The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  Billie Gray thumped his fist into his open palm. "We've got him. We've got him right. He can't get away from it. By Gad, we've got him at last!"

  Jeff found Nellie wrapped in his bathrobe in the big chair before the gas log. Her own wet clothes were out of sight behind a screen.

  "You locked the door when you went out," she charged.

  "Some of my friends might have dropped in to see me," he explained with his disarming smile.

  But he could see in her eyes the unreasoning fear of a child that has been badly hurt. He had locked the door on the outside. She was going to be dragged home whether she wanted to go or not. Dread of that hour was heavy on her soul. Jeff knew the choice must be hers, not his. He spoke quietly.

  "You're not a prisoner, of course. You may go whenever you like. I would have no right to keep you. But you will hurt me very much if you go before morning."

  "Where will you stay?" she asked.

  "I'll sleep on the lounge in this room," he answered in his most matter of fact voice.

  While he busied himself preparing a toddy for her she began to tell brokenly, by snatches, the story of her wanderings. She had gone to Portland and had found work in a department store at the notion counter. After three weeks she had lost her place. Days of tramping the streets looking for a job brought her at last to an overall factory where she found employment. The foreman had discharged her at the end of the third day. Once she had been engaged at an agency as a servant by a man, but as soon as his wife saw her Nellie was told she would not do. Bitter humiliating experiences had befallen her. Twice she had been turned out of rooming houses. Jeff read between the lines that as her time drew near some overmastering impulse had drawn her back to Verden. Already she was harboring the thought of death, but she could not die in a strange place so far from home. Only that morning she had reached town.

  After she had retired to the bedroom Jeff sat down in the chair she had vacated. He heard her moving about for a short time. Presently came silence.

  It must have been an hour and a half later that Sam and Mrs. Anderson knocked gently on the door.

  "Cars stopped running. Had to 'phone for a taxi," Miller whispered.

  The agitation of the mother was affecting. Her fingers twitched with nervousness. Her eyes strayed twenty times in five minutes toward the door behind which her daughter slept. Every little while she would tip-toe to it and listen breathlessly. In whispers Jeff told them the story, answering a hundred eager trembling questions.

  Slowly the clock ticked out the seconds of the endless night. Gray day began to sift into the room. Mrs. Anderson's excursions to the bedroom door grew more frequent. Sometimes she opened it an inch or two. On one of these occasions she went in quickly and shut the door behind her.

  "Good enough. They don't need us here, Sam. We'll go out and have some breakfast," Jeff proposed.

  On the street they met Billie Gray. He greeted the editor with a knowing grin. "Good morning, Mr. Farnum. How's everything? Fine and dandy, eh?"

  Jeff looked at him sharply. "What the mischief is he doing here?" he asked Miller by way of comment.

  All through breakfast that sinister little figure shadowed his thoughts. Gray was like a stormy petrel. He was surely there for no good, barring the chance of its being an accident. Both of them kept their eyes open on their way back, but they met nobody except a policeman swinging his club as he leaned against a lamp post and

  whistled the Merry Widow waltz.

  But Farnum was not satisfied. He cautioned both Sam and Mrs. Anderson to say nothing, above all to give no names or explanation to anybody. A whisper of the truth would bring reporters down on them in shoals.

  "You had better stay here quietly to-day," their host advised. "I'll see you're not disturbed by the help. Sam will bring your meals in from a restaurant. I'd say stay here as long as you like, but it can't be done without arousing curiosity, the one thing we don't want."

  "No, better leave late to-night in a taxi," Sam proposed.

  "Better still, I'll bring around Captain Chunn's car and Sam can drive you home. We can't be too careful."

  So it was arranged. Mrs. Anderson left it to them and went back into the bedroom where her wounded lamb lay.

  About midnight Jeff stopped a car in front of the stairway. The two veiled women emerged, accompanied by Sam. They were helped into the tonneau and Miller took the driver's seat. Just as the machine began to move a little man ran across the street toward them.

  Jeff's forearm went up suddenly and caught him under the chin. Billie Gray's head went back and his heels came up. Farnum was on him in an instant, ostensibly to help him up, but really to see he did not get up too quickly. As soon as the automobile swung round the corner Jeff lifted him to his feet.

  "Sorry. Hope I didn't hurt you," he smiled.

  "Smart trick, wasn't it?" snarled the detective. "Never mind, Mr. Farnum. We've got your goat right."

  "Again?" Jeff asked with pleasant impudence.

  "Got you dead to rights this trip." Gray fired another shot as he turned away. "And we'll find out yet who your lady friends are. Don't you forget it."

  But Billie had overlooked a bet. He had been in the back of the drug store getting a drink when Sam and Mrs. Anderson arrived. The policeman on guard had not connected the coming of these with Jeff. None of the watchers knew that Jeff had not been alone with the girl all night.

  Part 5

  Sam called on Jeff two days later.

  "I want you to come round to-night at seven-fifteen. We're going to be married," he explained.

  The newspaper man's eye met his in a swift surprise. "You and Nellie?"

  "Yes." Miller's jaw set. "Why not? YOU'RE not going to spring that damned cant about--"

  "I thought you knew me better," his friend interrupted.

  Miller's face worked. "I'll ask your pardon for that, Jeff. You've been the best friend she has. Well, we've thrashed it all out. She fought her mother and me two days; didn't think it right to let me give my name to her, even though she admits she has come to care for me. You can see how she would be torn two ways. It's the only road out for her and the baby that is on the way, but she couldn't bring herself to sacrifice me, as she calls it. I've hammered and hammered at her that it's no sacrifice. She can't see it; just cries and cries."

  "Of course she would be unusually sensitive; Her nerves must be all bare so that she shrinks as one does when a wound is touched."

  "That's it. She keeps speaking of herself as if she were a lost soul. At last we fairly wore her out. After we are married her mother and she will take the eight o'clock for Kenton. Nobody there knows them, and she'll have a chance to forget."

  "You're a white man, Sam," Jeff nodded lightly. But his eyes were shining.

  "I'm the man that loves her. I couldn't do less, could I?"

  "Some men would do a good deal less."

  "Not if they looked at it the way I do. She's the same Nellie I've always known. What difference does it make to me that she stumbled in the dark and hurt herself--except that my heart is so much more tender to her it aches?"

  "If you hold to that belief she'll live to see the day when she is a happy woman again," the journalist prophesied.

  "I'm going to teach her to think of it all as only a bad nightmare she's been through." His jaw clinched again so that the muscles stood out on his cheeks. "Do you know she won't say a word--not even to her mother--about who the villain is that betrayed her? I'd wring his coward neck off for him," he finished with a savage oath.

  "Better the way it is, Sam. Let her keep her secret.. The least said and thought about it the better."

  Miller looked at his watch. "Perhaps you're right. I've got to go to work. Remember, seven-fifteen sharp. We need you as a witness. Just your business suit, you understand. No present, of course."

  The wedding took place in the room where Jeff had been used to drinking chocolate with his little friend only a year before. It was the first time he had been her
e since that night when the danger signal had flashed so suddenly before his eyes. The whole thing came back to him poignantly.

  It was a pitiful little wedding, with the bride and her mother in tears from the start. The ceremony was performed by their friend Mifflin, the young clergyman who had a mission for sailors on the waterfront. Nobody else was present except Marchant, the second witness.

  As soon as the ceremony was finished Sam put Nellie and her mother into a cab to take them to their train. The other three walked back down town.

  As Jeff sat before his desk four hours later, busy with a tax levy story, Miller came in and took a seat. Jeff waved a hand at him and promptly forgot he was on earth until he rose and put on his coat an hour later.

  "Well! Did they get off all right?" he asked.

  Miller nodded absently. Ten minutes later he let out what he was thinking about.

  "I wish to God I knew the man," he exploded.

  Jeff looked at him quietly. "I'm glad you don't. Adding murder to it wouldn't help the situation one little bit, my friend."

  CHAPTER 14

  Only the man who is sheet-armored in a triple plate of selfishness can be sure that weak hands won't clutch at him and delay his march to success.--From the Note Book of a Dreamer.

  THE HERO, CONFRONTED WITH AN UNPLEASANT POSSIBILITY, PROVES HIS GREATNESS BY RISING SUPERIOR TO SENTIMENT

  Part 1

  James came down to the office one morning in his car with a smile of contentment on his handsome face. It had been decided that he was to be made speaker of the House after the next election, assuming that he and his party were returned to power. Jeff and the progressives were to stand back of him, and he felt sure that after a nominal existence the standpatters would accept him. He intended by scrupulous fair play to win golden opinions for himself. From the speakership to the governor's chair would not be a large step. After that--well, there were many possibilities.

  He did not for a moment admit to himself that there was anything of duplicity in the course he was following. His intention was to line up with the progressives during the campaign, to win his reelection on that platform, and to support a rational liberal program during the session. He would favor an initiative and referendum amendment not so radical as the one Jeff offered, a bill that would not cripple business or alarm capital. As he looked at it life was a compromise. The fusion of many minds to a practical result always demanded this. And results were more important than any number of theories.

  As James passed into his office the stenographer stopped him with a remark.

  "A man has been in twice to see you this morning, Mr. Farnum."

  "Did he leave his name?"

  "No. He said he would call again."

  James passed into his private office and closed the door.

  A quarter of an hour later his stenographer knocked. "He's here again, Mr. Farnum."

  "Who?"

  "The man I told you of."

  "Oh!" James put down the brief he was reading. "Show him in."

  A figure presently stood hesitating in the doorway. James saw an oldish man, gray and stooped with a rather wistful lost-dog expression on his face.

  "What can I do for you, sir?" he questioned.

  "Don't you know me?" the stranger asked with a quaver in his voice.

  The lawyer did not, but some premonition of disaster clutched at his heart. He rose swiftly and closed the door behind his caller.

  A faint smile doubtful of its right touched the weak face of the little old man. "So you don't know your own father--boy!"

  A sudden sickness ran through the lawyer and sapped his strength. He leaned against the desk uncertainly. It had come at last. The whole world would learn the truth about him. The Merrills, the Fromes, Valencia Van Tyle--all of them would know it and scorn him.

  "What are you doing here?" James heard himself say hoarsely.

  "Why, I--I--I came to see my son."

  "What for?"

  Before so harsh and abrupt a reception the weak smile went out like a blown candle.

  "I thought you'd be glad to see me--after so many years."

  "Why should I be glad to see you? What have you ever done for me but disgrace me?"

  Tears showed in the watery eyes. "That's right. It's gospel truth, I reckon."

  "And now, when I've risen above it, so that all men respect me, you come back to drag me down."

  "No--no, I wouldn't do that, son."

  "That's what you'll do. Do you think my friends will want to know a man who is the son of a convict? I've got a future before me. Already I've been mentioned for governor. What chance would I have when people know my father is a thief?"

  "Son," winced the old man.

  "Oh, well! I'm not picking my words," James went on with angry impatience. "I'm telling you the facts. I've got enemies. Every strong man has. They'll smash me like an empty eggshell."

  "They don't need to know about me. I'll not do any talking."

  "That's all very well. Things leak out," James grumbled a little more graciously. "Well, you better sit down now you're here. I thought you were living in Arkansas."

  "So I am. I've done right well there. And I thought I'd take a little run out to see you. I didn't know but what you might need a little help." He glanced aimlessly around the well-furnished office. "But I expect you don't, from the looks of things."

  "If you think I've got money you're wrong," James explained. "I'm just starting in my profession, and of course I owe a good deal here and there. I've been hard pressed ever since I left college."

  His father brightened up timidly. "I owe you money. We can fix that up. I've got a little mill down there and I've done well, though it was hard sledding at first."

  James caught at a phrase. What do you mean?"

  "Owe me money!

  "I knew it must be you paid off the shortage at the Planters' National. When I sent the money it was returned. You'd got ahead of me. I was THAT grateful to you, son."

  The lawyer found himself flushing. "Oh, Jeff paid that. He was earning money at the time and I wasn't. Of course I intended to pay him back some day."

  "Did Jeff do that? Then you and he must be friends. Tell me about him."

  "There's not much to tell. He's managing editor of a paper here that has a lot of influence. Yes. Jeff has been a staunch friend to me always. He recognizes that I'm a rising man and ought to be kept before the public."

  "I wonder if he's like his father."

  "Can't tell you that," his son replied carelessly. "I don't remember Uncle Phil much. Jeff's a queer fellow, full of Utopian notions about brotherhood and that sort of thing. But he's practical in a way. He gets things done in spite of his softheadedness."

  There was a knock at the door. "Mr. Jefferson Farnum, sir."

  James considered for a second. "Tell him to come in, Miss Brooks."

  The lawyer saw that the door was closed before he introduced Jeff to his father. It gave him a momentary twinge of conscience to see his cousin take the old man quickly by both hands. It was of course a mere detail, but James had not yet shaken hands with his father.

  "I'm glad to see you, Uncle Robert," Jeff said.

  His voice shook a little. There was in his manner that hint of affection which made him so many friends, the warmth that suggested a woman's sympathy, but not effeminacy.

  The ready tears brimmed into his uncle's eyes. "You're like your father, boy. I believe I would have known you by him," he said impulsively.

  "You couldn't please me better, sir. And what about James--would you have known him?"

  The old man looked humbly at his handsome, distinguished son. "No, I would never have known him."

  "He's becoming one of our leading citizens, James is. You ought to hear him make a speech. Demosthenes and Daniel Webster hide their heads when the Honorable James K. Farnum spellbinds," Jeff joked.

  "I've read his speeches," the father said unexpectedly. "For more than a year I've taken the World so as to hear
of him."

  "Then you know that James is headed straight for the Hall of Fame. Aren't you, James?"

  "Nonsense! You've as much influence in the state as I have, or you would have if you would drop your fight on wealth."

  "Bless you, I'm not making a fight on wealth," Jeff answered with good humor. "It's illicit wealth we're hammering at. But when you compare me to James K. I'll have to remind you that I'm not a silver-tongued orator or Verden's favorite son."