Chapter XVI
The next day Beecher did not consider for a moment telephoning to Nan Charters, despite her last request. He felt that it was a chapter closed in his life—one of those innumerable false paths down which one plunges, only the quicker to return. His own serenity did not even surprise him. He went off for the morning to play rackets with Bruce Gunther, and lunched at the club with Tilton, who urged him to join his hunt, an invitation which he discussed with enthusiasm.
The news from the stock market was the same—ten point losses in the early trading. Banks all over the country had suspended payments for a week in order to weather the storm. The panic had ceased to be one of speculative concern only. Every one was anxiously asking if a permanent blow had not been dealt to the industries of the country. Many freely prophesied that, if the downward rush were not checked within three days, it would take the country ten years to restore its shattered prosperity. There was a rumor that the big men of the Street had made up a fund, reaching to many millions, which would be brought on the morrow to the support of the market. The run on the Associated Trust still continued, checked though it was by delay and technicalities. Yet the fall of Slade was hourly predicted.
Beecher lingered after luncheon, played a hundred points at billiards and won, an hour’s bridge and won again. Then he went off in high spirits to call on Emma Fornez, an appointment arranged over the telephone.
“So, you bad boy, you and your little Charters have quarreled,” said the prima donna, greeting him with an accusing smile, though in her voice was the pitch of the nervous excitement which her coming début that night had communicated.
“Not in the least,” he said, a little surprised at the insinuation.
“Ta-ta-ta! Enough of your stuff and nonsense,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “You are too big a simpleton—a little woman like that will always get the best of you.”
“But there is no quarrel, and I am not in the least interested.”
“Oh, avec ça—keep away—better keep away! You will burn your fingers. Just the kind of a little doll that is dangerous. Women like that are like half colors between one thing and the other—very dangerous! A young girl—jeune fille—would bore you now, and an old campaigner like Emma Fornez would amuse you; but a little thing like that is too puzzling for you. I see just how it is,” she continued, placing her hands on her hips and bobbing her head energetically, while Beecher, very much pleased to be so lectured, listened with a mocking look. “Yes, yes, I know very well! She gets you—how do you say?—going and coming. When she is an actress you say she is different from the rest—what a child! And when she is playing the child, you say what a difference—she is such an artist! You laugh—see!”
Beecher broke out laughing at this characterization which came so near the truth.
“What I have said is very good—very good,” repeated Emma Fornez, pleased. “It’s all studied, very carefully studied out, but it takes with young simpletons, big geese, good-looking boys—don’t I know? Est-ce-que j’en ai joué de ces tours là? Come, now, what did you fight about?”
Beecher had an inclination to take her into his confidence; but he resisted the impulse, and to turn the conversation said artfully:
“By Jove, you look stunning! You won’t have to sing a note.”
She was in a filmy peignoir, and, as his glance showed an amused admiration, she said, with a look of apology which she did not feel at all, gathering the peignoir closer with a perfectly simulated modesty:
“It’s very bad—my receiving you like this. I am going through my costumes. They are dreams. Wait, you shall see—you wish to see them? Good!” All at once she stopped and, seizing his arm, cried: “Teddy, I am in a cold fright—I shiver all over whenever I think of it. New York audiences are terrible. It will be a big, big failure, won’t it?”
“There, I’ll give you my lucky piece,” he said, patting her shoulder as he would a child’s.
“Will you!” she cried, delighted; and; running into the bedroom, she called back: “I will show you the costume for the second act first. You will fall down and adore me. Keep me talking, Teddy—I shall go into hysterics. Oh, I am so frightened!”
She tried her voice, singing a scale, inquiring anxiously, her head peering around the door: “That sounds bad, hein?”
“Marvelous!” said Beecher, who did not know one note from another.
Reassured, she entered radiantly, took two or three steps forward, and, lifting the castanets on her fingers, flung herself into the pose of Carmen exulting in the return of her lover.
“Carmen, Teddy,” she cried, with a toss of her head. “Carmen is different from all other rôles. To succeed in Carmen, one must be a Carmen one’s self—enfant de la Bohême. You like this? Wait—wait a moment.”
Back in her bedroom, she continued, pausing from time to time to shriek at her maid: “Teddy, you do me so much good—you take my mind off.... Victorine, tu m’assassine!... Teddy, they will think me beautiful, hein? You will stay—you will talk to me until I go?”
“Wish I could,” said Beecher, to whom this peep behind the scenes was novel. “The deuce is, I’m dining with Mrs. Fontaine—going in her box.”
“And Chartèrs—she is going too?”
“I don’t know.”
“What—you don’t know?” she said, emerging, a shawl of shaded luminous greens flung over the shoulder of a russet taffeta. She seized him by the chin with the savage gesture of the Bohemian. “You lie to me! You love her—and you know!” Then, slipping on the sofa beside him, half playful, half feline, she pleaded: “Tell me, Teddy—tell me just to distract me. Be a nice boy—you see how nervous I am—please!”
Beecher did not resist. He recounted lightly, making little of the few passages at arms between him and Nan Charters, ending with a droll reproduction of his laughing exit, cured and disillusionized.
“Ah, my poor Teddy!” said Emma Fornez, shaking her head. “Everything you say proves what I feared.”
“What?”
“You are in love; you are beyond hope!
“What, after I’ve told you this?”
“Exactly. She asked you to telephone, you didn’t. Why? Because you are in love—you are afraid.”
“Emma, I will tell you the truth,” he said, with an excusing shrug.
“Aha!”
“I was attracted—”
“Good!”
“But I saw what an idiot I would be.”
“Very good!”
“I am completely cured, and if I didn’t telephone, it is—”
“Because you are in love,” said Emma promptly.
“Nonsense!”
“You will see her tomorrow; if not, day after tomorrow. And the longer you stay away, the worse for you.”
The arrival of Spinetti, the conductor, to run over a last few points, broke in upon this interesting discussion. Beecher departed, after a promise to come behind after the second act with a budget of news. He returned to his rooms, undisturbed by the charges of Emma Fornez.
“I haven’t thought of her the whole day,” he said contentedly. “If I didn’t telephone, it’s because—well, because—what’s the use? I have other things more interesting to do.”
In his apartment he found McKenna waiting for him, in company with Gunther, who was already dressed for dinner at Mrs. Fontaine’s.
“Hello, McKenna,” he said, surprised. “What’s up?”
The two had been discussing energetically, and the little difficult hesitation told him that he himself had been the subject of conversation.
“I’m called off on an important case,” said McKenna. “Thought I’d better have an understanding with you first.”
“What understanding?” he said. His eye was attracted by the heaped-up mail on a side table, and he moved over to examine it, with a curiosity, utterly illogical, to see if Miss Charters had written him.
“Mr. Beecher, I have a request to make of you,” said McKenna quickly.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t open any letters or answer the telephone until I am gone.”
“Why, yes; but—” He cut off with a look of interrogation.
“Pump it into him, Mac,” said Gunther, throwing himself back and puffing forth great volumes of smoke.
“The truth is, Mr. Beecher,” said McKenna, smiling, “Mrs. Kildair played us both to the queen’s fashion.”
“What was I to do?” said Beecher warmly. “Whom does the ring belong to, anyway? Is there any reason I should do what she doesn’t want me to?”
“No—no,” said McKenna slowly.
“Could I have refused a direct demand from her like that? And what reason could I give if I had?”
“You couldn’t,” said McKenna, eying the end of his cigar. “She did the job neatly. I admire that woman—don’t know when I’ve met one of that sex who’s caught my fancy so.”
“I suppose you’re sick of the case and want to get out,” said Beecher, believing he had divined the errand. “Don’t know as I blame you.”
“No, I don’t want to quit,” said McKenna slowly, while Gunther smiled to himself. “I should say, rather, there are things in this case that make me particularly interested—interested for my own curiosity to go a little deeper. Only, I want to be sure we understand things the same way. You don’t understand from anything Mrs. Kildair said, do you, that I am prevented from going on working on my own hook?”
“Why, no; of course not,” said Beecher, reflecting. “I understand two things: one, that Mrs. Kildair wishes to keep in confidence what she said to you, which I should say was the explanation of certain facts connected with her having the ring.”
“Second?” said McKenna.
“Second, that she believes the ring will be returned, and until she is sure it is she doesn’t wish to give us certain suspicions or knowledge that she has.”
“First rate—just right,” said McKenna, rising quickly, showing satisfaction in the instant alertness of his movements. “That’s what I understand; we understand each other.” As he spoke, the telephone rang. He made a quick gesture of opposition as Beecher started, saying: “Not now, sir; I’d rather you wouldn’t answer—not just now.”
Beecher looked at Gunther, who nodded and said:
“McKenna’s got a good reason. You’ll understand later.”
“Now, Mr. Beecher, I’ve just one thing to say before I go,” said McKenna, while the insistent bell continued its querulous summons. “I’d prefer you wouldn’t mention to any one that you saw me. At any rate, as Mrs. Kildair evidently isn’t anxious for quick results, there’s nothing to be done now. Perhaps by tomorrow there may be a different turn to the case.”
“What do you mean?” said Beecher. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”
“You forget, Mr. Beecher; you yourself have stopped me there,” said McKenna, with a slightly malicious smile. “However, there’s going to be a little meeting tonight that may have a whole lot to do with the fortunes of a good many people; and when it’s over it may, or may not, throw a new light on this case.”
“They’re going to put Slade through the same initiation they gave Majendie,” said Gunther, at a look from Beecher. “There’s a meeting of the big fellows at the governor’s tonight—a sort of sheep-shearing—though Slade’s not much of a lamb.”
“And his wool grows close to the hide,” said McKenna, with one of his rare laughs. “However, I can tell you this much: whatever happens I don’t believe there’ll be any exit by the bullet route—not if I know John G. Slade. Now, sir, I’ve got to disappear for a while on my own troubles.”
“Where can I get you?” asked Beecher.
“You can’t get me,” said McKenna, with one of his sudden contractions of the eyelids. “That’s the whole point—not till I get you. I’m off, and you don’t know where,” he added, offering his hand. “Maybe two days; maybe a week.”
“I don’t understand,” said Beecher, with a puzzled expression.
“I do,” said Gunther, pulling his sleeve.
“Now, there are two little points may interest you gentlemen as expert deducers,” said McKenna, with his hat on his head. “One is, I’ve found out who those detectives were that night—they’re crooks. Second—and don’t forget this—I share Mrs. Kildair’s opinion that the ring is going to be returned.”
“Then you know who took it!” exclaimed Beecher, while Gunther looked up suddenly.
“I don’t know a single thing,” said McKenna, “but I’m getting to the suspicious stage. So long.”
The telephone had stopped. Beecher, left open-mouthed by the exit of McKenna, turned to Gunther, who had resumed his easy lounge.
“What the deuce is going on, Bruce? What’s all this mystery?”
“Look over your mail,” said Gunther irrelevantly.
Beecher obeyed the suggestion. At the end of a moment he exclaimed:
“Hello! Why, here’s a note from Mrs. Kildair—sent by messenger, evidently.”
“Read it.”
Beecher glanced at it hurriedly.
DEAR TEDDY:
Have been trying all day to get hold of McKenna, but they tell me at his office he’s out of town. I want to see him very much. If you know where he is, please have him call me up. Shall see you at Mrs. Fontaine’s tonight.
RITA.
P.S. Please find McKenna if you possibly can.
“By Jove—McKenna!” he exclaimed, and hastened toward the door, only to be stopped by Gunther.
“Ted, you blockhead, what are you doing?”
“Going after McKenna.”
“Just what he doesn’t want.”
Beecher stopped short, suddenly comprehending.
“That’s it, is it?” he said, returning. “He wants to keep clear of Mrs. Kildair’s, then?”
“You see,” said Gunther, “it is not often that McKenna gets double-crossed. When he does, he doesn’t particularly relish it. Mrs. Kildair may be perfectly right in bottling up the whole affair; but, after what happened yesterday, Mac isn’t going to stop until he gets to the bottom.”
“But why disappear?”
“Because, you little white fluffy toy donkey, the last thing in the world Mrs. Kildair wants is to have him do anything at all, and, as you are putty in the hands of any pretty woman, he doesn’t intend to have you call him off.”
“I’ll see Mrs. Kildair at Louise’s. What am I to say?”
Gunther shrugged his shoulders.
“Wonder if she’s really playing to be Mrs. Slade,” he said grimly. “If she is, she’ll give that up after tonight.”
“What’s going to happen to him, Bruce?”
“He’ll come out with so little left that a Committee on Virtue will arrest him for indecent exposure—and the country will be saved.”
Beecher stopped before the telephone.
“Wonder if Mrs. Kildair really was on the ’phone?” he said meditatively. The thought recalled Miss Charters, but without disturbing his equanimity.
“Bruce,” he said joyfully, rushing to dress, “Tilton’s crazy to have me go to Africa with him. By Jove, I’ve half made up my mind! Give me a man’s life; a life with men, out in the open—dogs and horses, and nothing but a few lions and fat elephants to bother you!”
When they arrived at Mrs. Fontaine’s, they found, to their surprise, that Mrs. Kildair had been delayed by an automobile breaking down, and would only join them later at the opera.
Not one of them had the faintest suspicion, when later Mrs. Kildair calmly entered the box, that she had passed through two hours of supreme agitation that had left her torn between hope and dread—her whole future staked on one turn. Slade, face to face with the crisis that would determine whether he would survive as one of the figures of the financial world, or return staggering into the oblivion of the commonplace, had gone to see her in the afternoon.
Confronted, too, by the imminent outcome of a gamble that had absorbed all her ambitions and her hopes, she had recklessly thrown aside all the restraints which she had interposed between them; and by an impulse of daring which makes such women irresistible to men, having invented an excuse for Mrs. Fontaine, had kept him to dinner, trusting to his protection, insisting on his confidence.
Afterward she had driven him to the gray, prison-like structure which Gunther called a home, and seen him, defiant with a defiance she had breathed into him, with the scorn of the gambler who comes at length to the ultimate stake walk up the steps past the group of newspaper men, who, suddenly ceasing their chatter, huddled together and watched him with a unanimous craning of their heads.