The Avalanche: A Mystery Story Part 14

"For that would violate the traditions of a very old conservative house.

But I can quite see that something must be done....

"I married you to make you happy and to be happy myself. I do not intend that our marriage shall be a failure. It is possible that Harold would consent to come out here and take my place. The business no longer requires any great amount of initiative, but the most unremitting vigilance. I have thought--it has merely pa.s.sed through my mind--but you might hate it--how would you like it if I bought a large fruit ranch, several thousand acres, and put up a canning factory besides? I would make you a full partner and you would have to give to your share of the work considerably more than six hours of the day--

"We could build a large, plain, comfortable house, take all our books and pictures, subscribe to all the newspapers, magazines and reviews, keep up with everything that is going on in the world, have house parties once in a while, come to town for a few weeks in summer for the plays.

"We should live practically an out-of-door life--if you preferred we could buy a cattle ranch in the south. That would mean the greater part of the day in the saddle--

"How does it appeal to you?"

He had turned off the electricity, but as he fumbled with his embryonic idea he saw her eyes sparkle and a light of pa.s.sionate hope dawn on her face.

"Oh, I should love it! But love it! Especially the fruit ranch. That would be like France--our orchards are as wonderful as yours, even if nothing could be as big as a California ranch--

"That is, if it would not be a makeshift. Another form of playing at life."

"I can a.s.sure you that we will have to make it pay or go to the wall. My father would probably disinherit me, for it would be breaking another tradition, and he compliments me by believing that I am the best business man in the firm at present.

"My only capital would be such of my fortune as is not tied up in the House--about a hundred thousand dollars in Government bonds. Of course, in time, if all goes well, and California does not have another setback--if business improves all over the world--I shall be able to take the rest of my money out, that I put into this end of the business after the fire; but that may be ten years hence. I shouldn't even ask for interest on it--that would be the only compensation I could offer for deserting the firm.

"Perhaps I had better buy a cattle ranch. Then, if we fail, I shall at least have had the training of a cowboy and can hire out."

Helene laughed and clapped her hands.

"Fail? You? But I should help you to make it a success--I should be really necessary?"

"Indispensable. Either you or another partner."

"No! No! I shall be the partner--"

"And you mean that you would be willing to bury your youth, your beauty, on a ranch? I have heard bitter confidences out here from women forced to waste their youth on a ranch. You are one of the fine flowers of civilization--"

"That soon wither in the hothouse atmosphere. I wish to become a hardy annual. And when the ranch was running like a clock we could take a month or two in Europe every year or so--"

"Rather! And I could show you off--Bother! I'll not answer."

The telephone bell on the little table in the corner (his own private wire) rang so insistently that Ruyler finally was magnetized reluctantly across the room. He put the receiver to his ear and asked, "Well?" in his most inhospitable tones.

The answer came in Spaulding's voice, and in a moment he sat down.

At the end of ten minutes he hung the receiver on the hook and returned to find Helene standing by the window, all the light gone from her eyes, staring out at the hard brilliant scene with an expression of hopelessness that had relaxed the very muscles of her face.

Ruyler was shocked, and more apprehensive than he had yet been. "Helene!"

he exclaimed. "What is the matter? Surely you may confide in me if you are in trouble."

"Oh, but I am not," she replied coldly. "Did I look odd? I was just wondering how many really happy people there were behind those lights--over on Belvedere, at Sausalito--the lights look so golden and steady and sure--and glimpses of interiors at night are always so fascinating--but I suppose most of the people are commonplace and just dully discontented--"

"Well, I am afraid I have something to tell you that hardly will restore your delightful gayety of a few moments ago. I am sorry--but--well, the fact is I must leave for the north to-morrow morning and hardly shall be able to return before the next night. I am really distressed. I wanted so much to take you to-morrow night--"

"And I can't wear the ruby?" Her voice was shrill. Ruyler wondered if his stimulated imagination fancied a note of terror in it.

"I--I--am afraid not--darling--"

"But that Spaulding man will be there to watch--"

"Unfortunately--I forgot to tell you--he cannot go--he is on an important case. Besides--when I make a promise I usually keep it."

"But--but--" She stammered as if her brain were confused, then turned and pressed her face to the window. "I suppose nothing matters," she said dully. "Perhaps you will let me wear my own little ruby. After all, that was maman's, and she gave it to me before I was married. I should like to wear one jewel."

"You shall have all your jewels, if you will promise not to give them to Polly Roberts or any one else."

"I promise."

He went over and opened the safe, and when he rose with the gold jewel case he saw that she was standing behind him. Once more it flitted through his mind that she had watched him manipulate the combination several times, but he had little confidence in any but a professional thief's ability to memorize such an involved a.s.sortment of figures as had been invented for this particular safe. It was only once in a while that he was not obliged to refer to the key that he carried in his pocketbook.

Nor was she looking at the safe, but staring upward at a maharajah, covered with pearls of fantastic size. She took the box from his hand with a polite word of thanks, offered her cheek to be kissed, and left the room.

Price threw himself into a chair and rehea.r.s.ed the instructions Spaulding had given him.

CHAPTER XI

It was half-past eleven when Ruyler and Spaulding, masked and wearing colored silk dominoes, entered the great gates of the Thornton estate in San Mateo, the detective merely displaying something in his palm to the stern guardians that kept the county rabble at bay.

The mob stood off rather grumblingly, for they would have liked to get closer to that gorgeous ma.s.s of light they could merely glimpse through the great oaks of the lower part of the estate, and to the music so seductive in the distance.

They were not a rabble to excite pity, by any means. A few ragged tramps had joined the crowd, possibly a few pickpockets from the city, watching their opportunity to slip in behind one of the automobiles that brought the guests from the station or from the estates up and down the valley.

They were, for the most part, trades-people from the little towns--San Mateo, Redwood City--or the wives of the proletariat--or the servants of the neighboring estates. But, although, they grumbled and envied, they made no attempt to force their way in; it was only the light-fingered gentry the police at the great iron gates were on the lookout for.

Ruyler, if his mind had been less harrowed with the looming and possibly dire climax of his own secret drama, would have laughed aloud at this melodramatic entrance to the grounds of one of his most intimate friends.

He and Spaulding had walked from the train, but they were not detained as long as a gay party of young people from Atherton, who teased the police by refusing to present their cards or lift their masks. Ruyler knew them all, but they finally sped past him without even a glance of contempt for mere foot pa.s.sengers, even though they looked like a couple of dodging conspirators.

He had met Spaulding at the station in San Francisco, and private conversation on the crowded train had been impossible. When they had walked a few yards along the wide avenue, as brilliant as day with its thousands of colored lights concealed in the astonished pines, Ruyler sat deliberately down upon a bench and motioned the detective to take the seat beside him.

"It is time you gave me some sort of a hint," he said. "After all, it is my affair--"

"I know, but as I said, you might not approve my methods, and if you balk, all is up. We've got the chance of our lives. It's now or never."

"I do not at all like the idea that you may be forcing me into a position where I may find myself doing something I shall be ashamed of for the rest of my life."

Ruyler's tone was haughty. He did not relish being led round by the nose, and his nerves were jumping.

"Now! Now!" said Spaulding soothingly, as he lit a cigar. "When you hire a detective you hire him to do things you wouldn't do yourself; and if you won't give him the little help he's got to have from you or quit, what's the use of hiring him at all?

"I know perfectly well that nothing but your own eyes would convince you of what it's up to me to prove--to say nothing of the fact that I count on your entrance at the last minute to put an end to the whole bad business. For it is a bad business--believe me. But not a word of that now. You couldn't pry open my lips with a five dollar Havana."