IN THE COLD, GRAY DAWN
CHICHESTER BARNARD slipped off his evening coat and put on his
smoking-jacket, and pausing in front of his chiffonier, gazed hungrily
at a photograph of Marjorie Langdon leaning against his shaving-glass.
The edges were cut evenly, and to the most casual eye it was obvious
that the picture had been taken from a large silver frame from whose
center smiled a speaking likeness of Janet Fordyce. Barnard picked up
Marjorie’s photograph and studied it long and intently, and gradually
the features assumed a life-like outline and the eyes a natural fire,
so completely did her personality vitalize the inanimate photograph
under his rapt attention. With a shudder he dropped it face downward.
“Ah! Madge, my darling,” he murmured sadly. “Janet may occupy the
silver frame, but not my heart. I am tempted, sorely tempted, but
dollars and sense go together.”
Catching up a box of cigarettes, he switched off the electric light,
and entering his sitting-room, made his way to the fireplace where
fresh logs were burning merrily on the hearth. He pulled up a Morris
chair and warmed his hands at the blaze; then settled back and stared
at his surroundings.
Barnard had inherited the Georgetown property on the death of his
aunts, and, not having the means to keep up the fine old mansion, and
finding it impossible to rent as a residence, he had had the building
remodeled and made into an apartment house. He kept one of the bachelor
apartments, comprising sitting-room, bedroom, and bath, for his own
use. The two rooms were large and airy, and the handsome antique
furniture, also an inheritance with the house, did not look amiss in
their familiar setting.
Chichester Barnard was the last of a long line of distinguished
ancestors, and from his earliest youth pride of family had been drilled
into him, and the often repeated refrain, “A Barnard can do no wrong,”
became a fetish with him. He was as familiar with family tradition
as he was ignorant of true democracy, but soon after attaining his
majority he was forced to realize that past glory did not pay grocers’
bills, and that his blue blood was not a useful commodity except in
drawing-rooms. The pricking of his inflated family pride brought in its
train a false value of money. With money what could he not accomplish?
What not buy? And the acquisition of money became his lode-star.
By arduous work and much self-denial Barnard was winning a deserved
reputation in his profession, but his impetuous temperament chafed
at the slowness with which he accumulated money. He was constantly
seeking unscrupulous get-rich-quick schemes and other short cuts to
wealth, but with heart-breaking regularity they came to nothing. He had
met Marjorie Langdon two years before and had fallen madly in love with
her, had persuaded her to engage herself to him, and with a caution
which he inwardly despised, had made her promise not to tell Madame
Yvonett of their mutual attachment. He felt that if the engagement was
once announced he would be irrevocably bound to marry her; he longed
to marry her, but--he would not wed her while he was a poor man. He
despised poverty as before he had despised low birth.
Exaggerated reports of Janet Fordyce’s reputed wealth, which she was
to inherit on coming of age, reached Barnard and aroused his cupidity.
In the past his affection for Marjorie had barred that all too
frequently traveled road to “Easy Street,” a marriage for money; but
he met Janet at a time when his finances were low, and the idea was
not so distasteful as formerly; particularly when the girl, beside her
wealth, had charm, youth, and a lovable disposition. But Barnard, like
many another man, was tempted to play with fire. The more inevitable
appeared his break with Marjorie, the more passionately he loved her,
and only the lure of wealth kept him steadfast in his purpose.
Barnard was trying to pierce the future as he sat in his sitting-room,
the cold, gray dawn creeping through the window blinds, and he smoked
innumerable cigarettes with nervous rapidity. His roving eyes
restlessly examining each familiar piece of furniture, finally lighted
on the huge antique sofa near by. Instead of having legs, the base
of the sofa was a carved sphinx, a sadly battered sphinx, whose two
breasts had been cut off because Barnard’s spinster aunts had deemed
them immodest!
Just as Barnard lighted another cigarette, a man, lying on the sofa,
rolled over and viewed him in stupid wonder.
“Feeling better, Cooper?” inquired Barnard politely.
“How’d I get here?” asked Joe, ignoring the other’s question. “And
where am I, anyhow?”
“These are my diggings, and I brought you over here because you were so
hopelessly pickled I judged your sister had better be spared a glimpse
of you.”
Slowly memory of the night returned to Joe’s befuddled brain, and he
sat bolt upright.
“Washington isn’t so slow,” he volunteered, after due reflection.
“There are plenty of people to help you go to the devil, here as
elsewhere,” retorted Barnard. “Better pull up, Cooper, it doesn’t pay.”
“Nothing pays,” Joe growled disconsolately. “D--mn it, man, I don’t
want to listen to a temperance lecture,” and he rose a trifle
unsteadily.
“Sit down, Cooper,” Barnard scanned him contemptuously, and Joe sulkily
resumed his seat. “I’ve said my say.”
“Lot’s of snobs here,” commented Joe, after nursing his grievances
in silence for some time. “Take Duncan Fordyce, for instance; turned
me down this evening when I asked to be introduced to a girl he was
dancing with. I’ll get even with him, never fear.”
Barnard ran an appraising eye over his companion, and a mental picture
of Duncan brought a smile to his lips. “Don’t try any hanky-panky
business with Fordyce,” he advised. “He might knock you into the other
world.”
“I’m not such a fool as to try physical force; but there are other ways
of getting even,” Joe frowned, then winked. “I know a thing or two
about the Fordyce family.”
Barnard blew ring after ring of smoke into the air and watched it
evaporate with idle attention.
“Go carefully, Cooper,” he cautioned. “Damages for slander are heavy.”
“It’s no slander, but gospel truth,” affirmed Joe. “I had it straight
from mother’s friend, Mrs. Watson, who was companion to Mrs. Fordyce
before they went abroad, and I know it’s true by the way Duncan Fordyce
acted when he heard me allude to the kink in his family,” and in a few
words he described the scene in the Turkish Bath.
“That explains Fordyce’s lack of cordiality at Captain Nichol’s
quarters after the drill,” commented Barnard. “If I were you, Cooper,
I’d steer clear of arousing his wrath.”
“He can’t injure me,” Joe swaggered with the courage induced by
overindulgence. “And you’ve been mighty white this evening; it’s only
right I should tip you off.”
“Keep your confidences to yourself,” Barnard rose and kicked the fire
into a brighter blaze. “The matter does not concern me.”
“Doesn’t it, eh? Well, if I was planning to marry a girl, an’ I heard
her family were dotty----” he stopped and shrank back as Barnard swung
on him.
“What do you mean by your damnable insinuation?” he demanded, his eyes
flashing with indignation.
“’Tisn’t a ’sinuation; it’s--it’s gospel truth I’m telling you,”
stuttered Joe, retreating to the farther end of the sofa. “Take your
hand off my collar. Anybody in San Francisco’ll tell you the Fordyces
are all crazy.”
“You’ve said too much, and too little,” Barnard slowly returned to
his chair. “Go ahead and make good your statement, if you can,”
significantly. “And I warn you if I catch you lying, I won’t leave it
to Duncan Fordyce to finish you off.”
“Nice way to talk to a friend who wants to do you a good turn,” whined
Joe. “You can prove what I say by writing to Mrs. Watson at Santa
Barbara. She says whenever any member of the Fordyce family dies
the physicians have to cauterize them--what do you make of that?”
triumphantly.
“Only a precautionary measure to test death,” said Barnard calmly. “I
suppose the Fordyces have a dread of being buried alive.”
“That applies to their mental condition----” Barnard shook his head
in utter disbelief, and Joe continued heatedly. “I tell you they are
unbalanced; why the old lady, Mrs. Fordyce----”
“Is a hunchback, yes,” admitted Barnard. “She was injured in a railroad
accident--that has nothing to do with mental trouble.”
“I’ve been told that injury to the spine does often affect the brain,”
Joe stuck obstinately to his contention. “Anyway Mrs. Fordyce developed
a mighty funny craze about dirt.”
“Dirt?” Barnard’s attention was fully aroused. “Do you mean she has
mysophobia?”
“Maybe that’s the word; what does it mean exactly?”
“Mysophobia? A morbid fear of contamination--of soiling one’s hands by
touching anything....”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Joe. “Mrs. Fordyce has a bad case of it. Mrs.
Watson said she insisted on washing her plates, knives, and forks
before eating; and she gave up traveling because of the dirt and dust
which nearly drove her mad, and just shut herself up.”
“Poor soul!” ejaculated Barnard compassionately. “She must be in
perpetual torment.”
“She’s tormented other people as well,” said Joe. “She grew so that
she wouldn’t touch money; and once she gave away a soiled dollar bill
to a beggar to get rid of it, then nearly had brain fever because she
imagined she had passed on some disease to innocent people. I believe
Calderon Fordyce spent a hundred just to trace that one dollar bill to
have it returned to the United States Treasury and redeemed, before
his wife got over the worrying about her sinfulness in passing along
dirty money. I wish she’d get rid of some of it in my direction.”
“Dirt to dirt,” Barnard’s sneering tone was lost on Joe, who was busy
searching his empty pockets. “There is nothing discreditable to the
Fordyces in what you have told me, Cooper; quite to the contrary. And
while Mrs. Fordyce suffers from a curious mania, possibly superinduced
by her accident, she is not mentally unbalanced, and most certainly her
condition will not be inherited by her children. Janet told me she and
Duncan were born before the accident.”
“They may not inherit that particular craze,” acknowledged Joe. “But
I tell you, man, there is insanity in the family. There is some story
about Janet; I don’t know exactly what it is, but Pauline can tell you.
She heard it from a schoolmate of Janet’s----”
“And she heard it from someone else, and so on, and so on--bosh! utter
bosh!” Barnard brought down his clenched fist on the table with a force
that made the glasses ring. “If I hear you repeating this rot I’ll make
Washington too hot to hold you,” and cowed by his blazing wrath, Joe
mumbled a hasty promise.
* * * * *
Across Rock Creek the city lights were paling, and the cold gray dawn
found Marjorie still crouching before the dying embers of a grate
fire, where she had thrown herself on entering her bedroom some hours
before. Slowly, very slowly her numbed senses grasped the significance
of the occurrences of the night. Janet Fordyce was a kleptomaniac, and
she, Marjorie Langdon, was branded a thief--caught with the goods! She
shuddered in horror, and rubbed one cold hand over the other. Surely
her God was a just God? Why was she picked out to be the victim of
circumstance? First, Admiral Lawrence had believed her guilty of theft,
and now Mrs. Walbridge had practically ordered her from her house as a
thief. Of the theft of the codicil she could give no explanation, but
she could at least clear herself of the charge of stealing the diamond
sunburst by denouncing Janet.
Ah, but could she? Her dazed wits invariably returned to that point in
her reasoning; was she not in honor bound to shield Janet? Mrs. Fordyce
had taken her word in the face of her discharge from Admiral Lawrence’s
employ. Since being with Janet she had met with every courtesy and
kindness, and Mrs. Fordyce had gone out of her way to make her feel at
home. No, a thousand times no, she could never betray Janet.
Her decision reached, a feeling of relief swept over her, to be checked
the next moment by the realization that even if she did denounce Janet
she would not be believed. She was poor, she needed money, she had the
opportunity, and she stole; so would read the verdict. Janet had but to
ask, and a dozen diamond sunbursts, if need be, would be purchased to
gratify her whim. She did not need to steal.
Marjorie rose slowly to her feet and stretched her stiff muscles,
switched on the light, and then commenced to undress, but she gave
little thought to what she was doing, her entire attention being taken
up in trying to recall what she knew of kleptomania. She remembered
being told that it was a mental derangement, an irresistible propensity
to steal, and that the kleptomaniac cared nothing for the objects
stolen as soon as the impulse to steal was gratified. Her father had
once told her of a friend who would eat no food that was not stolen,
and his servants (fortunately he was wealthy) had to secrete food
about the house and permit him to steal it before he would satisfy his
hunger. She had also read somewhere of a kleptomaniac so obsessed by
his craze that he stole the crucifix from his confessor.
Merry, charming Janet to be the victim of such mental disorder!
Marjorie wrung her hands in agony. Was there no way to help the child?
If the news ever leaked out it would kill her delicate mother.
Marjorie, pleading her indisposition, had left Janet at the dance under
Duncan’s care, and a sympathetic footman having engaged a cab for her,
she had returned at once to the Fordyce residence. Some hours later
Janet had rapped at her door and asked how she was, and satisfied with
Marjorie’s answer, had gone straight to her room without entering, to
Marjorie’s intense relief; she would have broken down if she had faced
her then.
Marjorie was about to get into bed when she spied a note addressed to
her lying on top of a neat package on her bedstead. Sitting down on the
edge of the bed, she tore open the envelope and listlessly read the
few written lines; then, startled, read them a second and third time.
The note was from her clergyman informing her that the contents of the
accompanying package had been found the Sunday before in the Fordyce
pew, and he thought it best to send them to her that she might return
the property to the rightful owner.
The note slipped unheeded to the floor, and with trembling fingers
she tore open the bundle, and out fell a dozen or more handsome silk
and lace doilies. Not one was alike, and a cry of horror broke from
Marjorie, as, picking them up, she recognized them as belonging to
hostesses with whom she and Janet had recently lunched and dined.