Chapter 23

AID.

Blake had suspected; but he had refused to believe. Now he knew. And half an hour later, "The Vagrant," under full head of steam, was surging down the Sound with a great, white bone in her teeth and a great, fan- like wake spreading huge rollers from her trim stern.

She anchored off Thirty-Fourth Street. The launch was ready almost as the chain rattled. Blake's big French car was waiting for him at the pier; and, with scant regard for the speed ordinances, it bore him swiftly through the traffic-thronged streets to lower Fifth Avenue, and to the house of Dr. DeLancey.

The passing of the years had made but little change in either the good doctor or his abode. His office looked the same--dry and musty. He looked the same--shrewd and kindly.

"Come in," he said, with the testiness that in him was cordiality concentrated. "Come in. Don't stand there like a gump stretching my bell- wire all out of shape. Come in. Come in."

Blake entered.

"Well," said the doctor, leading the way into his office. "What's the matter now. Sick? You don't look it. If all my patients were like you and the Schuylers, I'd starve to death." He fumbled with an old-fashioned cedar cigar chest. "Smoke?"

Blake took the cigar, and lighted it.

"Well," said the doctor, again. "For heaven's sake, what's the matter! Have you become suddenly dumb? You have a tongue, haven't you? If you have, for goodness' sake, use it."

Blake answered, slowly:

"Doctor, it's about Jack Schuyler."

The sudden little look of anxiety that sprang to the good old man's eyes showed how much the statement meant to him.

"About Jack Schuyler!" he exclaimed. "What about Jack Schuyler? No harm-- he's not ill?"

"Very, very ill, I fear," Blake responded. "I don't understand it at all. I can't comprehend--"

The doctor brought his old fist down upon the scratched top of his old desk.

"Will you stop hemming and hawing and shilly-shallying around and come to the point!" he fairly howled.

"It's about Jack Schuyler," repeated Blake, slowly, "and a woman."

Doctor DeLancey started. He sat erect.

"What!" he cried. "Jack Schuyler and a woman? You're a fool! It's ridiculous--impossible--absurd!"

"That's what I've been telling myself for the past month," rejoined Blake.... "But it's not ridiculous--it's not impossible--it's not absurd. Would to God it were!"

"But Jack Schuyler!" protested the doctor, incredulously. "Why, I've known him since he was born. And I knew his father, and his mother, and his grandfather and his grandmother before him! Damme, I don't believe it. I won't believe it!"

"Neither did I," returned Blake. "Neither would I--until--"

He told the doctor of the letter that had come; and of that which it contained. In silence the doctor listened, and to the end.

There was a pause; Blake continued:

"I don't believe I could do anything. I'd lose my head. I want you to go to him, to see if there isn't something that you can do. I'll pay--"

The doctor leaped from his chair, waggling an old finger in Blake's face.

"Pay!" he yelled. "Pay me for going to Jack Schuyler! You keep your dashed money, my boy. When I want any, I'll ask you for it. D'ye hear me? I'll ask you for it! When does the first boat sail?"

"It sails to-night--in half an hour," returned Blake. "It's the 'Vagrant'.... I'm going, too.... I want to be near at hand.... Good God!" he cried, suddenly. It was almost a wail. "To think of Jack Schuyler-- our Jack Schuyler!--like that!"

The doctor came in from the hall whence he had rushed. One arm was in the sleeve of his coat. His hat was over his ear. He was vainly trying to put his left glove on his right hand.

"Well?" he blurted, "what are you standing there for like a bump on a log? Why don't you get started? What's the matter with you, anyhow? Come on!" He turned, and shouted up the stairs: "Mary! Mary! Ma-a-a-a-ry, I say! I'm going away. Don't know when I'll be back. Ask young Dr. Houghton, across the street, to take care of my patients until I get home. He'll probably kill a lot of 'em; but I can't help that."

And still shouting, still fussing with glove and sleeve, he bumbled out the door, and down the steps to the waiting car.