The Riverman Part 61

"I thought you'd surely be able to pay it," retorted Newmark, now secure in the position he desired to take, that of putting Orde entirely in the wrong.

"Well, I expected to pay it; and I'll pay it yet," rejoined Orde. "I don't think Heinzman will stand in his own light rather than renew the notes."

He seized his hat and departed. Once in the street, however, his irritation pa.s.sed. As was the habit of the man, he began more clearly to see Newmark's side, and so more emphatically to blame himself.

After all, when he got right down to the essentials, he could not but acknowledge that Newmark's anger was justified. For his own private ends he had jeopardised the firm's property. More of a business man might have reflected that Newmark, as financial head, should have protected the firm against all contingencies; should have seen to it that it met Heinzman's notes, instead of tying up its resources in unnecessary ways. Orde's own delinquency bulked too large in his eyes to admit his perception of this. By the time he had reached Heinzman's office, the last of his irritation had vanished. Only he realised clearly now that it would hardly do to ask Newmark for a renewal of the personal note on which depended his retention of his Boom Company stock unless he could renew the Heinzman note also. This is probably what Newmark intended.

"Mr. Heinzman?" he asked briefly of the first clerk.

"Mr. Heinzman is at home ill," replied the bookkeeper.

"Already?" said Orde. He drummed on the black walnut rail thoughtfully.

The notes came due in ten days. "How bad is he?"

The clerk looked up curiously. "Can't say. Probably won't be back for a long time. It's smallpox, you know."

"True," said Orde. "Well, who's in charge?"

"Mr. Lambert. You'll find him in the private office."

Orde pa.s.sed through the grill into the inner room.

"Hullo, Lambert," he addressed the individual seated at Heinzman's desk.

"So you're the boss, eh?"

Lambert turned, showing a perfectly round face, ornamented by a dot of a nose, two dots of eyes set rather close together, and a pursed up mouth. His skin was very brown and shiny, and was so filled by the flesh beneath as to take the appearance of having been inflated.

"Yes, I'm the boss," said he non-committally.

Orde dropped into a chair.

"Heinzman holds some notes due against our people in ten days," said he.

"I came in to see about their renewal. Can you attend to it?"

"Yes, I can attend to it," replied Lambert. He struck a bell; and to the bookkeeper who answered he said: "John, bring me those Newmark and Orde papers."

Orde heard the clang of the safe door. In a moment the clerk returned and handed to Lambert a long manilla envelope. Lambert opened this quite deliberately, spread its contents on his knee, and a.s.sumed a pair of round spectacles.

"Note for seventy-five thousand dollars with interest at ten per cent.

Interest paid to January tenth. Mortgage deed on certain lands described herein."

"That's it," said Orde.

Lambert looked up over his spectacles.

"I want to renew the note for another year," Orde explained.

"Can't do it," replied Lambert, removing and folding the gla.s.ses.

"Why not?"

"Mr. Heinzman gave me especial instructions in regard to this matter just before his daughter was taken sick. He told me if you came when he was not here--he intended to go to Chicago yesterday--to tell you he would not renew."

"Why not?" asked Orde blankly.

"I don't know that."

"But I'll give him twelve per cent for another year."

"He said not to renew, even if you offered higher interest."

"Do you happen to know whether he intends anything in regard to this mortgage?"

"He instructed me to begin suit in foreclosure immediately."

"I don't understand this," said Orde.

Lambert shook his head blandly. Orde thought for a moment.

"Where's your telephone?" he demanded abruptly.

He tried in vain to get Heinzman at his house. Finally the telephone girl informed him that although messages had come from the stricken household, she had been unable to get an answer to any of her numerous calls, and suspected the bell had been removed. Finally Orde left the office at a loss how to proceed next. Lambert, secretly overjoyed at this opportunity of exercising an unaccustomed and autocratic power, refused to see beyond his instructions. Heinzman's att.i.tude puzzled Orde. A foreclosure could gain Heinzman no advantage of immediate cash. Orde was forced to the conclusion that the German saw here a good opportunity to acquire cheap a valuable property. In that case a personal appeal would avail little.

Orde tramped out to the end of the pier and back, mulling over the tangled problem. He was pressed on all sides--by the fatigue after his tremendous exertions of the past two weeks; by his natural uneasiness in regard to Carroll; and finally by this new complication which threatened the very basis of his prosperity. Nevertheless the natural optimism of the man finally won its ascendency.

"There's the year of redemption on that mortgage," he reminded himself.

"We may be able to do something in that time. I don't know just what,"

he added whimsically, with a laugh at himself. He became grave. "Poor Joe," he said, "this is pretty tough on him. I'll have to make it up to him somehow. I can let him in on that California deal, when the t.i.tles are straightened out."

XLV

Orde did not return to the office; he felt unwilling to face Newmark until he had a little more thoroughly digested the situation. He spent the rest of the afternoon about the place, picking up the tool house, playing with Bobby, training Duke, the black and white setter dog. Three or four times he called up Carroll by telephone; and three or four times he pa.s.sed Dr. McMullen's house to shout his half of a long-distance and fragmentary conversation with her. He ate solemnly with Bobby at six o'clock, the two quite subdued over the vacant chair at the other end of the table. After dinner they sat on the porch until Bobby's bed-time.

Orde put his small son to bed, and sat talking with the youngster as long as his conscience would permit. Then he retired to the library, where, for a long time, he sat in twilight and loneliness. Finally, when he could no longer distinguish objects across the room, he arose with a sigh, lit the lamp, and settled himself to read.

The last of the twilight drained from the world, and the window panes turned a burnished black. Through the half-open sashes sucked a warm little breeze, swaying the long lace curtains back and forth. The hum of lawn-sprinklers and the chirping of crickets and tree-frogs came with it.

One by one the lawn-sprinklers fell silent. Gradually there descended upon the world the deep slumbrous stillness of late night; a stillness compounded of a thousand and one mysterious little noises repeated monotonously over and over until their ident.i.ty was lost in accustomedness. Occasionally the creak of timbers or the sharp scurrying of a mouse in the wall served more to accentuate than to break this night silence.

Orde sat lost in reverie, his book in his lap. At stated intervals the student lamp at his elbow flared slightly, then burned clear again after a swallow of satisfaction in its reservoir. These regular replenishments of the oil supply alone marked the flight of time.

Suddenly Orde leaned forward, his senses at the keenest attention. After a moment he arose and quietly walked toward the open window. Just as he reached the cas.e.m.e.nt and looked out, a man looked in. The two stared at each other not two feet apart.

"Good Lord! Heinzman!" cried Orde in a guarded voice. He stepped decisively through the window, seized the German by the arm, and drew him one side.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.