Otherwise Phyllis Part 42

BACK TO STOP SEVEN

Charles Holton met his brother Fred in the lobby of the Morton House on an afternoon near the end of January. Charles was presenting a buoyant exterior to the world despite a renewal of the disquieting rumors of the fall as to Sycamore Traction and equally disagreeable hints in inner financial and legal circles as to the reopening of Samuel Holton's estate. He resented Fred's meddling in the matter; he was the head of the family and a man of affairs, and he was not pleasantly impressed by the fact that on two occasions to his knowledge Fred had visited Kirkwood at his Indianapolis office.

"I want to see you," said Charles. "Why don't you come to see me when you're in the city and save me the trouble of chasing over here?"

"Well, Charlie, you've found me now. What is it you want?"

"Come up to my room. I don't care to have all Montgomery hear us."

When the door closed on them, Charles threw off his overcoat and confronted his brother with a dark countenance.

"You're playing the devil with the whole bunch of us--do you realize that! You've been sneaking over to Kirkwood to tell him all our family history. You think by playing up to him you'll get a lot of money. If you had any claims against father's estate you ought to have come to me with them--not gone to the man that's trying to pull us all down."

"Stop, right where you are! I went to Kirkwood because I felt that the only square thing was to turn the farm over to him until things were straightened out. And after I'd turned in the farm, you fell over yourself to surrender some stuff you had--things you'd tried to hide or placed a fake apprais.e.m.e.nt on."

Charles, standing by the window with his hands in his pockets, smiled derisively. Fred's long ulster accentuated his rural appearance. He was a big fellow and his deep voice had boomed with an aggressive note his brother resented.

"Don't bawl as though you were driving cattle. There's no need of telling all Main Street our affairs. Do you know what's the matter with you--Kirkwood's working you! He's trying to scare you with threats of the penitentiary into telling him a lot of stuff about the family. He meant to try it on me, but I beat him to it--I told him to go to the bottom of everything. And if you'd kept your mouth shut I'd have taken care of you, too. You took that farm with your eyes open; and I'll say to you right now that you got a better share of the estate than Ethel and I did."

"Then you haven't anything to be afraid of. If it's all straight there can't be any trouble. Is this all you wanted?"

This was evidently not in the least what Charles wanted, for he changed his tone and the direction of the talk.

"You know, Fred, I was in father's confidence very fully. I am older than you, and I was a.s.sociated with him in his schemes and knew all about them. Father was a very able man; you know that; everybody said he was one of the shrewdest and most fa.r.s.eeing men in the state. I won't say that his methods were always just what they should have been; but he's dead and gone, and it's not for us to jump on him or let anybody else kick him. So far we understand each other, don't we?"

"All right; hurry up with the rest of it."

"This is not a hurrying matter. I've got to take you into my confidence, and I want it understood that what I say doesn't go back to Kirkwood.

He's a relentless devil, once he gets started. I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that he may have a motive for pursuing us--you and me and any other Holton he has a chance to injure. You see that point, don't you?"

"No. What is it?"

"Well, you're duller than I think you are if it hasn't occurred to you that Kirkwood is trying to even up with us for the loss of his wife. It was our dear Uncle Jack that ran off with her; it was a Holton that did it! You recollect that, don't you?"

"I seem to recall it," replied Fred ironically. He had mechanically drawn out his pipe and was filling it from a canvas bag of cheap tobacco.

"And that's all there is to it. Kirkwood had mooned around town here for years, doing nothing. Then suddenly an old friend of his in the East took pity on him and gave him this Sycamore Company to meddle in, and he's contemptible enough to use a law case for personal vengeance against perfectly innocent people. And you walked into the trap like a silly sheep!"

"You know you don't believe that, Charlie. Kirkwood isn't that kind of man. He's on the level and high grade."

"He may be all that; but he's a human being too. There's no man on earth who'd pa.s.s a thing like that. An ignorant, coa.r.s.e beast would have shot somebody; but an educated man like Kirkwood calculates carefully and sticks the knife in when he sees a chance to make it go clear through.

That girl of his is the cutest kid in Indiana, and I wouldn't do anything to hurt her. But we've got to protect ourselves, you and I, Fred. We're not responsible for Uncle Jack's sins. The whole thing is blistering Kirkwood right now because Uncle Jack's turned up and the lady in the case has had so little decency as to follow him."

"I don't suppose she thought of doing anything of the kind. She and Uncle Jack broke long ago. He told me so, in fact, at Indianapolis, and made her cruel abandonment an excuse for borrowing five dollars of me."

"Well, we've got to get rid of _him_! He's doing all he can against us; sending people to Kirkwood with stories about father, and the traction business. I tell you, Fred," he declared ardently, "our family is in danger of going to h.e.l.l if you and I don't do something pretty quick to stop it."

Fred puffed his pipe and watched his brother fidgeting nervously about the room. A phonograph across the street called attention to a moving-picture show. In the hotel office below, the porter proclaimed the departure of the 'bus to connect with the six-three for Peoria and all points West.

"There they go now!" exclaimed Charles from the window. "By George!

She's a good-looking woman yet!"

Fred joined him and looked down. Phil and her mother were pa.s.sing rapidly on the opposite side of the street. Unconsciously Fred drew off his cap.

"She's a very pleasant woman," he remarked. "Phil introduced me to her the other day."

"The devil she did! Where did all this happen?"

"At Mr. Montgomery's. Phil's staying there while her father's away."

"I like your cheek! They say my nerve is pretty well developed, but it isn't equal to that. How did our late aunt--I suppose that's what she is," he grinned--"take you?"

"Like a lady, for instance. My going there wasn't as cheeky as you imagine. I was invited."

"Phil?"

"No; Mr. Montgomery."

"There must be a trick in it somewhere. He's a foxy old boy, that Amzi.

Has the general appearance of a fool, but he never loses any money."

"He's offered me a job," said Fred.

"He's _what_?"

"Offered me a job."

"What's the joke? You don't mean that with all this fuss over his sister's coming back he's picked out a Holton to offer a job to!"

"That's what's happened. They want Perry--his farmer--to take a teaching place at the agricultural school. It's a fine chance for him, and Mr.

Montgomery has released him from his contract. Perry recommended me, and Mr. Montgomery asked me to the house a few evenings ago to talk it over.

The arrangement includes my own farm, too, which Kirkwood holds as trustee until the Sycamore business is straightened out."

Charles backed away and stared at his brother scornfully.

"You idiot! don't you see what they're doing? They're buying you body and soul. They want to get you on their side--don't you see it?--to use against Uncle Will and me. Well! of all the smooth, cold-blooded, calculating scoundrels I ever heard of, they are the beatingest. Of course you _saw_ it; you haven't walked into the trap!"

"I've accepted the position."

"You blundering fool, you can't accept it! I won't let you accept it!"

"I'm moving my traps to the Montgomery farmhouse to-morrow, so you'll have to call out the troops if you stop me."

"Well, of all the d.a.m.ned fools!" Then after a turn across the room he flashed round at his brother. "Look here, Fred; I see your game. You want to marry that girl. Well, you can't do that either!"

"All right, Charlie. Suppose you write out a list of the various things I can't do so I won't miss any of them. You haven't any sense of humor or you wouldn't talk about Phil marrying me. Phil's not likely to marry a clodhopper, her uncle's hired hand."

"Don't be an a.s.s, Fred. Phil's a fine girl; she's a wonder."