by Rex Beach
“I don’t pretend to understand you,” said Helen, coldly.
“Oh yes, you do! Don’t assume such innocence. Of course it’s your rôle, but you can’t play it with me.” She stepped in front of her visitor, placing her back against the door, while her face was bitter and mocking. “The little service I did you just now entitles me to a privilege, I suppose, and I’m going to take advantage of it to tell you how badly your mask fits. Dreadfully rude of me, isn’t it? You’re in with a fine lot of crooks, and I admire the way you’ve done your share of the dirty work, but when you assume these scandalized, supervirtuous airs it offends me.”
“Let me out!”
“I’ve done bad things,” Cherry continued, unheedingly, “but I was forced into them, usually, and I never, deliberately, tried to wreck a man’s life just for his money.”
“What do you mean by saying that I have betrayed my friends and wrecked anybody’s life?” Helen demanded, hotly.
“Bah! I had you sized up at the start, but Roy couldn’t see it. Then Struve told me what I hadn’t guessed. A bottle of wine, a woman, and that fool will tell all he knows. It’s a great game McNamara’s playing and he did well to get you in on it, for you’re clever, your nerve is good, and your make-up is great for the part. I ought to know, for I’ve turned a few tricks myself. You’ll pardon this little burst of feeling—professional pique. I’m jealous of your ability, that’s all. However, now that you realize we’re in the same class, don’t look down on me hereafter.” She opened the door and bowed her guest out with elaborate mockery.
Helen was too bewildered and humiliated to make much out of this vicious and incoherent attack except the fact that Cherry Malotte accused her of a part in this conspiracy which every one seemed to believe existed. Here again was that hint of corruption which she encountered on all sides. This might be merely a woman’s jealousy—and yet she said Struve had told her all about it—that a bottle of wine and a pretty face would make the lawyer disclose everything. She could believe it from what she knew and had heard of him. The feeling that she was groping in the dark, that she was wrapped in a mysterious woof of secrecy, came over her again as it had so often of late. If Struve talked to that other woman, why wouldn’t he talk to her? She paused, changing her direction towards Front Street, revolving rapidly in her mind as she went her course of action. Cherry Malotte believed her to be an actress. Very well—she would prove her judgment right.
She found Struve busy in his private office, but he leaped to his feet on her entrance and came forward, offering her a chair.
“Good-morning, Miss Helen. You have a fine color, considering the night you passed. The Judge told me all about the affair; and let me state that you’re the pluckiest girl I know.”
She smiled grimly at the thought of what made her cheeks glow, and languidly loosened the buttons of her jacket.
“I suppose you’re very busy, you lawyer man?” she inquired.
“Yes—but not too busy to attend to anything you want.”
“Oh, I didn’t come on business,” she said, lightly. “I was out walking and merely sauntered in.”
“Well, I appreciate that all the more,” he said, in an altered tone, twisting his chair about. “I’m more than delighted.” She judged she was getting on well from the way his professionalism had dropped off.
“Yes, I get tired of talking to uncle and Mr. McNamara. They treat me as though I were a little girl.”
“When do you take the fatal step?”
“What step do you mean?”
“Your marriage. When does it occur? You needn’t hesitate,” he added. “McNamara told me about it a month ago.”
He felt his throat gingerly at the thought, but his eyes brightened when she answered, lightly:
“I think you are mistaken. He must have been joking.”
For some time she led him on adroitly, talking of many things, in a way to make him wonder at her new and flippant humor. He had never dreamed she could be like this, so tantalizingly close to familiarity, and yet so maddeningly aloof and distant. He grew bolder in his speech.
“How are things going with us?” she questioned, as his warmth grew pronounced. “Uncle won’t talk and Mr. McNamara is as close-mouthed as can be, lately.”
He looked at her quickly. “In what respect?”
She summoned up her courage and walked past the ragged edge of uncertainty.
“Now, don’t you try to keep me in short dresses, too. It’s getting wearisome. I’ve done my part and I want to know what the rest of you are doing.” She was prepared for any answer.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, cautiously.
“Everything. Don’t you think I can hear what people are saying?”
“Oh, that’s it! Well, don’t you pay any attention to what people say.”
She recognized her mistake and continued, hurriedly:
“Why shouldn’t I? Aren’t we all in this together? I object to being used and then discarded. I think I’m entitled to know how the scheme is working. Don’t you think I can keep my mouth shut?”
“Of course,” he laughed, trying to change the subject of their talk; but she arose and leaned against the desk near him, vowing that she would not leave the office without piercing some part of this mystery. His manner strengthened her suspicion that there was something behind it all. This dissipated, brilliant creature knew the situation thoroughly; and yet, though swayed by her efforts, he remained chained by caution. She leaned forward and smiled at him.
“You’re just like the others, aren’t you? You won’t give me any satisfaction at all.”
“Give, give, give,” said Struve, cynically. “That’s always the woman’s cry. Give me this—give me that. Selfish sex! Why don’t you offer something in return? Men are traders, women usurers. You are curious, hence miserable. I can help you, therefore I should do it for a smile. You ask me to break my promises and risk my honor on your caprice. Well, that’s woman-like, and I’ll do it. I’ll put myself in your power, but I won’t do it gratis. No, we’ll trade.”
“It isn’t curiosity,” she denied, indignantly. “It is my due.”
“No; you’ve heard the common talk and grown suspicious, that’s all. You think I know something that will throw a new light or a new shadow on everything you have in the world, and you’re worked up to such a condition that you can’t take your own people’s word; and, on the other hand, you can’t go to strangers, so you come to me. Suppose I told you I had the papers you brought to me last spring in that safe and that they told the whole story—whether your uncle is unimpeachable or whether he deserved hanging by that mob. What would you do, eh? What would you give to see them? Well, they’re there and ready to speak for themselves. If you’re a woman you won’t rest till you’ve seen them. Will you trade?”
“Yes, yes! Give them to me,” she cried, eagerly, at which a wave of crimson rushed up to his eyes and he rose abruptly from his chair. He made towards her, but she retreated to the wall, pale and wide-eyed.
“Can’t you see,” she flung at him, “that I must know?”
He paused. “Of course I can, but I want a kiss to bind the bargain—to apply on account.” He reached for her hand with his own hot one, but she pushed him away and slipped past him towards the door.
“Suit yourself,” said he, “but if I’m not mistaken, you’ll never rest till you’ve seen those papers. I’ve studied you, and I’ll place a bet that you can’t marry McNamara nor look your uncle in the eye till you know the truth. You might do either if you knew them to be crooks, but you couldn’t if you only suspected it—that’s the woman. When you get ready, come back; I’ll show you proof, because I don’t claim to be anything but what I am—Wilton Struve, bargainer of some mean ability. When they come to inscribe my headstone I hope they can carve thereon with truth, ‘He got value received.’”
“You’re a panther,” she said, loathingly.
“Graceful and elegant brute, that,” he laughe
d. “Affectionate and full of play, but with sharp teeth and sharper claws. To follow out the idea, which pleases me, I believe the creature owes no loyalty to its fellows and hunts alone. Now, when you’ve followed this conspiracy out and placed the blame where it belongs, won’t you come and tell me about it? That door leads into an outer hall which opens into the street. No one will see you come or go.”
As she hurried away she wondered dazedly why she had stayed to listen so long. What a monster he was! His meaning was plain, had always been so from the first day he laid eyes upon her, and he was utterly conscienceless. She had known all this; and yet, in her proud, youthful confidence, and in her need, every hour more desperate and urgent, to know the truth, she had dared risk herself with him. Withal, the man was shrewd and observant and had divined her mental condition with remarkable sagacity. She had failed with him; but the girl now knew that she could never rest till she found an answer to her questions. She must kill this suspicion that ate into her so. She thought tenderly of her uncle’s goodness to her, clung with despairing faith to the last of her kin. The blood ties of the Chesters were close and she felt in dire need of that lost brother who was somewhere in this mysterious land—need of some one in whom ran the strain that bound her to the weak old man up yonder. There was McNamara; but how could he help her, how much did she know of him, this man who was now within the darkest shadow of her new suspicions?
Feeling almost intolerably friendless and alone, weakened both by her recent fright and by her encounter with Struve, Helen considered as calmly as her emotions would allow and decided that this was no day in which pride should figure. There were facts which it was imperative she should know, and immediately; therefore, a few minutes later, she knocked at the door of Cherry Malotte. When the girl appeared, Helen was astonished to see that she had been crying. Tears bum hottest and leave plainest trace in eyes where they come most seldom. The younger girl could not guess the tumult of emotion the other had undergone during her absence, the utter depths of self-abasement she had fathomed, for the sight of Helen and her fresh young beauty had roused in the adventuress a very tempest of bitterness and jealousy. Whether Helen Chester were guilty or innocent, how could Glenister hesitate between them? Cherry had asked herself. Now she stared at her visitor inhospitably and without sign.
“Will you let me come in?” Helen asked her. “I have something to say to you.”
When they were inside, Cherry Malotte stood and gazed at her visitor with inscrutable eyes and stony face.
“It isn’t easy for me to come back,” Helen began, “but I felt that I had to. If you can help me, I hope you will. You said that you knew a great wrong was being done. I have suspected it, but I didn’t know, and I’ve been afraid to doubt my own people. You said I had a part in it—that I’d betrayed my friends. Wait a moment,” she hurried on, at the other’s cynical smile. “Won’t you tell me what you know and what you think my part has been? I’ve heard and seen things that make me think—oh, they make me afraid to think, and yet I can’t find the truth t You see, in a struggle like this, people will make all sorts of allegations, but do they know, have they any proof, that my uncle has done wrong?”
“Is that all?”
“No. You said Struve told you the whole scheme. I went to him and tried to cajole the story out of him, but—” She shivered at the memory.
“What success did you have?” inquired the listener, oddly curious for all her cold dislike.
“Don’t ask me. I hate to think of it.”
Cherry laughed cruelly. “So, failing there, you came back to me, back for another favor from the waif. Well, Miss Helen Chester, I don’t believe a word you’ve said and I’ll tell you nothing. Go back to the uncle and the rawboned lover who sent you, and inform them that I’ll speak when the time comes. They think I know too much, do they?—so they’ve sent you to spy? Weil, I’ll make a compact. You play your game and I’ll play mine. Leave Glenister alone and I’ll not tell on McNamara. Is it a bargain?”
“No, no, no! Can’t you see? That’s not it. All I want is the truth of this thing.”
“Then go back to Struve and get it. He’ll tell you; I won’t. Drive your bargain with him—you’re able. You’ve fooled better men—now, see what you can do with him.”
Helen left, realizing the futility of further effort, though she felt that this woman did not really doubt her, but was scourged by jealousy till she deliberately chose this attitude.
Reaching her own house, she wrote two brief notes and called in her Jap boy from the kitchen.
“Fred, I want you to hunt up Mr. Glenister and give him this note. If you can’t find him, then look for his partner and give the other to him.” Fred vanished, to return in an hour with the letter for Dextry still in his hand.
“I don’ catch dis feller,” he explained. “Young mans say he gone, come back mebbe one, two, ’leven days.”
“Did you deliver the one to Mr. Glenister?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Was there an answer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, give it to me.”
The note read:
“DEAR MISS CHESTER,—A discussion of a matter so familiar to us both as the Anvil Creek controversy would be useless. If your inclination is due to the incidents of last night, pray don’t trouble yourself. We don’t want your pity. I am,
“Your servant,
“ROY GLENISTER.”
As she read the note, Judge Stillman entered, and it seemed to the girl that he had aged a year for every hour in the last twelve, or else the yellow afternoon light limned the sagging hollows and haggard lines of his face most pitilessly. He showed in voice and manner the nervous burden under which he labored.
“Alec has told me about your engagement, and it lifts a terrible load from me. I’m mighty glad you’re going to marry him. He’s a wonderful man, and he’s the only one who can save us. ”
“What do you mean by that? What are we in danger of?” she inquired, avoiding discussion of McNamara’s announcement.
“Why, that mob, of course. They’ll come back. They said so. But Alec can handle the commanding officer at the post, and, thanks to him, we’ll have soldiers guarding the house hereafter. ”
“Why—they won’t hurt us—”
“Tut, tut! I know what I’m talking about. We’re in worse danger now than ever, and if we don’t break up those Vigilantes there’ll be bloodshed—that’s what. They’re a menace, and they’re trying to force me off the bench so they can take the law into their own hands again. That’s what I want to see you about. They’re planning to kill Alec and me—so he says—and we’ve got to act quick to prevent murder. Now, this young Glenister is one of them, and he knows who the rest are. Do you think you could get him to talk? ”
“I don’t think I quite understand you, ” said the girl, through whitening lips.
“Oh yes, you do. I want the names of the ringleaders, so that I can jail them. You can worm it out of that fellow if you try. ”
Helen looked at the old man in a horror that at first was dumb, “You ask this of me?” she demanded, hoarsely, at last.
“Nonsense,” he said, irritably. “This isn’t any time for silly scruples. It’s life or death for me, maybe, and for Alec, too.” He said the last craftily, but she stormed at him:
“It’s infamous! You’re asking me to betray the very man who saved us not twelve hours ago. He risked his life for us.”
“It isn’t treachery at all, it’s protection. If we don’t get them, they’ll get us. I wouldn’t punish that young fellow, but I want the others. Come, now, you’ve got to do it.”
But she said “No” firmly, and quietly went to her own room, where, behind the locked door, she sat for a long time staring with unseeing eyes, her hands tight clenched in her lap. At last she whispered:
“I’m afraid it’s true. I’m afraid it’s true.”
She remained hidden during the dinner-hour, and pleaded a headac
he when McNamara called in the early evening. Although she had not seen him since he left her the night before, bearing her tacit promise to wed him, yet how could she meet him now with the conviction growing on her hourly that he was a master-rogue? She wrestled with the thought that he and her uncle, her own uncle who stood in the place of a father, were conspirators. And yet, at memory of the Judge’s cold-blooded request that she should turn traitress, her whole being was revolted. If he could ask a thing like that, what other heartless, selfish act might he not be capable of? All the long, solitary evening she kept her room, but at last, feeling faint, slipped down-stairs in search of Fred, for she had eaten nothing since her late breakfast.
Voices reached her from the parlor, and as she came to the last step she froze there in an attitude of listening. The first sentence she heard through the close-drawn curtains banished all qualms at eavesdropping. She stood for many breathless minutes drinking in the plot that came to her plainly from within, then turned, gathered up her skirts, and tiptoed back to her room. Here she made haste madly, tearing off her house clothes and donning others.
She pressed her face to the window and noted that the night was like a close-hung velvet pall, without a star in sight. Nevertheless, she wound a heavy veil about her hat and face before she extinguished the light and stepped into the hall. Hearing McNamara’s “Good-night” at the front-door, she retreated again while her uncle slowly mounted the stairs and paused before her chamber. He called her name softly, but when she did not answer continued on to his own room. When he was safely within she descended quietly, went out, and locked the front-door behind her, placing the key in her bosom. She hurried now, feeling her way through the thick gloom in a panic, while in her mind was but one frightened thought: