Chapter XX The Man Who Lost
For a second Barry stood with eyes riveted on the florid face, with its blue-black shadow of heavy beard darkening the clean-shaven cheeks and chin. Then he stepped swiftly back out of sight, and, turning, pretended to examine a painting hanging on the wall near by.
He scarcely saw the wonderful Corot landscape, however, for his brain was fairly seething with the discovery he had just made, the significance of which he realized in a flash.
Julian Farr received, to his positive knowledge, a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, and the manner in which he lived must use up every penny of it. Yet here he was gambling recklessly in a place like Dean’s.
In an instant Lawrence knew where those missing funds had gone as surely as if the proof in every smallest detail lay before him.
Farr had stolen them! He was the thief who had so cleverly foisted the blame upon an innocent man’s shoulders.
For a moment Barry was furiously angry. He wanted to catch the fellow by the scruff of his neck and thrash him within an inch of his miserable life. It was impossible, of course, and Barry knew it; but he wanted terribly to do it, just the same.
A passing wonder came into his mind as to how Farr could have had the nerve to show himself in such a place. Of course, Dean’s was patronized mostly by the very wealthy members of the younger sporting set, and the Beekman Trust Company had a clientele made up almost altogether of shopkeepers, proprietors of lofts and the like, on the lower East Side. Two such extremes were scarcely ever likely to come together, but there was always a chance of discovery, as had been proved in this very instance.
But Barry did not waste much thought on how his enemy happened to be here. His presence in the rouge et noir game was the important thing, and Lawrence instantly began to cudgel his brains as to how he might take advantage of this discovery.
His own unsupported word as to Farr’s doings would not be enough to convince Tappin or any of the directors. He must have a witness wholly above the charge of bias.
Barry glanced swiftly around at the men near the table, and his heart sank. He did not know a single one of them, and without a previous acquaintance it would be time wasted to ask any of them to do such a favor.
His eyes ranged over the faces for the second time, and stopped at a tall, lean, slightly dissipated-looking chap who sat opposite Farr, watching him with a languid interest, between whiles placing a bet himself of no small amount.
“By Jove!” Lawrence said to himself. “I’ll be hanged if that isn’t Charlie Biddle. It is!” he went on positively, after a careful scrutiny. “I wonder if he wouldn’t help me out?”
Biddle was a man of means, with extremely rapid tendencies, and a type of mind which caused his photograph to blaze forth frequently in the metropolitan papers, while columns were devoted to his divertingly eccentric escapades. He was a thoroughgoing, out-and-out sport, however, and it struck Barry that he might possibly consent to become the very desirable witness in the present case. At all events, he was the young man’s only hope.
Having reached this conclusion, Lawrence went back to the other room, eager to get away. He did not wish to have Farr see him.
The matter proved easier than he expected. Minturn greeted him with a pathetic wail that he was busted, and so was Jack, and begged for a loan. Barry managed to put him off by intimating that he also had been cleaned out, and, after a somewhat prolonged argument, succeeded in persuading the two fellows to depart with him.
Suppressing their tendencies to play tricks with the officer on the corner, Lawrence managed at length to find a taxi, into which they piled, and started for the Minturn mansion. His companions pleaded for a “joy ride” through Central Park, and were moved to tears when he said it was too cold for an early-morning plunge in the reservoir. There was almost a fight at the Minturn house, but, with the unexpected and welcome assistance of a footman who had been waiting up, Barry managed to get them both inside, having first slipped the borrowed money into their waistcoat pockets.
It was just four o’clock when Barry reached the St. Albans, and he was feeling tired and sleepy. Reaching his rooms, he lost no time in flinging off his clothes and diving into bed.
In the interest and excitement of the past few days he had almost forgotten that in less than a week he would be free to live his own life as he chose. He had been going about in a sort of dream, but the sight of Julian Farr’s face that night, bent over the gaming table, and the realization of everything it might mean to him, had awakened him effectually. To-morrow he would seek out Charlie Biddle, and enlist his coöperation.
After that—well, he had an idea that things would be doing.