Читать книгу The Red Mouse - William Hamilton Osborne - Страница 5

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Hiram Edgar Love—so read a faded yellow card on the door-panel of Suite 10 in the "Drelincourt," an apartment hotel in a section of the city which has ever been popular with a class that has been well termed the "fringe of society." The name was not printed, not engraved, but written in ancient India ink in copper-plate perfection by the careful, cleanly, genteel Englishman that Hiram Edgar Love had been—Hiram Edgar Love, that long since had been laid to rest in a quiet Surrey churchyard leagues distant, though his name still did yeoman service, for it spelt respectability; it covered a multitude of peccadilloes; his soul went marching on! For was it not the shade of Hiram Edgar Love that had rented the Love suite in the "Drelincourt," his shade that paid the rent, his pipe and his slippers that lay near the fireplace for the world to see?—Hiram Edgar Love the myth, the constantly expected but never-coming master of the house!

Before the entrance of this suite Challoner came to a halt.

"I wonder if she's alone?" he mused, as with something like the palpitating deference of a stranger he pressed the button underneath the faded card and waited to learn his fate at the hands of the one woman in all the world for him. Nor was it by any means the first time that he had asked himself that question; all the way through the streets it had been in his mind every moment, and so absorbed was he with the thought, that he failed to see the familiar nod with which the diminutive god of the "Drelincourt" lift acknowledged his advent as he proceeded to carry upward his human freight.

"Same, sir, I suppose?" asked the boy.

Challoner made no answer; but leaving the car at the desired landing, he had turned to the right and directed his steps to the extreme end of the corridor.

It was a new experience to Challoner to wait among the shadows of the dimly lighted hall; hitherto his custom had been to let himself in, sans ceremony; but the apparently successful campaign of the racing Colonel had changed that—put him on a different footing.

"If he's there," he assured himself as he pressed the button again impatiently, "I'll know what to do, all right...."

But if Hargraves were not there! That was the contingency that sent a chill over him. He could deal with a man—but the woman! A woman who had never cared and who, he was only too well aware, would never even pretend to care for him unless he had the wherewithal with which to lure her back.

"If it were not for Hargraves—" he broke off abruptly, for the door had opened with such unexpected suddenness that it required not a little effort to pull himself together, and demand of the trim, little maid who stood there:—

"Your mistress—is she at home?"

"Miss Love is not at home, sir."

Challoner was not so sure about that; in a trice he was past her, going through room after room until he had covered the entire apartment; and she had barely recovered from the shock that his strange behaviour had given her than he was back again in the small, square hall, eyeing her suspiciously.

"I want to see your mistress."

"Miss Love is not in, sir," she told him, just as if he did not already know it.

"But you know where she went?" he asked meaningly.

"Indeed, sir, I do not," she replied, not at all disconcerted by his manner; and her eyes as they fixed their gaze on his were as steady as the lips that said: "She should be with her father, sir."

Challoner raged inwardly; he thought he detected a gleam of mockery in her eyes. Once more he plunged through the apartment, seeking some incriminating scrap of paper, some evidence that would betray his divinity's whereabouts. But after a few minutes he was back again, standing over the girl, menacingly.

"I want you to tell me where Letty is?" he said in a tone that told plainly that such lies were not for him; but it had little effect on the maid: long practice in fencing with Miss Love's admirers had made trickery her forte.

"You might try Atlantic City, sir," she suggested blandly; "it's quite possible that they went there."

At this, Challoner looked ugly, and seizing her roughly by the arm, he led her to her mistress' boudoir, where, pointing to a Verne-Martin cabinet that stood in a corner, he exclaimed:—

"Who put him there?"

For answer the girl shrugged her shoulders. She made no attempt to disengage herself from his grasp, merely watched Challoner as his gaze rested angrily on a plain gold frame in which was an unconventional half-length photograph—Colonel Richard Hargraves, his arms akimbo upon a table, his shoulders forward, his smug, full, self-satisfied face thrust into the face of the world—of Challoner.

Even on paper Hargraves's lazy eyes seemed to insult and tantalise him, and an insane desire to crush, batter and destroy this counterfeit presentment came over him. For an instant he had a vague sensation of suffocation, almost to choking, and releasing the girl, his hand sought his throat; it encountered a scarf-pin—a trifle that his wife had given him long ago. Tearing it quickly from his scarf, he extended it toward the maid.

"That may fetch the truth from her," he said to himself, and aloud: "Tell me where Letty is, and ... no"—the girl was reaching for the jewel, but he held it from her—"no, tell me first," he added hoarsely, toying with the pin.

"Well, then, if you must know, sir," she stammered, "she went to Gravesend—the races, sir."

Challoner's mind received this information with a certain morbid exultation; and thrusting his face into hers and pointing with the pin to the portrait, he cried:—

"Then she is with him?"

The girl was silent; she was figuring the value of the pin. It was worth fifty dollars, she finally decided, and looking up at Challoner, admitted the truth with a nod.

The pin fell into her ready grasp.

When Challoner spoke again his voice was calm and steady.

"Sit down there." He motioned to a seat and he took the one opposite. "We'll wait until they come back—just wait."

For minutes that seemed hours they sat facing each other, Challoner dogged but quiescent, the girl with a growing unrest upon her—a cat with a cornered mouse.

At last a buzzer sounded.

"Stay where you are!" Challoner commanded, as the girl made a movement to go. "If it's somebody else," he added quickly, still looking at her, but with a changed eye, "we don't care about them; they can go away."

Again the buzzer sounded.

"Has she a key?" he whispered.

"Yes," she answered, matching his tone.

"Has he?" persisted Challoner.

The girl held up her hand for reply: the jingling of keys in the outer hall, followed by the clink of metal in the lock, had reached their ears; then came the closing of the door, the click of high heels, the swish of skirts, the odour of violets, and then Letty Love, in all her pink and white loveliness, tall, supreme, her face flushed, her lips parted, her eyes sparkling, stood framed in the doorway. At the sight of the man and the girl sitting there like two culprits, she burst into laughter—a long peal of laughter that was her stock in trade, and which ran the gamut of her deep, contralto voice. And still neither the man nor the girl spoke, but continued to look ill at ease. To Miss Love the situation was amusing—too amusing for words.

"Inconstant!—Naughty Lawrence!" she exclaimed, leaving his name stranded in the air—a coquettish way she had in speaking—and pointing her tiny gloved finger at him: "Perhaps I interrupt?" And now turning to the girl: "Patricia, I didn't know you could be so interesting...."

The maid gasped with relief as she left the room in obedience to a dismissing wave of her mistress' hand.

"Well, why don't the rest of you come in?" Challoner growled, fastening his eyes on the woman.

Letty Love opened her blue eyes wide—eyes that could look the innocence of a child or the wisdom of the ages—and feigned not to understand. And then as if his meaning had dawned upon her, she said with a good-natured smile:—

"Oh—why, I'm alone!"

"It's a good thing you are," he told her pointedly.

At once a hardness crept into her voice, and she asked coldly:—

"For whom?" And for a moment she delayed pulling off her wraps.

"For the other man."

"Silly boy! How ridiculous you are!" she returned lightly, as she tossed her wraps over a chair and began to pull off her gloves.

Challoner went over to the photograph, picked it up and wheeling round said threateningly:—

"Did you put him in that frame?"

"I did," she answered sweetly. "I'm very domestic, you know," and she smiled one of her most bewildering smiles; "I always arrange these little things myself."

"And what did you do with mine?"

Letty looked dubious. She touched a button, and to the maid who entered asked with mock anxiety:—

"Patricia, what did you do with the half-tone of this gentleman that I gave you?"

The maid regarded first one and then the other somewhat curiously.

"It's in my room, Madam."

"With the other notables?" And Letty Love lifted her eyebrows. "Patricia's room is quite a picture-gallery," she went on gaily. "You may investigate it, if you like—no?" And dismissing the maid, went over to the piano and began to strum the refrain of a popular song.

Challoner's lips emitted:—

"You—" They closed on a gasp of rage, disappointment, despair and impotent admiration. Had he dared, he would have gone on his knees to her then and there, taken her in his arms and kissed her; but the woman's indifference appalled him, and instead he gritted his teeth, dug his nails into the palms of his hand. Then, for the first time, it dawned on him that she had worn for Hargraves the gown that he, Challoner, had selected for her—a gown white, immaculate, simple, which followed religiously the lines of the superb figure, that left nothing to be desired, of Letty Love, full-throated, full-bosomed, with her jet-black hair that gave no sign of fastening, with her blue eyes and dark eyebrows, with her milk-white flesh, which, artificial though it were, concealed nothing, revealed nothing but the loveliness of the woman.

The man's eyes shone with pride as he observed her finished appearance; for was it not he who had taught her to gown herself like that, showed her how to live, lifted her into the high places?

"And this is how she repays me!" he muttered to himself, and then aloud: "What's the matter with you, Letty—is it because my money has given out...."

This startled the woman into earnestness, and rising to her feet, she drew herself to her full height, and pointing to the door declared with an injured air:—

"No man can talk to me of money in this house!"

Challoner's face was a study, but he did not move.

"Especially when it's all gone!" he sneered, searching her countenance. Never until now had he realised the monumental, stupendous power of money. Now that he had none and the car of juggernaut was slowly crushing him, he could understand that he belonged in the ditch with the maimed, the lame, the dying. There was no necessity for a reply from Letty. The woman's face revealed the contempt with which she regarded him. What mattered it to her that the man had surrendered everything that was worth while in life, that he had sacrificed himself at her shrine! She was one who demanded the firstlings of the flock; he was nothing save carrion for daws to peck at. The fruit was devoured; of what value was the rind?

"You had better go," she said superciliously; "there is no need of coming any more."

In a sort of daze Challoner was shambling toward the door when the telephone-bell rang. Instantly it roused all the deviltry and cunning that had oozed from him the moment before. Seizing the receiver, he thrust it silently against his ear.

"Hello!" began the voice at the other end.

Challoner did not answer.

"Is that you, Letty?" the voice went on.

Still Challoner did not answer. Then, as the woman stepped forward, he handed the receiver to her, at the same time placing his left hand over the mouthpiece, and said:—

"It's Hargraves—tell him to come up, will you?"

She shook her head.

Again the voice at the other end of the wire sounded, but she could not answer, for the thickness of Challoner's hand lay between her and communication. The suspense was unbearable—getting on her nerves. There was nothing to do but to comply with his wish; and upon her eyes suddenly yielding to his, he released the mouthpiece, standing on guard the while she obeyed him. Then he drove her, literally drove her into a far corner of the room.

"Now, let him come! We'll see ..." he exclaimed, holding a revolver in his right hand; and as he stood there watching her as a tiger does a tigress, it was with a certain sense of gratification that he noted written across her face the altogether new sensation of fear, terror, and therefore respect for him. And he rejoiced in the knowledge that the hand that could no longer count out banknotes to her or sign cheques was a hand that held life and death within its grasp. Letty Love realised this, too, as she stood there cowed, trembling, listening, watching the door. Suddenly there flashed through her mind a way out of the situation, and smiling, she said lightly:—

"Oh, pshaw, Lawrence, the heavy is not your line! Come—suppose we have something to drink."

And without waiting for him to answer, she crossed the room and pressed the button there. Somewhat sheepishly Challoner slipped the revolver back into his pocket and dropped into a chair, while she ordered the maid to fetch some Bengal—a cordial, a distilled delight that had come down to her from a period so remote that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. In his lifetime Hiram Edgar Love had possessed gallons of it; it had come to him in the night from the mysterious East, in the teeth of the revenue guns. And Challoner knowing it for the thing it was, his face flushed with the pleasure of anticipation. Letty took her place beside a small table, and presently a silver-topped, cut-glass decanter was in her hand, which she held over a glass, saying:—

"Will you help yourself or shall I ..."

Challoner nodded.

"Go ahead—fill it for me, Letty."

Challoner drank—drank. He forgot Hargraves, forgot everything but the face of Letty Love, a kiss that he wanted, but that somehow he could not get, an utterance in a thick voice, a momentary hand-to-hand struggle, not with Hargraves, but with her, then, somehow, she eluded him and he was left alone—alone in the darkness that the Bengal had cast upon him!

But in all this there was no Hargraves.

A few hours later when he awoke, he was still sitting at the table, but he was alone. He rose hastily, even steadily, and scoured the other rooms; there was no one there. He looked for the Bengal; but that, too, had disappeared. All of a sudden the jewels that were on her dressing-table—jewels that he had given her—caught his attention, and for the moment the temptation was strong to take them for the money that was in them. But even his dull wits soon recognised the folly of such a proceeding, since it was for her that he needed the money, and somewhat reluctantly he put them back in their case, muttering to himself as he left the house:—

"Letty must believe in me—things are bound soon to come my way."

In a little while he was back again at Cradlebaugh's, wandering about the rooms looking for Pemmican. Finally he saw him coming out of one of the rooms and hailed him with:—

"Hargraves showed up yet?"

The unwholesome looking factotum shook his head; at the same time he noted that Challoner was in a different mood than when he had talked with him earlier in the evening. Pemmican wondered as he turned away; but then it was not given to him to know that Challoner's experience that night had served immeasurably to strengthen a desperate purpose. True, that the joy that had been Challoner's—"his by rights," as he told himself—had been wrested away from him, for he was satisfied that Hargraves's absence from Cradlebaugh's meant that he was with Letty Love. But little by little the agony of jealousy was becoming a pleasurable sensation—a passion that obsessed him. So that far from brooding, he felt as feels the man of destiny: Whatever was to happen would happen. He would wait days, weeks, months, if necessary, for Hargraves.

A day rolled round. Night again at Cradlebaugh's, and Challoner still at his post of observation, waiting. It was past midnight when Colonel Hargraves finally appeared. Challoner felt his presence even before he stepped up to the buffet; and summoning to his aid all the suavity of manner that he possessed, for he knew he must be careful, as the other, doubtless, would be on his guard, he called out:—

"Colonel Hargraves!"

Hargraves turned quickly, and seeing it was Challoner, a flicker of a self-congratulatory smile broke over his large, round face, as he answered:—

"Why, hello, Challoner!"

The momentary gleam of triumph did not escape the other, and it required a supreme effort to force back the blood that was rushing to his temple.

"I want a word with you, Colonel!" And with a wave of the hand: "Room A—will that suit you?"

Colonel Hargraves hesitated for a moment; he moved a bit to one side and stared hard; but the other bore his look of keen suspicion with perfect serenity. The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. Finally he said:—

"Oh, very well, Challoner—that suits me."

To Room A they went; Pemmican followed with decanters. Possibly he suspected, feared, realised that the air was charged with electricity. In any event Pemmican was in charge of Cradlebaugh's; it was for Pemmican to see and to know.

There was a table in Room A, with chairs about the table; and a stand against the wall. There were also two large, heavy leather lounging chairs with arms. Pemmican placed his burden upon the stand against the wall, lingered for an instant, and then went softly out. Neither of the men spoke until after he had left the room and closed the door. When each had seated himself at the table, Challoner got down to business.

"Hargraves," he began with sinister familiarity, "you have ten thousand dollars in your pocket, I believe?"

Colonel Hargraves repressed a movement of impatience with difficulty. He nodded, and unconsciously took the attitude of the counterfeit presentment in the apartment of Letty Love.

"Ten thousand dollars," repeated Challoner with provoking coolness, as he likewise planted both elbows on the table, and added somewhat ominously: "And I'm broke!"

There was a pause in which the men looked straight into each other's eyes; then Challoner rose, walked over to the table, half filled two glasses, and placing them on the table, leaned far over it, declaring:—

"And yet, Colonel Hargraves, you and I are going to sit in a ten thousand dollar game to-night!"

Challoner drained his glass; his example, however, was not followed by the Colonel. Instead, he put his arms akimbo, his fists resting on his hips, and tilting back his head, he said with an air of contempt:—

"Indeed! What with?"

"With your ten thousand!" It was well said. Challoner's cool, passionless voice gave to the declaration the character of infallibility.

"And you—" Hargraves muttered in a puzzled way.

"Not a dollar," admitted Challoner.

Colonel Hargraves rose; he threw into his glance all his knowledge of Challoner's past.

"You must take me for a fool!" he burst out, and started for the door.

But he had gone only a few steps when he felt Challoner's clutch; turning, he felt the power of Challoner's eyes; and presently under their compelling influence he found himself once more taking his seat. He made no attempt to analyse his sensations, but he realised that Challoner had made a new impression. In all the eventualities he had foreseen, he calculated on Challoner's being a weakling, a wreck. But to his astonishment he saw within those eyes nothing but success. Challoner had become a man not to be disregarded—a man of strength.

"My proposition is a perfectly fair one," went on Challoner. "You put up ten thousand cash——"

"And then—go on——"

Challoner lifted his arm and pointed silently in the direction of the "Drelincourt."

Incredulity shone in the eyes of Hargraves; his scorn found vent in an attempt at levity.

"Rather like putting up something that doesn't belong to you, eh, Challoner?"

Challoner was not feazed; it was the answer he expected.

"It looks that way, Hargraves," and suddenly thrusting himself forward, "but I can make it uncommonly disagreeable for the other claimant. You don't know me—I'm an uncertain quantity—and women are blamed queer. If I win, I keep the ten thousand—and my chances."

"And if you don't win?" a bit breathlessly.

"If you win," went on Challoner, "you keep your ten thousand, and—I'll quit without a murmur."

In the pause Hargraves thought hard—never in his life had he thought harder. The more he studied Challoner, the better he liked the proposition. The moment was fraught with something new and significant. In more ways than one he feared Challoner, for he was by no means certain of his own place in the woman's affections. And then in his mind there was one certainty—Hargraves knew that the game was already his; knew that Challoner, steady though he seemed, was unquestionably drunk. Never was victory more certain than at the present time.

"If I win," at last he said with great earnestness, "you will swear to leave me—you will leave us alone?"

Challoner nodded.

Hargraves seized his glass and extended it to bind the bargain. Challoner seized his, but found it empty. He left his seat and came back with it filled.

"It's a go!" he said, and pressed a button.

With the same sense of responsibility upon him, Pemmican responded; and on Challoner's order he went out and returned with ten new packs of cards, tossing them on the table with their wrappers unbroken.

"Cold hands," announced Challoner, "five hundred a throw."

Hargraves pulled forth his roll of bills and placed it on the table; then, placing a hand on the arm of Challoner, he exclaimed vehemently, so that the other should not forget it:—

"It's understood now, Challoner, that if I win you're to leave us alone—sure?"

Pemmican left the room and closed the door behind him. Challoner smiled across the table, and a new, strange expression crossed his features that Hargraves did not, could not understand.

"Sure," repeated Challoner, placing the decanter upon the table. Then they started in to play.

Twenty minutes later Pemmican rushed pell-mell into Room A.

"There's a big row on," he said to himself; "a row over a lady and a game of cards."

And so it proved.

There was a row on between the men who occupied Room A, and but for the isolation of the room it was a row that might well have roused the house.

"You've lost, I tell you!" one of the men exclaimed; the other laughed boisterously, defiantly, victoriously.

"If I've lost, so have you!" he answered.

What followed happened in an instant and before Pemmican had been in Room A thirty seconds. For suddenly one of the men there had whipped from his coat-pocket a weapon that glinted in the white light; as suddenly he had taken aim, and then came a flash, a report, a cloud of smoke.

Pemmican looked on, speechless.

Presently one of the men crossed the room and sank into a chair in a dazed sort of fashion, his head lolling across the upholstered arm; while the other glanced about him for an instant, looked at Pemmican, looked at the figure lying on the chair, and then started suddenly toward the door.

Three minutes later Pemmican switched off the lights and plunged the room in darkness.

"A row over a lady," he murmured breathlessly, "a row over a lady and a game of cards."

At two o'clock that morning, Officer Keogh of the night squad, patrolling a dimly lighted thoroughfare in the rear of Cradlebaugh's, stumbled over an object lying in deep shadow.

"Good Lord! It's a man!" said Keogh, stooping down suddenly and as suddenly drawing back. He drew himself together, bent down again, felt cautiously about, wiped his hands and shuddered, and drew back once again, as he whispered to himself:—

"A dead man—shot to death!"

He rapped wildly with his night-stick—the wild, irregular tattoo that makes the slumberer rise suddenly in bed and tremble, and then crouch between the bed-clothes shivering—and pending the arrival of assistance he stooped once more and fumbled in the pockets of the dead man. Presently from the breast-pocket of the coat he drew forth a yellow pigskin wallet, and upon its corner in glaring gold, that even in the dim light glittered garishly, appeared the letters, "R. H."

In this wise the body of Colonel Richard Hargraves, man-about-town, was found lying in the gloom at two o'clock that morning.