Seven Keys to Baldpate

by Earl Derr Biggers

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A RED CARD

  Mr. Magee turned back from the window to the dim interior of the hoteloffice. He who had come to Baldpate Inn to court loneliness had neverfelt so lonely in his life. For he had lost sight of her--in the greatReuton station of his imagination she had slipped from his dreams--to gowhere he could not follow, even in thought. He felt as he knew thisgreat bare room must feel each fall when the last laugh died away downthe mountain, and the gloom of winter descended from drab skies.

  Selecting a log of the hermit's cutting from the stock beside thehearth, Mr. Magee tossed it on the fire. There followed a shower ofsparks and a flood of red light in the room. Through this light Kendrickadvanced to Magee's side, and the first of the Baldpate hermits saw thatthe man's face was lined by care, that his eyes were tired even underthe new light in them, that his mouth was twisted bitterly.

  "Poor devil," thought Magee.

  Kendrick drew up chairs for himself and Magee, and they sat down. Behindthem the bulky Mrs. Norton dozed, dreaming perhaps of her Reutonboarding-house, while Miss Thornhill and the professor talkedintermittently in low tones. The ranks at Baldpate were thinningrapidly; before long the place must settle back with a sigh in the cold,to wait for its first summer girl.

  "Mr. Magee," said Kendrick nervously, "you have become involved in anunkind, a tragic story. I do not mean the affair of the bribe--I referto the matter between Hayden and myself. Before Peters comes backwith--the men he went for--I should like to tell you some of the factsof that story."

  "If you had rather not--" began Magee.

  "No," replied Kendrick, "I prefer that you should know. It was you whotook the pistol from--his hand. I do not believe that even I can tellyou all that was in Hayden's mind when he went into that other room andclosed the door. It seems to me preposterous that a man of his sortshould take his life under the circumstances I feel, somehow, that thereis a part of the story even I do not know. But let that be."

  He bowed his head in his hands.

  "Ever since I came into this room," he went on, "the eyes of a pompouslittle man have been following me about. They have constantly recalledto me the nightmare of my life. You have noticed, no doubt, the picturesof the admiral that decorate these walls?"

  "I have," replied Magee. He gazed curiously at the nearest of theportraits. How persistently this almost mythical starched man wove inand out of the melodrama at Baldpate Inn.

  "Well," continued Kendrick, "the admiral's eyes haunt me. Perhaps youknow that he plays a game--a game of solitaire. I have good reason toremember that game. It is a silly inconsequential game. You wouldscarcely believe that it once sent a man to hell."

  He stopped.

  "I am beginning in the middle of my story," he apologized. "Let me goback. Six years ago I was hardly the man you see now--I was at leasttwenty years younger. Hayden and I worked together in the office of theSuburban Railway. We had been close friends at college--I believed inhim and trusted him, although I knew he had certain weaknesses. I was ahappy man. I had risen rapidly, I was young, the future was lying goldenbefore me--and I was engaged. The daughter of Henry Thornhill, ouremployer--the girl you have met here at Baldpate--had promised to be mywife. Hayden had also been a suitor, but when our engagement wasannounced he came to me like a man, and I thought his words weresincere.

  "One day Hayden told me of a chance we might take which would make usrich. It was not--altogether within the law. But it was the sort ofthing that other men were doing constantly, and Hayden assured me thatas he had arranged matters it was absolutely safe. My great sin is thatI agreed we should take the chance--a sin for which I have paid, Mr.Magee, over and over."

  Again he paused, and gazed steadily at the fire. Again Magee noted thegray at his temples, the aftermath of fevers in his cheeks.

  "We--took the chance," he went on. "For a time everything went well.Then--one blustering March night--Hayden came to me and told me we werecertain to be caught. Some of his plans had gone awry. I trusted himfully at the time, you understand--he was the man with whom I had sat onthe window-seat of my room at college, settling the question ofimmortality, and all the other great questions young men settle at suchtimes. I have at this moment no doubt that he was quite truthful when hesaid we were in danger of arrest. We arranged to meet the next night atthe Argots Club and decide on what we should do.

  "We met--in the library of the club. Hayden came in to me from thecard-room adjoining, where he had been watching the admiral dodderingover his eternal game. The old man had become a fixture at the club,like Parker down at the door, or the great chandelier in the hall. Noone paid any attention to him; when he tried to talk to the younger menabout his game they fled as from a pestilence. Well, as I say, Haydencame to meet me, and just at that moment the admiral finished his gameand went out. We were alone in the library.

  "Hayden told me he had thought the matter over carefully. There wasnothing to do but to clear out of Reuton forever. But why, he argued,should we both go? Why wreck two lives? It would be far better, he toldme, for one to assume the guilt of both and go away. I can see himnow--how funny and white his face looked in that half-lighted room--howhis hands trembled. I was far the calmer of the two.

  "I agreed to his plan. Hayden led the way into the room where theadmiral had been playing. We went up to the table, over which thegreen-shaded light still burned. On it lay two decks of cards, face up.Hayden picked up the nearest deck, and shuffled it nervously. Hisface--God, it was like the snow out there on the mountain."

  Kendrick closed his eyes, and Magee gazed at him in silent pity.

  "He held out the deck," went on the exile softly, "he told me to draw.He said if the card was black, he'd clear out. 'But if it's red, David,'he said, 'why--you--got to go.' I held my breath, and drew. It was afull minute before I dared look at the card in my hand. Then I turned itover and it was--red--a measly little red two-spot. I don't suppose aman ever realizes all at once what such a moment means. I remember thatI was much cooler than Hayden. It was I who had to brace him up. I--Ieven tried to joke with him. But his face was like death. He hardlyspoke at all at first, and then suddenly he became horribly talkative. Ileft him--talking wildly--I left Reuton. I left the girl to whom I wasengaged."

  To break the silence that followed, Mr. Magee leaned forward and stirredthe logs.

  "I don't want to bore you," Kendrick said, trying to smile. "I went to alittle town in South America. There was no treaty of extraditionthere--nor anything else civilized and decent. I smoked cigarettes anddrank what passed for rum, on the balcony of an impossible hotel, andotherwise groped about for the path that leads to the devil. After ayear, I wrote to Hayden. He answered, urging me to stay away. Heintimated that the thing we had done was on my shoulders. I was ashamed,frightfully unhappy. I didn't dare write to--her. I had disgraced her. Iasked Hayden about her, and he wrote back that she was shortly to marryhim. After that I didn't want to come back to Reuton. I wanted most--todie.

  "The years crept by on the balcony of that impossible hotel. Six ofthem. The first in bitter memories, memories of a red card that dancedfiendishly before my eyes when I closed them--the last in a fiercebiting desire to come back to the world I had left. At last, a fewmonths ago, I wrote to another college friend of mine, Drayton, and toldhim the whole story. I did not know that he had been elected prosecutorin Reuton. He answered with a kind pitying letter--and finally I knewthe horrible truth. Nothing had ever happened. The thing we had done hadnever been discovered. Hayden had lied. He had even lied about hisengagement to Myra Thornhill. There, he had made a reality out of whatwas simply his great desire.

  "You can imagine my feelings. Six years in a tomb, a comic opera sort oftomb, where a silly surf was forever pounding, and foolish palms keptwaving. Six years--for nothing. Six years, while Hayden, guiltier thanI, stayed behind to enjoy the good things of life, to plead for the girlwhose lover he had banished.

  "I lost no time in coming north. Three days ago I entered
Drayton'soffice. I was ready and willing that the wrong Hayden and I had doneshould be made public. Drayton informed me that legally there had beenno crime, that Hayden had straightened things out in time, that we haddefrauded no one. And he told me that for whatever sin I had committedhe thought I had more than atoned down there in that town that Godforgot. I think I had. He explained to me about the trap he had laid forHayden up here at Baldpate Inn. I begged to help. What happened after,you know as well as I."

  "Yes, I think I do," agreed Mr. Magee softly.

  "I have told you the whole story," Kendrick replied, "and yet it seemsto me that still it is not all told. Why should Hayden have killedhimself? He had lied to me, it is true, but life was always sweet tohim, and it hardly seems to me that he was the sort to die simplybecause his falsehood was discovered. Was there some other act ofcruelty--some side to the story of which we are none of us aware? Iwonder."

  He was silent a moment.

  "Anyhow, I have told you all I know," he said. "Shall I tell it also tothe coroner? Or shall we allow Hayden's suicide to pass as the result ofhis implication in this attempt at bribery? I ask your advice, Mr.Magee."

  "My advice," returned Magee, "is that you befuddle no pompous littlevillage doctor with the complication of this unhappy tale. No, let thestory be that Hayden killed himself as the toils closed in on him--thetoils of the law that punishes the bribe giver--now and then andoccasionally. Mr. Kendrick, you have my deepest sympathy. Is it too muchfor me to hope"--he glanced across the room to where Myra Thornhill satbeside the professor--"that the best of your life is yet to come--thatout of the wreck this man made of it you may yet be happy?"

  Kendrick smiled.

  "You are very kind," he said. "Twice we have met and battled in thesnow, and I do not hold it against you that both times you were thevictor. Life in a tropic town, Mr. Magee, is not exactly amuscle-building experience. Once I might have given the whole proceedinga different turn. Yes, Miss Thornhill has waited for me--all theseyears--waited, believing. It is a loyalty of which I can not speakwithout--you understand. She knows why I went away--why I stayed away.She is still ready to marry me. I shall go again into the Suburbanoffice and try to lift the road from the muck into which it has fallen.Yes, it is not too much for me to hope--and for you in yourkindness--that a great happiness is still for me."

  "Believe me, I'm glad," replied Magee with youthful enthusiasm, holdingout his hand. "I'm sorry I spoiled your little game up here, but--"

  "I understand," smiled Kendrick. "I think none the less of you for whatyou have done. And who knows? It may turn out to have been the wisestcourse after all."

  Ah, would it? Mr. Magee walked to the window, pondering on the oddtangle of events that had not yet been completely straightened out.Certainly her eyes were an honest blue as well as a beautiful--but whowas she? Where was she? The great figure of Mrs. Norton stirredrestlessly near at hand; the puffed lids of her eyes opened.

  "Mr. Magee," she said, when she had made out his figure by the window,"you've been a true friend, as I might say, to a couple of mad femaleswho ought to have been at home by their own firesides, and I'm going toask one more favor of you. Find out when the next train goes to Reuton,and see that I'm at the station an hour or two before it pulls out."

  "I'll do that, Mrs. Norton," smiled Magee. "By the way, is Norton thename?"

  "Yes," answered the woman, "that's my name. Of course, it ain't hers. Ican't tell that."

  "No matter," said Mr. Magee, "she'll probably change it soon. Can't youtell me something about her--just a tiny bit of information. Just apicture of where she is now, and what she's doing with that smallfortune I gave her."

  "Where is she now?" repeated Mrs. Norton. "She's home and in bed in mysecond floor front, unless she's gone clear crazy. And that's where Iwish I was this minute--in bed--though it's a question in my mind ifI'll ever be able to sleep again, what with the uproar and confusion myhouse is probably in by this time, leaving it in charge of ascatter-brained girl. Norton always used to say if you want a thing doneright, do it yourself, and though he didn't always live up to thesentiment, letting me do most things he wanted done right, there was alot of truth in his words. I certainly must get back to Reuton, just asquick as the railroad will take me."

  "Why did you come?" prodded Mr. Magee. "Why did you leave your house onthis strange mission?"

  "The Lord knows," replied the woman. "I certainly never intended to, butshe begged and pleaded, and the first thing I knew, I was on a train.She has winning ways, that girl--maybe you've noticed?"

  "I have," assented Billy Magee.

  "I thought so. No, Mr. Magee, I can't tell you nothing about her. Iain't allowed to--even you that has been so kind. She made me promise.'He'll know soon enough,' she kept saying. But I will tell you, as Itold you before, there's no occasion to worry about her--unless you wasto think was she held up and murdered with all that money on her, thebrave little dear. If you was considering offering yourself for the jobof changing her name, Mr. Magee, I say go in and do it. It sure is timeshe settled down and gave up this--this--gave it all up before somethingawful happens to her. You won't forget--the very next train, Mr. Magee?"

  "The very next," Magee agreed.

  In through the dining-room door stamped Quimby, grave of face, dazed atbeing roused from sleep, and with him an important little man whose dutyit was to investigate at Upper Asquewan Falls such things as hadhappened that night at Baldpate. Even from his slumber he rose with theair of a judge and the manner of a Sherlock Holmes. For an hour he askedquestions, and in the end he prepared to go in a seemingly satisfiedstate of mind.

  Quimby's face was very awed when he came down-stairs after a visit tothe room above.

  "Poor fellow!" he said to Magee. "I'm sorry--he was so young." For suchas Quimby carry no feud beyond the gates. He went over and tookKendrick's hand.

  "I never had a chance," he said, "to thank you for all you tried to dofor me and my invention."

  "And it came to nothing in the end?" Kendrick asked.

  "Nothing," Quimby answered. "I--I had to creep back to Baldpate Mountainfinally--broke and discouraged. I have been here ever since. All my blueprints, all my models--they're locked away forever in a chest up in theattic."

  "Not forever, Quimby," Kendrick replied. "I always did believe in yourinvention--I believe in it still. When I get back into the harness--I'msure I can do something for you."

  Quimby shook his head. He looked to be half asleep.

  "It don't seem possible," he said. "No--it's all been buried solong--all the hope--all the plans--it don't seem possible it could evercome to life again."

  "But it can, and it will," cried Kendrick. "I'm going to lay a stretchof track in Reuton with your joints. That's all you need--they'll haveto use 'em then. We'll force the Civic into it. We can do it, Quimby--wesurely can."

  Quimby rubbed his hand across his eyes.

  "You'll lay a stretch of track--" he repeated. "That's great news to me,Mr. Kendrick. I--I can't thank you now." His voice was husky. "I'll comeback and take care of--him," he said, jerking his head toward the roomup-stairs. "I got to go now--this minute--I got to go and tell my wife.I got to tell her what you've said."