CHAPTER XI
"WHAT'S the matter?" asked William, bending toward her in alarm.
"I … I … Nothing!" she stammered. "I feel a little dizzy. Would you mind if I returned to the hotel? You see, we were half a day on that crowded train, and perhaps I'm overdone."
"Sure we'll go back."
He looked at the vanishing stern of the yacht, then down at the girl again. They entered a circle of light, and he saw that her hands were clasped convulsively. It was, he surmised, something about the name Elsa. And who was Elsa? A sister? A bit of the old cynicism crept into his mind. It might be that she had a sister named Elsa, a sister who had not turned out right. As he conned this thought over it assumed logical proportions far more agreeable than any he had previously imagined. Here was something that had sense to it. What was more reasonable than that she should flee from the horror and misery of such a tragedy and wrap herself up in mystery?
It was plainly apparent that the name of the yacht had disturbed Ruth, and it was equally clear that she had told a lie about it.
"You mustn't come in on my account," she protested, as the gondola nosed up to the hotel's marble steps, awash with the rising tide.
"You're better?" He had to ask her that.
"Oh yes. Just a bit tired and fussy, perhaps. I'll be all right to-morrow. You know we are all going out to Murano and Burano to see them make glass. So don't get lost … brother!"
"I'll take care of William," he laughed. "There won't be anybody jumping on my back in Venice, unless they can walk on water."
"Jumping on your back? What do you mean?"
William succeeded in retrieving his blunder. "Why, everybody's been warning me not to go out alone nights for fear of robbers. But they haven't worried a nickel out of me yet. Say, I think I'll jog around to the hotels and see if I can't pick up Camden. It's only half past nine. This bargee talks a little English, and I can say albergo without biting my tongue off. Good night."
Noiselessly the gondola slipped back among the painted piles into free water, and presently its lantern went bobbing up the Grand Canal. The girl watched the flickering yellow light until a steamboat cut across it. Then she went inside.
William lighted a cigar and slumped down against the cushions.
"Where, Signore?" asked the gondolier, touching his hat.
"Anywhere for an hour; the Grand Canal and back."
William did not care where the gondolier carried him. He wanted leisure to think, to reconstruct his castle of romance, to discover an excuse which would prove impregnable, like Gibraltar. As there was no wind to speak of, the house of cards went up rapidly.
Elsa Warren; he was now positive that such a person existed. She had gone wrong, and the disgrace of it had been too much for her sister to bear. He saw the picture: Ruth staid and sensible and hard-working, Elsa vain and selfish and flighty, and no doubt, lazy. That kind of a girl generally went wrong. Ruth had tried to save her and had failed.
The cigar was pleasant, the night was glorious, full of ineffable moonshine which fired the heavy dews on church domes and marble porticos, making the house of cards the only real, substantial thing of the moment. Whimsically he pictured himself in court, arguing the case for the defendant. His arguments seemed to have made a profound impression upon the jury. He rested his case. Slowly the prosecuting attorney rose. William confessed that his opponent's thin, wintry smile was rather disquieting. What was he going to say?
"Your Honor, I have in the first place to acquaint you with the fact that there is no such a person as Elsa Warren and never was."
William stirred uneasily.
"In the second place, in order to demolish my opponent's plausible defense, I have only to place before you this torn photograph, this little chamois bag, and to submit this brief prayer, lately uttered by the defendant herself on board the ship Ajax."
William sat up stiffly. He heard these words as surely as he heard the lap-lap of the water against the sides of the gondola.
"I ask the strict attention of the jury, your Honor," went on the prosecuting attorney, "while I recite this prayer: 'Dear God, make me strong. Take out of my heart the evil longings. Give me strength always to be good. Let me not covet that which is not mine. Clean my heart and put temptation behind me. Amen!'"
"Aw, hell!" said William, aloud, crumpling back in his seat.
"Si, Signore," replied the gondolier, believing he had received an order to return to the hotel.
William did not hear him. He was busy fighting his way out of court, out of the house of cards that was tumbling about his ears, out into realities again.
She was always praying. Never they entered a cathedral that she did not kneel in some obscure corner, quite unmindful of his proximity. Well, he loved her none the less for that. But he knew that it was the yacht itself that had provoked that stifled cry. A damnable thought seeped in through the whys and wherefores, but he drove it out, cursing himself for a low beast. After all, hadn't she asked him not to put her on a pedestal? Hadn't she said that she was a human being like the rest? The pedestal was wabbling, and he mutely soug was not some way of steadying that shaft of alabaster. He was only human himself, and his thoughts would go in a human and not in a celestial direction.
His school-teacher, with her springing step, day in and day out, as regular as the clock; his school-teacher who knew what all these things meant, who could dig his soul out of him when she played the piano. …
"Signore!"
William looked up. They had returned to the marble steps of the hotel. The porter was putting out the carpeted landing-plank.
"No, no; I don't want to go in yet," said William. "Say, porter, tell the man to row me over to that white yacht there, the one next to the torpedo-boat. Ye-ah. Tell him to row around it slow and close."
"Yes, sir." The porter volleyed a few phrases at the gondolier, who returned them with interest, gesticulating wildly.
William grinned in spite of the ache in his heart. He never would get the hang of these Latin voices and elbows. Dozens of times he had stopped (shall I say hopefully?) to see the fight, only to learn that there wasn't going to be any, that what looked like the beginning of hostilities was in truth nothing more serious than an exchange of amenities.
The yacht Elsa was dark except for the ports of the dining-saloon. In Venetian waters the voice carries remarkably far. As the gondola was edging along under these lighted ports, William heard laughter—men's laughter. He raised his hand quickly to signify that he wished to stop. He was not overscrupulous to-night.
"… And so I sent it back to New York."
"But why didn't you keep it?"
"What good would that have done? Besides, the jackal isn't so much a thief as he is a taker of leavings. Bah!"
There followed the light tinkle of glass. William strained his ears. The voice of the man who called himself a jackal was tantalizingly familiar and at the same time it persistently eluded identification.
"I tell you the whole thing smacks of cheap melodrama," declared the jackal.
"I wish you'd drop that lecturing tone," replied the other voice, which was not familiar at all.
"The jackal apologizes."
"Jackal?"
"Well, what am I if not a jackal? Why put frills on it and call me your man of affairs? Why try to get around it with verbal soft-soap? I'm a sneak. It doesn't matter that once upon a time I lived on the decent side of the street. The fact is incontrovertible that I'm your jackal. I've done this kind of work for you before; so what the devil? True, I never bargained for a chase like this. I've done the work you've hired me to do, and here's my little bill for the same, Orestes!"
"Orestes," murmured William; "sounds like dago or Spanish."
"And the bill shall be paid on the nail in the morning."
"I never doubted that for a moment. There's one thing about us two: when I promise to do a dirty bit of work for you, I do it; and when you promise to pay, you pay."
"What the devil's got into you to-night?"
"I am getting older, and the older I grow the sicker I grow. Want the truth? I don't like the looks of this job for a cent. I think you're in the wrong valley, my Pied Piper. If I were in your patent-leathers, I'd turn this hooker's nose back toward New York and stick to the old stuff."
Below, William scowled. This conversation was all more or less Greek to him. One voice was familiar, but for the life of him he could not place it. It might be that Ruth had told him the truth, that she was tired and fussy because of the long journey on the train.
"… Ahoy, there! What do you mean by sneaking up alongside this way?"
"Where do you get that noise?" snarled back William, furious at having been interrupted. A few more words between the two men inside the yacht might have decided the matter one way or the other definitely. "This is free water, I guess."
"Sure it is; and the freer the better for you. We don't like snoops sticking their noses into our paint. Get a move on or I'll drop a bucket of slops on you, my handsome rubberneck."
"Try it, you big boob! I wouldn't mind a few minutes' close harmony with you."
"Lor' lumme, if it ain't some white hope out for a lark!" jeered the man at the rail. "Move on, and none of your lip. You hear me? I'll give you twenty-nine seconds to sheer of."
"Hotel," growled William, sitting down. The man above had two distinct advantages—height and right.
The veneer with which we solemnly incase ourselves consists mostly of the observance of certain formalities of conduct; under stress of emotion this veneer is not impervious; it cracks. We don't listen at windows or peek through keyholes, ordinarily. William was perfectly well aware of this fact. But it was not idle curiosity, this act of his. Subtilely he construed it as merely reconnoitering the defense of an enemy, dim, nebulous, but none the less menacing.
"Here, what's the row out there?"
A head appeared at one of the saloon ports. The face was dead black against the yellow light behind it.
"A tourist snooping about, sir," called down the seaman in answer.
"Bid him clear out."
"I'm clearing out," said William, as the gondola shot forward. "If I've scraped off any of the frosting from that angel-cake of yours, charge it to Cook."
He heard an order shouted, but he was now too far away to gather its import. About two minutes later a blinding flash of light struck his face, for he was looking over his shoulder. He ducked, pulling down his hat instinctively. They had turned the yacht's search-light upon him. It was only when the silver flame of the ferrule turned the point of the customs-house that the gondola was able to lose the powerful rays.
"Hotel," repeated William, moodily.
Once in his room he smoked his pipe until his tongue smarted. The yacht Elsa, Ruth and those two unknown men (one of whom possessed a voice which irritated him beyond measure because he knew that he had heard it before but couldn't identify it) were associated in some sinister way. It was useless to argue to the contrary. The name of the yacht had forced a cry from the girl. One of these men had spoken of a chase. One admitted that he was a jackal, and the other paid on the nail. William did not ask what was paid for on the nail. It seemed as if a thousand little windows were opening in his brain and that his soul was running frantically about in a vain endeavor to shut them against the invasion of a terrible thought.
It was futile to shake his head, to beat fist upon palm, to give way to a torrent of self-invective; the thought was not to be dissipated by will. … A house all his own, a garden to play in, a wife and a couple of kids! He laughed, but the laughter strangled and died in his throat. He held his head in his hands. He was badly hurt; for he wasn't the kind who fell in love and out, as one exchanged an old coat for a new. It had gone down into the very marrow of his bones, and would stay there, part and parcel of his marrow, until the crack of doom.
The basic characteristic of the Celt is loyalty. It is historically true that loyalty is about all the gold he has; and many a king has drawn upon it and later repudiated the loan. But still he goes on, up and down the world, giving his loyalty when and where it is asked and taking in exchange promissory notes that go to protest. As a soldier he has been loyal to faithless kings, as a husband he has been loyal to faithless wives. So, what though his heart was heavy and his brain in turmoil, William buckled on that bright armor which was his heritage and swore to uphold his pledge. Then he went to bed.
On the fourth and last morning in Venice part of the riddle was solved. That night the tourists were to leave for Brindisi, where they were to pick up the Ajax. William and Ruth had gone early into St. Mark's to feed the doves. It was nearly nine; previously they had fed the birds by half after eight and were off on their sight-seeing pilgrimage.
She was always stealing glances over her shoulders now. There was not exactly the hunted look in her eyes, but there was indication of tense anxiety. William made no comment, asked no questions, but jogged along at her side with his usual comic observations. Sooner or later, if left alone, she would discover to him the man he wanted. He had no plan of action; but whenever he thought of this meeting his nails bit into his palms pleasurably.
This morning he prevailed upon her to stand by one of the huge bronze flagstaffs and have her photograph taken. She had promised, and he refused to listen to any excuses relative to dress and hats and carelessly done hair. He threw a handful of corn into the air above her, and the camera-man snapped her with the slate-colored doves fluttering upon her shoulders and arms. It was a charming picture, with that wonderful background of colored marbles and white sunshine.
"Aren't they beautiful, the soft, coral-footed, feather-breasted things! If I ever have a garden I'm going to have a dove-cote."
"As many as you like," said William.
She was naturally without the least suspicion that there was anything serious behind this pleasantry. Besides, she would have dismissed it as absurd. She had not yet really labeled William. Women usually mark the male as dangerous or harmless, and she had come to accept him as neither the one nor the other: which is to say that William was a diplomat of no mean order. He was always at her side, and she was beginning to turn over to him the trifling little labors of the day. He saw to it that she had the latest magazines; he ran unimportant errands, argued with porters and cabmen and shopkeepers, shooed off importunate beggars, handled the tickets, and sometimes took care of her circular notes or express checks because she had a weakness for old filet.
Perhaps it was because he accepted these labors with a comradeship which was neither presuming nor particularly humble that she had not bothered to catalogue him. When he shook hands with her, there was never that extra pressure which the average woman learns to dread.
William guarded his secret well; neither in his voice nor in his eyes was there ever a hint of the volcano bubbling and seething below. It was only when he was alone and unobserved that little craters opened up to relieve the pressure. No doubt this required a good deal of will-power. But there was this fact always before him: he was going to watch over this school-teacher of his until she was safely home.
So, then, to her he was a good comrade, amusing, lively; but she rarely carried any thought of him over the threshold of her room.
She stepped down from the pedestal, brushing the corn dust from her hands and sleeves.
"Say, sister, would you mind feeding the doves for five minutes while I hike up the alley there," pointing under the clock, "and get some tobacco? I'm dying for a smoke."
"Run along. I could stay here all day with these doves."
William thereupon settled his hat firmly and darted across the square, disappearing up the "alley," as he called the Merceria.
Ruth squatted to the pavement and began sprinkling the corn about. She had learned that it did not pay to feed the doves too much at once. They were ungrateful little beggars; and, well fed, they were quite likely to depart by twos and threes to their perches among the statues and capitals of the palaces. The last yellow kernel vanished and Ruth stood up.
"And so I find you!"
Ruth turned her head at the sound of this voice which was not William Grogan's. Beyond this action, however, she was unable to move. She could only stare and stare, hypnotized. Presently the numbness gave way to needle-like tingling, and she found that she could use her legs. She retreated slowly, intending to run when all her strength had returned, but unfortunately for this project her shoulders came into contact with a pillar of the portico. The stranger had followed her step by step and paused when she paused.
William, approaching rapidly across the square, saw the tableau. A masher? He would attend to that. He began to run. He arrived just as the stranger laid hold of Ruth's wrist.
Immediately the stranger felt two strong hands embed their fingers in his shoulders and he was irresistibly whirled right about face. The freckled countenance he looked into was wreathed in the most amiable of smiles, but the blue eyes were as cold and beautiful and merciless as winter stars.