Chapter VI
Teddy Beecher was a fair representative of the second generation. He still retained the rugged democracy of the father who had fought his way to a moderate fortune in the troubled regions of the coal-fields. To him a man was a man, whatever the quality of his coat. Left an orphan at fourteen, he had passed victoriously through boarding-school and college without seriously troubling the peace of mind of those who were competing for scholarship honors. He was liked because he liked every one, not with a politic assumption, but from a veritable enjoyment of life and men.
After graduation, he had gone West on a ranch with several of his classmates, for the pure love of adventure and the delights of the great open spaces. Having thus begun his education, he continued it by knocking about the world, with periodic excursions in search of big game. He had known a great many types of men without knowing them in the least, and he appealed to all women without being deeply impressionable to their influence. His philosophy of life was very well summed up in a remark he had made on his return to New York—that he would probably go to work if he couldn’t find anything better to do.
When he awoke the day after Rita Kildair’s party, it was with the clear and dispassionate vision of the morning. The dramatic occurrences of the night before flashed instantly into his consciousness, arousing all the energy of his young curiosity. He recalled the promise to solve the mystery he had made in a moment of enthusiasm, and with a renewed zest began to consider how he should prove himself.
Several things immediately rose up to perplex him in the strange and dramatic climaxes at which he had assisted—the twisted undercurrents of which he was still completely ignorant. Why had Garraboy, and then Rita Kildair, adopted an attitude of suspicion toward him when he had returned? For Garraboy’s hostility he found a ready answer in the mutual antagonism that had risen from the first exchange of glances; but the reception he had received at the hands of Mrs. Kildair thoroughly mystified him.
“Of course, if the ring wasn’t found in the search,” he said, getting out of bed and ringing for his man, “it’s got to be in the studio; of course—no way around that. Whoever took it the second time didn’t get much opportunity to hide it, either—unless it was hidden after the candle was lit; there was a chance then—every one was stumbling around. By Jove! I believe that’s how it was done. But then, why the deuce should more than one person return?”
He stopped and suddenly remembered his own return.
“That’s so; a man might come back to offer help. But why a woman? And who the deuce came back after I did—Miss Lille or Mrs. Bloodgood?”
At this moment the door opened on Charles, whom he had inherited with one half of the luxurious apartment from Freddie Duyckerman, who had gone to England for the hunting season.
“Your bath is ready, sir,” he said, standing with that perfectly vacuous expression which had been carefully trained to express neither joy, grief, hilarity, nor the natural surprise which he might have experienced at beholding his master, brush in hand, standing absent-mindedly before a great copper platter that was near the window.
“Telephone up to the stables; I’ll take Judy to-day,” said Beecher, passing into the bathroom.
A touch of the cold shower set his nerves to tingling and sent his mind to recalling pleasantly the pretty faces of the evening before, after the manner of young gentlemen of leisure with a proper share of vanity. Two figures rose immediately—Rita Kildair and Nan Charters. He remembered them both without excitement, but with different emotions.
“By George, Rita’s a thoroughbred,” he said. “She has them all beat—mysterious as a sphinx. Prettiest sight in the world, seeing her manipulate a crowd. Jove, but she has nerve!” Then he reflected a little guiltily that he had rather deserted her for other shrines, and he resolved enthusiastically to make amends by throwing himself, heart and soul, into the recovery of the ring.
“By George, it’s something to have the confidence of a woman like that!” he exclaimed, sublimely fatuous. “That old mammoth of a Slade would give ten years of his life, I’ll bet, to stand where I do with her.”
Then he remembered Nan Charters, with a little movement of impatience at the thought of his sentimentality.
“What the deuce got into me last night?” he said, displeased with himself. “I acted like a school-boy. I suppose she thinks she’s got me on her scalp-belt—easy as a stage-door Johnny. What the deuce got me wabbling so? These actresses are full of tricky stuff.”
He resolved that he would show her his complete indifference by not calling for at least a week, maybe two, and concluded, with profound penetration:
“Good game. She’ll remember how I started in, and wonder what changed me. That’s it—keep ’em guessing.”
He went into the dining-room, where the coffee was boiling in the percolator, and sat down, after assuring himself by a trip to the opposite bedroom that Bo Lynch was still sleeping the profound sleep of the unjust..
But hardly had he begun on the iced grape-fruit when a lank figure in peppermint pajamas appeared at the doorway, brushing from his sleep-laden eyes the long wisps of hair which, carefully treasured to conceal the bare upper regions, now hung about his sharp, supercilious nose.
“Why the devil don’t you breakfast with a chap?” he said, emerging.
“Hello, Bo,” said Beecher pleasantly. “Up till four or five, training for your polo match this afternoon?”
“Well, Fontaine was there; we call it pairing off.”
“Auction?”
“Yes, damn it. I cut that little wild ass of a Plunket six times running. He’d gamble away his grandmother on a couple of aces. I say, Teddy,” he continued, with a little more animation, emptying a bottle of mineral water which Charles, knowing what might be termed the regularity of his habits, had set out for him, “do you ever try a flier in the market?”
“I have been such a fool.”
“Look here; I’ve got a sure thing. Eddie Fontaine gave it to us last night—in dead secrecy, of course. Worried it from the old man, and you know old man Fontaine is the real thing. The whole Atlantic Trust business was patched up at a conference yesterday afternoon. Majendie’s to get all the backing he needs.”
“Well, what of that?”
“Why, you ignoramus, that means the banks have let up on the trust companies and are coming to the support of the market. Everything’s ’way down below where it ought to be. Stocks’ll go up twenty points in two weeks. I’ve taken another thousand of Northern Pacific myself. Better get in on it.”
“Thanks; I’ll circulate my money on a horse-race—something I know about. By the way, Majendie was there last night.”
“He was, was he?” said Lynch, with more animation. “How did he seem?”
“Cool as a cucumber,” said Beecher, who, however, was surprised to find how little he remembered of any one else’s conduct. “I was in at one of Mrs. Kildair’s affairs. By the way, Nan Charters was there.”
“Oh, was she?” said Lynch sleepily, hesitating between the call of his bedroom and the cooling aspect of the waiting grape-fruit.
“Know anything about her?” asked Beecher, perceiving he would gain nothing by indirection.
“Never met her,” said Lynch. “Charlie Lorraine was crazy about her a couple of years ago. We thought he was going to marry her. I believe they were engaged, or had an understanding.”
“No scandal?”
“Oh, she’s perfectly straight. Charlie’s a good proposition, but that didn’t seem to hurry her any. She has a lot of ’em buzzing after her.”
“I say, Bo,” said Beecher suddenly, “did you ever run up against a fellow called Garraboy?”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a broker.”
Lynch reflected, yawning behind his hand. His occupation in life was supposed to be stocks and bonds, according to the city register.
“Nope, never heard of the fellow.”
“Who’d know at the club?”
“Ask Jack Lindabury or Tom Bovee. Well, ta-ta; I’m going to sleep out a bit for the match. Tell Charles to default me to the manicure and the scalpist,” said Lynch, who termed thus the prim, middle-aged person who had guaranteed to preserve his numbered hairs. “By the way, how about a little bet on the match? I’ll give you six to five.”
“Done for fifty,” said Beecher obligingly.
“See you at luncheon,” said Lynch, who was soon heard plunging heavily into bed.
Beecher belonged, without yet being one of them, to that set who live what in England is called a gentleman’s life—racing, hunting, playing polo, seeking the sensations of big game or big fish, rather courting danger, drinking hard as a matter of pride, on the theory of the survival of the fittest, consuming the night in battles of cunning and physical endurance at the card-table. Beecher had returned to this society partly because most of his friends “belonged,” partly because, being an idler himself, he liked their busy days dedicated to sensation, and their curious standards of what was and what was not permitted to be done. He had not as yet plunged into the whirl, being more curiously interested in the various sides of New York life that opened before him. He preserved, in the midst of the nervous American excess of his companion, a certain old-world moderation. He entered their card games in a desultory way for an hour or two at a time, but without that engulfing, brutal passion for mastery which kept Bo Lynch at the card-tables until dawn. When he joined a group at the bar, he drank with them as long as he wished and no longer—a difficult matter where a withdrawal usually was greeted with taunts; but there was about Beecher, young as he was, an atmosphere of authority which came from having proved himself among men the world over.
He was rising from the table when the telephone rang, and, mindful of his afternoon engagement with Rita Kildair, he refused an invitation to join a party to the polo match. A call from Bruce Gunther urged him to be one of a gay party of six, bent on a lark for the evening.
He enjoyed a furious gallop in the park, dressed, and swung alertly up the Avenue to his club for luncheon.
There, all the talk was of the stock market which had gone up several points on the morning’s tradings. Bo Lynch and Eddie Fontaine buttonholed him and besought him to avail himself of the opportunity: it was the chance of a lifetime, the crisis was over, stocks simply had to go up. The friends of Majendie, who was one of the directors of the club, were relieved and jubilant. He had weathered the crisis; there was nothing more to fear. The story which was told from lip to lip as being direct from headquarters was, that at the meeting on the afternoon before, Fontaine had declared, with his fist on the table, that he would never be a party to any movement that would jeopardize the future of his lifelong friend, Bernard Majendie. Some who still clung to the short interest even added, with an air of knowing more than they could tell, that the attack would now be concentrated on the Associated Trust with the intention of making an example of John Slade, a Western intruder who was protected by no ties of association and friendship.
Beecher, true to his habits of caution, laughingly refused all offers to double his fortune. Bruce Gunther drew him aside, outlining his program for the evening.
The thought of Nan Charters came into Beecher’s mind, and he wondered curiously if she would be there.
“I say, Bruce, what’s all this hip-hurrah?” he asked as Gunther led him to the dining-room and they took seats at the long mahogany table. “Has Majendie really pulled through? Is the story true about Fontaine? Would you go into the market?”
“They tell it on Fontaine now, do they?” said Gunther, with a short laugh. “It started with my old man, but I guess he was too tough a weight to carry. Ted, I don’t know any more than you, but I know this—keep out.”
“My opinion,” said Beecher, nodding to a new arrival.
Bruce Gunther was his closest friend—a chum from boarding-school days. He was a stocky, rather ugly type, direct to the point of rudeness, with more than a trace of his father’s power. Gunther Senior had, from a long and merciless examination of men, come to regard youth as a natural malady, an ebullition of heated blood to be lived down before a man was fit for great opportunities and the vision of great affairs. When young Gunther was graduated, he called him to his desk, wrote him out a check, and told him to take five years, sow his oats, and be through with it—at the end of which time his career would begin at the bottom of the great banking offices of Gunther & Company, New York, London, and Paris. Young Gunther was now completing the last year of his contract with a compressed savageness that would have wrecked any but the strongest constitution. At heart he awaited the end of his holiday with a feeling of relief and enthusiasm. He was quite unspoiled, and a terror to sycophants and boot-lickers. It was these sturdy, passionate qualities of energy and directness in him that had attracted Beecher.
“Bruce, I’m on a very curious chase,” he said, pushing back from the table, “and I want your help. It’s too long and too confidential to tell you now. But two things I wish you would do for me: find out all you can quietly about two men—Enos Bloodgood and a fellow called Garraboy, a broker.”
“Garraboy—the brother-in-law?” said Gunther instantly. They left the table and went for cigars and coffee to the first room, to a window that gave on the Avenue. “I know him. He was blackballed here a couple of years ago. There were some ugly stories about him; I’ll look ’em up. Bloodgood’s another matter. I have heard rumors he was hard hit by the market. It’s easy enough; I know several men I can call up. Can’t you tell me the whole thing now?”
When Beecher had finished, Gunther remained a long moment immersed in reflection.
“By the Lord Harry, that is a problem,” he said, suddenly waking up. “The dickens of a tangle! What the deuce was Slade doing there?” He relapsed into silence again, and as suddenly said decisively: “You’re wrong on one point, Ted. It’s not Garraboy or Bloodgood we ought to suspect first; it’s Cheever—the Cheevers.”
“How the deuce are we going about it?” said Beecher.
“I suppose Mrs. Kildair wants the whole thing kept quiet,” said Gunther, rapping absent-mindedly on the arm of his chair.
“Naturally; besides, I promised.”
“Of course. Well, we’ll begin in a practical fashion. You don’t mind spending a little money, do you?”
“I expect to.”
Gunther rose and went to the telephone booths, where he remained for some time.
“Half-past six in my rooms, Ted,” he said, returning. “I’ll put you up against the most interesting character in the United States—a real detective. Dress and come over.”
“But the girls,” objected Beecher, remembering their engagement.
“The girls can go hang,” said Gunther, shrugging his shoulders. “They can always wait half an hour. This is something real.”
At five o’clock Beecher called on Mrs. Kildair, and found her out, to his considerable vexation. The bell-boy gave him a little note, which he opened and read:
DEAR TEDDY:
Forgive my breaking my engagement. All sorts of sudden and exciting things have crowded in on me to-day. Come to-morrow for luncheon.
RITA.
P.S. Remember—nothing public about last night!
The prospect of a tête-à-tête with Mrs. Kildair appeased him somewhat, but his anticipations for the afternoon were sorely disappointed, and he started aimlessly back, with a feeling that a great hole had been made in the day. As he reached the corner, a red automobile cut in close to the curb, causing him to step hastily back. Inside he recognized Slade. He watched the red machine come to a stop before Mrs. Kildair’s and then whirl away, after depositing the massive figure of its owner. Beecher, with a little wounded vanity, lingered a moment, hoping to see him reappear; but, as the sidewalk continued empty, he was forced to conclude that he had come by appointment.
“She might at least have seen me,” he said angrily. “What the deuce has she got to see Slade for?”
All at once he perceived that his steps had led him in the general direction of the quarter in which Nan Charters resided, and, as he had come to make an impression on one woman, he soon began to consider transferring his attack on another. Only, he remembered that he had determined to treat Miss Charters with indifference, to correct any erroneous ideas that she might have formed from his previous impulsive conduct.
“That’s so,” he said, angry now at himself, at her, and at a condition of affairs that left him with an hour of idleness on his hands. “If I call now, she’ll think I’m hot on the trail. I could stop, though, and inquire about her health,” he thought, hesitating; “that would seem natural, after last night.”
But he rejected this as a subterfuge, and continued his slow, uneven progress down Seventh Avenue, which he had selected at random in search of a little oddity and interest; and gradually he recognized that the vexation he felt was, in reality, not at being unable to find an excuse for calling on Miss Charters, but the keen sense of disappointment he had in missing an intimate hour with Rita.
It was essentially the woman of the world in her that fascinated him, the woman of mysterious experience, of sure knowledge and complete command of situations. He wished to increase the intimacy of his position, because to be favored by her meant something—something that awoke his masculine sense of supremacy and fed his vanity. Determined on a long bachelorhood that would open to him all sorts and conditions of society and adventurous experiences, he had determined likewise to avoid the dangerous field of young girls of his own set and to exercise his curiosity with women of the world—older women, professional women, with whom an impulsive infatuation brought no risks, but something to be taken at value, a mood that was charming because it would pass.
All at once an idea came to him that reconciled his easily satisfied conscience and appeared sublimely politic. He would drop in on Nan Charters, just to show his indifference.
“I’ll stay fifteen minutes—be quite formal and a little bored,” he said, chuckling.
And he went without too much enthusiasm toward his destination, thinking of Rita Kildair and planning in his imaginative mind a series of confidential conversations for the tête-à-tête on the morrow.
“To see Miss Charters,” he said, giving his card to the boy in the elevator, who turned it over doubtfully, hesitated, and disappeared like a float in an opera, mounting heavenward.
Beecher ceased to think of Rita Kildair, and prepared himself, smiling astutely, for his approaching scene with the young actress whom he intended properly to discipline for her effrontery in imagining that he—Edward T. Beecher—had entertained for a moment any other than a polite social interest. Miss Charters excused herself—she was lying down and dining out.
He cast a furious look at the telephone-booth, by means of which she might personally have assured him of her great regret, and stalked out in a worse temper than ever—Rita Kildair, Nan Charters, all the women in the world consigned to perdition.
“Confound them all!” he said, brandishing his cane. “What a lot of time a man wastes over them. She might have telephoned me. They only exist in this world to distract us from what we ought to do. I wonder if she did it on purpose—just to give me an appetite. Well, if she did—she’s succeeded,” he said ruefully.
He went to his rooms, resolved to meet her at every opportunity, to revenge himself by showing her he could play the game more cleverly than she could; and in his angry resolve there was very little trace of the indifference of which he had been so confident.