The Second Latchkey Part 42

"Not a big bag, is it? And so common, it wouldn't be likely to tempt a thief. But it holds what is worth--if it has a price--about half a million dollars."

"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. She looked horrified; and through the green gloom the old man read her face.

"I see!" he said, with a laugh in his young voice. "You have heard the great secret! That makes another who knows. But I'm not afraid you'll throw me to the dogs. You wouldn't do that even if you weren't Donaldson's wife. Being his wife, you could not."

"My husband has told me no secret about you, none at all," the girl protested, defending Knight involuntarily. "I beg you to believe that, Mr. Van Vreck."

"I do believe it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's being a judge of character. That's why I've made a success of life. You wouldn't lie, perhaps not even to save the one you love best. I believe that he did not tell you the secret. Yet I'm certain you know it. I suppose other discoveries you must have made gave you supernatural intuition. You guessed."

Annesley did not answer. Yet she could not take her eyes from his.

"You needn't mind confessing. But I won't catechize you. I'll take it for granted that what Donaldson knows you know--not in detail, in the rough.... In this bag are six gold images set with precious stones. They are of the time of the Incas, and they've been up till now the most precious things in Mexico. From now on they will be among the most precious things in Paul Van Vreck's secret collection.

"Some weeks ago I hoped that Donaldson would get them for me. He refused, so I had to go myself. I couldn't trust any one else, though the only difficulty was getting to Central Mexico with Const.i.tutionals raging on one side and Federals on the other. A man promised to deliver the goods to my messenger. I've been bargaining over these things for years. But, as I said, Don wouldn't go, so I had to do the job myself. You see, Mrs.

Donaldson, your husband is the only honest man I ever came across."

"Honest!" The exclamation burst from Annesley's lips.

"Yes. Honest is the word. I might add two others: 'true' and 'loyal.'"

Paul Van Vreck held her with his strange, straight look, commanding, yet amused. "That is the opinion," he added after a pause, "of a very old friend. It's worth its weight in--gold images."

The girl gave him no answer. But the effort of keeping her face under control made lips and eyelids quiver.

"May I sit down, Mrs. Donaldson?" Van Vreck asked in a tone which changed to commonplaceness--if his voice could ever be commonplace. "I'm a fugitive, and have had a run for my money, so to speak. I'm seeking sanctuary. Also I came in the hope of trying my eloquence on Donaldson.

But now I've seen you, I will not do that. In future he's safe from me, I promise you."

"Oh!" Annesley faltered. And then: "Thank you!" came out, grudgingly.

How astonishing that _she_ should thank Paul Van Vreck, the monster of wickedness and secrecy she had pictured, for "sparing" her husband--her husband whom _he_ called loyal, true, and honest; whom she had called in her heart a thief!

"Do sit down," she hurried on, hypnotized. "Forgive my not asking you.

I----"

"I understand," he soothed her. "I've taken advantage of you--sprung a surprise, as Don would say, and then turned on the tortures of the Inquisition. Aren't _you_ going to sit? I can't, you know, if you don't."

"I thought you might like something to eat," the girl stammered. "I could call our cook----"

"No, thank you," replied Van Vreck. "I'm peculiar in more ways than one.

I never eat at night. I live mostly on milk, water, fruit, and nuts.

That's why I feel forty at seventy-two. I give out that I'm frail--an invalid--that I spend much time in nursing homes. This is my joke on a public which has no business to be curious about my habits. While it thinks I'm recuperating in a nursing home I--but no matter! That won't interest you."

When she had obediently sat down, her knees trembling a little, Van Vreck drew up a chair for himself, and, resting his arms on the table, leaned across it gazing at the girl with a queer, humorous benevolence.

"How soon do you think your husband will come?" he asked, abruptly.

"I don't know," Annesley replied. "He told our Chinese boy he'd be early.

I suppose the sandstorm has delayed him."

"No doubt.... And you're worried?"

"No-o," she answered, looking sidewise at Van Vreck, her face half turned from him. "I don't think that I'm worried."

"May I talk to you frankly till Don does come?" the old man asked.

"Certainly."

"I'll take you at your word!... Mrs. Donaldson, when your husband called on me a year ago last spring, in New York, he said nothing about you. I knew he'd married an English girl of good connections (isn't that what you say on your side?), and why he thought it would be wise to marry. But when he informed me that our a.s.sociation was to be ended, that nothing would induce him to continue it, I read between the lines. I'm sharp at that! I knew as well as if he'd told me that he'd fallen in love with the girl, that she'd unexpectedly become the important factor in his life, and that--she'd found out a secret she'd never been meant to find out: _his_ secret, and maybe mine.

"I realized by his face--the look in the eyes, the tone of the voice, or rather, the tonelessness of the voice--what her finding out meant for Don. I read by all signs that she was making him suffer atrociously and I owed that girl a grudge. She'd taken him from me. For the first time a power stronger than mine was at work; and yet, things being as they were, my hope of getting him back lay in her."

"What do you mean?" The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, though the shut-up room had but lately seemed hot as a furnace.

"I mean, if the girl behaved as I thought she would behave--as I think you have behaved--he might grow tired of her and the cast-iron coat of virtue he'd put on to please her. He might grow tired of life on a ranch if his wife made him eat ashes and wear sack-cloth. That was my hope.

Well, I sent a messenger to find out how the land lay a few weeks ago."

"The Countess de Santiago!" Annesley exclaimed.

"He told you?"

"No, I saw her. I--by accident--(it really was by accident!) I heard things. He doesn't know--I believe he doesn't know--I was there."

"Perhaps that's just as well. Perhaps not. But if I were you I'd tell him when the right time comes. The Countess wrote me she'd had her journey in vain, and why. She said--spitefully it struck me--that Don was bewitched by his wife, a cold, cruel creature with ice in her veins, who treated him like a dog."

"She said that to you, too?"

"Yes, she said that. She seemed to gather the impression. But the dog stuck to his kennel. Nothing _she_ could do would tempt him to budge. So I decided to call here myself, on the way back from Mexico. I couldn't delay the trip. A man was waiting for me. And waiting quietly is difficult in Mexico just now. I got what I wanted, and crammed the lot into this bag, which cost me at the outside, if I remember, five dollars.

A good idea of mine for putting thieves off the track. They expect sane men to carry nightgowns and newspapers in such bags. I thought I'd managed so well that I'd put the gang who follow me about, generally on 'spec,' off the track.

"I speak Spanish well. I've been pa.s.sing for a Mexican lawyer from Chihuahua. But to-day I caught a look from a pair of eyes in a train. I fancied I'd seen those eyes before--and the rest of the features. Perhaps I imagined it. But I don't think so. I trust my instinct. I advise you to! It's a tip.

"At El Paso I bought a ticket for Albuquerque. The eyes were behind me.

I got into the train. So did Eyes, and a friend with a long nose. Not into my car, however, so I was able to skip out again as the train was starting. Not a bad feat for a man of my age! I hope Eyes and Nose, and any other features that may have been with them, travelled on unsuspectingly. But I can't be sure. Instinct says they saw my trick and trumped it.

"I oughtn't to have come here, bringing danger to your house, Mrs.

Donaldson. But I want to see Don, and I know he is afraid neither of man nor devil--afraid of nothing in the world except one woman.

"As for her--well, what I'd heard hadn't prepossessed me in her favour.

I sacrificed her for the safety of my golden images and my talk with Don.

But the sound of your voice behind the shut door broke the picture I'd made of that young woman. And when I saw you--well, Mrs. Donaldson, I've already told you I don't intend to exert my influence over your husband, though to do so was my princ.i.p.al object in coming. Even if I did, I believe yours would prove stronger. But if I could count on all my old power over him, I wouldn't use it now I have seen you.

"I adore myself, and--my specialties. But there must be an unselfish streak in me which shows in moments like this. I respect and admire it.

You may treat Don like a dog, but he'd never be happy away from you. And I am fool enough to want him to be happy. This kicked dog of yours, madame, happens to be the finest fellow I ever knew or expect to know."

"You say I treat him like a dog!" cried Annesley, roused to anger.

"But how ought I to treat him? He came into my life in a way I thought romantic as a fairy tale. It was a trick--a play got up to deceive me!

I knew nothing of his life; but because of the faith he inspired, I believed in him. No one except himself could have broken that belief. I would not have listened to a word against him. But when he thought I'd discovered something, the whole story came out. If I hadn't loved him so much to begin with, and put him on such a high pedestal, the fall wouldn't have been so great--wouldn't have broken my heart in pieces."

"But Don gave up everything pleasant in his life, and came down here to this G.o.d-forsaken ranch--a man like Michael Donaldson, with a few hundred dollars where he'd had thousands--all for you," said Van Vreck, "and he's had no thought except for you and the ranch for more than a year. Yet apparently you haven't changed your opinion. By Jove, madame, you must somehow, through your personality and G.o.d knows what besides, have got a mighty hold on his heart, in the days when you loved him, or he wouldn't have stood this dog's life, this punishment too harsh for human nature to bear. Good Lord, how were you brought up? Evidently not as a Christian."