Читать книгу The Man in the Twilight - Cullum Ridgwell - Страница 6

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The two men reached the office on the hillside minutes before the mail carrier. They took the hill direct, passing hurriedly through the aisles of scented woods which shadowed its face. The other, the stranger, was left with no alternative but the roadway, zigzagging at an easier incline.

Standing passed into the house. His confidential man of many races looked up from his work. The quick, black eyes were questioning. He was perhaps startled at the swift return of the man whom he regarded above all others.

Standing spoke coldly, emphatically.

"There's a man coming along up. He's a sailorman, and he's dressed in dirty dungaree, and he's carrying a sack of mail. Now see and get this clearly, Loale. It's important. It's so important I can't stand for any sort of mistake. When he comes you've got to send him right into my room with the mail-bag. I want him to take it in himself. You get that?"

The half-breed's eyes blinked. It was rather the curious attitude of an attentive dog. But that was always his way when the master of the Sachigo Mill spoke to him.

Pete Loale was quite an unusual creature. He looked unkempt and unclean, with his yellow, pock-marked skin, and his clothes that would have disgraced a second-hand dealer's stores of waste. But for all his lack in these directions there was that in the man which was more than worth while. Out of his black eyes looked a world of intelligence. There was also a resource and initiative in him that Standing fully appreciated.

"Sure I get that," he said simply. Then he repeated in the manner of a child determined to make no mistake. "He's to take that mail-bag right into your office—himself."

"That's it. Don't knock on my door. Don't let him think there's a soul inside that room. Just boost him right in. You get that?"

The half-breed nodded.

"I'll just say: 'Here you! Just push that darn truck right inside that room, an' don't worry me with it, I'm busy.' That how?" The man hunched his slim shoulders into a shrug.

"See you do it—just that way," Standing said. Then he turned to Bat. "We'll get inside," he went on. "He'll be right along."

They passed into the office. The door closed behind them and Standing moved over to his seat at the crowded desk.

"Wal?"

Bat was still standing. He failed to grasp his friend's purpose. His wit was unequal to the rapid process of the other's swiftly calculating mind.

Standing littered his writing-pad with papers. He picked up a pen and jabbed it in the inkwell. Then he flung it aside and adopted a fountain-pen which he drew from his waistcoat pocket. His eyes lit with a half-smile as he finally raised them to the rugged face before him.

"You sit right over there by that window, Bat," he said easily. "If you get a look out of it you'll be amazed at the number of things to interest you." He nodded as Bat moved away with a grin and took the chair indicated. "That's it. Just sit around, and you won't see or even hear the fellow with the mail fall in through the door. And maybe, sitting there, you'll want to smoke your foul old pipe. Sort of pipe of peaceful meditation. Yes, I'd smoke that pipe, old friend, but you can cut out the peaceful meditation. You need to be ready to act quick when I pass the word. It's going to be easy. So easy I almost feel sorry for—Idepski."

"It is—Idepski?" Bat filled and lit his pipe.

"It surely is. No other. And—I'm glad. Now we'll quit talk, old friend. Just smoke, and look out of that window, and—think like hell."

Bat's understanding of his friend was well founded. The extreme nervous tension in Standing was obvious. It was in the wide, dark eyes. It was in the constant shifting of the feet which the table revealed. For the time, at least, the cowardice Standing claimed for himself was entirely swamped. He was stirred by the headlong excitement of battle in a manner that left Bat more than satisfied.

Once Bat turned from his contemplation of the piled-up country beyond the valley. It was at the sound of Standing's fiercely scratching pen. And his quick gaze took in the luxury of the setting for the little drama he felt was about to be enacted.

It was a wide, pleasant room, built wholly of red pine, and polished as only red pine will polish. There was a thick oriental carpet on the floor, and all the mahogany furniture was upholstered in red morocco. There were a few carefully selected pictures upon the walls, hung with an eye to the light upon each. But it was not an extravagant room. It suggested the homeland of Scotland, from which the owner of it all hailed. The Canadian atmosphere only found expression in the great steel stove which stood in one corner, and the splendid timber of which the walls of the room were built.

But Bat's eyes swiftly returned to their allotted task, and his reeking pipe did its duty with hearty goodwill. There was the sound of strident voices in the outer room, and the rattle of the door handle turning with a wrench.

The door swung open. The next moment there was the sound of a sack pitched upon the soft pile of the carpet. And through the open doorway the harsh voice of Loale pursued the intruder in sharp protest.

"Say, do you think you're stowing cargo in your darn, crazy old barge?" he cried. "If you fancy throwing things around you best get out an' do it. Guess you ain't used to a gent's office, you darn sailorman—"

But the door was closed with a slam and the rest of the protest was cut off. Bat swung about in his chair to discover a picture not easily to be forgotten.

Standing had left his desk. He was there with his back against the closed door, and his lean figure towered over the shorter sailorman in dungaree, who stood gazing up at him questioningly. The sight appealed to the grim humour of the manager. He wanted to laugh. But he refrained, though his eyes lit responsively as he watched the smile of irony that gleamed in the mill-owner's eyes.

"Well, well." Standing's tone lost none of the aggravation of his smile. "Say, I'd never have recognised you, Idepski, if it hadn't been that I was warned you'd shipped on the Lizzie." He laughed outright. "I can't help it. You wouldn't blame me laughing if you could see yourself. Last time I had the pleasure of encountering you was in Detroit. That's years ago. How many? Nearly seven. It seems to me I remember a bright-looking 'sleuth,' neat, clean, spruce, with a crease to his pant-legs like a razor edge, a fellow more concerned for his bath than his religion. Say, where did you raise all that junk? From old man Hardy's slop-chest? Hellbeam makes you work for your money when you're driven to wallowing in a muck-hole like the Lizzie. It isn't worth it. You see, you've run into the worst failure you've made in years. But I only wish you could see the sorry sort of sailorman you look."

Standing's right hand was behind him, and Bat heard the key turn in the lock of the door. He waited. But the trapped agent never opened his lips.

Idepski had seen Standing and the other down at the quay-side. He had left them there when he started up the hill. Yet—A bitter fury was driving him. He realised the trap that had been laid. He realised something of the deadly purpose lying behind it. So he remained silent under the scourge that was intended to hurt.

For all the filthy dungarees tucked into the clumsy legs of high leather sea boots, the dirty-coloured handkerchief knotted about his neck, the curious napless cloth cap with its peak pulled down over one eye, that curious cap which seems to be worn by no one else in the world but seafaring men, it was easy enough for Bat to visualise the dapper picture, that other picture of Walter Idepski that Standing had described. The man possessed a well-knit, sinuous figure which his dungarees could not disguise. His alert eyes were good-looking. And, cleaned of the black, stubbly growth of beard and whisker, an amazing transformation in his looks would surely have been achieved. But Bat's interest was less with these things than with the possible reaction the man might contemplate.

For the moment, however, the situation was entirely dominated by Standing, who displayed no sign of relaxing his hold upon it. He flung out a pointing hand, and Bat saw it was grasping the door key.

"You'd best take that chair, Idepski," he ordered. "You've opened war on me, but there's no need to keep you standing for it. You'll take that seat against my writing table. But first, Bat, here, is going to relieve you of the useless weapons I see you've got on you. Get those, Bat! There's a gun and a sheath knife, and they're clumsily showing their shape under his dungarees."

It was the word the mill-manager had awaited. He was on his feet in an instant. Idepski stirred to action. He turned to meet him.

"Keep your darn hands off!" he cried fiercely. "By—"

His hand had flown to his hip. But he was given no time. Bat was on him like an avalanche, an avalanche of furious purpose. The fighting spirit in him yearned, and in a moment his victim was caught up in a crushing embrace. There was a short, fierce struggle. But Idepski was no match for the super lumber-jack.

While Bat held on, the tenacious hands of Standing tore the weapons he had discovered from their hiding places. Then in a moment Idepski found himself sprawling in the chair he had been invited to take.

Standing's appreciation was evident as he watched the man draw a gold cigarette case from the breast pocket of his overalls as though nothing had occurred. It was an act of studied coolness that did not for a moment deceive, but it pleased. However, his next effrontery pleased the mill-owner still more.

"Say, boys," Idepski observed quietly, as he opened the case and extracted a cigarette. "I guess I'm kind o' glad you left me this. But I don't figger you're out for loot, anyway." Then he glanced up at the man watching him so interestedly. "Maybe you'll oblige me with a light," he demanded, and cocked up the cigarette he had thrust between his lips with an exaggerated impertinence.

The action was quite irresistible and Standing nodded.

"Sure," he said smilingly, and picked up the matchbox lying on his table.

He struck a match and held it while the other obtained the required light. Then he passed round the desk to the seat he had originally occupied.

Idepski leant back in his chair, and luxuriated in a deep inhalation of smoke. Bat watched him from his place at the window. Standing placed the revolver and sheath knife he had taken possession of in a drawer in the desk, and closed it carefully.

"Well, what's the play?" Idepski addressed himself solely to Standing. "I guess you've said a deal calculated to rile, and your pardner's done more," he went on. "Still—anyway we're mostly men and not school-kids. What's the play?"

Standing, too, was leaning back in his chair.

"It's easy," he said, after a moment's thoughtful regard. Suddenly he drew his chair up to the table, and, leaning forward, folded his arms upon the littered blotting pad in front of him. "It's seven years since Hellbeam—blazed the war trail," he said deliberately. "I know he's persistent. He's angry. And he's the sort of man who doesn't cool down easily. But it's taken him seven years to locate me here. And during all that time I've been looking on, watching his every move." He shook his head. "He's badly served, for all his wealth. He was badly served from the start. You should never have let me beat you in that first race across the border. I got away with every cent of the stuff, and—you shouldn't have let me. You certainly were at fault. However, it doesn't matter."

Idepski removed his cigarette from his lips and dropped the ash of it in the waste basket.

"No. It doesn't matter, because I'll get you—in the end," he retorted coldly.

"Perhaps."

Standing shrugged. But there was no indifference in his eyes. The acid sharpness of Idepski's retort had driven straight home. If the agent failed to detect it, the watchful eyes of Bat missed nothing. To him the danger signal lay in the curious flicker of his friend's eyelids. The sight impelled him. He jumped in and took up the challenge in the blunt fashion he best understood.

"Guess you've got nightmare, boy," he said, with a sneering laugh. "I ain't much at figgers, but it seems to me if it's taken you seven years to locate us here, it's going to take you seventy-seven gettin' Standing back across that border. Work it out."

Idepski had no intention of being drawn. He replied without turning.

"You think that?" he said easily. "Say, don't worry a thing; I'm satisfied. Just as sure as the sun'll rise to-morrow, Hellbeam'll get Leslie Martin, or Standing as he chooses to call himself now, just where he needs him. And if I know Hellbeam that'll be in the worst penitentiary the United States can produce. Guess you're going to wish you hadn't, Mister—Standing."

Perhaps Idepski knew his man, and understood the weakness of which Bat was so painfully aware. Perhaps he was just fencing, or even putting up a bluff in view of his own position. Whatever his purpose the effect of his added threat was instant.

Standing's luminous eyes hardened. The muscles of his jaws gripped. He sat up, and his whole attitude expressed again that fighting mood in which Bat rejoiced.

"That's all right," he said sharply. "That's just talk. You've come a hell of a long way with those boys of yours down at the Lizzie to worry out some body-snatching. That's all right. I don't just see how you've figgered to do it. But that's your affair. The point is, I'm going to do the body-snatching instead of you. And it's quite clear to me how I intend doing it. You're going a trip—right off. And it's a trip from which you won't get a chance of getting back to Quebec under this time next year. You see, winter's closing down in a month, and Labrador and Northern Quebec aren't wholesome territory for any man to set out to beat the trail in winter, especially with folks around anxious to stop him. You reckon I'm to pass a while in a States penitentiary. Well, meanwhile you're going to try what this country can show you in the way of a—prison ground. And you're going to try it for at least a year. You'll be treated white. But you'll need to work for your grub like other folks, and if you don't feel like working you won't eat. We're fifty-three degrees north here, and our ways are the tough ways of the tough country we live in. There's no sort of mercy in this country. Bat, here, is going to see you on your trip, and, if you take my advice, you won't rile Bat. He's got it in him, and in his hands, to make things darn unpleasant for you. You've a goodish nerve, and maybe you've goodish sense. You'll need 'em both for the next twelve months. After that it's up to you. But if you try kicking between now and then, why—God help you."

Standing beckoned Bat from his seat at the window. He held up the door key.

"You best take this," he said. "No. 10. And he starts out right away. He needs to be well on the road before the Lizzie puts to sea."

Bat took the key. He moved away and unlocked the door, and remained beside it grimly regarding the man who had listened without comment to the sentence passed on him, without the smallest display of emotion. Idepski was smoking his second cigarette.

"No. 10. I s'pose that's one of your lumber camps." Idepski looked up from his contemplation of the cigarette. His dark eyes were levelled at the man across the writing table. "A tough place, eh? or you wouldn't be sending me there." He laughed in a fashion that left his eyes coldly enquiring.

Standing inclined his head. He was without mercy, without pity.

"It's a tough camp in a tough country," he said deliberately. "It's a camp where you'll get just as good a time as you choose to earn. The boy who runs it learnt his job in the forests of Quebec, and you'll likely understand what that means. Well, you're going right off now. But there's this I want to tell you before I see the last of you—for a year. I know you, Idepski. I know you for all you are, and all you're ever likely to be. You're an unscrupulous blackmailer and crook. You're a parasite battening yourself on the weakness of human nature, taking your toll from whichever side of a dispute will pay you best. You're taking Hellbeam's money in the dispute between him and me, and you'll go on taking it till you pull off the play he's asking, or get broken in the work of it. That's all right as far as I'm concerned. You've nerve, you've courage, or you wouldn't be the crook you are. I guess you'll go on because I've no intention of competing with Hellbeam for your services. But I want you to understand clearly you've jumped into a mighty big fight. This is a country where a fight can go on without the prying eyes of the laws of civilisation peeking into things. And by that I take it you'll understand I reckon to make war to the knife. You came here prepared to use force. That's all right. We shan't hesitate to use force on our side. And we're going to use it to the limit. If peace is only to be gained at the cost of your life you're going to pay that cost—if it suits me. That's all I've to say at the moment. For the present, for a year, you'll be safely muzzled. You see, I don't need to worry with those boys you brought with you. You best go along with Bat now. He'll fix things ready for your trip."

The dismissal was complete, and Bat was prompt to accept his cue. He moved towards the man smoking at the table, much in the fashion of a warder advancing to take possession of his prisoner after sentence of the court.

It was at that moment that the cold mask of indifference fell from the agent. Hardy as he was, the contemplation of his momentary failure, which was about to cost him twelve months of hardship in one of the roughest lumber camps in Labrador, robbed him of something of that nerve which was his chief asset. He glanced for the first time at the burly figure of Bat. He contemplated the rugged features of the man whose battling instinct was his strongest characteristic. He read the purpose in the grim set of the square jaws, and in the unyielding light of the grey eyes peering out from under shaggy brows. And that which he read reduced him to a feeling of impotence. He flung a look of fury and hate at the man behind the desk.

"Maybe that's all you've to say," he cried, his jaws snapping viciously over his words, his eyes fiercely alight. "You think you've won when you've only gained a moment's respite. You can't win. You don't know. Oh, yes. I guess you can send me along out of the way. You can do just all you reckon. And if it suits you, you can shoot me up or any other old thing. You forget Hellbeam. You tell me I'm a crook and a blackmailer, you give me credit for nerve and courage. That's all right. You think these things, and I don't have to worry. But you've robbed Hellbeam. You've robbed him like any common 'hold-up'—of millions. It's not for you to talk of crooks and blackmailers. The laws of the States are going to find you the crook, and Hellbeam'll see they don't err for leniency. Hellbeam'll get you as sure as God. You've got months to think it over, and when you've done I reckon you won't fancy shouting. Well, I'm ready for this joy spot you call No. 10. I'm not going to kick. I've sense enough to know when the drop's on me. But you'll see me again. Oh, yes, you'll see me again because you're not going to shoot me up. For all your talk you haven't the nerve. You'll see me again, and when you do—well, don't forget Hellbeam's at the other end of this business. Guess I'm ready."

The man stood up. And as he stood his eyes looked squarely into those of Bat.

"Get on with it," he cried, and flung the remains of his lighted cigarette on the pile of the carpet, and trod it viciously underfoot with his heavy sea boot.

* * * * *

Standing was alone. He was alone with the thoughts his encounter with Idepski had inspired. Judging by the expression of his reflective eyes they were scarcely those of a man confident of victory. Had Bat been there to witness, the task he was at that moment engaged upon would surely have been robbed of half its satisfaction.

But Bat had gone. And with him had gone the man who was to learn the rigours of a Labrador winter under conditions of hardship he had not yet realised. Meanwhile Standing was free to think as his emotions guided him, with no watchful eyes to observe.

"You'll see me again, and when you do—well, don't forget Hellbeam's at the other end of this business."

The words haunted. The threat of them appealed to an imagination that was a-riot.

After a time Standing stirred restlessly. He sat up and brushed the litter of paper aside. Then he leant back in his chair and his fine eyes were lit with an agony of doubt and disquiet. The poisonous seed of the agent's retort had fallen upon fruitful soil.

But after awhile the tension seemed to relax, and his gaze wandered from the grey daylight beyond the window and was suddenly caught and held by the mail bag, still lying where the man had flung it. It was like the swift passing of a summer storm. The man's whole expression underwent a complete transformation. The mail! The mail from Quebec—unopened!

He sprang to his feet. For the moment Idepski, Hellbeam, everything was forgotten. His thought had bridged the miles between Farewell Cove and the ancient city of the early French, Nancy! That woman—that devoted wife who was striving with all the power of a frail body to serve him. There would be a letter in that mail from Nisson, telling him—Yes. There might even be a letter from Nancy herself.

The sack was in his hands. He had broken the seals. He shook out the contents upon the floor. A packet of less than half a hundred letters, and the rest was an assortment of parcels of all shapes and sizes. It was the letter packet that interested him, and he untied the string that held it.

A swift search produced the expected. Standing looked for the handwriting of Charles Nisson, the shrewd, obscure lawyer in the country town of Abercrombie. He had never yet failed him. He would not be likely to. A bulky letter remained in his hand. The others lay scattered broadcast upon the desk.

For some moments he held the letter unopened. The lean fingers felt the bulk of the envelope, while feverish eyes surveyed, and read over and over the address in the familiar small, cramped handwriting. The impulse of the moment was to tear open the letter forthwith, to snatch at the tidings he felt it to contain. But something deterred. Something left him doubting, hesitating. It was what Bat had called his "yellow streak." Suppose—suppose—But with all his might he thrust his fears aside. He tore off the outer cover and unfolded the closely written pages.

Long, silent moments passed, broken only by the shuffling of the sheets of the letter as he turned them. Not once did he look up from his reading. Right through to the end, the dreadful, bitter end, he read the hideous news his loyal friend had to impart. Twice, during the reading, the sharp intake of breath, that almost whistled in the silence of the room, told of an emotion he had no power to repress, and at the finish of it all the mechanically re-folded page's fell from shaking, nerveless fingers upon the littered desk.

His eyes remained lowered gazing at the fallen letter. His hands remained poised where the letter had fallen from them. His face had lost its healthful hue. It was grey, and drawn, and the lips that parted as he muttered had completely blanched.

"Dead!" he whispered without consciousness of articulation. "Dead! Nancy! My boy! Both! Oh, God!"