CHAPTER III
ONCE, when Armitage was a little boy, he had gone into the country with his father for trout. They had been overtaken by a violent thunderstorm, and a green vivid bolt had riven the sod within a few feet of them. For hours afterward that green streak had intervened whichever way he looked—interfered with his sense of time and place, thrown him into a land of livid unreality, and partially convinced his child's mind that he had been transformed into a mechanical toy whose mechanism he could hear clicking inside.
On the morning following his amazing discovery that the house he was born in had been sold without his knowledge—a morning crisp and full of dazzling sunshine—the memory of that bolt came back to him, bringing with it suggestive comparisons. Minus the green streak, his sensations were almost identical. He could walk, think, act, but all with a consciousness that what he did was not real. Indeed, the actual thunderbolt was preferable to this figurative one. To go to bed fairly rich, and to wake up facing the possibilities of utter financial ruin!—helpless to avert it, totally incompetent to build anew! But Armitage was a brave young man, a philosopher who had long since recognized the uselessness of whining. He had at least learned in his wanderings that opportunities were not resuscitable. Dazedly, but pluckily, he started forth to find out how this ruin had been accomplished, vaguely hoping that his good luck would pull him through, that the ruin was not utter.
At nine o'clock he entered the Concord apartments, an old-fashioned building situated in an old-fashioned part of the town, and asked to see the janitor, aware that janitors were easily approachable and generally inclined toward verbosity, which was an interesting sidelight on his knowledge of human beings.
"I wish to make some inquiries regarding Mr. Bordman—Samuel Bordman—who lived here for many years."
"Ain't living here now," replied the janitor, briefly. "When he went away in April he didn't come back. His lease lapsed in August; so I had to rent his apartment."
"Have you any idea of his whereabouts?"
"Nope. Packed up and cleared out, 's all I know. Say"—with sudden interest—"be you a detective?"
"No. I'm merely one of his clients. I wanted to find him if possible. Did he seem all right when he left?"
"Well, he kind o' spruced up a bit toward the last and wore a pink in his buttonhole. But he wasn't any more luny than usual."
"A trifle queer, eh?"
"On some points. Always paid his bills; so we hadn't any kick coming. Oh, he was all right. We all liked the old codger, if you come to that."
"Did a woman ever call on him?"
"Bo, whenever he saw a strange female he beat it for the dumb-waiter, believe me. They couldn't get near him with a ten-foot pole. Nope; nothing like that in his. He was here for about eighteen years; so I know. But you never can tell. He may have gone off the track. No fool like an old fool. A good sixty, if a day. Well, if he ran away to get married his things are here waiting for him, an old trunk and his furniture."
"I may have to come around for a peek into that trunk."
"If you come with the right papers."
"Thanks for your trouble."
"That's all right," replied the janitor as he followed Armitage to the door. "Those old boys—they run along forty years like clockwork, and then, pop! goes the weasel. But I never saw any dame asking for him."
Armitage went down the steps to the sidewalk. He was perfectly calm. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the suspense was over. Bordman, for thirty years a trusted agent, had absconded. The next step was to ascertain the extent of the damage. Out of a fortune of more than half a million dollars he might possess at this particular moment what he had in two letters of credit and the deposit in the Credito Italiano in Milan—thirty-seven thousand in all.
If Bordman had found it easy to sell the house in Seventy-second Street, how much easier to dispose of stocks and bonds and mortgages and cash! But how had he worked it without creating suspicion? How had he hoodwinked the keen bankers? How had he managed the transfer of the property without arousing some inquiry? These puzzles Armitage determined to solve at once. There was, however, a dim recollection regarding some power of attorney.
Six blocks below the Concord apartments was the Armitage office-building, where, behind a door with the modest sign, "Estates," Bordman had labored honorably for three decades. Toward this building Armitage measured his steps energetically, despite the fact that each step became heavier and harder, until his sensations were something akin to those of a man fighting a gale across sand dunes. Supposing the Armitage was gone?
Dread and self-analysis—dread for the possibilities of the future and tingling scorn for the past! Ruined; and he had no one to thank except himself. He took James Armitage, former clubman, hunter, and idler, and analytically tore him into so many fragments that he was presently in the same category as Humpty Dumpty after the fall. Bob Burlingham had hit the nail on the head; For years he had lolled on metaphorical sofa pillows, a well-meaning, inefficient, pleasure-loving idler. Set to it, he could not have made out a list of his properties from memory. Never having been a spendthrift in the Broadway sense, there had always been fat balances to draw against. Bordman had taken care of everything. Once in a great while Bordman had called him down to the office to sign some paper; but he had never gone there for any other reason. The pale, obsequious little man had always bored him.
Armitage nibbled his mustache as he went along. The whole emptiness of his life stretched out vividly in a kind of processional review. Social routine: a ride in the Park in the morning, tea somewhere in the afternoon, a dinner dance or the theater, and a rubber or two at the club, broken by fishing and hunting trips and weekends in the country. A grasshopper's life! An idle, inconsequent grasshopper's life! And here was the first shrewd blast of winter tingling his isinglass wings!
Excuses—one after another he cast them aside. What he had done, to avoid the simple business cares of his estate, was inexcusable. Once upon a time he would have felt only bitterly wronged and abused by fate; but for six years he had been living very close to natural things, and—with the exception of what he had honestly believed to be love—he had learned that it was folly to lie to oneself. He laughed aloud. If his life that day had depended upon earning a dollar, he would have gone to his death at sundown. James Armitage, aged thirty-four; occupation, grasshopper.
A cynical, insidious idea crept into his head and tried to find lodgment there. Clare Wendell, rich and free. . . .
"No! By the Lord Harry! I'll never stoop that low. I'll work. I wouldn't make a bad riding-master." He laughed again. "I suppose this is the kind of situation that offers a normally good man a fine chance to become a rogue. No, thanks!"
But what of the other girl, the girl who was living in his house, believing it to be lawfully hers? She or her father had paid eighty thousand for it in good faith, and she was living there all alone, for her father was evidently something of a will-o'-the-wisp. He couldn't go to her and tell her she'd been rooked by a dishonest lawyer. Pearl and pomegranate and Persian peach! It was very pleasant to recall the amber nimbus over her hair, the round, lovely arms. What would have happened had she caught him behind those curtains? What an infernal muddle! And here was the very gate to it, the Armitage office-building.
He went in, prepared for the worst. After a search he found Morrissy, the janitor of the building, who had occupied his post for twenty-odd years.
"I'm Armitage," he announced without preamble. "Have you got the key to Bordman's office?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are all his things there?"
"Just as he left them. Been wondering if he was ever coming back. I recognize you, Mr. Armitage, and I'm glad to see you. I've been handling the rents without any legal authority. Had to take 'em over to the bank an' explain. The president said he guessed it would be all right, but that I ought to cable you the facts. But nobody knew your address."
A great weight slipped off Armitage's shoulders. "Then I'm still owner here?"
"Well, I guess so." Morrissy grinned. The young boss was having his joke.
"I say, didn't Bordman have a stenographer?"
"Ye-ah. Want her?"
"I jolly well do!"
"She's on the same floor. Here's the key. You go to the office and I'll get Miss Corrigan. She can get off for the morning. Heard anything from Bordman?"
"No."
"Queer."
Bordman's office looked as though he had left it only yesterday. It was scrupulously clean and orderly, due doubtless to the cleaning-woman's tri-weekly rounds. There was an old-fashioned safe in one corner, a large globe of the world, rows of letter-files and shelves of brown law-books. There was nothing whatever to indicate that Bordman had left the office in a hurry or upon impulse.
Armitage sat down in the chair at the desk and began to whistle softly. The outlook wasn't so dark as might be. If the office-building was still free and unattached, why, he would have between ten and twelve thousand a year. Presently the janitor and Miss Corrigan came in.
"I'm Miss Corrigan," she said. "You wished to see me?" She recognized him instantly. Three times before she had seen him in this office. A little sigh pressed against her lips as she recalled how yonder clean-cut, handsome face had stirred the romantic in her. Nearly all her book heroes had taken upon themselves the face of this man now smiling at her amiably. A vague thrill of gladness ran over her. She had made a hero out of him eight years ago, and his countenance was still open and manly. Here was a man who had traveled straight; money hadn't slackened the fiber. "You are Mr. Armitage."
"Yes. And I believe you are the only person in the world who can aid me in my present predicament."
"I can give you as much time as you need, sir.
"I'll be very grateful for that. Thanks, Morrissy."
"Say," said the janitor, "there's a fat stack of mail I've been holding for Bordman. Maybe I'd better bring it up."
"Not a bad idea."
"Anything wrong?"
"I'll let you know about that later."
Morrissy made off for Bordman's letters.
"Tell me what you know," said Armitage, turning to the young woman.
"First, what has happened? Where is Mr. Bordman?"
Her pleasant, if careworn, face and her friendly eyes gave Armitage a feeling of comfortable assurance. "What I'm going to tell you will be in absolute confidence."
"I am used to keeping secrets."
"Well, Bordman has absconded with a goodly bulk of my property."
A deep, perpendicular line formed above the young woman's nose. "Mr. Bordman? That patient, kindly little old man? It isn't possible!"
"I wish it wasn't. I shouldn't risk calling a man a thief unless I had sufficient grounds for doing so, Miss Corrigan. Please tell me what you can about him."
"I came to work as usual one morning in April and couldn't get in. I went for Morrissy and got his key. Mr. Bordman was always here at eight, and I came in at half past eight. I thought perhaps he was ill, so I called up his apartments. He had gone away the night before with a lot of luggage. It was rather odd, but I credited it to some hasty out-of-town call. I came down every day for a week; but as no news whatever came in I was forced to give up. I secured my present position. That is all I honestly know. But Mr. Bordman a thief? I can't get that through my head."
"Nevertheless, it's a fact, a bitter one to me. He sold my house, furnished, for eighty thousand in April."
"Let me think," she said, drumming on the desk with her pencil and frowning at the skyscraper across the street.
Suddenly she ran over to a shelf where there was a stack of stenographer's note-books. After a search she plucked forth one and returned.
"What have you found?" he asked.
"I never forgot this," she answered. "I thought it rather singular and careless at the time. When you went away you left him with the power of attorney. Shall I read the articles?"
"Please."
"Right to sell and transfer real estate, bonds, stocks, mortgages, to collect rents, draw against banks, to pay current expenses against the estate. I remembered this transaction, it was so unusually broad. I witnessed the documents—for there were three duplicates for the banks—and we went next door for the notary's seal."
"Power of attorney," he murmured.
"Yes. If Mr. Bordman has robbed you . . ."
"I shall doubtless stay robbed," he interrupted.
"Exactly. And yet, I can't see how you can be blamed. Your father before you trusted him quite as fully. I've seen the old records. I know a little about law. I was in this office for about eight years. Whatever Bordman sold is beyond legal reach. You cannot come against the buyers. You can only follow him and make him disgorge. He was a queer little old man, with a raggedy gray mustache, partly bald, and magnifying lenses in his spectacles. But he always impressed me as being the honestest thing imaginable. He used to worry over postage stamps that didn't belong to him."
"Stock markets?"
"Impossible."
"Well, there's my house. But go on; give me a good picture of him."
Miss Corrigan stared out of the window again, her eyes half-closed the better to recall her impressions.
"He was frugal. I don't believe he'd been to a place of amusement in years. He had only one fad as I remember. He was always receiving folders and cabin plans from steamship companies. He was always peering over that globe there. In imagination he traveled everywhere. You will find all the queer places—the places he thought you'd go to—marked in red ink. When he wasn't poring over that globe he was deep in the encyclopedias."
Armitage nodded understandingly. Bordman had planned this day years before.
Miss Corrigan continued. "Sometimes he'd talk. You'd swear he'd been everywhere. And besides that, he was a Who's Who on New York families. You see, there wasn't much work. He handled three other estates like yours. It seems he notified those clients, transferred the papers, and so forth, the day he intended to leave. I had come to the conclusion that he had suddenly determined to retire with his savings and take one of those tremendous journeys he'd always been dreaming about."
"He's taking it—at my expense. What sort of personality?"
"Shy and kindly, and very lonely, I imagine."
"Family?"
"Never heard of any. I think he was all alone, without kith or kin."
"Never any woman came to see him?"
"Never a one."
"I'm going to ask you a big favor. I really haven't the nerve to do it myself. Here's a list of the three banks. Find out if I have anything on the books. See if this building is really still mine. I'll go out for a short walk."
"Very well, Mr. Armitage."
Armitage returned at eleven. The building was still his; but there was nothing in two banks and only about four thousand dollars in the third. On March 1st there had been two hundred and ten thousand dollars in the three banks.
"For a shy and kindly old man he seems to have done pretty well," was Armitage's ironical comment. "Have you any idea where those mortgages were kept?"
"No. The boxes at the banks are empty. They are very curious over at the banks to learn what is up. Here's the mail Morrissy brought up. Suppose we open it?" she suggested.
They sat down at the desk and opened the letters. They found twelve checks, aggregating nearly six thousand. Each check was dated July, made out to the Armitage estate, its character indicated in the lower left-hand corner by the word "interest."
"Congratulations!" she said.
"Are these mine?"
"They are. Don't you understand?"
"Miss Corrigan, I'm only a benighted grasshopper."
"And a very poor business man. It means that somewhere you have a trifle over two hundred thousand dollars out in first or second mortgages. I've taken these checks over myself many times and deposited them."
Armitage did rather an unconventional thing. He seized Miss Corrigan by the shoulders and waltzed her around the room. There was a good deal of astonishment and protest in the young woman's eyes, but there was no resentment. She understood this exuberance. From the abyss of genteel poverty—her own lot—he had been wafted back to affluence, to the old order of things.
"I hope you'll forgive me. Miss Corrigan," he said, suddenly releasing her.
"It was rather unexpected." Her laughter had a break in it. There was a bit of color in her cheeks as she patted her hair.
"Where can I find a sign-painter?" he asked.
"A painter?"
"Yes. I'm going to rub out that 'Bordman' and substitute 'Armitage.' I've got some eggs left in the basket, and maybe I'm not going to watch them hereafter! I'm coming down here regularly every morning. I'm going to learn how the ant does it. My grasshopper days are over. I wonder if we can get into that safe."
"Wait a moment," said Miss Corrigan. Once more she had recourse to the note-books. After a few minutes she returned triumphantly. "I know the combination. I used to open the safe sometimes. Nothing of real value inside—ledgers. He gave me the combination and I wrote it down here."
They found the estate ledgers and a sealed envelope, the latter addressed in this formal legal style:
Attention James Armitage
Armitage opened it. In a neat flowing hand, with characteristic little curlicues and flourishes and shaded capitals—curiously reminding him of the script of the Declaration of Independence—Armitage read the following:
"The infernal cheek of him!" cried Armitage, hotly. "But I'll keep the letter in my pocket. Whenever I feel proud of myself I'll take it out and read it. I say, Miss Corrigan, if you'll take the old job back again, it's yours at any salary you say."
Miss Corrigan was twenty-eight; she had no illusions. She looked at Armitage thoughtfully. She knew that she could trust this man absolutely; but she was not sure of herself. A great moment had come into her drab life, and resolutely she closed the door upon it.
At length she shook her head. "Thank you, Mr. Armitage, but I'll keep the job I've got."
"I'm sorry," he said, quite oblivious to the little tragedy in her smile.