The Ne'er-Do-Well Part 68

"Funny spectacle, eh? Me the guest of--Anthony!"

There was a trace of anxiety in her voice as she answered, and, though she spoke carelessly, she did not meet his eyes.

"I--I'd rather you'd make an excuse. I'll have to go home alone, you know."

He raised his brows mockingly. "My DEAR! I'm to be the honored guest."

"Suit yourself, of course."

A marine officer approached, mopping his face, and engaged her in conversation, whereupon Cortlandt rose languidly and strolled away through the crowd that came eddying forth from the ballroom.

Meanwhile, Kirk had found Runnels, who was looking for him, eager to express his congratulations and to discuss their exploit in detail.

"I've just taken the wife home," he explained. "I never saw anybody so excited. If she'd stayed here she'd have given the whole thing away, sure. Why, she wasn't half so much affected by her own marriage."

"I--I haven't pulled myself together yet. Funny thing--I've just been watching my wife dancing with the man she is engaged to. Gee!

It's great to be married."

"She's the dearest thing I ever saw; and wasn't she game? Alice will cry for weeks over this. Why, it's the sob-fest of her lifetime. She's bursting with grief and rapture. I hope your wife can keep a secret better than mine, otherwise there will be a tremendous commotion before to-morrow's sun sets. I suppose now I'll have to hang around home with my finger on my lip, saying 'Hist!' until the news comes out. Whew! I am thirsty."

Anthony did not tell his friend about the detective in Colon and his mysterious warning, partly because he was not greatly disturbed by it and trusted to meeting the difficulty in proper time, and partly because his mind was once more too full of his great good-fortune to permit of any other interest. Now that he had some one to whom he could talk freely, he let himself go, and he was deep in conversation when Stephen Cortlandt strolled up and stopped for an instant to say:

"Quite a lively party, isn't it?"

Kirk noticed how sallow he had grown in the past few months, and how he had fallen off in weight. He looked older, too; his cheeks had sunken in until they outlined his jaws sharply. He seemed far from well; a nervous twitching of his fingers betokened the strain he had been under. He was quite as immaculate as usual, however, quite as polished and collected.

"How is our little 'stag' coming on?" he asked.

"Fine! Everything is ready," said Runnels. "You won't expect an elaborate layout; it's mostly cold storage, you know, but we'll at least be able to quench our thirst at the Central."

"Then it's really coming off? I was--afraid you'd forgotten it."

Cortlandt cast a curious glance at Kirk, who exclaimed, heartily:

"Well, hardly!" Then, as their prospective guest moved off, "What a strange remark!"

"Yes," said Runnels, "he's a queer fellow; but then, you know, he's about as emotional as a toad."

XXVI

THE CRASH

Kirk had no further chance of speaking with his wife, for after the dance she was whisked away, leaving him nothing but the memory of an adoring, blissful glance as she pa.s.sed. With Runnels and Cortlandt and the rest, he was driven to the Hotel Central, where they found a very attractive table set in a private dining-room.

It was a lively party, and Kirk's secret elation enabled him to play the part of host with unforced geniality. The others joined him in a hearty effort to show their guest the high regard in which they held him, and if Cortlandt did not enjoy himself, it was entirely his own fault.

Toward Kirk, however, he preserved a peculiar att.i.tude, which only the young man's self-absorption prevented him from noticing. If he had been less jubilant, he must have felt the unnatural aloofness of the other man's bearing; but even had he done so, he would doubtless have attributed it to Cortlandt's well-recognized frigidity.

At the propitious moment, Runnels, who had reluctantly agreed to share the social responsibility, made a little speech, explaining that he and his boys had been sensible from the first of their guest's interest in them, and were deeply grateful for it. They were all working together, he said, and what helped one helped another. They had banded together, and now tendered him a token of their regard in a form which he could preserve.

"It's a little late," he smiled, "in view of the rumor that has been going round within the last day or so, but, no matter what happens to any one of us in the readjustment of our department, we appreciate the help you have given us collectively."

He handed a handsome loving-cup to Cortlandt, who thanked him appropriately, then waited courteously for the party to break up.

But Anthony rose, saying:

"I simply have to say a word on my own account, fellows, for I owe Mr. Cortlandt more than any of you."

The object of these remarks shot a swift, questioning glance from his stony eyes, and raised a hand as if to check him. But Kirk ran on unheeding:

"I want to thank him before all of you for what he has done for me personally. When I landed in Panama I was a rotter. I'd never worked, and never intended to; I rather despised people who did. I represented the unearned increment. I was broke and friendless, and what ideas I had were all wrong. This is something you don't know, perhaps, but no sooner had I landed than I got into trouble of the worst sort, and Mr. Cortlandt got me out. He was my bail- bond; he put me up at his hotel; gave me clothes, and paid my way until I got started. I was a stranger, mind you, but he's been just like one of my own people, and if I ever succeed in doing anything really worth while, it will be due to the start he gave me."

Though the words were commonplace enough, they carried a sincere message, and Cortlandt saw by the faces about him that the others were pleased. His own gaunt features turned more sallow than ever.

The memory of what he had heard on the porch of his own house a few afternoons ago, of what he had seen at other times, of his wife's telltale behavior on this very evening, swept over him, fanning anew the sullen emotions he had cherished all these months. How far would this fellow dare to go, he wondered? What motive inspired him thus to pose before his friends, and openly goad his victim under the cloak of modesty and grat.i.tude? Was he enhancing his triumph by jeering at the husband of whom he had made a fool? He dropped his eyes to hide the fury in them.

"I want to give you a little remembrance of my own." Anthony was speaking directly to him. "It isn't much, but it means a good deal to me, and I hope it will have some sort of personal a.s.sociation for you, Mr. Cortlandt." He drew from his pocket a plush case and took from it a very handsome thin Swiss watch with the letters "S.

C." artfully enamelled upon the back. Runnels, who knew the local shops, wondered how it had been procured in Panama. The others openly expressed their admiration.

Cortlandt accepted the gift mechanically; then, as it touched his flesh, a sudden color mounted to his cheeks, only to recede, leaving them bloodless again. He stared at it uncertainly, then looked up and ran his eyes slowly around the table. They came to rest at last upon the broad frame of the giver, crowned with its handsome, sun-tanned face and close-cropped shock of yellow hair.

Anthony was all that he was not--the very embodiment of youth, vigor, and confidence, while he was prematurely aged, worn, and impotent.

They noted how ill he appeared, as if he had suffered from a jungle fever, how his well-cut evening clothes refused to conceal the frail lines of his figure, and how the hollows in his cheeks added to his age. But for the first time since they had known him they saw that his eyes were alive and burning dully.

"I really didn't expect this," he began, slowly, as he rose.

"Anthony exaggerates; he is too kind. But since he has chosen to publicly call attention to our relations, I will confess that what he tells you is all true. He was everything he says when he first came to Panama. He did get into trouble, and I helped him out; he had no money, and I put him up as my guest; he needed work, and I helped to place him. Through my a.s.sistance--partly, at any rate-- he has made a man of himself. He has been welcome at my house, at my table; he has come and gone as he pleased, like one of the family, you might say. But those are little things; they count for nothing." He smiled in a way that seemed ironical, his lips writhed away from his teeth until his visage resembled a death- head. His tone had gripped his hearers, and Anthony stirred uneasily, thinking this an odd way of accepting a gift.

Unclasping his long, white fingers, Cortlandt held up the watch to public view.

"In payment for my poor friendship he has given me this magnificent thing of gold and jewels, the finest I ever saw. I never counted upon such grat.i.tude. It is too much, and yet a man cannot refuse the gift of his friend and not seem ungracious, can he? Somewhere in the Orient they have a custom of exchanging gifts. No man may accept a thing of value without making adequate return, and it has always struck me as a wise practice." He turned full upon Kirk for the first time since he had begun speaking, and his voice rose a tone as he said: "I can't let the obligation rest entirely upon me. We have been friends, Anthony, and I am going to give you something in return which I have prized highly; it would be counted of great value by some." Once more he paused and drew his lips back in that grimace of mockery--it could no longer be termed a smile. "It is this--I am going to give you--my wife. You have had her from the first, and now she is yours." For one frightful moment there was no sound; even the men's breathing was hushed, and they sat slack-jawed, stunned, half-minded to believe this some hideous, incredible jest. But the maniacal light in Cortlandt's eyes, and Anthony's chalk-white, frozen countenance soon showed them the truth. Some one gasped, another laughed hysterically, the sound breaking in his throat. Cortlandt turned away gloatingly.

Kirk was the last to recover his powers, but when they did revive they came with a prodigious rush. He plunged upward out of his chair with a cry like a wounded animal, and the others rose with him. The table rocked, something smashed, a chair was hurled backward. The room broke into instant turmoil. Kirk felt hands upon him, and then went blind with fury, struggling in a pa.s.sion too strong for coherent speech. He was engulfed in chaos. He felt things break beneath his touch, felt bodies give way before him.

How or when Cortlandt left the room he never knew. Eventually he found himself pinned in his chair, with Runnels' white face close against his own and other hands upon his arms. His first frenzy quickly gave way to a sickening horror. Some one was commanding him to be still, to create no scene; but those were not words, they were simply mutterings that conveyed no meaning.

"It's a lie! The man's crazy!" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely; then, as his companions drew away from him, he rose to his feet. "Why are you looking at me like that? I tell you it's a d.a.m.ned lie! I never--"

Runnels turned to the table, and with shaking hand put a gla.s.s to his lips and gulped its contents. Wade and Kimble exchanged glances, then, avoiding each other's eyes, took their hats from the hooks behind them.

"Wait! Bring him back!" Kirk mumbled. "I'll get him and make him say it's a lie." But still no one answered, no one looked at him.

"G.o.d! You don't believe it?"

"I'm going home, fellows. I'm kind of sick," Kimble said. One of the others murmured unintelligibly, and, wetting a napkin, bound up his hand, which was bleeding. They continued to watch Kirk as if fearful of some insane action, yet they refused to meet his eyes squarely. There was no sympathy in their faces.

The knowledge of what these actions meant came to him slowly. Was it possible that his friends believed this incredible accusation?

The thought made him furious, too agitated as yet to realize that such a charge made under such circ.u.mstances could not well prove less than convincing. As he began to collect himself he saw his plight more clearly. His first thought had been that Cortlandt was insane, but the man's actions were not those of a maniac. No! He actually believed and--and these fellows believed also. No doubt they would continue to think him guilty in spite of all that he could do or say; for after this shocking denunciation it would take more than mere words to prove that he had not betrayed his friend and benefactor. It was incredible, unbearable! He wanted to shout his innocence at them, to beat it into their heads; but the more he expostulated the more distant they became.

One by one they took their hats and went out, mumbling good-night to one another, as if intending to go home singly in order to avoid all discussion of this thing that had fallen among them Runnels alone remained.