The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  XXX

  David was enjoying his holiday. He lay in bed most of the morning,making the most of his one after-breakfast cigar and surrounded bynewspaper and magazines. He had made friends of the waiter who broughthis breakfast, and of the little chambermaid who looked after his room,and such conversations as this would follow:

  "Well, Nellie," he would say, "and did you go to the dance on the pierlast night?"

  "Oh, yes, doctor."

  "Your gentleman friend showed up all right, then?"

  "Oh, yes. He didn't telephone because he was on a job out of town."

  Here perhaps David would lower his voice, for Lucy was never far away.

  "Did you wear the flowers?"

  "Yes, violets. I put one away to remember you by. It was funny at first.I wouldn't tell him who gave them to me."

  David would chuckle delightedly.

  "That's right," he would say. "Keep him guessing, the young rascal. Wemen are kittle cattle, Nellie, kittle cattle!"

  Even the valet unbent to him, and inquired if the doctor needed a man athome to look after him and his clothes. David was enormously tickled.

  "Well," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'll tell you how I managenow, and then you'll see. When I want my trousers pressed I send themdownstairs and then I wait in my bathrobe until they come back. I'm atrifle better off for boots, but you'd have to knock Mike, my hired man,unconscious before he'd let you touch them."

  The valet grinned understandingly.

  "Of course, there's my nephew," David went on, a little note of pride inhis voice. "He's become engaged recently, and I notice he's bought someclothes. But still I don't think even he will want anybody to hold histrousers while he gets into them."

  David chuckled over that for a long time after the valet had gone.

  He was quite happy and contented. He spent all afternoon in a rollerchair, conversing affably with the man who pushed him, and now andthen when Lucy was out of sight getting out and stretching his legs. Hepicked up lost children and lonely dogs, and tried his eye in a shootinggallery, and had hard work keeping off the roller coasters and out ofthe sea.

  Then, one day, when he had been gone some time, he was astonished onentering his hotel to find Harrison Miller sitting in the lobby. Davidbeamed with surprise and pleasure.

  "You old humbug!" he said. "Off on a jaunt after all! And the contemptof you when I was shipped here!"

  Harrison Miller was constrained and uncomfortable. He had meant to seeLucy first. She was a sensible woman, and she would know just what Davidcould stand, or could not. But David did not notice his constraint; tookhim to his room, made him admire the ocean view, gave him a cigar, andthen sat down across from him, beaming and hospitable.

  "Suffering Crimus, Miller," he said. "I didn't know I was homesick untilI saw you. Well, how's everything? Dick's letters haven't been much, andwe haven't had any for several days."

  Harrison Miller cleared his throat. He knew that David had not beentold of Jim Wheeler's death, but that Lucy knew. He knew too from WalterWheeler that David did not know that Dick had gone west. Did Lucy knowthat, or not? Probably yes. But he considered the entire benevolentconspiracy an absurdity and a mistake. It was making him uncomfortable,and most of his life had been devoted to being comfortable.

  He decided to temporize.

  "Things are about the same," he said. "They're going to pave ChisholmStreet. And your Mike knocked down the night watchman last week. I gothim off with a fine."

  "I hope he hasn't been in my cellar. He's got a weakness, butthen--How's Dick? Not overworking?"

  "No. He's all right."

  But David was no man's fool. He began to see something strange inHarrison's manner, and he bent forward in his chair.

  "Look here, Harrison," he said, "there's something the matter with you.You've got something on your mind."

  "Well, I have and I haven't. I'd like to see Lucy, David, if she'sabout."

  "Lucy's gadding. You can tell me if you can her. What is it? Is it aboutDick?"

  "In a way, yes."

  "He's not sick?"

  "No. He's all right, as far as I know. I guess I'd better tell you,David. Walter Wheeler has got some sort of bee in his bonnet, and hegot me to come on. Dick was pretty tired and--well, one or two thingshappened to worry him. One was that Jim Wheeler--you'll get this sooneror later--was in an automobile accident, and it did for him."

  David had lost some of his ruddy color. It was a moment before he spoke.

  "Poor Jim," he said hoarsely. "He was a good boy, only full of life. Itwill be hard on the family."

  "Yes," Harrison Miller said simply.

  But David was resentful, too. When his friends were in trouble he wantedto know about it. He was somewhat indignant and not a little hurt. Buthe soon reverted to Dick.

  "I'll go back and send him off for a rest," he said. "I'm as good asI'll ever be, and the boy's tired. What's the bee in Wheeler's bonnet?"

  "Look here, David, you know your own business best, and Wheeler didn'tfeel at liberty to tell me very much. But he seemed to think you werethe only one who could tell us certain things. He'd have come himself,but it's not easy for him to leave the family just now. Dick went awayjust after Jim's funeral. He left a young chap named Reynolds in hisplace, and, I believe, in order not to worry you, some letters to bemailed at intervals."

  "Went where?" David asked, in a terrible voice.

  "To a town called Norada, in Wyoming. Near his old home somewhere. Andthe Wheelers haven't heard anything from him since the day he got there.That's three weeks ago. He wrote Elizabeth the night he got there, andwired her at the same time. There's been nothing since."

  David was gripping the arms of his chair with both hands, but he forcedhimself to calmness.

  "I'll go to Norada at once," he said. "Get a time-table, Harrison, andring for the valet."

  "Not on your life you won't. I'm here to do that, when I've gotsomething to go on. Wheeler thought you might have heard from him. Ifyou hadn't, I was to get all the information I could and then start.Elizabeth's almost crazy. We wired the chief of police of Noradayesterday."

  "Yes!" David said thickly. "Trust your friends to make every damnedmistake possible! You've set the whole pack on his trail." And then hefell back in his chair, and gasped, "Open the window!"

  When Lucy came in, a half hour later, she found David on his bed withthe hotel doctor beside him, and Harrison Miller in the room. David wasfighting for breath, but he was conscious and very calm. He looked up ather and spoke slowly and distinctly.

  "They've got Dick, Lucy," he said.

  He looked aged and pinched, and entirely hopeless. Even after his hearthad quieted down and he lay still among his pillows, he gave no evidenceof his old fighting spirit. He lay with his eyes shut, relaxed andpassive. He had done his best, and he had failed. It was out of hishands now, and in the hands of God. Once, as he lay there, he prayed. Hesaid that he had failed, and that now he was too old and weak to fight.That God would have to take it on, and do the best He could. But headded that if God did not save Dick and bring him back to happiness,that he, David, was through.

  Toward morning he wakened from a light sleep. The door into Lucy's roomwas open and a dim light was burning beyond it. David called her, and byher immediate response he knew she had not been sleeping.

  "Yes, David," she said, and came padding in in her bedroom slippersand wadded dressing-gown, a tragic figure of apprehension, determinedlysmiling. "What do you want?"

  "Sit down, Lucy."

  When she had done so he put out his hand, fumbling for hers. She wastouched and alarmed, for it was a long while since there had been anyopen demonstration of affection between them. David was silent for atime, absorbed in thought. Then:

  "I'm not in very good shape, Lucy. I suppose you know that. This oldpump of mine has sprung a leak or something. I don't want you to worryif anything happens. I've come to the time when I've got a good manyover there, and it will be like goin
g home."

  Lucy nodded. Her chin quivered. She smoothed his hand, with its hightwisted veins.

  "I know, David," she said. "Mother and father, and Henry, and a goodmany friends. But I need you, too. You're all I have, now that Dick--"

  "That's why I called you. If I can get out there, I'll go. And I'll putup a fight that will make them wish they'd never started anything. Butif I can't, if I--" She felt his fingers tighten on her hand. "If HattieThorwald is still living, we'll put her on the stand. If I can't go,for any reason, I want you to see that she is called. And you know whereHenry's statement is?"

  "In your box, isn't it?"

  "Yes. Have the statement read first, and then have her called tocorroborate it. Tell the story I have told you--or no, I'll dictate itto you in the morning, and sign it before witnesses. Jake and Bill willtestify too."

  He felt easier in his mind after that. He had marshalled his forces andbegun his preparations for battle. He felt less apprehension now in casehe fell asleep, to waken among those he had loved long since and lostawhile. After a few moments his eyes closed, and Lucy went back to herbed and crawled into it.

  It was, however, Harrison Miller who took the statement that morning.Lucy's cramped old hand wrote too slowly for David's impatience.Harrison Miller took it, on hotel stationery, covering the carefullynumbered pages with his neat, copper-plate writing. He wrote with animpassive face, but with intense interest, for by that time he knewDick's story.

  Never, in his orderly bachelor life, of daily papers and a flower gardenand political economy at night, had he been so close to the passions ofmen to love and hate and the disorder they brought with them.