CHAPTER II
A Pair of Scoundrels
A CAREFUL observer would have noted that neither of the two men, as they entered, was quite at his ease. Harold Lismore, big, ruddy, fair, was painfully solemn-looking; while Daniel Stormont, slight, dapper, dark, followed, smiling with what seemed unnecessary geniality.
These two men were middle-aged: Lismore was fifty, and in a clear light looked every year of it; Stormont was five years younger, and passed for forty at the most.
“Hot, isn't it?' the latter remarked with a nod of greeting, and appeared to search for a suitable seat.
Lismore thought he did better than his companion when he advanced to the writing-table, from which Mr. Cran had not risen, saying:
“Sorry you didn't feel equal to town to-day. I trust—”
“Thanks, Please be seated—but first kindly turn the key in the door and draw the curtain across it..... Mr. Stormont, I regret having to ask you not to smoke your cigarette in this room. I am not well.”
“Beg pardon, I'm sure. Must be getting absent-minded,” said Stormont, hastily pocketing his gold case.
There was a silence, not long but impressive. Then, without lifting his eyes from some papers on the table, Rufus Cran began to speak.
“What I have to say is better said here than in my office—which, by the way I shall never enter again. But of that more presently.” A gesture requesting silence. “Pray allow me to proceed. In the first place, I have news of my nephew.” He paused, his head still bowed, and one would have fancied he was listening. Perhaps he did hear the sharply drawn breath of Harold Lismore. Daniel Stormont altered his attitude very slightly and soundlessly.
“My nephew,” he continued, “has sent me fifteen hundred dollars—nothing more. I am still in the dark as to his whereabouts and his occupation, but I have reason to believe that he is abroad, though the money was mailed in New York..... Well, gentlemen, what do you think about it?”
“It must have been a blow, Mr. Cran,” said Stormont readily. “I confess I have always suspected you of indulging secret—and very natural—hopes of his clearing himself; but now, unhappily, he has condemned himself.”
“Condemned himself,” echoed Lismore in a mere whisper.
STORMONT shot him a warning glance while he added gravely: “At the same time, may we not also say that he has—to some extent, at least—redeemed himself?”
“Yes, yes!” said Lismore eagerly. “Redeemed himself—that's it!”
“It struck me as very odd,” Rufus Cran remarked as if to himself, “that he should have sent me fifteen hundred dollars.”
“Odd, Mr. Cran?” said Stormont softly. “I should call it—”
“When he does not owe me one penny!”
An inarticulate sound—it might have been a groan—came from Lismore.
“Come, come, Mr. Cran,” Stormont interposed quickly, “you are forgetting. Lismore and I would be the last to remind you of that unfortunate event of two years ago—” He stopped short.
Rufus Cran had at last raised his eyes, and even in that doubtful light there was something deadly in their gaze. Yet his voice was cold and level.
“Stormont, Lismore, you know as well as I do—and you-knew from the beginning, and left me in ignorance—that Douglas Grant never touched, unlawfully, a penny of mine!”
“My God!” muttered Lismore, looking ready to collapse.
But Stormont, though white, kept his wits and said with a fair semblance of haughtiness:
“Really, my dear sir, I must beg of you to weigh your words! You are flying in the face of facts. Permit me to ask you two questions: first, why did your nephew disappear; second, why has he sent you the fifteen hundred?”
“You have the better of me, and I may never know how to answer those questions. Yet sometimes I imagine I have guessed.” Rufus Cran looked hard at Lismore.
“No, no!” cried the big man, writhing. His colleague snarled at him.
“Silence!” commanded Rufus Cran. “I have been making discoveries of late—strange but bitterly true discoveries, and the time has come to make an end. I accuse you both—”
Stormont sprang to his feet. “Be careful, Mr. Cran; I warn you to be careful! You love your business, and you know you cannot carry it on—”
“My business comes to an end at noon to-morrow! At that hour my lawyers will take charge, preparatory to winding up. They will pay you and Mr. Lismore the agreed three months' salaries.”
“But this is insufferable! We have served you for twenty years!”
“Yes,—but be seated, Mr. Stormont,—you have both served me for twenty years, and for many of those years I have regarded you as my right and left hands, and trusted you as such. Also I have treated you, I think, generously.”
“We are not complaining of that,” Stormont said sullenly as he resumed his seat. “Only—”
“And now, but for one thing, and that no merit of yours, I would without mercy break you both!” He paused, his fingers playing lightly on the blotting-pad.
Stormont opened his mouth, but no word came forth; Lismore sat huddled, inert, his gaze on the floor.
RUFUS CRAN, still in that cold, level voice, continued:
“When you agreed to serve me, you also agreed to have no speculative dealings on your own account. Both of you have been speculating, off and on, for years. You have lost more than you have made. To cover your losses, you have preyed on me and my business—”
“Proofs, proofs!” croaked Stormont.
“Better not insist on your damnation, Mr. Stormont! For years, also, you have accepted from foreign houses bribes and secret commissions. It took trouble, but I have unearthed the evidence. As for you, Mr. Lismore, there are entries in the books which—but why go into details? To me it is far worse than any bodily sickness, this late knowledge that you have cheated me all along. The money is nothing—less than nothing—to me. I could almost, being so near to death, have forgiven it..... But one discovery set me searching further, deeper, until I stumbled upon the truth—or a part of it—concerning my nephew. For that I do not forgive you. Because of that I pull my business to pieces rather than let you carry it on to your profit, and I leave you no penny of it to help to pay your wretched debts!”
“Lismore,” said Stormont with forced composure, “let us get out of this. Old age—”
“Better stay,” retorted Rufus, “to hear my final accusation, along with the one hope I can offer you of saving yourself from ruination. I accuse you both of conspiring to get rid of my nephew, though I cannot show precisely how you succeeded. Why you conspired is clear enough: you were afraid he would supersede you and have my fortune. Your fear was groundless, so far as the business was concerned: he would have had but a share, a partnership, which you also would have had. Stormont,” the name came sharply,—“do you know where my nephew is at present?”
“I do not.”
“Lismore?”
“I wish to heaven I did!”
“Oh, chuck it, Lismore,” Stormont muttered harshly.
“I cannot judge,” Rufus Cran remarked, “which of you is the more contemptible. But let it pass. Now I must ask your careful attention to what I am about to say. So far as my last will and testament will show, I am only a moderately rich man. For a good many years, however, I had a fancy—craze, if you like—for putting my spare profits into platinum, and as platinum has more than doubled in value since I purchased, the proceeding has not been altogether a folly. I am possessed at the moment of forty thousand ounces of platinum; and as you know, the current price is about fifty dollars an ounce.”
“Good Lord!” muttered Stormont, fairly astounded.
“Where is it, you naturally ask!” Rufus rose, holding out two strips of paper. “One for you, Mr. Stormont—the other for you, Mr. Lismore. Kindly come and take them.” He sat down, rather wearily. They remained standing. “There is a third strip, which fits between these two. It will be delivered to my nephew, providing he returns within six months from this date. Otherwise it will be destroyed, and the platinum will belong to the chance discoverer—possibly a century hence.”
He allowed the two nearly a minute to make what they could of their respective strips before he continued: “Now, were the three strips neatly rejoined, you would read that my nephew is entitled to three fourths of the platinum, while to you will be given the remaining fourth to divide between you. You would read, also, certain brief, plain directions for finding, and taking possession of the platinum.” His voice was becoming hoarse. “You will at once perceive that in order to benefit you are bound to bring about, or at all events do nothing to prevent, my nephew's return. Moreover, you may some day admit that Rufus Cran, if he could not forgive, endeavored to rise above mere revenge.” His finger sought the electric button. Sorrowfully his eyes regarded the men he had trusted in vain. “I have given you a second chance. I wish you no evil,” he said. “Now leave me. I am tired.”
For an instant Stormont hesitated. Then a servant opened the door, and in silence he followed the drooping Lismore from the room.
Rufus Cran sank back in his chair, a trembling hand over his eyes.
“Have I done foolishly?” he murmured. “Would it not have been better to have made Douglas my principal heir in the ordinary way? And yet. No! I will reconsider it to-night. That young girl inspires confidence. Perhaps—”
His hand fell; he winced violently as though stabbed, and drew a breath with a hiss. After a moment he leaned forward painfully and lifted the receiver from the telephone. Presently:
“Is the doctor in? I'm Cran—Rufus Cran. Tell him to come at once—at once.”
WHEN Joan March came in from her walk, in the course of which she had mailed a hastily written letter, a servant informed her that Mr. Cran had been taken ill and had been asking for her. She went upstairs in fear.
The doctor was still in the sick-room; he nodded in response to her look of inquiry. She went over to the bed.
Rufus gazed wistfully into her face, took her hand and patted it.
“I'm feeling better—only tired,” he whispered. “We must have our talk to-morrow. There are some things—I'm not sure .... I trust you..... To-morrow,” he repeated, and closed his eyes.
She turned away; her sight was blurred. She had not realized till now how fond she had grown of this lonely old man.
The doctor followed her from the room.
“Miss March,” he said gently. “I think I ought to warn you that—that there will be no to-morrow for your old friend.”
Joan's hand went to her heart. Even at that moment she was conscious of feeling the packet hidden there.