by Don Marquis
CHAPTER VI
LADY AGATHA'S STORY
It was with the greatest difficulty that Cleggett repressed a start.Another man might have shown the shock he felt. But Cleggett had theiron nerve of a Bismarck and the fine manner of a Richelieu. He didnot even permit his eyes to wander towards the box in question. Hemerely sat and waited.
Lady Agatha, having brought herself to the point of revelation, seemedto find a difficulty in proceeding. Cleggett, mutely askingpermission, lighted a cigarette.
"Oh--if you will!" said Lady Agatha, extending her hand towards thecase. He passed it over, and when she had chosen one of the littlerolls and lighted it she said:
"Mr. Cleggett, have you ever lived in England?"
"I have never even visited England."
"I wish you knew England." She watched the curling smoke from hertobacco as it drifted across the table. "If you knew England you wouldcomprehend so much more readily some parts of my story.
"But, being an American, you can have no adequate conception of theconservatism that still prevails in certain quarters. I refer to thereally old families among the landed aristocracy. Some of them have notchanged essentially, in their attitude towards the world in general,since the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They make of family a fetish. Theyare ready to sacrifice everything upon the altar of family. They mayexhibit this pride of race less obviously than some of the French orGermans or Italians; but they have a deeper sense of their own dignity,and of what is due to it, than any of your more flighty and picturesquecontinentals. There are certain things that are done. Certain thingsare not done. One must conform or----"
She interrupted herself and delicately flicked the ash from hercigarette.
"Conform, or be jolly well damned," she finished, crossing one leg overthe other and leaning back in her chair. "This, by the way, is theonly decent cigarette I have found in America. I hate to smokeperfume--I like tobacco--and most of your shops seem to keep nothingbut the highly scented Turkish and Egyptian varieties."
"They were made in London," said Cleggett, bowing.
"Ah! But where was I? Oh, yes--one must conform. Especially if onebelongs to, or has married into, the Claiborne family. Of all the menin England the Earl of Claiborne is the most conservative, the mostreactionary, the most deeply encrusted with prejudice. He would stopat little where the question concerned the prestige of the aristocracyin general; he would stop at nothing where the Claiborne family isconcerned.
"I am telling you all this so that you may get an inkling of the blowit was to him when I became a militant suffragist. It was blow enoughto his nephew, Sir Archibald, my late husband. The Earl maintains thatit hastened poor Archibald's death. But that is ridiculous. Archibaldhad undermined his constitution with dissipation, and died following anoperation for gravel. He was to have succeeded to the title, as bothof the Earl's legitimate sons were dead without issue--one of themperished in the Boer War, and the other was killed in the hunting field.
"Upon Archibald's death the old Earl publicly acknowledged ReginaldMaltravers, his natural son, and took steps to have him legitimatized.For all of the bend sinister upon his escutcheon, Reginald Maltraverswas as fanatical concerning the family as his father. Perhaps morefanatical, because he secretly suffered for the irregularity of his ownposition in the world.
"At any rate, supported at first by the old Earl, he began a series ofpersecutions designed to make me renounce my suffragist principles, orat least to make me cease playing a conspicuous public part in themilitant propaganda. As my husband was dead and there were nochildren, I could not see that I was accountable to the Claibornefamily for my actions. But the Claibornes took a different view of it.In their philosophy, once a Claiborne, always a Claiborne. I wasbringing disgrace and humiliation upon the family, in their opinion.Knowing the old Earl as I do, I am aware that his suffering was genuineand intense. But what was I to do? One cannot desert one's principlesmerely because they cause suffering; otherwise there could be no suchthing as revolution.
"Reginald Maltravers had another reason for his persecution. After thedeath of Sir Archibald he himself sought my hand in marriage. I shallalways remember the form of his proposal; it concluded with thesewords: 'Had Archibald lived you would have been a countess. You maystill be a countess--but you must drop this suffragist show, you know.It is all bally rot, Agatha, all bally rot.' I would not have marriedhim without the condition, for I despised the man himself; but thecondition made me furious and I drove him from my sight with words thatturned him white and made him my enemy forever. 'You will not be mycountess, then,' he said. 'Very well--but I can promise you that youwill cease to be a suffragist.' I can still see the evil flash of hiseye behind his monocle as he uttered these words and turned away."
Lady Agatha shuddered at the recollection, and took a cup of tea.
"It was then," she resumed, "that the real persecution began. I waspeculiarly helpless, as I have no near relations who might have come tomy defense. Representing himself always as the agent of his father,but far exceeding the Earl in the malevolence of his inventions,Reginald Maltravers sought by every means he could command to drive mefrom public life in England.
"Three times he succeeded in having me flung into Holloway Jail. I neednot tell you of the terrors of that institution, nor of the degradinghorrors of forcible feeding. They are known to a shocked andsympathetic world. But Reginald Maltravers contrived, in my case, toadd to the usual brutalities a peculiar and personal touch. Bybribery, as I believe, he succeeded in getting himself into the prisonas a turnkey. It was his custom, when I lay weak and helpless in thesemistupor of starvation, to glide into my cell and, standing by mycouch, to recite to me the list of tempting viands that might appeardaily upon the board of a Countess of Claiborne.
"He soon learned that his very presence itself was a persecution. Aftermy release from jail the last time, he began to follow me everywhere.Turn where I would, there was Reginald Maltravers. At suffrage meetingshe took his station directly before the speaker's stand, stroked hislong blond mustache with his long white fingers, and stared at mesteadfastly through his monocle, with an evil smile upon his face.Formerly he had, in several instances, prevented me from attendingsuffrage meetings; once he had me spirited away and imprisoned for aweek when it fell to my lot to burn a railroad station for the good ofthe cause. He strove to ruin me with my leaders in this despicablemanner.
"But in the end he took to showing himself; he stood and stared. Merelythat. He was subtle enough to shift the persecution from the provinceof the physical to the realm of the psychological. It was like beinghaunted. Even when I did not see him, I began to THINK that I saw him.He deliberately planted that hallucination in my mind. It is a wonderthat I did not go mad.
"I finally determined to flee to America. I made all my arrangementswith care and--as I thought--with secrecy. I imagined that I had givenhim the slip. But he was too clever for me. The third day out, as oneof the ship's officers was showing me about the vessel, I detectedReginald Maltravers in the hold. It is not usual to allow women so farbelow decks; but I had insisted on seeing everything. Perspiring,begrimed, and mopping the moisture from his brow with a piece of cottonwaste, there he stood in the guise of a--of--a croaker, is it, Mr.Cleggett?"
"Stoker, I believe," said Cleggett.
"Stoker. Thank you. He turned away in confusion when he saw that hewas discovered. I perceived that, designing to cross on the same shipwith me, he had thought himself hidden there. He was not wearing hismonocle, but I would know that sloping forehead, that blond mustache,and that long, high, bony nose anywhere."
Lady Agatha broke off for a moment. She was extremely agitated. Butpresently she continued: "I endeavored to evade him. The attempt wasuseless. He found me out at once. The persecution went on. It wasmore terrible here than it had been in England. There I had friends. Ihad hours, sometimes even whole days, to myself.
"But this was not the worst. A new ph
ase developed. From hisappearance it suddenly became apparent to me that Reginald Maltraverscould not stop haunting me if he wished!"
"COULD not stop?" cried Cleggett.
"COULD not," said Lady Agatha. "The hunt had become a monomania withhim. It had become an obsession. He had given his whole mentality toit and it had absorbed all his faculties. He was now the victim of it.He had grown powerless in the grip of the idea; he had lost volition inthe matter.
"You can imagine my consternation when I realized this. I began tofear the day when his insanity would take some violent form and hewould endeavor to do me a personal injury. I determined to have abodyguard. I wanted a man inured to danger; one capable of meetingviolence with violence, if the need arose. It struck me that if Icould get into touch with one of those chivalrous Western outlaws, ofwhom we read in American works of fiction, he would be just the sort ofman I needed to protect me from Reginald Maltravers.
"I did not consider appealing to the authorities, for I have noconfidence in your American laws, Mr. Cleggett. But I did not know howto go about finding a chivalrous Western outlaw. So finally I put anadvertisement in the personal column of one of your morning papers fora reformed convict."
"A reformed convict!" exclaimed Cleggett. "May I ask how you worded thead.?"
"Ad.? Oh, advertisement? I will get it for you."
She went into the stateroom and was back in a moment with a newspapercutting which she handed to Cleggett. It read:
Convict recently released from Sing Sing, if his reform is reallygenuine, may secure honest employment by writing to A. F., care MorningDispatch.
"Out of the answers," she resumed, "I selected four and had theirwriters call for a personal interview. But only two of them seemed tome to be really reformed, and of these two Elmer's reform struck me asbeing the more genuine. You may have noticed that Elmer gives theappearance of being done with worldly vanities."
"He does seem depressed," said Cleggett, "but I had imputed it largelyto the nature of his present occupation."
"It is due to his attempt to lead a better life--or at least so hetells me," said Lady Agatha. "Morality does not come easy to Elmer, hesays, and I believe him. Elmer's time is largely taken up by inwardmoral debate as to the right or wrong of particular hypothetical caseswhich his imagination insists on presenting to his conscience."
"I can certainly imagine no state of mind less enjoyable," saidCleggett.
"Nor I," replied Lady Agatha. "But to resume: The very fact that Ihad employed a guard seemed to put Reginald Maltravers beside himself.He followed me more closely than ever. Regardless of appearances, hewould suddenly plant himself in front of me in restaurants andtramcars, in the streets or parks when I went for an airing, even inthe lifts and corridors of the apartment hotel where I stopped, andstare at me intently through his monocle, caressing his mustache thewhile. I did not dare make a scene; the thing was causing enoughremark without that; I was, in fact, losing my reputation.
"Finally, goaded beyond endurance, I called Elmer into my apartment oneday and put the whole case before him.
"'I will pay almost any price short of participation in actual crime,'I told him, 'for a fortnight of freedom from that man's presence. Ican stand it no longer; I feel my reason slipping from me. Have I notheard that there are in New York creatures who are willing, on thepayment of a certain stipulated sum, to guarantee to chastise a personso as to disable him for a definite period, without doing him permanentinjury? You must know some such disreputable characters. Procure mesome wretches of this sort!'
"Elmer replied that such creatures do, indeed, exist. He calledthem--what did he call them?"
"Gunmen?" suggested Cleggett.
"Yes, thank you. He brought two of them to me whom he introducedas----"
She paused. "The names escape me," she said. She called: "Elmer, juststep here a moment, please."
Elmer, who was still putting ice into the oblong box, moodily laid awayhis tools and approached.
"What WERE the odd names of your friends? The ones who--who made themistake?" asked Lady Agatha, resuming her seat.
Elmer rolled a bilious eye at Cleggett and asked Lady Agatha, out ofthat corner of his mouth nearer to her:
"Is th' guy right?"
"Mr. Cleggett is a friend of mine and can keep a secret, if that iswhat you mean," said Lady Agatha. And the words sent a thrill ofelation through Cleggett's being.
"M' friends w'at makes the mistake," said Elmer, apparently satisfiedwith the assurance, and offering the information to Cleggett out of theside of his mouth which had not been involved in his question to LadyAgatha, "goes by th' monakers of Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat."
"Picturesque," murmured Cleggett.
"Picture--what? Picture not'in!" said Elmer, huskily. "The bulls gotnot'in' on them boys. Them guys never been mugged. Them guys is toofoxy t' get mugged."
"I infer that you weren't always so foxy," said Cleggett, eyeing himcuriously.
The remark seemed to touch a sensitive spot. Elmer flushed andshuffled from one foot to the other, hanging his head as if inembarrassment. Finally he said, earnestly:
"I wasn't no boob, Mr. Cleggett. It was a snitch got ME settled. I wasa good cracksman, honest I was. But I never had no luck."
"I intended no reflection on your professional ability," said Cleggett,politely.
"Oh, that's all right, Mr. Cleggett," said Elmer, forgivingly."Nobody's feelin's is hoited. And any friend of th' little dame hereis a friend o' mine." The diminutive, on Elmer's lips, was intended asa compliment; Lady Agatha was not a small woman.
"Elmer," said Lady Agatha, "tell Mr. Cleggett how the mistake occurred."
Oratory was evidently not Elmer's strongest point. But he bracedhimself for the effort and began:
"When th' skoit here says she wants the big boob punched I says tom'self, foist of all: 'Is it right or is it wrong?' Oncet youse gotthat reform high sign put onto youse, youse can't be too careful. Doyouse get me? So when th' skoit here puts it up to me I thinks foistoff: 'Is it right or is it wrong?' See? So I thinks it over and Isays to m'self th' big boob's been pullin' rough stuff on th' littledame here. Do youse get me? So I says to m'self, the big boob ought toget a wallop on the nut. See? What th' big gink needs is someone tobounce a brick off his bean, f'r th' dame here's a square little dame.Do youse get me? So I says to the little dame: 'I'm wit' youse, see?W'at th' big gink needs is a mont' in th' hospital.' An' the littledame here says he's not to be croaked, but----"
But at that instant Teddy, the Pomeranian, sprang towards the uncoveredhatchway that gave into the hold, barking violently. Lady Agatha, whocould see into the opening, arose with a scream.
Cleggett, leaping towards the hatchway, was just in time to see two menjump backward from the bottom of the ladder into the murk of the hold.They had been listening. Drawing his pistol, and calling to the crewof the Jasper B. to follow him, Cleggett plunged recklessly downwardand into the darkness.