CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I SAT staring at the girl with the swan's-down about her swany young neck. She seemed to feel that I ought to agree with her. But it wasn't easy for me to go on. For I knew, now, that Pinky McClone, the con-man and ex-river pirate, and Michael O'Toole, the rescuer of pin-feather heiresses, were one and the same person.
"And you," I finally ventured, "you seemed to feel that you owed him that?"
It began to dawn on me that this long-muffled young lady was not altogether sorry to encounter a sympathetic listener.
"He deserves it!" she said with decision. "He did a noble thing. He did the only big thing that ever happened in all my life. He did everything, risked everything, to save my life. And I knew that I ought to be ready to risk everything to make him happy!"
I looked at that young girl in white, with the swan's-down about her neck, and I pondered how much of her poor little hothouse life must have been spent behind glass, how the glass of limestone mansions, and well-warmed landaulets, and softly-cushioned limousines, must have sheltered her and shut her off from the roughening and strengthening winds of the world. And as I thought of her and her Michael I couldn't keep a wave of pity for poor Wendy Washburn from sweeping through me.
"And Mike—I mean Michael," I said, perhaps with malice aforethought, "how does he feel about it?"
"If he loves me:, it's only for me, myself. It's for my own sake. It's not for what I may have!"
That, I remembered, didn't altogether sound like Pinky McClone. Pinky, plainly, was playing for big stakes, and the worldly-wise Wendy Washburn, it was plain, was not altogether ignorant of that fact.
"He risked his life for me," my emotional young companion was reiterating. "And that's more than those namby-pamby chocolate-fudge men I've always known would ever do! It's more than those milk-and-water dinner-dance boys who can only talk about musical-comedy stars would ever do!"
I was beginning to see a little more light, so much more light, in fact, that it brought on a tendency to make me squint.
"And Michael, I suppose, is big and strong and bronzed, like a Greek god?"
"Yes, like a Greek god!" the appreciative-eyed young emotionalist before me promptly agreed. And I began to see how impossible it was going to be to throw the cold white light of truth across that well-swept altar-stone of adoration.
"And I suppose in his off-season he does something? When the weather is colder and he's not saving lives, I mean?"
Our eyes met. But her face remained quite serious.
"He is a pattern-maker, I believe," she had the courage to acknowledge.
I thought this over.
"Then you haven't seen much of him?" I ventured.
"They haven't let me. They've even kept me a prisoner against my will."
"That's the way most prisoners are kept, I imagine. But who do 'they' happen to be?"
"Wendy Washburn," was the girl's answer.
"But what gave him the right to go to extremes like that?" I patiently inquired.
"He took advantage of the fact that he happened to be my guardian. He claimed the law gave him the power to keep me from making a fool of myself!"
"But there's no law to give him the right to keep you a prisoner, is there?"
"Of course not! He merely took a cad's advantage of something I said in a fit of temper."
"What was that?"
She forced her glance to meet mine.
"I said I'd burn the house down, unless I was allowed to do certain things!"
"You merely said this?"
The girl hesitated.
"Well, I may have been—been excited enough to make him believe I was going to do it. But I didn't intend to be bullied."
"I see! Then your cousin clearly doesn't approve of Michael?"
"He doesn't understand him. He doesn't even make an effort to understand him. He keeps saying over and over again that Michael is only an adventurer trying to impose on my ignorance."
I knew it would pay me to be as patient as I could. But it wasn't easy.
"Has Mike ever given him any cause to say that?" I inquired.
"Would you mind calling him Michael, please!" requested the slightly indignant young heiress confronting me. "No, it was all based on nothing but blind prejudice. And when I saw he was set on keeping us apart, I decided to get even by starving myself. And it wasn't easy!"
"But did it succeed?"
"It didn't seem to. So I threatened to make a will, and leave everything I owned to Michael, and then kill myself. That made Wendy persuade even our old family lawyer to go against me."
"Theobald Scripps?" I asked.
The girl shook her head. The name, apparently, was unknown to her. The owner of the pendulous Adam's-apple was plainly a substitute.
"He did more than that," she continued, as though intent on easing her soul of the injustices which had been rankling within it for so long, "he said he'd put me in a sanitarium. I told him I'd contest his right to be my guardian. He said he hoped I would for he was sick of the job. So I took him at his word, and said he couldn't get me another any too soon. Then he found out father had left two half-brothers I'd never even heard of, who'd jump at the chance. Mother, you see, had never let me have much to do with father's family. But these were two old men, horrid old men. When Allie saw them—"
"Wait!" I interrupted. "Who is Allie?" For this was too important to be neglected.
The girl laughed. It was a constrained laugh, with a touch of bitterness. It reminded me of a lemon-drop.
"That's my keeper—Alicia Ledwidge. She really wanted to do everything she could for me. She distrusted those two old men, from the moment they came to the house."
"Why?" I asked.
"She found out, in some way, that they were going to have me make a will in their favor. I think she was afraid they might be able to persuade me to do something like that. So she told them, at first, that I was too ill to be seen. Then they brought in an odious fat-faced doctor of their own. That made it harder than ever for Allie. But we had a house-maid who was very ill—with Bright's disease, I think it was. So, until she could do something, Allie decided to pass this maid off as me!"
"As you?" I echoed.
The girl nodded. Then she went on again.
"But the poor thing got worse, and some time early last night she died. I wasn't allowed to show myself, but I suppose that's what all the row was about. They'd been keeping me locked in, you see. But when every one else was so busy, and the whole house seemed to have gone crazy, I saw my chance to get away and send a message to Michael!"
"Then it was you who took Wendy Washburn's car?" I exclaimed.
"It was standing there when I slipped out of the house. And the only thing that worried me was that I wasn't able to get my things out of the wall-safe!"
"What things?" I demanded.
"I'd sent word to my bankers to send up certain securities of mine which I knew they held. Then I had the safety-deposit people send up all the family jewelry. When these came back they were all put in the wall-safe."
"But what did you intend doing with these securities and this jewelry?" I asked. She seemed to be contentedly purring at the thought of her own rare ingenuity. But, under the circumstances, I couldn't see my way clear to sharing in that purr.
"I knew Michael and I would need them!" she said with the utmost simplicity.
I felt, at the precise moment, that what she needed much more than either stock-certificates or jewelry was a good spanking. But I was denied the luxury of telling her so.
"Need them where?" I inquired, forcing myself to a quietness of tone I found hard to command.
"When we ran away."
Her face was quite serious when she said this. She even glanced over at me a little pityingly, as though I had proved rather denser than she had hoped for.
"But why did you hide those things away in a wall-safe?"
"To keep Wendy from knowing!" was her listless answer.
"From knowing what?"
"That Michael and I are going to run away!"
"Are you?" I asked, as sober as a judge.
"Michael is coming out here for me this afternoon," she announced.
"What for?" I asked.
"To marry me!" she coolly explained.
"To marry you, of course," I meditatively repeated. I tried to appear as unconcerned as possible as I got up from my chair. "Then it may interest you," I quietly suggested, "to know just who brought me out to this house."
"Not Michael?" she demanded, with a quick cloud of distrust on her wilful young brow.
"No, it was the man that your Michael has promised to kill!" I retorted.
She didn't seem to understand me.
"But you're all so mistaken about Michael," she complained. "He isn't that type of man. He's nobler than that. He doesn't take lives; he saves them!"
I stared at her, suddenly realizing the gulf that yawned between us. There was, I felt, no bridge of human understanding that could even span that gulf. To argue with her would be too much like trying to powwow with the planet Mars.
I wakened to the fact that I was wasting time with a moon-struck ingénue when just outside those walls of cream and gold the stern realities of an uncommonly stern world were waiting for me. Clarissa Rhinelander Bartlett, I saw, was in for a jolt or two. But some one else, I felt, would have to face the problem of opening that young lady's eyes. I had no intention of ruffling her swan's-down. I felt too much like the Brussels ball when the first cannons of Waterloo started to boom, to sit any longer in that chair.
"What are you going to do?" demanded the girl, as I got to my feet. She must have noticed some sudden change in my face, for her eyes widened with wonder.
"I'm going to get out of this house!" I told her with decision.
"But there are so many questions I've got to ask you?" demurred that wide-eyed young woman.
I had, however, already crossed to the door.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but it's too late!"
"Wait!" she cried, as I stood with my hand on the knob.
"Well?" I asked, as she hesitated.
A hungry look had come into her large and shadowy eyes.
"Would—would you mind sending me up a five-pound box of Page and Shaw from the village, as you go?" she rather anxiously inquired.
That strange request brought me up short. I stared back at her, with a very superior smile of scorn on my lips. Here was a woman, I told myself, whose soul was so small it couldn't rise above a chocolate bon-bon. Here was one of your hothouse flowers who'd always been surrounded by those soft airs of splendor after which my own foolish young heart had yearned—and this was the best it could all do for her! She rather pitied me, I knew. She looked down at me with that querulous condescension which marks the many-ribboned King-Charles spaniel in the motor-seat when it sniffs down at the ragged-eared street-waif that has had to scurry about the world for its daily bones. But I knew life. I knew which hand would be likely to toss a crust, and which one would heave a brick. I knew how to save my precious young neck. But about all your King-Charles could do was whimper for a softer cushion and a platter of fork-dipped chocolates! And for the first time in my life I didn't feel sorry that I'd been born little better than a street-waif.
"All right!" I amiably agreed as I swung the door shut behind me. And I even continued to feel rather superior as I went quietly down the broad stairs and strode determinedly on through the silent hallway. I tried to convince myself that I was thoroughly at my ease. I even stopped to button my glove, with a show of deliberation.
Then I went on again. And then I stopped for an altogether different reason.
I stopped because a shadow had fallen across the curtained door that stood between me and the outer world. The afternoon sunlight made this shadow quite distinct, and for a moment I suspected that Wendy Washburn was quietly returning to the morning-room where he had so abruptly left me.
I decided to make sure of this, however, before opening that door, for a latch-key was already fumbling in the lock. So as the shadow bent lower I squinted out through the drawn-work hem of the curtain.
I saw there, not the spare figure of my Hero-Man, but a much lustier figure in a checked tweed suit. This figure, I further saw, now wore a fawn-colored necktie with a gold horse-shoe in its folds, and a brand-new fawn-colored Fedora hat, to say nothing of sulphur-colored gloves with black stitching. The face that bent down so close to the door, I further saw, was shaved close, with a distinct pink and copper tone showing through a generous brushing of talcum powder. And then I understood.
It was Michael O'Toole, got up regardless, come to carry off his true love in swan's-down. It was my old friend Mike, alias Pinky McClone, venturing forth to do away with one Wendy Washburn whom, doubtless, he had as yet failed to meet, judging from the immaculate condition of his apparel and the somewhat irate expression of his face. For the skeleton-blank with which Pinky was so busily trying to open that door was not behaving as ought to behave. And to make sure that it would continue in that line of conduct, I quietly reached over and doubly locked the door with its safety-catch. Yet before doing this I had to fight down a strong impulse to do just the opposite thing, and even assist Pinky in his illicit entrance into that house. For one moment, in fact, I was greatly tempted to slip back the latch and duck for cover, leaving Pinky free to step into the presence of his lady-love and let that sartorial fricassee of his do its worst. But this was driven out of my head by my suddenly catching sight of a layer of court-plaster along a well-defined bump just above Pinky's left ear.
Had I been less interested in that bump, and in its origin, I suppose, Pinky himself would never have caught sight of me. But Pinky, suddenly flattening his nose against the glass, clearly saw me on the other side of the door and as clearly concluded that I once more lay at the root of his troubles.
He acted with both despatch and determination. In other words, he suddenly backed off and "shouldered" that door the same as a patrolman shoulders open a flat-door when he finds smoke coming out through its cracks. There must have been nearly two hundred pounds of brawn behind that bull-like charge, for the lock-bar splintered away the woodwork, with a crash, and the hinged frame set with glass swung back and left me staring at Pinky the same as a small boy's guinea-pig in a cigar-box stares at its owner when he suddenly lifts the lid.
But Pinky was in no mood for mere contemplation. There was both hate and rage, the blind unreasoning rage of the Celt, on his russet-jowled face as he stood there, breathing hard and spasmodically opening and closing the brawny fingers encased in the sulphur-colored gloves.
"So it's you!" he said, with a swear-word almost as sulphury as his gloves themselves.
I could see his face twitch, and an iron look of cruelty narrow his pale blue eyes to almost a pinpoint. My prophetic bones told me what was coming, as plainly as though he had told it to me in so many words. I could see the blind fury that was gathering for the final eruption. And I knew there was no use in arguing about it, just as I knew it was too late to try to escape. There wasn't even time, I remembered, to get the pearl-handled Colt out of its hiding-place.
"So it's you—still at it!" he repeated, with his nostrils dilated like a running-horse's and a tremor shaking the brawny hulk of his body.
"You coward!" I gasped, in little more than a whisper, for I knew by this time that my words would be few.
His hand shot out and caught me by the throat. He held me there, masterfully, easily, the same as a marketman holds a chicken by the gullet. Painful as that grip was, and terrified as I stood, it did not keep me from hearing the shrill call of a voice from the stairway behind me.
"Michael!" sounded that call of horror, of warning, of unutterable unbelief. And I knew that it was the girl in the swan's-down who was speaking.
Her Michael, however, was intent on other things. That call was repeated, this time with a tremolo of resentment, of disgust. But all Michael's thoughts were centered on one movement. I knew what that movement was going to be, yet I had no way of stopping it, no way of even countering it. For in that movement, I could see, he intended to pay back more than one old score. It was a fool's way of doing it, but it was the only way he saw open to him. And it wasn't fear that made me wince as I saw the sulphur-covered hand suddenly draw up into one compact clump, it was more the thought of the absurdity of the movement and the almost pathetic and harebrained blindness of the man behind the movement.
Then I must have shut my eyes, for I knew what was coming. The next moment that brutal mallet of a fist in the sulphur-colored glove struck me full in the face. It did not hurt, for the world went suddenly black about me and I seemed to be wafting gently downward at the same time that about a thousand feather-ticks seemed to be emptied all about me to ease that fall. I felt nothing, after that. But through that sudden descent into dreaminess I once more heard, or seemed to hear, the tremulous scream of a woman, a scream of incredulity and repugnance, a scream of loathing and enlightenment. And then I sank down into a gray and feathery nothingness where there was neither sound nor light nor sulphur-colored gloves.