by Max Brand
“What are you saying, Terence? That fellow . . .”
“Hush. Look at us.” He picked up the photograph and stood back so that the light fell sharply on his face and on the photograph that he held beside his head. He caught up a sombrero and jammed it jauntily on his head. He tilted his face high, with resolute chin. And all at once there were two Black Jacks, not one. He evidently saw all the admission that he cared for in her face. He took off the hat with a dragging motion and replaced the photograph on the table.
“I tried it in the mirror,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t quite sure until I tried it in the mirror. Then I knew, of course.”
He became all at once tenfold more dear to her. His calm was breaking her heart. She felt him slipping out of her life.
“What shall I say to you, Terence?”
“Is that my real name?”
She winced. “Yes. Your real name.”
“Good. Do you remember our talk of today?”
“What talk?”
He drew his breath with something of a groan. “I said that what these people lacked was the influence of family . . . of old blood.”
He made himself smile at her and Elizabeth trembled.
“If I could explain . . .” she began.
“Ah, what is there to explain, Aunt Elizabeth? Except that you have been a thousand times kinder to me than I dreamed before. Why, I . . . I actually thought that you were rather honored by having a Colby under your roof. I really felt that I was bestowing something of a favor on you.”
“Terry, sit down.”
He sank into a chair, slowly. And she sat on the arm of it with her uncertain hand going over his hair and her mournful eyes on his face.
“Whatever your name may be, that doesn’t change the man who wears the name.”
He laughed softly, in an ugly way. “And you’ve been teaching me steadily for twenty-four years that blood will tell? You can’t change like this. Oh, I understand it perfectly. You determined to make me over. You determined to destroy my heritage and put the name of the fine old Colbys in its place. It was a brave thing to try, and all these years how you must have waited and waited to see how I would turn out, dreading every day some outbreak of the bad blood. Ah, you have a nerve of steel, Aunt Elizabeth. How have you endured the suspense?”
She felt that he was mocking her subtly under this flow of compliment. But she could not answer or turn the point of his talk. It was the bitterness of pain, not of reproach, she knew.
She said: “Why didn’t you let me come up with you? Why didn’t you send for me?”
“I’ve been busy doing a thing that no one could help me with.”
“And that, Terry, dear?”
“I’ve been burning my dreams.” He pointed to a smoldering heap of ashes on the hearth.
“Terry!”
“Yes, all the Colby pictures that I’ve been collecting for the past fifteen years. I burned ’em. They don’t mean anything to anyone else, and certainly they have ceased to mean anything to me. But when I came to Anthony Colby . . . the Eighteen Twelve man, you know, the one who has always been my hero . . . it went pretty hard. I felt as if . . . I were burning my own personality. As a matter of fact, in the last couple of hours I’ve been born over again.” Terry paused. “And births are painful, Aunt Elizabeth.”
The tears that had been gathering in her eyes now trembled toward a fall, but she checked them. He had, indeed, changed greatly. She told it chiefly in his restraint. He had become a man and had escaped from her influence.
“I’ve only one thing to ask you, Aunt Elizabeth . . . do you mind me still calling you that?”
At that she cried out and caught his hand. “Terry, dear! Terry, dear! You break my heart!”
“I don’t mean to. You mustn’t think that I’m pitying myself. But I want to know the real name of my father. He must have had some name other than Black Jack. What was it?”
“Are you going to gather his memory to your heart, Terry?”
“I am going to find something about him that I can be proud of. Blood will tell. I know that I’m not all bad and there must have been good in Black Jack. I want to know all about him. I want to know about . . . his crimes.”
He labored through a fierce moment of silent struggle while her heart went helplessly out to him.
“Because . . . I had a hand in every one of those crimes. Everything that he did is something that I might have done under the same temptation.”
“No, no!”
“I tell you, it’s true.”
“But you’re not all your father’s son. You had a mother. A dear, sweet-faced girl . . .”
“Don’t,” whispered Terry, suddenly overcome. “Wait a moment.” He was able to speak after a moment. “What do you know about her?”
“I think . . .”
“I suppose he broke . . . her heart?”
“She was a very delicate girl,” she said after a moment.
“And now my father’s name, please.”
“Not that just now. Give me until tomorrow night, Terry. Will you do that? Will you wait till tomorrow night, Terry? I’m going to have a long talk with you then, about many things. And I want you to keep this in mind always. No matter how long you live, the influence of the Colbys will never go out of your life. And neither will my influence, I hope. If there is anything good in me, it has gone into you. I have seen to that. Terry, you are not your father’s son alone. All these other things have entered into your make-up. They’re just as much a part of you as his blood.”
“Ah, yes,” said Terry. “But blood will tell.”
It was a mournful echo of a thing she had told him a thousand times.
“You’ll wait, though? You’ll wait for your father’s real name . . . and, when I’ve finished talking to you tomorrow night, maybe you won’t ask it at all.”
“Perhaps not.”
But she could see that his mind was as set as steel.
Chapter Eight
She went straight down to the big living room and drew Vance away, mindless of her guests. He came humming until he was past the door and in the shadowy hall. Then he touched her arm, suddenly grown serious.
“What’s wrong, Elizabeth?”
Her voice was low, vibrating with fierceness. And Vance blessed the dimness of the hall, for he could feel the blood recede from his face and the sweat stand on his forehead.
“Vance, if you’ve done what I think you’ve done, you’re lower than a snake, and more poisonous and more treacherous. And I’ll cut you out of my heart and my life. You know what I mean.”
It was really the first important crisis that he had ever faced. And now his heart grew small, cold. He knew, miserably, his own cowardice. And like all cowards he fell back on bold lying to carry him through. It was a triumph that he could make his voice steady—more than steady. He could even throw the right shade of disgust into it.
“Is this another one of your tantrums, Elizabeth? By heavens, I’m growing tired of ’em. You continually throw in my face that you hold the strings of the purse. Well, tie them up as far as I’m concerned. I won’t whine. I’d rather have that happen than be tyrannized over any longer.”
She was much shaken. And there was a sting in this reproach that carried home to her; there was just a sufficient edge of truth to wound her. It made her want to explain and she instantly lost half the force of her attack. Had there been much light she could have read his face; the dimness of the hall was saving Vance, and he knew it.
“God knows I’d like to believe that you haven’t had anything to do with it. But you must have had something to do with it. You and I are the only two people in the world who know the secret of it. . . .”
He pretended to guess. “It’s something about Terence? Something about his father?”
Again she was disarmed. If he were guilty, it was strange that he should approach the subject so openly. And she began to doubt. “Vance, he knows everything. Everything except the real na
me of Black Jack.”
“Good heavens!”
She strained her eyes through the shadows to make out his real expression, but there seemed to be a real horror in his restrained whisper.
“It isn’t possible, Elizabeth.”
“It came in that letter. That letter I wanted to open, and which you persuaded me not to.” She mustered all her damning facts one after another. “And it was postmarked from Craterville. Vance, you have been in Craterville lately.”
He seemed to consider. “Could I have told anyone? Could I, possibly? No. Elizabeth, I’ll give you my word of honor that I’ve never spoken a syllable about that subject to anyone.”
“Ah, but what have you written?”
“I’ve never put pen to paper. But . . . how did it happen?” He had control of himself now. His voice was steadier. He could feel her recede from her aggressiveness.
“It was dated after you left Craterville, of course. And . . . I can’t stand imagining that you could be so low. Only, who else would have a motive?”
“But how was it done?”
“They sent him an article about his father and a picture of Black Jack that happens to look as much like Terry as two peas.”
“Then I have it. If the picture looks like Terry, someone took it for granted that he’d be interested in the similarity. That’s why it was sent. Unless they told him that he was really Black Jack’s son. Did the person who sent the letter do that?”
“There was no letter. Only a magazine clipping and the photograph of the painting.”
They were both silent. Plainly she had dismissed all idea of her brother’s guilt.
“But what are we going to do, Elizabeth? And how has he taken it?”
“Like poison, Vance. With a pride that would bring the tears even to your eyes. He . . . he burned all the Colby pictures. Oh, Vance, twenty-four years of work are thrown away.”
“Nonsense. It seems that there’s a tragedy. But there isn’t. This will all straighten out. I’m glad he’s found out. Sooner or later he was pretty sure to. Such things will come to light.”
“Vance, you’ll help me? You’ll forgive me for accusing you, and you’ll help me to keep Terry in hand for the next few days? You see, he declares that he will not be ashamed of his father.”
“You can’t blame him for that.”
“God knows I blame no one but myself.”
“I’ll help you with every ounce of strength in my mind and body, my dear.”
She pressed his hand in silence.
“I’m going up to talk with him now,” he said. “I’m going to do what I can with him. You go in and talk. And don’t let them see that anything is wrong.”
“Trust me. I can still act a lie. It’s a sort of family talent.”
If she had been watching him closely enough, she would have seen that he winced under this thrust. But she was blind with her pain. She went on into the living room and presently Vance, from the hall, heard her cheery voice talking—even laughing. He shook his head in reluctant admiration. There was a quality of the Spartan about her that always baffled him. Then he went up the lazy sweep of the staircase to the room of Terence. For it was absolutely necessary that he remove from Terry’s mind any lingering suspicion about his attitude. He must play the friend now or never—and he hoped and believed it would be the last time such a necessity might arise.
The door had not been locked again. He entered at the call of Terry and found him leaning over the hearth stirring up the pile of charred paper to make it burn more freely. It burned as compacted paper always does, with many little flares of flame and much smoldering and smoking. A shadow crossed the face of Terry as he saw his visitor, but he banished it at once and rose to greet him. In his heart Vance was a little moved. It was not entirely hard for him to muster a great expression of sympathy. He went straight to the younger man and took his hand.
“Elizabeth has told me,” he said gently, and he looked with a moist eye into the face of the man who, if his plans worked out, would be either murderer or murdered before the close of the next day. “I am very sorry, Terence.”
“I thought you came to congratulate me,” said Terry, withdrawing his hand.
“Congratulate you?” echoed Vance with unaffected astonishment.
“For having learned the truth,” said Terry. “Also, for having a father who was a strong man.”
Vance could not resist the opening. “In a way, I suppose he was,” he said dryly.
He struck fire from Terry with that. Perhaps it was sheer imagination, but it seemed to him that the other was already changed, harder, colder. In Terry he had always been aware of a sort of muscular manhood that he did not like. Now there was less sense of muscle and more of an active mind. He could not quite understand, unless it were the working of the spirit of Black Jack. Indeed, it gave him a grisly feeling to see the eyes of Terry sharpen into points of light.
“A master of men, whatever else he may have been,” said the younger man.
“Surely. Of course he was that. And if you look at it in that way, I do congratulate you, Terence.”
But the fire that he had ignited was still burning in Terry.
“You’ve always hated me, Uncle Vance,” he declared. “I’ve known it all these years. And I’ll do without your congratulations.”
“You’re wrong, Terry,” said Vance. He kept his voice mild. “You’re very wrong. But I’m old enough not to take offense at what a young spitfire says.”
“I suppose you are,” retorted Terry in a tone that implied that he himself would never reach that age.
“And when a few years run by,” went on Vance, “you’ll change your viewpoint. In the meantime, my boy, let me give you this warning. No matter what you think about me, it is Elizabeth who counts.”
“Thanks. You need have no fear about my attitude to Aunt Elizabeth. You ought to know that I love her, and respect her.”
“Exactly. But you’re headstrong, Terry. Very headstrong. And so is Elizabeth. Take your own case. She took you into the family for the sake of a theory. Did you know that?”
The boy stiffened.
“A theory?”
“Quite so. She wished to prove that blood, after all, was more talk than a vital influence. So she took you in and gave you an imaginary line of ancestors with which you were entirely contented. But, after all, it has been twenty-four years of theory rather than twenty-four years of Terry. You understand?”
“It’s a rather nasty thing to hear,” said Terence huskily. “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right.”
“And if her theory is proved wrong . . . look out, Terry. She’ll throw you out of her life without a second thought . . . and find a new theory, though this time it probably won’t be a baby.”
“Is that a threat?”
“My dear boy, not by any means. You think I have hated you? Not at all. I have simply been indifferent. Now that you are in more or less trouble, you see that I come to you. And hereafter if there should be a crisis, you will see who is your true friend. Now, good night.”
He had saved his most gracious speech until the very end, and after it he retired at once to leave Terence with the pleasant memory in his mind. For he had in his mind the idea of a perfect crime for which he would not be punished. He would turn Terry into a corpse or a killer, and in either case the youngster would never dream who had dealt the blow.
No wonder, then, as he went downstairs, that he stepped onto the verandah for a few moments. The moon was just up beyond Mount Discovery; the valley unfolded like a dream; the cascades and the falls were noisy flashes of silver. Never had the estate seemed so charming to Vance Cornish, for he felt that his hand was closing slowly around his inheritance.
Chapter Nine
The sleep of the night seemed to blot out the excitement of the preceding evening. A bright sun, a cool stir of air, brought in the next morning, and certainly calamity had never seemed farther from the Cornish Ranch th
an it did on this day. All through the morning people kept arriving in ones and twos. Every buckboard on the place was commissioned to haul the guests around the smooth roads and show them the estate, and those who preferred were furnished with saddle horses from the stable to keep their own mounts fresh for their return trip. Vance took charge of the wagon parties; Terence himself guided the horsemen, and he rode El Sangre, a flashing streak of blood red.
The exercise brought the color to his face; the wind raised his spirits, and, when the gathering at the house to wait for the big dinner began, he was as gay as any.
“That’s the way with young people,” Elizabeth confided to her brother. “Trouble slips off their minds.”
And then the second blow fell, the blow on which Vance had counted for his great results. No less a person than Sheriff Joe Minter galloped up and threw his reins before the verandah. He approached Elizabeth with a high flourish of his hat and a profound bow, for Uncle Joe Minter affected the mannered courtesy of the Southern school. Vance had them in profile from the side, and his nervous glance flickered from one to the other. The sheriff was plainly pleased with what he had seen on his way up Bear Creek. He was also happy to be present at so large a gathering. But to Elizabeth his coming was like a death. Her brother could tell the difference between her forced cordiality and the real thing. She had his horse put up, presented him to the few people who he had not met, and then left him posing for the crowd of admirers. Life to the sheriff was truly a stage.
Then Elizabeth went to Vance. “You saw?” she gasped.
“Sheriff Minter? What of it? Rather nervy of the old ass to come up here for the party . . . he hardly knows us.”
“No, no! Not that. But don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what Joe Minter did?”
“Good Lord!” gasped Vance, apparently just recalling. “He killed Black Jack. And what will Terry do when he finds out?”
She grew still whiter, hearing him name her own fear. “They mustn’t meet,” she said desperately. “Vance, if you’re half a man, you’ll find some way of getting that pompous, windy idiot off the place.”