"We were happy until _you_ came, and she was all my own; but one unlucky
day I dragged you away from death, and I took you to her home, and from
that moment you began to win her from me.
"I saw it all, I felt it all, for she became unhappy, and she told me
she thought we should be as sister and brother, for she loved me, but
not as a wife should.
"She saw how it hurt me to hear her say so, and so she said she did not
mean it; but she deceived me, for she did mean it, and one week ago, on
the very eve of our wedding-day, you came like a thief in the night and
stole her from me."
"Good Heaven! Lomax, I am not guilty of this, and you wrong me, indeed
you do!" cried Schuyler Cluett, his face the picture of amazement.
Kent Lomax seemed astounded, and asked, sternly:
"Do you deny it?"
"I do. Upon my honour, yes!"
"You deny that you ran off with Ruby Raymond from her father's house, at
twelve o'clock on the night of Christmas Eve?"
"I do."
"_You lie in your false throat, man!_" shouted the farmer, and at his
words Schuyler Cluett sprang toward him; but quick as a flash, a pistol
met him, the muzzle in his face, while the young farmer said sternly:
"Back! I did not come here unprepared, and I would kill you, oh! how
gladly!"
"I tell you I am falsely accused; and being unarmed, and knowing your
great strength, I am forced to hear you accuse me and submit to your
insults, Kent Lomax."
"Schuyler Cluett, I know that you are guilty, for I tracked you in your
villainy."
"Yet you find me here in my bachelor rooms, and there is a friend who is
with me, and can vouch for my words."
"I can, indeed, sir, for I know that my friend Cluett has been but two
days absent from the city the week past," and Randal Rayford stepped out
of his room into the parlour, he having hastily dressed as he saw that a
tragedy was threatening.
"Ah! he was two days absent, then?
"They are the two days in which he committed the crime of kidnapping and
murder--"
"Murder? Great Heaven! of what else will you accuse me, Lomax?"
"Yes, of murder; for when poor Mrs. Raymond read the note left by Ruby,
she fell in a faint, and she never came to herself again, but died, and
four days ago I went to see her buried over in the village graveyard.
"Then I took your track, Schuyler Cluett, and I found out where you
hired your team of fast horses, and where you drove to catch the train.
"There you bought two tickets for Baltimore, and I lost trace of you
after I arrived in that city."
"You have tracked some other man, Lomax, for your sweetheart did not run
off with me."
"And I say that I saw the man of whom you hired your horses, and he
described you."
"Other men look like me, Lomax."
"And I saw the station-agent where you took the train for Baltimore, and
he described you, and Ruby, also."
"An accidental resemblance."
"A man met you at that station, to drive the horses back to the town
where you hired them."
"That proves nothing."
"Does this?" and Kent Lomax drew from his pocket a handkerchief.
"That is a lady's handkerchief, I believe," was the cool reply.
"It was left by Ruby Raymond in the waiting-room of the railroad
station, and it _bears her name_."
"That proves that she did run off with someone; but who, Lomax, for I am
not the guilty one?"
"Does this prove anything?" and the young farmer held up the gold head
of a walking-stick.
Schuyler Cluett again started forward, as though to grasp it; but the
pistol's muzzle once more confronted him, while Kent Lomax fairly hissed
forth the words:
"This I found in the buggy, and there is the stick--see, it fits!" and
stepping to a corner, he picked up a headless walking-stick of
snake-root.
"You will not deny your guilt now, for this gold head bears your name,
and it came off in the buggy, and you doubtless thought you had dropped
it along the road."
"I say that I am _not_ guilty," was the sullen reply.
"Well, sir, I say that you are, and I came here to kill you; but I will
not be a coward and shoot down an unarmed man. Yet I will not allow you
to escape, for I intend to right the wrong I believe you have done poor
Ruby, and I have vowed, over the dead body of Mrs. Raymond, to avenge
her death."
"What is your intention, Lomax, for this scene is growing monotonous to
me?"
"My intention is to demand that you meet me face to face, arms in our
hands, and as one gentleman should meet another, though I do not
consider you worthy the name you have dishonoured."
"By the Lord Harry! but this is too much, and I will meet you were you
the lowest of the low; so name your friend, and Mr. Rayford here will
arrange with him!" hotly said Schuyler Cluett.
"_I_ have no friend, but that gentleman will do, and he is all we need.
"I will meet you at sunrise, at any place you may state, for I do not
know this city, and our weapons will be revolvers, the distance ten
paces, that gentleman to give the word to fire, and to keep it up until
one or both are killed."
"That will suit me," was the cool reply, and turning to his friend, he
continued:
"You will act for us, Rayford, in this affair this mad fool has forced
upon me?"
"Certainly, and there is a pretty spot, on the banks of the Schuylkill
river we can select, for I know it well, and I will give this gentleman
written instructions how to reach there.
"At sunrise you say?" and he turned to Kent Lomax.
"Yes, and sooner if it could be so."
"That is soon enough, and here is your directions to reach the spot,"
and he jotted down a few notes upon a paper.
"Thank you; and Schuyler Cluett if you prove yourself a coward and do
not come, I will prove merciless and kill you at sight, as I would a
snake," and Kent Lomax left the rooms.