Читать книгу Murder Runs in the Family - Footner Hulbert - Страница 5

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JIM BEARDMORE'S interview with Freda Rollin early that morning had been very unsatisfactory from his point of view, and he came to his offices in a savage temper. All his employees immediately became aware of it. In the outer hall Colonel Morton, the elegant old gentleman who received callers, glanced in his face and bade him a gentle good morning. Jim merely snarled at him and banged through the door.

In the general office the clerks and stenographers stole timid glances in his face and made themselves small. Jim rarely noticed his minor employees, but this morning his furious eyes traveled from one to another, looking to see if they took notice of the marks on his face. They kept their eyes down.

In his own room he threw himself into his chair, cursing aimlessly. It was a wonderful room, furnished in a taste better than Jim's, with rare Oriental rugs and fine paintings. It had windows on two sides looking out on lawns and flower-beds. The brutalized, evil-tempered occupant was the only discordant note. He took a mirror from one of the drawers of his desk and studied his face in it. The result was not reassuring. He flung the mirror in the drawer and slammed it shut.

Presently John Moseley entered his room. Moseley was the first vice-president of the company and Jim's principal associate. In fact, owing to Jim's erratic habits and his preoccupation with his pleasures, the principal burden was carried by Moseley's shoulders. Some years older than Jim, he was a cold, capable, gray-faced man who kept his private thoughts to himself.

He noticed Jim's condition and a slight look of contempt appeared in his eyes. "We're waiting for you," he said, good-humoredly enough.

"Who's waiting for me?" Jim demanded, brutally.

"The directors. Have you forgotten that a meeting was called for early this morning to discuss the affairs of the Irish company?"

"To hell with the Irish company!" said Jim. "Postpone the meeting until some other time."

"Why?" asked Moseley. "The matter is important."

"Why?" snarled Jim. "Because I'm fed up, that's why! I'm in no humor to listen to a lot of asses braying."

Moseley shrugged and left the room.

A few minutes later, the dummy directors having been dismissed, the three men who really counted in the company, apart from Jim, met in Moseley's room.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Clinton Beardmore. Clinton was Jim's half-brother, a handsome, suave, and agreeable man, the very antithesis of his elder. Clinton was vice-president in charge of manufactures and personnel. He was fifteen years younger than Jim.

"Don't ask me," said Moseley. "From the look of his face he appears to have been in a fight. At any rate, he's in a vile temper."

"How long have we got to put up with this sort of thing?" cried Clinton, in exasperation.

"Oh, Dad's got a wonderful constitution," said Tony Beardmore, cynically. "He'll outlive you, Clint." Tony had lately been taken into the concern merely because he was Jim's only son. An elegant young man with something of a European manner, and frankly dissipated, he made no pretense of taking a serious interest in business.

Rainer Stanley spoke up. He was a Beardmore by marriage and vice-president in charge of foreign business. "It's damnable!" he said, hotly. "We have one of the best businesses going here, and a unique opportunity to make it the greatest business in the world. And this drunken opinionated fool can block everything we do just because he owns a majority of the stock! He isn't capable of running the show himself, and he won't let us do it for him! We are letting opportunities slip by that would make millions for all of us!"

"What a blessing it would be," drawled Tony, "if one of Dad's numerous enemies took a shot at him!"

"Good God! your own father!" cried Clinton Beardmore, horrified.

"Well, why not?" retorted Tony, coolly. "It's what we're all thinking, isn't it? Why shouldn't I say it? He's always treated me like a dog. He spoils the lives of everybody who is connected with him—wife, children, business associates. You don't know the half of it, my friends!"

"Just the same, such things should not be said," said Clinton, uncomfortably.

Tony laughed.

As it drew on towards noon, Jim Beardmore received a telegram that changed his humor. His face flushed; he showed his yellow teeth in a triumphant grin. Pressing a bell, he ordered the scared boy who answered it, to ask Miss Rollin to step in.

Freda entered his room pale and self-possessed. Her face was calm, but there was a look around her eyes that suggested she hadn't had much sleep the night before. She was carrying her notebook. When Jim's eyes fell on it, he cried out:

"Put your book away. I don't want to see you as my secretary now, but as my future wife!" Freda drew a long breath as if to steady herself for what was before her. "Look! I've had a telegram from Reno," Jim went on. "The divorce decree has been issued. I'm a free man!" Freda read the telegram without comment. "Have you nothing to say?" demanded Jim, sorely. "Aren't you glad? Can't you congratulate me?"

"I can't make pretenses," Freda answered in a low tone. "You know that. I've agreed to marry you. I'll make you the best wife I can. You mustn't expect any more."

"Lord! I'm sick of this shop and the fools who plague me here!" cried Jim. "Let's chuck it for the time being. We'll get married and go abroad. I'll buy the biggest suite on the biggest liner afloat. We'll visit all the capitals of Europe, and you shall be turned loose in the shops. My God! with the proper jewels and clothes, you'd outshine them all! You don't realize your own possibilities, girl!"

Freda looked at him coldly. "Do you think you are pleasing me with this talk?" she asked, coldly.

"Well, what do you want?" he grumbled.

Freda looked out of the window. There was an unfathomable wistfulness in her eyes. "Let me go free," she murmured. "I have never done you any harm."

Jim's face instantly turned ugly. "Others have that you know of," he said, darkly.

"You have been repaid many times over."

"I won't let you go!" he cried. "You're in my blood! You have laid a spell on me with your beauty and your cool ways. I can't live without you. I've got to have you, fair means or foul!"

Freda shrugged. "Then don't talk about what I want," she said.

"We could be happy, too," Jim went on, sorely. "It's up to you. If I act ugly it is only because you drive me crazy with your air of contempt. If you treated me decently you could do what you wanted with me!"

"I can only act as I feel," murmured Freda.

Jim blustered around the room in order to avoid facing the issue. "We'll get married today," he said, loudly, "and end all this discussion. I guess that'll be a slap in the old girl's eye."

Freda looked at him levelly. "Do I have to do it?" she asked, very low.

"Why do you put it that way?"

"Such a thing would be horrible to me. Think of the comment in the newspapers."

"Oh, I'm used to that," said Jim.

"I'm not. I think it's disgusting to rush from one marriage into another in that way."

"All right! All right!" said Jim, sullenly. "We'll put off the marriage. We'll put it off as long as you like—as long as you don't keep me waiting. Why should we wait? We're free, white, and twenty-one. We'll go off on a little private honeymoon."

Freda turned red and then pale again. "Do you have to insult me?" she murmured.

Jim scarcely heard her. "Nobody need know anything about it. We'll keep on working at our desks here if you'd rather. I suppose my face is too well known to go to a hotel anywhere. But I tell you what we'll do. I've thought it all out. There's that big house of mine outside town, Fairfield, not a soul in it! We'll go out there and picnic by our two selves. What fun..."

Freda's eyes flashed. She seemed to add inches to her height. "Stop it!" she cried.

It was the first time in his life that Jim Beardmore had ever been so addressed by an employee. He stared at her dumbfounded.

"I'd sooner die!" said Freda, passionately. "Remember that I always have that way out, and don't push me too far!"

As the man stared at her his face turned dark and ugly. "I believe you've fallen for that young counter-jumper in the lodging-house!" he muttered.

Freda shrugged. "Must we go over that again?"

"Are you in love with him?" demanded Jim. "Let's have a little of that truth you're always bragging about. I dare you to tell me the truth!"

"Certainly I'm not in love with him," she returned, coldly. "He's only been there a week."

"Well, you're attracted by him."

"Yes, I was attracted by him," she answered, defiantly. "He's young and friendly and honest."

"All the things that I am not," sneered Jim. She made no answer. "What was he doing in your room?"

"He came in. I didn't invite him."

"This honest young man!" he sneered. She said nothing. "Seems to me there was a pretty passionate scene going on when I happened along."

"Not on my side," she said.

"He's in love with you. He was ready to fight me at the drop of the hat."

"Well, I can't help that," said Freda. "I left the house immediately in order to please you. What else can I do?"

"He has already followed you to Franklin Street."

"I shall refuse to see him."

A hateful look came over Jim's face. "Well, if you play any tricks on me you know the penalty," he snarled.

There was a knock at the door. Freda immediately sat down and spread her notebook on the flap of her employer's desk as if she were taking dictation. Jim glared at her with a speechless rage. Freda's strength lay in her capacity for keeping her mouth shut. Jim was aware of all the things she had refrained from saying. The bruises on his face burned under the paint.

"Come in," he growled.

It was a boy to say that Mr. William Dooley was calling. A look of craft came into Jim's face at the sound of that name. He lowered his eyes to hide it.

"Show him in," he said.

Freda slipped out of the room.

Mr. Dooley was a little man of Irish extraction with a thin, cunning face. Like Jim Beardmore, the habit of command was in his eye, and like Jim he spent a lot of money on his attire, but their styles were different, Jim's conservative, and Bill Dooley's flashy.

"Have a cigar," said Jim.

They lighted up, watching each other warily, each waiting for the other to make an opening. Finally Jim said:

"Well, Bill, what can I do for you?"

Bill smiled in a catlike fashion. "I guess you know, Mr. Beardmore. Every year about this time I come to see you, and you contribute your check to the war chest."

"I don't know why I should go on doing it," said Jim, coolly.

Bill still smiled. "Well, the boys have got in the way of expecting it," he said, deprecatingly, "and this year it's needed more than ever along of the unemployment and all."

"I don't believe your boys are unemployed," said Jim, dryly.

"They have their families," said Bill. "Surely it's worth something to you, Mr. Beardmore, to have a ward of your own, so to speak. And always to be sure of having your own men on the City Council to speak up for you."

"All that is changed," said Jim. "In former years I was just a rich man and a fair mark for anybody. Now, with my mills working full time in a world of unemployment, I'm a kind of savior of the town, a public benefactor. I could have anything I wanted from the City Council just by holding up my finger."

"Sure, sure," agreed Bill. "But maybe it won't always be like that. You can't tell what's going to happen. You might have labor troubles. Every business man has labor troubles sooner or later. Then you'd want a supply of non-union labor as well as armed guards to protect your property."

"When I need them I can hire them," said Jim.

"Sure!" said Bill, smoothly. "But a wise man is always prepared beforehand. He builds up his organization. Now, if I may say so, you already have your organization in the boys of my ward. Why break it up for the lack of a sum which means nothing to you? My boys would do anything for you, Mr. Beardmore. Why don't you use them more? Surely a man in your position must have many a little piece of business that would be better for being carried out quietly and all. Just give it to my boys."

Jim Beardmore's upper lip lifted from his teeth in an ugly fashion. He looked away from Bill Dooley. "Such as removing any inconvenient man who might be in my path?" he asked.

Bill laughed heartily. "You will have your joke!" he said. "Of course I couldn't countenance any job of that sort, being a law-abiding man and all. Just the same I'll lay you anything you like that if I was to mention around the ward that there was a certain guy Mr. Beardmore didn't like the color of his hair or anything, that guy would just naturally fade. And neither you nor me wouldn't need to know nothing about it. The boys are so damn grateful for all you've done."

Jim laughed, too, but it had a strained sound. He didn't look at Bill, because he knew his eyes were giving him away. "I've a good mind to take you up," he said. "Let the stake be the amount of my annual contribution to the war chest. There's a certain young fellow I have in mind. He doesn't mean anything to me in particular, but he'll do as an object. He'll never be missed. His name is Lance McCrea, and he lives at Mrs. Peake's lodging-house on Simpson Street. I don't know where he works. If he should accidentally get stepped on within the next few days, you can come around and the usual check will be waiting."

Bill Dooley was not in the least taken in by Jim's parade of indifference. He observed the painted-out bruises on the millionaire's face and drew his own conclusions. He was experienced in such matters. He smiled in his catlike fashion. "Okay, Mr. Beardmore. You can consider the thing as good as done. Put it there!"

They shook hands. Jim avoided Bill's eye. "Have a drink before you go," he said. "I feel the need of a nip myself."

He opened the door of his cellaret and got out a bottle of his old vatted Glenlivet. Mr. Dooley's eyes brightened and he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand in anticipation. Even a ward leader could not come by such whisky. The two men parted in great amity.