The Pagan Madonna
Page 19
CHAPTER XIX
Cunningham sat down. "The spirit is willing, Cleigh, but the flesh isweak. You'll never get my hide. How will you go about it? Stop a momentand mull it over. How are you going to prove that I've borrowed the rugand the paintings? These are your choicest possessions. You have many athome worth more, but these things you love. Out of spite, will you informthe British, the French, the Italian governments that you had theseobjects and that I relieved you of them? In that event you'll have myhide, but you'll never set eyes upon the oils again except upon theirlawful walls--the rug, never! On the other hand, there is every chance inthe world of my returning them to you."
"Your word?" interrupted Jane, ironically.
So Cleigh was right? A quarter of a million in art treasures!
"My word! I never before realized," continued Cunningham, "what a finething it is to possess something to stand on firmly--a moral plank."
Dennison's laughter was sardonic.
"Moral plank is good," was his comment.
"Miss Norman," said Cunningham, maliciously, "I slept beside the captainthis morning, and he snores outrageously." The rogue tilted his chin andthe opal fire leaped into his eyes. "Do you want me to tell you all aboutthe Great Adventure Company, or do you want me to shut up and merelyproceed with the company's business without further ado? Why the devilshould I care what you think of me? Still, I do care. I want you to get mypoint of view--a rollicking adventure, in which nobody loses anything andI have a great desire fulfilled. Hang it, it's a colossal joke, and in theend the laugh will be on nobody! Even Eisenfeldt will laugh," he added,enigmatically.
"Do you intend to take the oils and the rug and later return them?"demanded Jane.
"Absolutely! That's the whole story. Only Cleigh here will not believe ituntil the rug and oils are dumped on the door-step of his New York home. Ineeded money. Nobody would offer to finance a chart with a red cross onit. So I had to work it out in my own fashion. The moment Eisenfeldt seesthese oils and the rug he becomes my financier, but he'll never put hisclaw on them except for one thing--that act of God they mention on theback of your ticket. Some raider may have poked into this lagoon of mine.In that case Eisenfeldt wins."
Cleigh smiled.
"A pretty case, Cunningham, but it won't hold water. It is inevitable thatEisenfeldt gets the rug and the paintings, and you are made comfortablefor the rest of your days. A shabby business, and you shall rue it."
"My word?"
"I don't believe in it any longer," returned Cleigh.
Cunningham appealed to Jane.
"Give me the whole story, then I'll tell you what I believe," she said."You may be telling the truth."
What a queer idea--wanting his word believed! Why should it matter to himwhether they believed in the honour of his word or not, when he held thewhip hand and could act as he pleased? The poor thing! And as that phrasewas uttered in thought, the glamour of him was dissipated; she sawCunningham as he was, a poor benighted thing, half boy, half demon, athing desperately running away from his hurt and lashing out at friendsand enemies alike on the way.
"Tell your story--all of it."
Cunningham began:
"About a year ago the best friend I had--perhaps the only friend Ihad--died. He left me his chart and papers. The atoll is known, butuncharted, because it is far outside the routes. I have no actual proofsthat there will be shell in the lagoon; I have only my friend's word--theword of a man as honest as sunshine. Where this shell lies there is neverany law. Some pearl thiever may have fallen upon the shell since my frienddiscovered it."
"In that case," said Cleigh, "I lose?"
"Frankly, yes! All financial ventures are attended by certain risks."
"Money? Why didn't you come to me for that?"
"What! To you?"
Cunningham's astonishment was perfect.
"Yes. There was a time when I would have staked a good deal on yourword."
Cunningham rested his elbows on the table and clutched his hair--adespairing gesture.
"No use! I can't get it to you! I can't make you people understand! Itisn't the pearls, it's the game; it's all the things that go toward thepearls. I want to put over a game no man ever played before."
Jane began to find herself again drawn toward him, but no longer with thefeeling of unsettled mystery. She knew now why he drew her. He was themale of the species to which she belonged--the out-trailer, the hater ofhumdrum, of dull orbits and of routine. The thrilling years he hadspent--business! This was the adventure of which he had always dreamed,and since it would never arrive as a sequence, he had proceeded todramatize it! He was Tom Sawyer grown up; and for a raft on theMississippi substitute a seagoing yacht. There was then in thismatter-of-fact world such a man, and he sat across the table from her!
"Supposing I had come to you and you had advanced the money?" saidCunningham, earnestly. "All cut and dried, not a thrill, not a laugh,nothing but the pearls! I have never had a boyhood dream realized but,hang it, I'm going to realize this one!" He struck the table violently."Set the British after me, and you'll never see this stuff again. You'lllearn whether my word is worth anything or not. Lay off for eight months,and if your treasures are not yours again within that time you won't haveto chase me. I'll come to you and have the tooth pulled without gas."
Dennison's eyes softened a little. Neither had he realized any of hisboyhood dreams. For all that, the fellow was as mad as a hatter.
"Of course I'm a colossal ass, and half the fun is knowing that I am." Thebanter returned to Cunningham's tongue. "But this thing will gothrough--I feel it. I will have had my fun, and you will have loaned yourtreasures to me for eight months, and Eisenfeldt will have his principalback without interest. The treasures go directly to a bank vault. Therewill be two receipts, one dated September--mine; and one datedNovember--Eisenfeldt's. I hate Eisenfeldt. He's tricky; his word isn'tworth a puff of smoke; he's ready at all times to play both ends from themiddle. I want to pay him out for crossing my path in several affairs.He's betting that I will find no pearls. So to-morrow I will exhibit therug and the Da Vinci to convince him, and he will advance the cash. Can'tyou see the sport of it?"
"That would make very good reading," said Cleigh, scraping the shell ofhis avocado pear. "I can get you on piracy."
"Prove it! You can say I stole the yacht, but you can't prove it. The crewis yours; you hired it. The yacht returns to you to-morrow without ascratch on her paint. And the new crew will know absolutely nothing, beingas innocent as newborn babes. Cleigh, you're no fool. What earthly chancehave you got? You love that rug. You're not going to risk losing itpositively, merely to satisfy a thirst for vengeance. You're human. You'llrave and storm about for a few days, then you'll accept the game as itlies. Think of all the excitement you'll have when a telegram arrives orthe phone rings! I told you it was a whale of a joke; and in late Octoberyou'll chuckle. I know you, Cleigh. Down under all that tungsten there isthe place of laughter. It will be better to laugh by yourself than to havethe world laugh at you. Hoist by his own petard! There isn't a newspapersyndicate on earth that wouldn't give me a fortune for just the yarn. Now,I don't want the world to laugh at you, Cleigh."
"Considerate of you."
"Because I know what that sort of laughter is. Could you pick up the oldlife, the clubs? Could a strong man like you exist in an atmosphere ofsuppressed chuckles? Mull it over. If these treasures were honourablyyours I'd never have thought of touching them. But you haven't any moreright to them than I have, or Eisenfeldt."
Dennison leaned back in his chair. He began to laugh.
"Cunningham, my apologies," he said. "I thought you were a scoundrel, andyou are only a fool--the same brand as I! I've been aching to wring yourneck, but that would have been a pity. For eight months life will be fullof interest for me--like waiting for the end of a story in the magazines."
"But there is one thing missing out of the tale," Jane interposed.
"And what is that?" asked Cunningham.
"Those beads."
"Oh, those beads! They belonged to an empress of France, and the FrenchGovernment is offering sixty thousand for their return. Napoleonic. Andnow will you answer a question of mine? Where have you hidden them?"
Jane did not answer, but rose and left the dining salon. Silence fell uponthe men until she returned. In her hand she held Ling Foo's brass handwarmer. She set it on the table and pried back the jigsawed lid. From theheap of punk and charcoal ashes she rescued the beads and laid them on thecloth.
"Very clever. They are yours," said Cunningham.
"Mine?"
"Why not? Findings is keepings. They are as much yours as mine."
Jane pushed the string toward Cleigh.
"For me?" he said.
"Yes--for nothing."
"There is sixty thousand dollars in gold in my safe. When we land in SanFrancisco I will turn over the money to you. You have every right in theworld to it."
Cleigh blew the ash from the glass beads and circled them in his palm.
"I repeat," she said, "they are yours."
Cunningham stood up.
"Well, what's it to be?"
"I have decided to reserve my decision," answered Cleigh, dryly. "To hangyou 'twixt wind and water will add to the thrill, for evidently that'swhat you're after."
"If it's on your own you'll only be wasting coal."
Cleigh toyed with the beads.
"The _Haarlem_. Maybe I can save you a lot of trouble," said Cunningham."The name is only on her freeboard and stern, not on her master's ticket.The moment we are hull down the old name goes back." Cunningham turned toJane. "Do you believe I've put my cards on the table?"
"Yes."
"And that if I humanly can I'll keep my word?"
"Yes."
"That's worth many pearls of price!"
"Supposing," said Cleigh, trickling the beads from palm topalm--"supposing I offered you the equivalent in cash?"
"No, Eisenfeldt has my word."
"You refuse?" Plainly Cleigh was jarred out of his calm. "You refuse?"
"I've already explained," said Cunningham, wearily. "I've told you that Ilike sharp knives to play with. If you handle them carelessly you're cut.How about you?" Cunningham addressed the question to Dennison.
"Oh, I'm neutral and interested. I've always had a sneaking admiration fora tomfool. They were Shakespeare's best characters. Consider me neutral."
Cleigh rose abruptly and stalked from the salon.
Cunningham lurched and twisted to the forward passage and disappeared.
When next Jane saw him in the light he was bloody and terrible.