The Monk of Hambleton Part 3

"A sneaking hound!" Varr did not lower his voice, indifferent to whether the retreating clerk learned his opinion of him or not. "I have never liked him."

"He must have heard what you said about Graham," reflected Jason. "I'm rather sorry for that. He's quite capable of carrying tales to Billy that might lead him to misconstrue your att.i.tude."

"Let him! I guess it won't be such an awful misconstruction at that!

Graham was never farther in his life than this minute from his partnership."

"Well--of course--a partnership wouldn't quite march with my idea!"

Jason Bolt lighted a cigar rather nervously as he broached a subject dear to his heart. "Not a partnership--no. But if we were to incorporate and borrow the capital we ought to have, he might reasonably expect a good block of stock on the most advantageous terms----"

"We--are--not--going--to--incorporate!" Varr's slow words carried the emphasis of sheer exasperation. "I have told you before that I do not intend to do so."

"Still, Simon, our position warrants it--our increased business almost demands it--"

"I have said I won't!"

"Yes--yes, I heard you. I would not have brought up the subject now except that we will have an opportunity during the next week to get some dope on the possibilities. Judge Taylor can tell us all about the legal end of it, but Herman Krech can give us pointers on the practical side--"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Oh--didn't I tell you?" Artful Mr. Bolt's surprise was well simulated. "Why, he's a New York stockbroker who has made barrels of money. He married a girl named Jean Graham, an old friend of my wife's. Mary has tried two or three times to get them for a visit, and they are finally coming to-morrow for a week."

"He can stay a year for all of me." Varr brought his open hand down with a loud smack on the arm of his chair. "Once and for all, Jason, we are not going to incorporate!"

"We could expand and make a lot more money."

"We'll make more money without expanding!"

When a youngster at school, some one had told Jason Bolt that the constant dropping of water will in time wear away the hardest rock. He had never forgotten this valuable piece of knowledge, possibly because he had so frequently demonstrated its truth on the person of his unsuspecting partner. No one could argue Varr into doing anything, much less drive him, but Jason had more than once succeeded in overcoming that granite obstinacy by a species of gentle, persistent nagging. So adept had he become in this delicate accomplishment that Simon Varr would have sworn at the end of a campaign that he had never deviated from the original purpose that had been his in the beginning.

"Well, anyway," tapped the drop of water, "it can't do a bit of harm to listen to what he has to say."

Varr shrugged his shoulders. The conversation had ceased to interest him. So, evidently, had his letters, for he thrust them from him with an air of finality as he rose to his feet and glanced at his watch. It was not yet very late, but with the waning of summer the days were growing perceptibly shorter and the light in the office where the two men were talking was already failing.

"I didn't see your car outside, Simon. Shall I give you a lift home?

or would you rather walk?"

"I'll walk." Varr crossed the room and knelt before an old iron safe in the corner near the window, peering closely at the figures on the dial as he slowly turned the k.n.o.b. In a moment the combination Was complete and he pulled open the heavy door. "It occurred to me to-day that this was a poor place to leave my memorandum book. If some one succeeded in burning the building--as some one apparently wants to--it would be none too secure even in this safe."

Jason whistled softly. "Has that got the notes of your new formula in it, Simon?" He stared at the small red leather notebook which Varr took from a pigeonhole. "You're dead right to take that out of here!

By the way, did you see that letter from the Larscom Leather Company?

They say that the last order we shipped them--the batch we tanned by your new process--is the best looking lot of leather they've ever had in their shops."

"I guess it was," acknowledged Varr calmly. He balanced the leather memorandum book on his hand, his expression softening for a moment as he regarded it and remembered the days and nights of toil represented in its closely filled pages. A metal nameplate on the cover caught his eye by reason of its dinginess. He breathed on it and rubbed it with the cuff of his suit. "Yes, Jason, here is proof enough that my brains in no way resemble a tomato. If you were capable of inventing the processes that I have noted here, you would be running a business of your own quite independent of me!"

"That's very true, Simon." To this particular type of jeer Bolt had grown accustomed, and if his eyes narrowed a trifle it was the only hint of resentment that he showed. "As a matter of fact, it's just because you've got such a good thing in this new formula that I'm anxious for more elbow room." He glanced about him with an air of dissatisfaction. "The business we're doing warrants something better than this peanut stand!"

"I'm ready to buy your interest for ten times what you put in!" offered his partner dryly. "Will you accept?"

"I will not." Jason stood up and clapped on his hat. "I must be off.

Sure you won't let me drive you home?" A shake of Varr's head answered him. "Good night, then."

He left the office and was halfway to the stairs when a sudden thought occurred to him and he retraced his steps.

"Say, Simon!"

"Well?"

[Transcriber's note: page 31 missing from source book]

[Transcriber's note: page 32 missing from source book]

ence of something important underlying the surface of this inquisition and he paused a moment to reflect before continuing. "It was Langhorn who left first. Mr. Graham stood still a while, lookin' in this direction as if he still meant to come over, then he turned and headed for town." A shrewd gleam lit the watchman's eye. "While he was facin' this way it struck me that he was lookin' red and sort of angry."

"Ah!"

The monosyllable served at once to express Varr's perfect apprehension of what had pa.s.sed between the two men and to bring the present conversation to a close. He took his leave, ignoring Nelson's polite "good evening" after his usual custom, and strode swiftly off along the short-cut by which he had come an hour or two earlier. Irritation quickened his step no less than the threat of rain from the banking clouds in the western sky.

So Jason had been right. Langhorn had overheard that portion of their talk which concerned Graham and had promptly reported it to the man most interested. Malicious, mischief-making little sneak! And of course he had to walk smack into Graham just when he was in a mood to make trouble and blow the consequences! With any luck he wouldn't have encountered the other until resentment at the rebuff he had received had cooled, and caution succeeded anger!

Varr was in the humor these days to find in this trivial contretemps yet another example of the annoyances, large and small, to which he had been subjected lately--so persistently indeed that he was coming to believe himself the chosen target at which some malefic Providence had elected to discharge every arrow of misfortune in its quiver.

Nothing seemed to go right any more; on the contrary, everything appeared to take a fiendish delight in going wrong--which in Simon's case meant largely that they were going in opposition to his wishes.

He briefly recapitulated a few of his major troubles as he hurried along on his homeward way.

First, there was dissension in his household, where his son was in almost open rebellion against the paternal authority in the matter of Sheila Graham, supported, Varr guessed, by the mild approval of his mother. Second, there was the situation at the tannery, where a bunch of incipient lunatics had gone completely mad and struck against conditions that had previously been satisfactory to them and their fathers before them. Last, but by no means least, was the discontent in the office itself, what with a partner who had been bitten by the bug of ambition--! A much-abused, sorely-tried man raised angry eyes to Heaven and demanded of it, "What _next_?"

And as he literally lifted his gaze from the trail, seeking an answer in the sky, he saw something that halted him abruptly. He stood rooted in his tracks, his head thrust slightly forward, very much as a keen pointer freezes at the sight of game.

The path he was following was one that ascended by gentle gradients from the tannery to his big house on the crest of the low hill. A narrow strip of meadowland on the edge of the town was crossed, then the path, as it reached the rising ground, plunged into a deep belt of heavy woods that stretched away on each side for the distance of a mile or more; at the end, the trail crested a rather sharp acclivity before emerging from the trees and linking up with a graveled path that circled a kitchen garden in the rear of the house.

Varr had just reached the foot of this last ascent at the moment he looked up. Twenty yards ahead of him he could see the end of the path, marked by a pale oblong of sky set in a dark frame of foliage, but it was not that familiar sight which held him spellbound, started his pulse to beating quickly and momentarily stopped his breath on a painful gasp mingled of astonishment and fear.

Silhouetted against the sky was a tall figure dressed from head to foot in a black garment such as a monk might wear, but almost instantly Varr recognized that there was something in this costume that was out of keeping with the orthodox monastic habit. What the discrepancy might be he could not determine in those seconds of bewilderment, but he knew it existed. The outline against the light was clearcut; there were the flowing line of the robe, and the conical shape of the hood, plain to be seen and unmistakable.

There were several reasons why the apparition--although he was habitually unimaginative outside the field of barks and chemicals it did not occur to Simon Varr in that first moment to doubt that this was truly a specter from another world--should startle him to the verge of sheer fright. To begin with, there was something suggestive of Death in that somber, motionless figure, and of death he had a horror. Then it had come so pat on his bitter question of "What _next_?" that it seemed indubitably an answer from some Power not of earth.

Finally--there was something about the figure that wasn't _right_--!

It spoke well for his spiritual courage that he was able to control his nerves and conquer the trembling of his limbs within a few seconds, and at the same time determine a course of immediate action. If this were a human being it should be challenged; if it were a ghost, it should be laid! He kept his eye fixed on the figure and deliberately took a step toward it.

Instantly, the immobility of the being ceased. A long black arm was flung up and outward in his direction, a silent command to him to stay his steps.

His obedience was prompt, for now he knew what was wrong with the apparition. Instinct had told him that the monk was confronting him, regarding him closely, and the quick response to his attempted advance was evidence enough that his instinct had not lied.

His mouth went dry, his brow exuded beads of perspiration. The monk was facing him sure enough--and that was queer, for the monk _had no face_!