CHAPTER III
THE DAY OF TEMPTATION
THE dawn had long passed and the milkmen had awakened their unwillingclients two hours agone before Anthony Trent finished his story. He wasnot a quick worker. His was a mind that labored heavily unless thedetails of his work were accurate. This time he was satisfied. It was agood story and the editor for whom he was doing a series would bepleased. He might even increase his rates.
Crosbeigh, the editor of the magazine which sought Anthony Trent's crookstories, was an amiable being who had won a reputation for profundity byreason of eloquent silences. He would have done well in any line of workwhere originality was not desired. He knew, from what his circulationmanager told him, that Trent's stories made circulation and he liked thewriter apart from his work. Perhaps because he was not a disappointedauthor he was free from certain editorial prejudices.
"Sit down," he cried cordially, when Anthony Trent was shown in. "Take acigarette and I'll read this right away." Crosbeigh was a nervous manwho battled daily with subway crowds and was apt to be irritable.
"It's great," he said when he had finished it, "Great! Doyle, Hornung,well--there you are!" It was one of his moments of silent eloquence.The listener might have inferred anything.
"But they are paid real money," replied Anthony Trent gloomily.
"You get two cents a word," Crosbeigh reminded him, "you haven't a wifeand children to support."
"I'd be a gay little adventurer to try it on what I make at writing,"Trent told him. "It takes me almost a month to write one of those yarnsand I get a hundred and fifty each."
"You are a slow worker," his editor declared.
"I have to be," he retorted. "If I were writing love slush and prettyheroine stuff it would be different. Do you know, Crosbeigh, there isn'ta thing in these stories of mine that is impossible? I take the mostparticular care that my details are correct. When I began I didn't knowanything about burglar alarms. What did I do? I got a job in the shopthat makes the best known one. I'm worth more than two cents a word!"
"That's our maximum," Crosbeigh asserted. "These are not good days forthe magazine business. Shot to pieces. If I said what I knew. If youknew what _I_ got and how much I had to do with it!"
Anthony Trent looked at him critically. He saw a very carefully dressedCrosbeigh to-day, a man whose trousers were pressed, whose shoes wereshined, who exuded prosperity. Never had he seen him so apparentlyaffluent.
"Come into money?" he enquired. "Whence the prosperity? Whose wardrobehave you robbed?"
"These are my own clothes," returned Crosbeigh with dignity, "at leastleave me my clothes."
"Sure," said Trent amiably, "if I took 'em you'd be arrested. But tellme why this sartorial display. Are you going to be photographed for the'great editors' series?"
"I'm lunching with an old friend," Crosbeigh answered, "a man ofaffairs, a man of millions, a man about whom I could say many things."
"Say them," his contributor demanded, "let me in on a man for whom youhave arrayed yourself in all your glory. Who is your friend? Is shepretty? I don't believe it's a man at all."
"It's a man I know and respect," he said, a trifle nettled at thecomments his apparel had drawn. "It's the man who takes me every year tothe Yale-Harvard boat race."
"Your annual jag party? He's no fit company for a respectable editor."
"It is college spirit," Crosbeigh explained.
"You can call it by any name but it's too strong for you. What is thename of your honored friend?"
"Conington Warren," Crosbeigh said proudly.
"That's the millionaire sportsman with the stable of steeple-chasers,isn't it?" Trent demanded.
"He wins all the big races," Crosbeigh elaborated.
"He's enormously rich, splendidly generous, has everything. Only onething--drink." Crosbeigh fell into silence.
"You've led him astray you mean?" The spectacle of the sober editorconsorting with reckless bloods of the Conington Warren type amusedTrent.
"Same year at college," Crosbeigh explained, "and he has always beenfriendly. God knows why," the editor said gloomily. The difference intheir lot seemed suddenly to appal him.
"There must be something unsuspectedly bad in your make-up," Trentdeclared, "which attracts him to you. It can't be he wants to sell you astory."
"There are all sorts of rumors about him," Crosbeigh went onmeditatively, "started by his wife's people, I believe. He was wild.Sometimes he has hinted at it. I know him well enough to call him'Connie' and go up to his dressing-room sometimes. That's a mark ofintimacy. My Lord, Trent, but it makes me envious to see with whatluxury the rich can live. He has a Japanese valet and masseur, Togoyama,and an imported butler who looks like a bishop. They know him at hisworst and worship him. He's magnetic, that's what Connie is, magnetic.Have you ever thought what having a million a year means?"
"Ye Gods," groaned Trent, "don't you read my lamentations in every storyyou buy from me at bargain rates?"
"And a shooting box in Scotland which he uses two weeks a year in thegrouse season. A great Tudor residence in Devonshire overlooking Exmoor,a town house in Park Lane which is London's Fifth Avenue! And you knowwhat he's got here in his own country. Can you imagine it?"
"Not on forty dollars a week," said Anthony Trent gloomily.
"You'd make more if you were the hero of your own stories," Crosbeightold him.
Anthony Trent turned on him quickly, "What do you mean?"
"Why this crook you are making famous gets away with enough plunder tolive as well as Conington Warren."
"Ah, but that's in a story," returned the author.
"Then you mean they aren't as exact and possible as you've been tellingme?"
"They are what I said they were," their author declared. "They could beworked out, with ordinary luck, by any man with an active body, goodeducation and address. The typical thick-witted criminal wouldn't have achance."
It was a curious thing, thought Anthony Trent, that Crosbeigh shouldmention the very thing that had been running in his mind for weeks. Tolive in such an elaborate manner as Conington Warren was not hisambition. The squandering of large sums of money on stage favorites ofthe moment was not to his taste; but he wanted certainly more than hewas earning. Trent had a passion for fishing, golf and music. Not thefishing that may be indulged in on Sunday and week-day on fishingsteamers, making excursions to the banks where one may lose an ear onanother angler's far flung hook, but the fly fishing where the gallanttrout has a chance to escape, the highest type of fishing that mayappeal to man.
And his ambitions to lower his golf handicap until it should be scratchcould not well be accomplished by his weekly visit to Van CortlandtPark. He wished to be able to join Garden City or Baltusrol and play around a day in fast company. And this could not be accomplished on whathe was making.
And as to music, he longed to compose an opera. It was a laudableambition and would commence, he told himself, with a grand piano. He hadonly a hard-mouthed hired upright so far. Sometimes he had seen himselfin the role of his hero amply able to indulge himself in his moderateambitions. It was of this he had been thinking when Mr. Lund came to hisroom. And now the very editor for whom he had created his characters wasmaking the suggestion.
"I was only joking," Crosbeigh assured him.
"It is not a good thing to joke about," Anthony Trent answered, "and anhonest man at forty a week is better than an outlaw with four hundred."
He made this remark to set his thoughts in less dangerous channels, butit sounded dreadfully hollow and false. He half expected that Crosbeighwould laugh aloud at such a hackneyed sentiment, but Crosbeigh lookedgrave and earnest. "Very true," he answered. "A man couldn't think ofit."
"And why not?" Anthony Trent demanded; "would the fictional character Icreated do as much harm to humanity as some cotton mill owner whoenslaved little children and gave millions to charity?"
A telephone call relieved Crosbeigh of the need to answer. Trent sweptinto his bri
ef case the carbon copy of his story which he had brought bymistake.
"Where are you going?" the editor demanded.
"Van Cortlandt," the contributor answered; "I'm going to try and get mydrive back. I've been slicing for a month."
"Conington Warren has a private eighteen-hole course on his Long Islandplace," Crosbeigh said with pride. "I've been invited to play."
"You're bent on driving me to a life of crime," Trent exclaimedfrowning. "An eighteen-hole private course while I struggle to get apermit for a public one!"
But Anthony Trent did not play golf that afternoon at Van CortlandtPark. As a matter of fact he never again invaded that popular field ofplay.
Outside Crosbeigh's office he was hailed by an old Dartmouth chum, oneHorace Weems.
"Just in time for lunch," said Weems wringing his hand. Weems had alwaysadmired Anthony Trent and had it been possible would have remodeledhimself physically and mentally in the form of another Trent. Weems wasshort, blond and perspired profusely.
"Hello, Tubby," said Trent without much cordiality, "you look as thoughthe world had been treating you right."
"It has," said Weems happily. "Steel went to a hundred and twelve lastweek and it carried me up with it."
Weems had been, as Trent remembered, a bond salesman. Weems could sellanything. He had an ingratiating manner and a disability to perceivesnubs or insults when intent on making sales. He had paid his waythrough college by selling books. Trent had been a frequent victim.
"What do you want to sell me this time?" he demanded.
"Nothing," Weems retorted, "I'm going to buy you the best little lunchthat Manhattan has to offer. Anywhere you say and anything you like toeat and drink." Weems stopped a cruising taxi. "Hop in, old scout, andtell the pirate where to go."
Trent directed the man to one of the three famous and more or lessexclusive restaurants New York possesses.
"I hope you have the price," he commented, "otherwise I shall have tocash a check I've just received for a story."
"Keep your old check," jeered Weems, "I'm full of money. Why, boy, I ownan estate and have a twelve-cylinder car of my own."
Over the luncheon Horace Weems babbled cheerfully. He had made overthree hundred thousand dollars and was on his way to millionairedom.
"You ought to see my place up in Maine," he said presently.
"Maine?" queried his guest. It was in Maine that Anthony Trent, were hefortunate enough, would one day erect a camp. "Where?"
"On Kennebago lake," Weems told him and stopped when an expression ofpain crossed the other's face. "What's the matter? That sauce wrong?"
"Just sheer envy," Trent admitted, "you've got what I want. I know everycamp on the Lake. Which is it?"
"The Stanley place," said Weems. "The finest camp on the whole Lake. Ibought it furnished and it's some furniture believe me. There's a grandpiano--that would please you--and pictures that are worth thousands, oneof 'em by some one named Constable. Ever hear of him?"
"Yes," Trent grunted, "I have. Fancy you with a Constable and a grandpiano when you don't know one school of painting from another and thinkthe phonograph the only instrument worth listening to!"
"I earned it," Weems said, a little huffily. "Why don't you make moneyinstead of getting mad because I do?"
"Because I haven't your ability, I suppose," Trent admitted. "It's agift and the gods forgot me."
"Some of the boys used to look down on me," said Weems, "but all I askis 'where is little Horace to-day?' This money making game is the onlything that counts, believe me. Up in Hanover I wasn't one, two, three,compared with you. Your father was well off and mine hadn't a nickel.You graduated _magna cum laude_ and I had to work like a horse to slideby. You were popular because you made the football team and could singand play." Weems paused reflectively, "I never did hear any one whocould mimic like you. You should have taken it up and gone intovaudeville. How much do you make a week?"
"Forty--with luck."
"I give that to my chauffeur and I'm not rich yet. But I shall be. I'mout to be as rich as that fellow over there."
He pointed to a rather high colored extremely well dressed man abouttown to whom the waiters were paying extreme deference.
"That's Conington Warren," Weems said with admiration in his voice,"he's worth a million per annum."
Anthony Trent turned to look at him. There was no doubt that ConingtonWarren was a personage. Just now he was engaged in an argument with thehead waiter concerning _Chateau Y'Quem_. Trent noticed his gesture ofdismissal when he had finished. It was an imperious wave of his hand. Itwas his final remark as it were.
"Some spender," Weems commented. "Who's the funny old dodger with him?Some other millionaire I suppose."
"I'll tell him that next time I see him," laughed Trent beholdingCrosbeigh, Crosbeigh who looked wise where vintages were discussed andknew not one from another. A well-dressed man paused at Warren's sideand Weems, always anxious to acquire information, begged his guest to besilent.
"Did you get that?" he asked when the man had moved away.
"I don't make it a habit to listen to private conversations," Trentreturned stiffly.
"Well I do," said Weems unabashed. "If I hadn't I shouldn't have got inon this Steel stuff. I'm a great little listener. That fellow who spokeis Reginald Camplyn, the man who drives a coach and four and wins blueribbons at the horse show. Warren asked him to a dinner here to-morrownight at half past eight in honor of some horse who's done a fasttrial." Weems made an entry in his engagement book.
"Are you going, too?" Trent demanded.
"I'm putting down the plug's name," said Weems, "Sambo," he said."That's no name for a thoroughbred. Say couldn't you introduce me?"
"I don't know him," Trent asserted.
"You know the man with him. That's enough for me. If you do it right theother fellow's bound to introduce you. Then you beckon me over and we'llall sit down together."
"That isn't my way of doing things," replied Trent with a frown.
Weems made a gesture of despair and resignation.
"That's why you'll always be poor. That's why you'll never have a grandpiano and a Constable and a swell place up in Maine."
Anthony Trent looked at him and smiled.
"There may be other ways," he said slowly.
"You try 'em," Weems retorted crossly. "Here you are almost thirty yearsold, highly educated, prep school and college and you make a week what Igive my chauffeur."
"I think I will," Trent answered.
Weems attacked his salad angrily. If only Trent had been what he termedaggressive, an introduction could easily have been effected. Then Weemswould have seen to it that he and Warren left the restaurant together.Some one would be bound to see them. Then, for Weems had an expansivefancy, it would be rumored that he, Horace Weems, who cleaned up onSteel, was friendly with the great Conington Warren. It might lead toanything!
"Well," he commented, "I'd rather be little Horace Weems, who can't tella phonograph from a grand piano than Mr. Anthony Trent, who makes withluck two thousand a year."
"I'm in bad company to-day," replied Trent. "First Crosbeigh and now youtempting me. You know very well I haven't that magic money makingability you have. My father hadn't it or he would have left money whenhe died and not debts."
"Magic!" Weems snorted. "Common sense, that's what it is."
"It's magic," the other insisted, "as a boy you exchanged a jack knifefor a fishing pole and the fishing pole for a camera and the camera fora phonograph and the phonograph for a canoe and the canoe for a sailingboat and so on till you've got your place in Maine and a chauffeur whomakes more than I do! Magic's the only name for it."
"You must come up and see me in Maine," Weems said, later.
"Make your mind easy," Trent assured him, "I will."
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