Rope Part 5

"I know this much; if it's anything _he_ doped out for me, it's an even bet. It's to make ten thousand dollars?"

"Yes, and without any outside help except straight commercial loans--if you can get 'em. No favours from anybody, and no free keep from your families."

"What building is it, Mr. Archer?"

The lawyer paused to wipe his gla.s.ses. "It's one your uncle took over on a mortgage last winter.... You see, Henry, he'd figured out what he was going to do with you, and it would have been this same thing even if he'd lived. He picked out what he thought would do you the most good--get you in touch with different people--break down some of your (excuse me for being blunt) cla.s.s prejudice--teach you how many dimes there are in a dollar. And for that reason he expressly stipulated that you've got to keep your own books. That'll give you more of a respect for money than anything else would, I guess."

"Keep my own books?"

"That's the way Mr. Starkweather began--only in his case, he kept somebody else's. But I warned you to expect something out of the ordinary."

"Oh, yes," said Henry. "I was all set for _some_ kind of a low-brow job. What is it--a garage?"

"I'm afraid you'll think a garage is fashionable, compared with it."

Henry looked serious. "361 Main? I don't seem to--What on earth _is_ it, Mr. Archer?"

"Go down and look at it. Only don't be shocked, Henry; because it's exactly what he'd have given you to do, anyway. And then let me know what your plans are, will you? By the way--have you any money of your own?"

Henry looked pained. "I'm down to a couple of hundred. Why?"

"Then you'd better not waste any time. Go on down and look it over this morning, and let me know."

"Why--let you know _what_?"

"Whether you're going to take the dare."

Henry's lips twitched. "n.o.body ever beat me by default yet, Mr.

Archer."

"Just the same, I wish you'd let me know definitely--won't you? Of course, if you shouldn't feel inclined to go ahead on your uncle's plan--and that _would_ disappoint me--you could simply sell out. I hope you won't, though. I hope very much indeed that you won't.

But--go look at it. And one last thing, Henry; your uncle put the thing in this shape so that too many people wouldn't be gossiping about it. I mean, if you and your aunt don't tell--n.o.body will.

That's all--but let me know."

Obediently, Henry proceeded down Main Street to the 300 block. His curiosity was active, but he was warning himself to be on guard, for his uncle's sentences, although invariably fair and invariably appropriate, were also founded on a solid base of humour and surprise. Henry remembered what Mr. Starkweather had said about coming home to eat crow, and what Mr. Archer had said about the comparative aristocracy of a garage, and he prepared himself for a thunderstroke, and got a laugh ready. That book-keeping provision was really clever; Uncle John had palpably framed it up to keep Henry on the job. But Henry would outwit the provision. A few lessons in a commercial-school, a modern card-system, and he could handle the books of any small business in no time at all, as per the magazine advertis.e.m.e.nts. Of course, the crow and the garage were merely symbols; but whatever the business might be, and however distasteful, there was only a year of it, and after that (so confident was Henry) there was a lifetime of luxury. He was rather glad that his penance came first; it would serve to make the enjoyment of his wealth so much more zestful. He should always feel as though he had worked for it, instead of having it handed out to him on a platter, regardless of his personal deserts. Yes, he would work faithfully, and because the task would be within his capabilities, (for Mr.

Starkweather was sane and practical, and Mr. Archer had prophesied a finish with something to spare) he would end his probation in a blaze of glory, and Anna would be proud of him, Judge Barklay would approve of him, and Aunt Mirabelle would have to revise her estimate of him. Altogether, it was a fine arrangement, provided that his business, whatever it was, wouldn't entirely prevent him from keeping up with the procession, socially, and playing enough golf to hold his present form.

He had pa.s.sed 331 and 341 and 351 and his heart began to beat more rapidly. This was almost as exciting as a Christmas stocking in the Fauntleroy days. His eyes were searching among the numbers; there was a four-story office building (335) and an automobile agency (339) ...

and next to that--.... Henry halted, and the laugh dried up in his throat. He had been prepared for anything but the reality. The ark of his fortunes was a shabby little motion-picture theatre.

Gasping, he looked up again at the number, and when he realized that he had made no mistake, his knees turned to gelatine, and he stood staring, fascinated, numbed. His eyes wandered blankly from the crumbling ticket-booth to the unkempt lobby and back to the lurid billing--the current attraction was a seven-reel thriller ent.i.tled "What He Least Expected," but Henry missed the parallel. With trembling fingers he produced a cigarette, but in his daze he blew out two matches in succession. He crushed the cigarette in his palm, and moved a few steps towards the lobby. Great Heaven, was it possible that John Starkweather had condemned Henry the fashionable, Henry the clubable, Henry the exclusive to a year of _this_? Was _this_ his punishment for the past? Was _this_ the price of his future? This picayune sordidness, and vulgarity and decay? Evidently, it was so intended, and so ordered.

His power of reason was almost atrophied. He struggled to understand his uncle's purpose; his uncle's logic. To break down his cla.s.s prejudice, and teach him the dimes in a dollar, and put him on the level of a workingman? All that could have been accomplished by far less drastic methods. It could have been accomplished by a tour of duty with Bob. To be sure, Mr. Starkweather had promised him the meanest job in the directory, but Henry had put it down as a figure of speech. Now, he was faced with the literal interpretation of it, and ahead of him there was a year of trial, and then all or nothing.

He succeeded in lighting a fresh cigarette, but he couldn't taste it.

Previously he had paid his forfeits with the best of good-nature, but his previous forfeits hadn't obliged him to decla.s.s himself. They hadn't involved his wife. He hadn't married Anna to drag her down to this. It would stand them in a social pillory, targets for those who had either admired them or envied them. It would make them the most conspicuous pair in the whole community: older people would point to them as an ill.u.s.tration of justice visited on blind youth, and would chuckle to observe Henry in the process of receiving his come-uppance: the younger set would quake with merriment and poor jokes and sly allusions to Henry's ancient grandeur. Even Bob Standish would have to hide his amus.e.m.e.nt; why, Bob himself had made society and success his fetiches. And Anna--Anna who was so ambitious for him--how could _she_ endure the status of a cheap showman's wife?

And even if she had been willing to ally himself with such a business, how could he conceivably make ten thousand dollars out of it in a single year? Ten? It would take a genius to make five. An inexperienced man, with luck, might make two or three. He couldn't afford to hire a trained man to manage it for him: the place was too small to support such a man, and still to net any appreciable profit. Mr. Starkweather had undoubtedly foreseen this very fact--foreseen that Henry couldn't sit back as a magnate, and pile responsibility on a paid employe. To reach his quota, Henry would have to get in all over, and act as his own manager, and take the resulting publicity and the social isolation. But the business was impossible, the quota was impossible, the entire project from first to last was unthinkable. His uncle, whether by accident or design, had virtually disowned him. There was no other answer.

His laugh came back to him, but there was no hilarity in it. It was merely an expression of his helplessness; it was tragedy turned inside out. Yet he felt no resentment towards his uncle, but rather an overwhelming pity. He felt no resentment towards his friend Standish, who had bought out the perfectly respectable business which Mr.

Starkweather might so easily have left to Henry. Mr. Starkweather had schemed to bring about a certain reaction, and he had overplayed his hand. Instead of firing Henry with a new ardour for success, he had convinced him of the futility of endeavour. He had set a standard so high, and chosen a medium so low, that he had defeated his own object.

The next step--why, it was to chart his life all over again. It was to dispose of this ridiculous property, and begin to make a living for Anna. And there was no time to lose, either, for Henry's checking balance was about to slide past the vanishing point.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to meet the gravely sympathetic eyes of Mr. Theodore Mix.

Mr. Mix was fresh from an interview with Miss Mirabelle Starkweather.

Her acquaintance with him was slight, but from a distance she had always esteemed him, partly for his mature good-looks, and partly for the distinguished manner which had always been a large fraction of his stock-in-trade, and was now to be listed among his princ.i.p.al a.s.sets.

Her esteem, however, applied to him merely as an individual, and not as a debtor.

"I wanted to see you about a note," she said, primly. "A five thousand dollar demand note you gave my brother four months ago. He endorsed it over to me, and I wanted to see you about it."

Mr. Mix allowed his mouth to widen in a smile which was disarmingly benevolent. The horse at Bowie had proved dark indeed,--so dark that it had still been merged with the background when the winner pa.s.sed the judge's stand--and this colour-test had cost Mr. Mix precisely two thousand dollars. Beyond that, he had paid off a few of his most pressing creditors, and he had spent a peculiarly carefree week in New York (where he had also taken a trifling flyer in cotton, and made a disastrous forced landing) so that there was practically nothing but his smile between himself and bankruptcy. Yet Mr. Mix beamed, with almost ecclesiastical poise, upon the holder of his demand note, and tried her with honey.

"Ordinarily, I'm embarra.s.sed to talk business with a woman," said Mr.

Mix. "I'm so conscious of the--what shall I say?--of a woman's disadvantage in a business interview. But in your case, Miss Starkweather, when your executive ability is so well known and so universally praised--"

She nodded, and took it without discount, but she wasn't distracted from her purpose. "I hope it's convenient for you to pay it, Mr.

Mix."

"If it weren't convenient," said Mr. Mix, soothingly, "I should _make_ it convenient. When the sister of my oldest friend--a man who once sat at the same desk with me, when we were young clerks together--when his sister is in need of funds, I--"

"'T isn't that," she said, quickly. "I want this money for some special reason."

He inclined his head slightly. "One of your favourite charities, I have no doubt. But whatever the reason, the obligation is the same.

Now, let's see--I'll have to sell some securities--when must you have it?"

"Next Tuesday."

Inwardly, Mr. Mix was startled, but outwardly he looked grieved.

"Tuesday? Now--that _is_--wait a minute." He created the impression that he was juggling vast affairs, in order to gratify a whim of his old friend's sister. As a matter of fact, he was wondering what plausible excuse he could give without revealing any hint of the truth. "Is Tuesday imperative?"

"Tuesday by ten o'clock in the morning."

His face cleared, "You've shared a secret with me," said Mr. Mix, and although he spoke aloud, his att.i.tude was as though he were whispering. "Because I happen to know that every Tuesday at ten o'clock there's a meeting of a--a certain organization of which you're the ill.u.s.trious president. Needless to say, I refer to the Ethical Reform League." He lowered his voice. "I ask your pardon for the intrusion of anything of such a delicately personal nature, Miss Starkweather, but I _must_ tell you that when a person, such as yourself, even in the midst of inconsolable sorrow, can't forget that great principles and great inst.i.tutions can never perish, but are immortal, and go on forever--that's true n.o.bility of character, Miss Starkweather, and I honour you for it."

She touched her eyes with her handkerchief. "Thank you, Mr. Mix. Yes, I intend to make a contribution to our League--in memory of my brother. You're--familiar with our League?"

He gestured effectively. "Familiar with it? You might as well ask me if I'm familiar with the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation--the Magna Charta."

And this was accurate; his knowledge of all three was based on hearsay evidence.

"And are you at all in sympathy with it?"

"My dear lady! I was one of the pioneer supporters of suffrage in this region. I--"

"Yes, I know that, and I know your work in the a.s.sociated Charities, and in your church, but--how did you vote on prohibition?"