The Gates of Chance Part 15

"'This is a private matter between Mr. Estes and myself, as he knows full well. So far as you and Mr. Indiman are concerned, call it what you like--a duel, or, better yet, a sporting proposition.'

"'The stakes?' put in Crawfurd, feebly, for, shaken as he was, he could still grasp at the definite idea included in the last-named alternative. Sport and a wager--now he understood.

"'The stakes?' repeated Balencourt. 'Well, they are hardly of a nature that either Mr. Estes or myself can intrust them to the keeping of a third party. But rest a.s.sured that the loser will pay; it is a debt of honor.'

"Up to this moment I had kept silence, but now I must make my one try.

'He is but a boy,' I said, leaning my elbows on the table and seeking to plumb the soul-depths in the cold, gray eyes of the man who sat opposite to me. But Balencourt only laughed amusedly.

"'Then he should not a.s.sume a man's--'

"'Will you come now, Cousin Esper?' interrupted Estes. He pushed his chair noisily back, and we all rose.

"'You won't wait for coffee?' said our host. 'Just as you please.' He touched the call-b.u.t.ton, and Jarman entered to help us on with our top-coats. Par parenthese, how account for the anomaly of this scoundrel of a Balencourt possessing the most perfect of serving-men?

There never was anybody who could roll an umbrella like Jarman, and I have been around a lot in my time. After the catastrophe I tried my best to locate him, but without success. He was gone; the pearl had dropped back into the unfathomable depths of ocean. Perhaps he followed his master.

"The door closed behind us, and we three stood in the street. 'A cab?'

I queried, and a pa.s.sing hansom swung in towards the curb.

"'I'd rather walk along with you, Cousin Esper,' said Estes. 'Jump in, Mr. Crawfurd, and we'll pick you up later at the club.'

"Crawfurd nodded and was forthwith driven away. I turned to Estes.

"'What is it, George?' I asked. 'Remember, there's Elizabeth to be considered in this.'

"Now, while Estes is a second cousin of mine, 'Betty' Catherwood is my niece, and so I considered that I had a double right to stick in my oar. But I wasn't prepared for the depth of trouble that I encountered in the glance George Estes turned on me. 'So bad as that!' I finished, lamely.

"'It won't take long in the telling,' began the boy, desperately. 'You remember that after I left Princeton I went to Germany for a two years'

course in international law under Langlotz; it was a pet idea of the pater's.'

"I nodded.

"'Well, we all make fools of ourselves at one time or another, and here is where I donned the cap and bells. You have heard'--here he lowered his voice--'of the "Dawn."'

"'The revolutionary society?'

"'Yes; it's the active branch of the "Sunrise League"--the practical work, you know. I joined it.'

"I had nothing to say. George laughed a little dismally and went on:

"'Absurd, wasn't it? I, a citizen of the best and freest country on earth to be making common cause with a lot of crack-brained theorists who would replace const.i.tutional government by the "Lion's Mouth" and the "Council of Ten"--a world ruled by a secret terror. But it seemed all right at the time. What was my life or any one man's life to the progress of civilization? It was only when I came to look at the means apart from the end that I realized the horrible fallacy of it all.'

"'You withdrew, of course.'

"'You don't quite understand. One doesn't withdraw from the "Dawn." He may cease to be identified actively with the propaganda, but he is still subject to be called upon for a term of "service"--that's the ghastly euphemism they use. You remember this and the night I received it?'

"He took a pasteboard box from his pocket and handed it to me. It contained a small, red b.u.t.ton, fashioned out of some semiprecious stone resembling Mexican opal.

"'It was the first summons,' continued Estes, 'and within three days I should have been on my way to Berlin--to receive my instructions.'

"'You refused, then?'

"'There was Betty,' said the boy, simply.

"'You must understand,' he went on, 'that this "service" can only be demanded once of a member. He may refuse compliance, if he chooses, but in that case there is a forfeit to be paid, and it becomes due after the third warning.'

"'Well?'

"'Must be paid, you understand. If not by the recalcitrant himself, then by the agent of the "Forty" through whom the summons comes. That makes it clear, doesn't it--Balencourt and his debt of honor?'

"'When did you know--about him, I mean?'

"'Here is the second b.u.t.ton. Balencourt slipped it into my hand just before we went out to dinner to-night.'

"'It is incredible. Balencourt is a man and you are but a boy. To take advantage of an act of youthful folly--'

"'You forget that it is his life or mine,' interrupted Estes, quietly.

"'But, George, it is unthinkable. When he knows--but you did tell him--about Betty--'

"'That's just it, old chap. Balencourt asked her to marry him a week ago, just before I received the first red b.u.t.ton.'

"The monstrousness of the thing struck me all of a heap. 'The police,'

I said, vaguely, but Estes shook his head.

"'It is but postponing the bad quarter of an hour,' he said, gently, 'and I don't think that I could put up with this sort of thing indefinitely. Moreover, it wouldn't be fair to--to Betty.

"'No,' he went on, 'it's better to have a limit set, just as it is now--for at least Balencourt will keep his word. Once past the 1st of August, I am safe.'

"'We'll work within the limit, then,' I said, cheerfully. 'If we three--Crawfurd, you, and I--can't match wits with one polyglot son of the "Dawn," we might as well let the bottom drop out of the Monroe Doctrine and be done with it.'

"We had arrived at the club. For an instant our hands met. 'Not a word to Betty,' he whispered.

"'Of course.' Then we went up-stairs to the pipe-room, where we found Crawfurd sitting gloomily over his fourth Scotch-and-soda. The clocks were striking three when we took Estes back to his apartments, and we both spent the night with him. The issue had been fairly joined, and it was exactly two months and a half to the 1st of August.

"The rest of May pa.s.sed absolutely without incident, and sometimes it was difficult to believe in the reality of the contest in which we were engaged. Yet we omitted no precaution, and during the whole fortnight Estes was never for a moment out of the sight of either Crawfurd or myself. But no; I'll correct myself there, for we had to allow him an hour and a half every evening with Betty, and I used to mount guard in the street outside, measuring the cold and unsympathetic flag-stones.

And no thanks for it, either; indeed, Betty's manner was distinctly top-loftical whenever we chanced to meet, she being a young person of discernment, and perfectly well aware that we were keeping her in the dark about something. But it helped George to forget, and so I counted it in with the rest of the day's work and held my peace.

"As for the rest, there was nothing to be done except to keep a couple of 'shadows' on Balencourt, and we had a full account of his movements by eight o'clock every night--a regular ship's chart worked out with time-stamps and neat entries in red ink, after the accustomed fashion of Central Office men. So May and the first two weeks in June dragged uneventfully along; the period of stress was already half over. Then came Monday, the 15th of June, and with it a little shock. Our man--I mean Balencourt--concluded to disappear, and he did it as effectually as though there were no such thing as a 'shadow' in existence. When the head-sleuth came that night to report his discomfiture, I cut him short in his theorizing and asked for the facts. But there was only the one--Balencourt was certainly non est, and that was all there was to say. Whereupon we banished the 'shadows' to the outer darkness whence they had come and convened our original council of war.

"One thing was plain--the danger of remaining longer in the city. There are so many things that may happen in a crowd, and especially if our friend Balencourt formed part of that unknown quant.i.ty. There is always a chance of a chimney-pot tumbling about one's ears or of being run down by some reckless chauffeur. And who is to know the truth?

Accidents will happen; they are wilful things and insist upon keeping themselves in evidence. Imprimis, then, to get out of town. But where?

"'Hoodman's Ledge,' began Crawfurd, a little doubtfully, but I caught him up with joyful decision.

"'The very thing,' I said. 'I'll send a wire to the caretaker to-night, and we'll be off by Thursday. I invite you all--for six weeks. Why, of course, George, that includes Betty and her mother; they were to come to me, anyway, in July.'

"Now, Hoodman's Ledge is one of the innumerable small islands that dot the Maine coast above Portland. A few years ago the fancy had taken me to buy the island--it was only three acres in area--and later on I had put up a house, nothing very elegant, but everything for comfort, a model bachelor's establishment. For our present need no better asylum could have offered. The island was small and occupied only by my own domestic establishment. It lay in the bight of Oliver's Bay, quite a mile from the nearest sh.o.r.e, and there was but one other bit of land anywhere around--an uninhabited islet known as 'The Thimble,' that lay a quarter of a mile due east. Surely this isolation promised security.

Here, if anywhere, we might snap our fingers at the machinations of M.