The Red Mouse Part 34

"Who wouldn't, with that stolen money to back him!" she exclaimed fiercely.

Miriam shook her head.

"He's doing good work with it. He's breaking up the organisation--the inside ring. I'm sure that the effect of his work is felt even over here." And then she added vehemently: "But his best work will be over when he has succeeded in breaking Cradlebaugh's. When he does that----"

"After he downs Cradlebaugh's," interrupted Shirley, "if he ever does, I hope he'll down himself. That's my wish for Billy Murgatroyd!"

"Murgatroyd is honest," protested Miriam.

Shirley smiled a hard smile.

"You mistake his motive, Miriam. He's ambitious--frightfully ambitious.

Why even now he's planning to go to the Senate," declared Shirley; but she did not add that it was she who had put the idea into his head.

"Think of Billy Murgatroyd's being Senator! He'll ask a billion the next time he's bought, instead of a million!" she wound up, scornfully.

"You forget," quietly but forcibly reminded Miriam, "that I stand up for Murgatroyd."

"Poor Miriam," sighed Shirley to herself, "she always was easily fooled." A moment later, she exclaimed: "A typewriter!"

"I don't wonder at your surprise," said Miriam. "But it is easy work and I like it immensely. I work for different people in the neighbourhood,"

she went on to explain. "A real estate dealer, one or two lawyers, it's----"

She broke off abruptly, for they were interrupted by a faint whistle.

"It's the speaking tube," said Miriam, tremblingly; but the next instant she was in a little dark alcove calling down the tube.

Meanwhile, Shirley allowed her gaze to wander about the apartment; nothing had escaped her notice, not even the cooking that was going on in the kitchen.

"Somebody whistled up the tube," said Miriam, returning, "but I couldn't get an answer. I can't imagine who it is."

Then suddenly for the third time that afternoon, the outer door opened; but this time it was thrust open with great violence, and James Lawrence Challoner came into the room with the stamp of the gutter upon him.

Shirley was dumbfounded. Quickly her mind went back to that afternoon, long ago it seemed, when he had come home after the tragedy. Then, it is true, he was unkempt, soiled, but now ... and she asked herself whether it were possible that Miriam could not see the man as he really was. The answer was immediately forthcoming, for Miriam went over and caught him in her embrace.

"Poor Laurie, tired, aren't you, dear?" she said fondly; and then turning toward the girl: "Here's an old friend of ours--Shirley Bloodgood!"

"So I see," he growled; and without more ado he turned to Miriam and demanded gruffly:--

"Well, where's your money? I've got to have some money right away."

Miriam fumbled for an instant at her waist. She did this more for appearance' sake than anything else, for she well knew that she had none to give him. Every day she had given him about everything she made.

"Yes, Laurie," she faltered, "yes, of course." And turning to Shirley, added by way of apology for him: "Such an ordeal as Laurie has been through--such a strain."

Shirley was in a panic. What she had seen was enough to make her heart-sick.

"Oh," she suddenly exclaimed, "I have forgotten all about father! I left him alone--I simply must go now. You don't know how glad ..." And turning to Challoner, she held out her hand to him. But ignoring her completely, he again said to his wife:--

"Miriam, where is that money?"

"Laurie is such a business man now, Shirley," said Miriam, smiling bravely at the girl.

But the contempt which Shirley felt for the man before her was too great for words; and she merely repeated:--

"Yes, I must be going now!"

Half way across the room she halted, hesitated for a moment, and then finally opening her purse, took from it a fifty dollar bill.

"There, Miriam," she said with a note of relief, "I have been meaning for a long time to pay back that fifty dollars I borrowed from you a few years ago--when I was so hard up for money. I'm ashamed not to have returned it before; and it's just like you not to remind me. There, dear, I've put it on the chiffonier; and now, good-bye!" And she was gone before Miriam could even protest against her action.

For Miriam knew quite as well as did Shirley that there never had been such a loan between them; and rushing out into the hall, she called to the other to come back; but Shirley by this time was well out of hearing.

"She's gone!" Miriam declared forlornly, panting from her fruitless chase.

Shirley's flight did not worry Challoner. He took advantage of Miriam's temporary absence to steal to the chiffonier and to seize the fifty dollar bill. Miriam entered the room in time to see him thrusting it into his pocket, and cried out angrily:--

"Laurie, I wish you to put that back! We are not thieves; it does not belong to us; and I'm going to send it back to Shirley."

Challoner grinned.

"What do you think I am?" he finally asked. "A fool?"

He tried to pa.s.s her; she blocked his way, and repeated:--

"I want you to put that back!"

"I have got to have some money," he maintained sulkily, stowing it still further in his trousers pocket.

"Give me that fifty dollar bill, I say!" went on Miriam, clutching at him.

"No, I will not!" returned her husband, stubbornly, and sought to escape; but she caught him by the arm and pulled him back. He tried to wrench himself away; but for once her strength was superior to his. She was beside herself with sudden anger, with shame, with ignominy, with agony.

"You give that bill to me!" she said through her closed teeth.

"You let me go!" he growled, almost jerking himself out of her grasp.

Then followed a struggle that was short, sharp but decisive, inasmuch as he finally succeeded in wrenching himself free from her. And now, turning quickly, he smote her with his clenched hand full in the face.

Miriam staggered back; her eyes opened wide in humiliated astonishment.

"Oh! Laurie!" she cried, not with physical pain, although there upon her face, now red, now white, was a broad, blotched mark--the bruise that the brute had left there.

He made a movement to go; but again she was in time to prevent him; for quick as a flash she had darted to the chiffonier, opened the top drawer and drawn forth a weapon.

"Stop!" she cried in a hard voice. "Don't you dare to leave this room with that money!"

Challoner blinked at her stupidly.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded.