Chapter Eight “You’ll Settle With Me”
Arthur Ward stood with his back to the big living-room fire, his feet wide apart, hands crossed behind his back, head lowered, eyes peering from beneath shaggy brows. It was a characteristic attitude and one which peculiarly expressed the man’s calculated cruelty.
Beebe was seated on the wide fireplace bench, his feet stretched far in front of him. He was slowly smoking, his whole sprawling attitude one of indolent approval. Things were shaping themselves quite to the liking of Larson Beebe.
The girl, Virginia, was seated in a chair somewhat in front of her uncle. The wild look of her eyes and her agitated face told that she was going through an ordeal that was breaking her bit by bit.
“But, Uncle Arthur,” she burst out, “surely you can’t mean to do this terrible thing. Why, I don’t love Mr. Beebe at all. I scarcely know him, and I don’t want to marry anyone.”
“My dear niece,” replied Ward evenly, “love has no part in my scheme of things. Hate rules the world, and hate is my creed. Love makes people soft and indolent. Hate is the great inspirator. Hate makes the world go ’round.
“Sentiment has no place whatever in this marriage. It is entirely a marriage of convenience. Your personal inclinations have no weight whatever. I wish you to marry Beebe; therefore you will do it.”
The girl’s color had heightened as she listened to her uncle’s ultimatum. As he finished, a grim expression of defiance settled on his face.
“Well, I won’t!” she answered crisply.
“As you will, Virginia, but if you do not consent to marry Beebe within twenty-four hours I shall leave you here alone with him. I imagine after a couple of weeks of that you’ll be quite willing to marry him.”
“Oh, you beast!” For an instant, as Ward’s full meaning became clear to her, it looked as though the girl would faint.
Then, like a wild beast at bay, she turned on Beebe in a burst of blazing fury.
“And you, Larson Beebe, what have you to say? Are you going to be a party to this? Are you as much a beast as my uncle?”
Beebe regarded her tolerantly for a moment out of his piggish eyes before he spoke. A catlike smile of satisfaction curved his lips. He answered slowly, indolently:
“Virginia, I am wild about you. I want you, and I am going to have you. As long as you refuse to love me I’m not at all particular how I get you. One way suits me as well as another.”
The girl turned back to her uncle. Her hands went out in an imploring gesture. For an instant she seemed about to plead. Then she evidently thought better of it.
“I suppose you understand, Uncle Arthur,” she asked in a low cold voice, “that I will kill myself before I will let this happen?”
“My dear Virginia, you do not seem to understand the situation at all. You are absolutely in my power. You cannot kill yourself because I will not permit it. I will not give you the chance. You will do exactly as I say.”
“Not yet, Ward! First, you’ll settle with me!”
Stanley Ross stood in the doorway. But it was not the Stanley Ross, urbane, bored, carefree, who, a few days before, had whimsically sought adventure up an unknown canon trail. He had found adventure now, and it had used him roughly. His face and hands were grimy. His clothes were dirty and torn. One sleeve had been almost rent from his shoulder. His hair was riotously disheveled and clotted with blood. Down one side of his face extended a great splash of dirty dried blood.
In his right hand was an ugly-looking automatic, and in his face and eyes was a look of savage fury.
At the sound of Ross’s voice, Ward whirled and whipped out a gun. But he was too late, for Ross, with a steadiness and coldness belied by the savagery of his face and figure, had fired. A look of unutterable amazement overspread the face of Arthur Ward. He wavered on his feet for a moment, and then, when a spot of red began to widen on his shirt front, he toppled backward, lifeless.
Almost at the same instant a hatchet hurtled through the room and buried its blade deep in the wall beside Larson Beebe, missing his head by the merest fraction of an inch. Wong was going into action. Beebe slid forward from his seat and ducked to temporary safety behind the table.
Ward had not had time to aim, but he had instinctively pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Ross on the head and cut a long shallow furrow just above his left temple. The wound itself was not serious, but for a moment it blinded Ross. That moment was fatal, for as he roused himself from the shock he knew that he had forgotten Poole.
Instantly Ross whirled to face the other doorway, but was too late. The heavy bullet spun him half around. For an instant he fought to retain his balance. Then he pitched forward onto the floor.
Painfully, with almost a superhuman effort, Ross raised himself with one hand and deliberately shot Poole through the chest.
Then, mercifully, consciousness was blotted out.