CHAPTER XI
It was Sunday afternoon, and Marcreta was expecting a caller. "How longdo you think he'll stay?" Clinton demanded as they rose from their twoo'clock dinner.
"As long as I'll let him, I suppose."
"Well, call a time-limit, Crete." And then recalled suddenly to therealization that he must begin making the best of a situation that gaveevery evidence of forcing itself upon him for life, he added hastily,"What's the use of trying that new cure if you're going to pull againstit all the time?"
"Do you call this 'pulling against it'?"
"I do, decidedly. Every time that man comes here you're strung about anoctave higher than normal."
She looked at him, astonished. "Why, Clinton, I don't feel it myself.I'm not conscious that he affects me that way."
"He does, though. We all know people who affect us that way. And it isnot a question of attraction or aversion. Liking or disliking themdoesn't alter the fact that they have the power to screw us up.Sometimes, of course, it's a beneficial stimulant, but you shouldn't betaking anything like that just now. Give Dr. Reynolds a chance."
"I will give him a chance. But to-day----Well, I promised Mr. Gloverthat I'd listen to something that he has written."
"Help! Then he'll probably be here to supper. I didn't know he'd brokeninto the writing game."
"I didn't either until the other day. But I think it is some advertisingfor the new springs. He is very versatile. He does a number of thingsand does them well."
Her brother glanced at her sharply without replying. That note ofchampionship in her voice put an edge on his nerves.
But she was mistaken in her guess concerning advertising matter for theAmerican Carlsbad. For when she and Richard Glover were alone in theliving-room he produced a copy of one of the popular magazines. "Youremember you said I might read you something to-day?" he began, drawinghis chair into a better light.
"Yes. I have been looking forward to it with pleasure. But I thought itwould be in manuscript. It is something you have had published?"
"My first attempt at anything in this line. It's a serial story and thisis the initial instalment. You see, I had a good deal of leisure time onmy hands when I was down at Mont-Mer and I've always wanted to try myluck with a pen. I call this 'A Brother of Bluebeard.'"
"That's a gruesome title, but excellently chosen if it's amystery-story. I'm shivering already."
He settled himself with his back to the light and his profile towardher. "I may as well tell you at first that I am not bringing this outunder my own name."
"Why not?"
"Because I wouldn't have felt quite free about writing it if I werestanding out in the open."
"Oh, it's a true story?"
"No, I can hardly claim that for it. It's rather a fantastic plot as youwill see. But every writer knows this, that when you first break intoprint whatever you write is supposed to be transcribed almost verbatimfrom actual experience, preferably your own experience. No matter how atvariance with your own life-plot the story may be, the people who knowyou will leap to the conclusion that it is rooted in autobiography.Imagination is the very last thing that our friends are willing to allowus."
"What nom-de-plume do you use?"
"Ralph Regan. It's short and snappy and sounds as if it might begenuine, don't you think?"
He found the place and began to read in a resonant, well-modulatedvoice. The opening paragraph was a little stilted, a bit amateurish, butafter that the story swung into bold and breathless action. It grippedits hearer with a compelling force that held her tense and motionless inher chair. Only the sound of the reader's voice and the crisp crackle ofpaper when he turned a page broke the quiet of the room. Outside, a grayJanuary mist engulfed the city, and electric bulbs from the housesacross the street cut bleary patches in the mantle of fog. For almost anhour Richard Glover read in his clear, unhurried voice, and Marcretalistened, her wide eyes fastened upon his face.
When he had finished, with the irritating promise, "To Be Continued," helaid the periodical face-down upon the library-table and turned towardher. In his amber eyes was a new light. A railroad switchman who facesthe company's president after saving a train from destruction might wearjust that expression.
Marcreta seemed bereft of speech. She was staring at one of the lightsin the house across the street as though it had hypnotized her. One ofthe delicate white hands was clasped tight upon the arm of her chair.Richard Glover told himself that he had never seen her look sobeautiful. And for the first time since he had known her, there was nota suggestion of invalidism in her tall, regal figure. She was wearing afilmy gray dress with a touch of pink that seemed to give a heightenedflush to her cheeks. He allowed several seconds to pass. Was itpossible, he was wondering, that this "first story" had won that tributemost coveted by all authors--the tribute of breathless silence?
"Well?" he ventured at last. "What do you think of it?"
She brought her eyes back to the room, to the magazine lying face-downupon the table, but not to him. "I think," she said with a long sigh,"that you are a wonderfully clever man."
The light flickered out of his eyes. He leaned toward her with apleading gesture. "Is that all you are going to say to me?"
"Isn't that enough? Wouldn't you rather have me say that than anythingelse?"
"You know I wouldn't. You know that there are many other things that Iwould far rather have you say." He came over and stood beside her chair."Marcreta," he begged, "say just one of them. Say this--that you areglad to have me come here. I wrote that story for you; because I knowthat you value creative power more than anything else in the world. Areyou glad that I did it? Are you glad that I brought it to you?"
She was looking at him now, all her ardent soul in her eyes. "I _am_glad," she breathed. "I can't tell you how glad."
"Then I think you ought to give me some reward. I ought to have atleast----"
She put out her hand with the imperious little gesture that he had cometo know well. "Not just now. Please, not just now. You see, you haverather--swept me off my feet. Isn't that enough for one day?"
"It is enough," he assured her exultantly. And when, a few momentslater, he climbed into the roadster that was waiting at the curb, he wasrepeating the three words over and over to himself like a hilariousrefrain.
Just at dusk Clinton came home and found his sister still sitting infront of the gas logs where Richard Glover had left her. His stepstartled her out of a reverie. "Oh, it's you, Clint! I'm so glad you'vecome. The house has been full of ghosts."
"I suppose so. Glover come?"
"Yes. He has come and gone."
He reached down swiftly and felt one of her hands. It was icy."Something has happened, Crete." The words were not a question, but theydemanded a reply. And she gave it without hesitation.
"Yes, something has happened. I've got to take some action about it too,but I haven't decided yet what it shall be."
He stood on the hearth-rug looking down at her with a curious mixture ofannoyance and admiration in his eyes. It had always been so, hereflected. About the trivial things of life she was willing to abide byhis judgment, but in every vital issue she took the initiative andpushed her own convictions through. In the moment of large emergency shehad always stood superbly alone. As he looked at her a half-audible sighescaped him. After all, this semblance of vitality was but the ephemeralstimulation of excitement. And he dreaded the bleak reaction from it;that sudden ebbing away of hope, known to all of those who have keptlong vigils beside sick beds.
"Let me manage it, whatever it is," he commanded. "I've told you beforethat you're not strong enough for these emotional scenes. It isn't as ifyou were a well woman."
She lapsed into silence, and he felt a sharp twinge of self-reproach. Itwas that double-edged remorse that chivalrous strength always feels whenit reminds frailty of its weakness.
"Whatever it is, Crete," he hurried on, "can't you defer the actionuntil a more propitious time? Can't it wait until yo
u are stronger?"
A little choking sound came from her. He stopped short in swift alarm.Never before in all the long years of her semi-invalidism had she lethim see her give way to tears. He went to her, moving uncertainly asthough through unfamiliar territory. She had covered her face with herhands as though she could shut out with them the sounds of passionatesobbing.
"I'll never be any stronger, Clint. _You_ know it; _I_ know it. Why dowe drag on with this miserable pretense? Oh, it is killing me, but ittakes so long. Why can't I die?"
He recoiled before that cry, before the havoc that it revealed to him.Inwardly he cursed himself and then he remembered Glover, as he mighthave remembered a gun which he had accidentally discharged, believing itto be unloaded. He couldn't endure the thought that _he_ had hurt herand, manlike, seized upon the first scapegoat that offered itself. Buthe carefully refrained from a mention of the late caller. And when hespoke his voice was harsh with feeling. "Crete, how selfish of you. Ifyou should die, what would become of me?"
The promptness of her reply struck him like a blow. "You'd marry. You'reover thirty, Clint, and if it hadn't been for me you would have beenmarried years ago and would be living a normal life in a home of yourown. You think----" She was sitting upright now, facing him with aterrible courage. "You think I don't realize what you have sacrificed.Oh, if you only knew how I've lain awake at night, staring into thedark, praying to die so that I could set you free. You promised mother.I've always known that you did. But even if you hadn't, you would havepromised yourself. And _that's_ what has 'keyed me up,' as you expressit. That's what is making me live an octave higher than I can stand. Itisn't--any other man who is doing it. It's you."
He sat down on the broad arm of her chair as though overcome by suddenweakness. "Well, thank God you have told me this, Crete, before it eatsany deeper into your soul. Sacrifice you call it. But sacrifice involvesrenunciation, and I have never renounced any woman for your sake. I havenever been engaged--nor wanted to be."
"But you ought to," she told him violently. "You ought to, and you wouldif you hadn't unconsciously put the idea away from you so many times.You ought to have a home and wife and children. Oh, I know that youshould, and the knowledge has made me desperate."
A dawning suspicion showed in his eyes and then they grew hard. "It musthave," he said coldly. "It must have made you very desperate indeed--ifyou have been considering Glover as a way out."
She met the charge without resentment. "What other way is there for me?You see, there wouldn't be any danger of my--caring more for somebodyelse afterward. That is quite beyond the range of possibility now, so itwould be safer for me than for some women. And physical disability, thething that made me--that would have made me refuse a man of a differenttype, wouldn't count at all with him. His ambitions are purely material,and I could capitalize them. That's all he wants. It would really bequite a fair bargain."
Clinton Morgan rose slowly and stood looking down at his sister asthough she were a stranger to whom he had just been introduced. "Well,by Gad!" he breathed, and for a moment was bereft of further speech. Andthen his words came slowly, and more as the detached fragments of asoliloquy than a response to her own.
"Crete, of all women in the world! You, with your temperament! With anidealism that I and most other men couldn't touch with a ten-footpole--and yet you'd work out a proposition like that! I didn't know thatyou saw through Glover. I made that excuse for you, that you were toounsophisticated to see through him. But sizing him up for an adventurer,you frame up a contract that----Why, I'll be hanged if I can believeit, Crete. I simply can't believe it."
She made no defense, and he went on in the same dazed tone.
"Go out on the street and pick up the first girl you meet and bring herin here. If I should make love to her and try to get her to marry me,and succeed, I'd have a much better chance of happiness than thisadventure would ever give you. For, at least, I'd be swimming with bothhands free. Now listen." He seemed to become suddenly aware of herpresence again. "When I fall in love, I'll begin to think about gettingmarried. But I'm not going to be hurried into it by you or anybody else.And when I decide to marry, not you nor anybody else shall stand in myway."
She reached for him with a convulsive gesture. "Clinton, do you meanthat? Do you mean that nobody should?"
"I pledge you my word. But this has got to be a bargain. You havedemonstrated that you know how to make one. Now don't you ever let thatman cross this threshold again."
"I've got to, Clint. After what happened this afternoon, I've got to lethim come--for a while."
"Why?"
"Sit down and let me tell you about it. I'll have to tell you, or itwill eat up my heart. But the thing will seem incredible."
"Not to me. I think after what I've just heard that I can believeanything."
"Well, you remember that I told you he had promised to read mesomething that he had written?"
"Yes, advertising matter for the new Carlsbad."
"I thought it was going to be that but I was mistaken. It _was_advertising matter, but not for Carlsbad."
"For what, then?"
"For Richard Glover."
Clinton grunted. "I see. He is trying to win you by doing the _Othello_stunt on paper."
Marcreta appeared to weigh the suggestion. "I don't think it is entirelythat. He wants money very badly. He has to have money, a lot of it, forthis hotel venture, and he is trying every means of getting it."
"I've always been led to believe," Clinton interposed, "my friends whowrite have always led me to believe that story-writing (and I assumethat this was some sort of story) is rather an uncertain means ofcapitalization for a novice."
"But this story was not written by a novice, Clint." Marcreta's voicehad sunk suddenly almost to a whisper. "It was written by----"
"By whom?"
"Roger Kenwick."
Clinton Morgan stiffened in his chair. "_What?_" he cried. "You mean tosay that he had the nerve to steal the thing and bring it out under hisown name?"
"He is too clever to bring it out under his own name. He chose afictitious name, and he changed the opening paragraph. But except forthat and the alteration of the title, I pledge you my word, Clint, thatthat story is exactly as Roger Kenwick read it to me, before he wentinto the service."
There was a moment of silence. Clinton was recalling what she had saidwhen he came in about ghosts. He scanned her face uneasily. And he sawin it the new expression which had startled Richard Glover. For thefirst time in his life he began to think of her as she might be if shewere unhampered by physical infirmity. And then he fell to wonderingwhat had passed between her and Kenwick; just how far the tragedy of hislife had affected her. The Morgan reserve had kept her completely silentupon this subject and he had never had any wish to intrude himself intoher confidence. He picked up the thread of the story where she haddropped it. "How could it have happened? And how did he dare?"
"I can't even make a guess at how it happened, but so far as daringgoes----Well, as I said, he is desperate for money. And the thing, aslooked at from his point of view, was not so very risky. Why should itbe? He must have discovered in some way that the--the author was not apossible source of trouble. And who else could care about it? Never inhis wildest dreams would any one conjure up the possibility that I mightknow. He doesn't have the least idea, of course, that I ever knew thereal author. What a nemesis! That he should have chosen me, of all thepeople in the world, for his audience! It's so impossible that he willnever suspect it."
"But what happened after he had finished? What did you do?"
"Nothing, except to compliment him on his cleverness and try to hideevery emotion that I've ever had. It was hard; I think it's the hardesttest I've ever had to meet. But it has given me something that I neverhave had before." Her voice grew husky with sudden embarrassment. "OClint, you were right about him. I've known for quite a long time thatyou were right about him, but I couldn't admit it to myself; not withthe course that I had de
cided to take. But, Clint, although I knew hewas calculating and sordid and insincere, I didn't know this about him.I didn't think he hadn't a sense of honor. If I had suspected that, itwould have made everything different. But you can see," she went oneagerly, "you can see now why I must let him go on coming here for awhile? Why I can't let him get beyond my sight?"
Her brother nodded. "Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself, that'sthe idea, isn't it?"
"I've got to be very careful, you see. He has told me a good many thingsabout himself of late, and I'm trying to fit them all together. Some ofthem don't match at all. And now that he has revealed himself, I'mbeginning to doubt everything. That Mont-Mer secretaryship, forinstance, looks very improbable to me now. I've questioned him aboutseveral prominent people down there, and he doesn't seem to have heardof any of them."
"Well, don't worry any more about it just now, Crete. Let's hustlesomething to eat and call it a day."
When his sister had gone to bed that night Clinton sat for a long timein the library, staring into the fireplace. The little scene which hadbeen enacted there a few hours earlier had stirred him to the depths ofhis being. It brought him perplexity and a poignant self-reproach. Thefact that she was not the crying type of woman made her emotionalabandon a particularly haunting thing.
"I've been an awful ass," he muttered. "I can't see just now where it isexactly that I failed. But it's evident that somewhere along the lineI've acted like one of the early Christian martyrs."
He picked up a little volume that was lying at his elbow. It was adainty thing bound in gold and ivory. He remembered that Roger Kenwickhad given it to his sister on that last night when he had come to bidher good-by. He had never looked into it before. Now he turned the pagesidly. It was modern verse, and he read intermittently here and there.Among the leaves he came at last upon a folded bit of paper. It was inMarcreta's handwriting; evidently something that she had copied. Hetilted it under the light and read the trio of stanzas.
I cannot drive thee from my memory; I cannot live and tear thee from my heart. Is there no corner of oblivion's realm Whence thy uneasy spirit may depart?
If love were dead, if love could only die, And leave me desolation and despair; The emptiness of day, the aching night, All these at last my soul could learn to bear.
But ever when I think thy fire is spent And seek the peace of death's all-sacred pain, Behold, comes Memory with her torch a-light-- And all my altar flames to life again.
Clinton Morgan folded the bit of paper with reverent fingers. For heknew, all at once, that this was not a copy of anything, but that he hadunwittingly torn aside the veil of his sister's secret soul. He felt allof the honorable man's repugnance against outraged decency. The scrap ofpaper seemed to scorch his fingers. With a punctilious regard fordetail, which he knew to be absurd, he tried to find the exact pagewhere it had been concealed. Then he put the volume back upon the tableand went over to the window. His conjectures concerning this romance hadcome to an end. Now he knew, and knowing felt suddenly weighted withguilt.
He could imagine now how she must have felt as she had sat, a few hoursbefore, listening to the paragraphs of Kenwick's masterpiece as theyfell from the glib tongue of Richard Glover. There was an expressionalmost of awe upon his face. She could write all that, feel all thatfor one man, and then deliberately plan to marry another, to set _him_free! The thing seemed preposterous, and yet he knew it to be true.
And then his thoughts reverted to Kenwick, and the days that now seemedalmost like the unreal days of a dream, when he had first known him overat the fraternity-house in Berkeley. He recalled the night when he hadbrought him home to dinner and introduced him to Marcreta and tried tomake him show off for her like a trained puppy. Perhaps it would havebeen better if he had never brought him. But these things were in thehands of fate and fate has an infinite number of tools. Standing thereat the window, gazing at the reflection of the gas logs mirrored againstthe black pane, he found himself growing suddenly resentful of thecasual emergencies of life. Mere cobweb threads they were but upon themhung the destinies of human souls. You turned the first corner insteadof the second in an hour of aimless wandering, and the circulation ofyour life current was completely changed. It was folly to believe thatall the corners were posted with signs to be read and heeded by thatsecret autocrat, the subconscious mind. The intricacies of such auniverse made the brain reel. It was better to believe that we playedthe game blind, and that the stakes were to the courageous.
He went back to the table and turned out the reading-lamp, blotting outthe sight of the white and gold book.
"Lord! What a pity!" he murmured. "She would have been such aninspiration to him. It was the devil's own luck. Poor Kenwick! Poorlittle Crete!"
The Rest Hollow Mystery Page 11