by Max Brand
“But I didn’t want such a wife,” continued John Mark. “You would have been an undeveloped child, really; you would never have grown up. No matter what they say, something about a woman is cut off at the root when she marries. Certainly, if she had not been free before, she is a slave if she marries a man with a strong will. And I have a strong will, Ruth — very strong!”
“Very strong, John,” she whispered again. He smiled faintly, as if there were less of what he wanted in that second use of the name. He went on: “So you see, I faced a problem. I must and would marry you. There was never any other woman born who was meant for me. So much so good. But, if I married you before you were wise enough to know me, you would have become a slave, shrinking from me, yielding to me, incapable of loving me. No, I wanted a free and independent creature as my wife; I wanted a partnership, you see. Put you into the world, then, and let you see men and women? No, I could not do that in the ordinary way. I have had to show you the hard and bad side of life, because I am, in many ways, a hard and bad man myself!”
He said it, almost literally, through his teeth. His face was fierce, defying her — his eyes were wistful, entreating her not to agree with him. Such a sudden rush of pity for the man swept over her that she put out her hand and pressed his. He looked down at her hand for a moment, and she felt his fingers trembling under that gentle pressure.
“I understand more now,” she said slowly, “than I have ever understood before. But I’ll never understand entirely.”
“A thing that’s understood entirely is despised,” he said, with a careless sweep of his hand. “A thing that is understood is not feared. I wish to be feared, not to make people cower, but to make them know when I come, and when I go. Even love is nothing without a seasoning of fear. For instance” — he flushed as the torrent of his speech swept him into a committal of himself— “I am afraid of you, dear girl. Do you know what I have done with the money you’ve won?”
“Tell me,” she said curiously, and, at the same time, she glanced in wonder, as a servant passed softly across the little room. Was it not stranger than words could tell that such a man as John Mark should be sitting in this almost public place and pouring his soul out into the ear of a girl?
“I shall tell you,” said Mark, his voice softening. “I have contributed half of it to charity.”
Her lips, compressed with doubt, parted in wonder. “Charity!” she exclaimed.
“And the other half,” he went on, “I deposited in a bank to the credit of a fictitious personality. That fictitious personality is, in flesh and blood, Ruth Tolliver with a new name. You understand? I have only to hand you the bank book with the list of deposits, and you can step out of this Tolliver personality and appear in a new part of the world as another being. Do you see what it means? If, at the last, you find you cannot marry me, my dear, you are provided for. Not out of my charity, which would be bitter to you, but out of your own earnings. And, lest you should be horrified at the thought of living on your earnings at the gaming table, I have thrown bread on the waters, dear Ruth. For every dollar you have in the bank you have given another to charity, and both, I hope, have borne interest for you!”
His smile faded a little, as she murmured, with her glance going past him: “Then I am free? Free, John?”
“Whenever you wish!”
“Not that I ever shall wish, but to know that I am not chained, that is the wonderful thing.” She looked directly at him again: “I never dreamed there was so much fineness in you, John Mark, I never dreamed it, but I should have!”
“Now I have been winning Caroline to the game,” he went on, “and she is beginning to love it. In another year, or six months, trust me to have completely filled her with the fever. But now enters the mischief-maker in the piece, a stranger, an ignorant outsider. This incredible man arrives and, in a few days, having miraculously run Caroline to earth, goes on and brings Caroline face to face with her lover, teaches Jerry Smith that I am his worst enemy, gets enough money to pay off his debt to me, and convinces him that I can never use my knowledge of his crime to jail him, because I don’t dare bring the police too close to my own rather explosive record.”
“I saw them both here!” said the girl. She wondered how much he guessed, and she saw his keen eyes probe her with a glance. But her ingenuousness, if it did not disarm him, at least dulled the edge of his suspicions.
“He was here, and the trap was laid here, and he slipped through it. Got away through a certain room which Fernand would give a million to keep secret. At any rate the fellow has shown that he is slippery and has a sting, too. He sent a bullet a fraction of an inch past Fernand’s head, at one point in the little story.
“In short, the price is too high. What I want is to secure Caroline Smith from the inside. I want you to go to her, to persuade her to go away with you on a trip. Take her to the Bermudas, or to Havana — any place you please. The moment the Westerner thinks his lady is running away from him of her own volition he’ll throw up his hands and curse his luck and go home. They have that sort of pride on the other side of the Rockies. Will you go back tonight, right now, and persuade Caroline to go with you?”
She bowed her head under the shock of it. Ronicky Doone had begged her to send Caroline Smith to meet her lover. Now the counterattack followed.
“Do you think she’d listen?”
“Yes, tell her that the one thing that will save the head of Bill Gregg is for her to go away, otherwise I’ll wipe the fool off the map. Better still, tell her that Gregg of his own free will has left New York and given up the chase. Tell her you want to console her with a trip. She’ll be sad and glad and flattered, all in the same moment, and go along with you without a word. Will you try, Ruth?”
“I suppose you would have Bill Gregg removed — if he continued a nuisance?”
“Not a shadow of a doubt. Will you do your best?”
She rose. “Yes,” said the girl. Then she managed to smile at him. “Of course I’ll do my best. I’ll go back right now.”
He took her arm to the door of the room. “Thank Heaven,” he said, “that I have one person in whom I can trust without question — one who needs no bribing or rewards, but works to please me. Good-by, my dear.”
He watched her down the hall and then turned and went through room after room to the rear of the house. There he rapped on a door in a peculiar manner. It was opened at once, and Harry Morgan appeared before him.
“A rush job, Harry,” he said. “A little shadowing.”
Harry jerked his cap lower over his eyes. “Gimme the smell of the trail, I’m ready,” he said.
“Ruth Tolliver has just left the house. Follow her. She’ll probably go home. She’ll probably talk with Caroline Smith. Find a way of listening. If you hear anything that seems wrong to you — anything about Caroline leaving the house alone, for instance, telephone to me at once. Now go and work, as you never worked for me before.”
23. CAROLINE TAKES COMMAND
RUTH LEFT THE gaming house of Frederic Fernand entirely convinced that she must do as John Mark had told her — work for him as she had never worked before. The determination made her go home to Beekman Place as fast as a taxicab would whirl her along.
It was not until she had climbed to Caroline Smith’s room and opened the door that her determination faltered. For there she saw the girl lying on her bed weeping. And it seemed to the poor, bewildered brain of Ruth Tolliver, as if the form of Ronicky Doone, passionate and eager as before, stood at her side and begged her again to send Caroline Smith across the street to a lifelong happiness, and she could do it. Though Mark had ordered the girl to be confined to her room until further commands were given on the subject, no one in the house would think of questioning Ruth Tolliver, if she took the girl downstairs to the street and told her to go on her way.
She closed the door softly and, going to the bed, touched the shoulder of Caroline. The poor girl sat up slowly and turned a stained and swollen face to Ru
th. If there was much to be pitied there was something to be laughed at, also. Ruth could not forbear smiling. But Caroline was clutching at her hands.
“He’s changed his mind?” she asked eagerly. “He’s sent you to tell me that he’s changed his mind, Ruth? Oh, you’ve persuaded him to it — like an angel — I know you have!”
Ruth Tolliver freed herself from the reaching hands, moistened the end of a towel in the bathroom and began to remove the traces of tears from the face of Caroline Smith. That face was no longer flushed, but growing pale with excitement and hope.
“It’s true?” she kept asking. “It is true, Ruth?”
“Do you love him as much as that?”
“More than I can tell you — so much more!”
“Try to tell me then, dear.”
Talking of her love affair began to brighten the other girl, and now she managed a wan smile. “His letters were very bad. But, between the lines, I could read so much real manhood, such simple honesty, such a heart, such a will to trust! Ruth, are you laughing at me?”
“No, no, far from that! It’s a thrilling thing to hear, my dear.”
For she was remembering that in another man there might be found these same qualities. Not so much simplicity, perhaps, but to make up for it, a great fire of will and driving energy.
“But I didn’t actually know that I was in love. Even when I made the trip West and wrote to him to meet the train on my return — even then I was only guessing. When he didn’t appear at the station I went cold and made up my mind that I would never think of him again.”
“But when you saw him in the street, here?”
“John Mark had prepared me and hardened me against that meeting, and I was afraid even to think for myself. But, when Ronicky Doone — bless him! — talked to me in your room, I knew what Bill Gregg must be, since he had a friend who would venture as much for him as Ronicky Doone did. It all came over me in a flash. I did love him — I did, indeed!”
“Yes, yes,” whispered Ruth Tolliver, nodding and smiling faintly. “I remember how he stood there and talked to you. He was like a man on fire. No wonder that a spark caught in you, Caroline. He — he’s a — very fine-looking fellow, don’t you think, Caroline?”
“Bill Gregg? Yes, indeed.”
“I mean Ronicky.”
“Of course! Very handsome!”
There was something in the voice of Caroline that made Ruth look down sharply to her face, but the girl was clever enough to mask her excitement and delight.
“Afterward, when you think over what he has said, it isn’t a great deal, but at the moment he seems to know a great deal — about what’s going on inside one, don’t you think, Caroline?”
These continual appeals for advice, appeals from the infallible Ruth Tolliver, set the heart of Caroline beating. There was most certainly something in the wind.
“I think he does,” agreed Caroline, masking her eyes. “He has a way, when he looks at you, of making you feel that he isn’t thinking of anything else in the world but you.”
“Does he have that same effect on every one?” asked Ruth. She added, after a moment of thought, “Yes, I suppose it’s just a habit of his. I wish I knew.”
“Why?” queried Caroline, unable to refrain from the stinging little question.
“Oh, for no good reason — just that he’s an odd character. In my work, you know, one has to study character. Ronicky Doone is a different sort of man, don’t you think?”
“Very different, dear.”
Then a great inspiration came to Caroline. Ruth was a key which, she knew, could unlock nearly any door in the house of John Mark.
“Do you know what we are going to do?” she asked gravely, rising.
“Well?”
“We’re going to open that door together, and we’re going down the stairs — together.”
“Together? But we — Don’t you know John Mark has given orders—”
“That I’m not to leave the room. What difference does that make? They won’t dare stop us if you are with me, leading the way.”
“Caroline, are you mad? When I come back—”
“You’re not coming back.”
“Not coming back!”
“No, you’re going on with me!”
She took Ruth by the arms and turned her until the light struck into her eyes. Ruth Tolliver, aghast at this sudden strength in one who had always been a meek follower, obeyed without resistance.
“But where?” she demanded.
“Where I’m going.”
“What?”
“To Ronicky Doone, my dear. Don’t you see?”
The insistence bewildered Ruth Tolliver. She felt herself driven irresistibly forward, with or without her own will.
“Caroline,” she protested, trying feebly to free herself from the commanding hands and eyes of her companion, “are you quite mad? Go to him? Why should I? How can I?”
“Not as I’m going to Bill Gregg, with my heart in my hands, but to ask Ronicky Doone — bless him! — to take you away somewhere, so that you can begin a new life. Isn’t that simple?”
“Ask charity of a stranger?”
“You know he isn’t a stranger, and you know it isn’t charity. He’ll be happy. He’s the kind that’s happy when he’s being of use to others?”
“Yes,” answered Ruth Tolliver, “of course he is.”
“And you’d trust him?”
“To the end of the world. But to leave—”
“Ruth, you’ve kept cobwebs before your eyes so long that you don’t see what’s happening around you. John Mark hypnotizes you. He makes you think that the whole world is bad, that we are simply making capital out of our crimes. As a matter of fact, the cold truth is that he has made me a thief, Ruth, and he has made you something almost as bad — a gambler!”
The follower had become the leader, and she was urging Ruth Tolliver slowly to the door. Ruth was protesting — she could not throw herself on the kindness of Ronicky Doone — it could not be done. It would be literally throwing herself at his head. But here the door opened, and she allowed herself to be led out into the hall. They had not made more than half a dozen steps down its dim length when the guard hurried toward them.
“Talk to him,” whispered Caroline Smith. “He’s come to stop me, and you’re the only person who can make him let me pass on!”
The guard hurriedly came up to them. “Sorry,” he said. “Got an idea you’re going downstairs, Miss Smith.”
“Yes,” she said faintly.
The fellow grinned. “Not yet. You’ll stay up here till the chief gives the word. And I got to ask you to step back into your room, and step quick.” His voice grew harsh, and he came closer. “He told me straight, you’re not to come out.”
Caroline had shrunk back, and she was on the verge of turning when the arm of Ruth was passed strongly around her shoulders and stayed her.
“She’s going with me,” she told John Mark’s bulldog. “Does that make a difference to you?”
He ducked his head and grinned feebly in his anxiety. “Sure it makes a difference. You go where you want, any time you want, but this—”
“I say she’s going with me, and I’m responsible for her.”
She urged Caroline forward, and the latter made a step, only to find that she was directly confronted by the guard.
“I got my orders,” he said desperately to Ruth.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked hotly.
“I know who you are,” he answered, “and, believe me, I would not start bothering you none, but I got to keep this lady back. I got the orders.”
“They’re old orders,” insisted Ruth Tolliver, “and they have been changed.”
“Not to my knowing,” replied the other, less certain in his manner.
Ruth seized the critical moment to say: “Walk on, Caroline. If he blocks your way—” She did not need to finish the sentence, for, as Caroline started on, the guard slunk sullenly to one s
ide of the corridor.
“It ain’t my doings,” he said. “But they got two bosses in this joint, and one of them is a girl. How can a gent have any idea which way he ought to step in a pinch? Go on, Miss Smith, but you’ll be answered for!”
They hardly heard the last of these words, as they turned down the stairway, hurrying, but not fast enough to excite the suspicion of the man behind them.
“Oh, Ruth,” whispered Caroline Smith. “Oh, Ruth!”
“It was close,” said Ruth Tolliver, “but we’re through. And, now that I’m about to leave it, I realize how I’ve hated this life all these years. I’ll never stop thanking you for waking me up to it, Caroline.”
They reached the floor of the lower hall, and a strange thought came to Ruth. She had hurried home to execute the bidding of John Mark. She had left it, obeying the bidding of Ronicky Doone.
They scurried to the front door. As they opened it the sharp gust of night air blew in on them, and they heard the sound of a man running up the steps. In a moment the dim hall light showed on the slender form and the pale face of John Mark standing before them.
Caroline felt the start of Ruth Tolliver. For her part she was on the verge of collapse, but a strong pressure from the hand of her companion told her that she had an ally in the time of need.
“Tut tut!” Mark was saying, “what’s this? How did Caroline get out of her room — and with you, Ruth?”
“It’s idiotic to keep her locked up there all day and all night, in weather like this,” said Ruth, with a perfect calm that restored Caroline’s courage almost to the normal. “When I talked to her this evening I made up my mind that I’d take her out for a walk.”
“Well,” replied John Mark, “that might not be so bad. Let’s step inside and talk it over for a moment.”
They retreated, and he entered and clicked the door behind him. “The main question is, where do you intend to walk?”
“Just in the street below the house.”
“Which might not lead you across to the house on the other side?”