Part 28

“You see, I was his lawyer, and had been ever since the K. B. & B. control fight in 1906, and the old man liked me—I don’t know why unless it was because I drew up the right sort of ‘waterproof contracts,’ as he always called them. Anyway, I knew six or seven years before he died that he wasn’t getting along so well with Mrs. Osterman. She is still an attractive woman, with plenty of brain power and taste, but I think he had concluded that she was using him and that he wasn’t as happy as he thought he would be. For one thing, as I gathered from one person and another, she was much too devoted to those two boys by her first husband, and in the next place I think he felt that she was letting that architect D’Eyraud lead her about too much and spend too much of his money. You know it was common rumor at the time that D’Eyraud and his friend Beseroe, another man the old captain disliked, were behind her in all her selections of pictures for the gallery she was bringing together up there in the Fifth Avenue place. Osterman, of course, knowing absolutely nothing about art, was completely out of it. He wouldn’t have known a fine painting from a good lithograph, and I don’t think he cared very much either. And yet it was a painting that was one of the causes of some feeling between them, as I will show you. At that time he looked mighty lonely and forlorn to me, as though he didn’t have a friend in the world outside of those business associates and employés of his. He stayed principally in that big town house, and Mrs. Benda—I mean Mrs. Osterman—and her sons and their friends found a good many excuses for staying out at Shell Cove. There were always big doings out there. Still, she was clever enough to be around him sometimes so as to make it appear, to him at least, that she wasn’t neglecting him. As for him, he just pottered around up there in that great house, showing his agents and employés, and the fellows who buzzed about him to sell him things, the pictures she was collecting—or, rather, D’Eyraud—and letting it appear that he was having something to do with it. For he was a vain old soldier, even if he did have one of the best business minds of his time. You’d think largeness of vision in some things might break a man of that, but it never does, apparently.

“Whenever I think of him I think of that big house, those heavily carved and gilded rooms, the enormous eighty-thousand dollar organ built into the reception-room, and those tall stained-glass windows that gave the place the air of a church. Beseroe once told me that if left to follow her own taste Mrs. Osterman would never have built that type of house, but that Osterman wanted something grand and had got his idea of grandeur from churches. So there was nothing to do but build him a house with tall Gothic windows and a pipe-organ, and trust to other features to make it homelike and livable. But before they were through with it Mrs. Osterman and D’Eyraud had decided that the best that could be done with it would be to build something that later could be turned into an art gallery and either sold or left as a memorial. But I think both D’Eyraud and Mrs. Osterman were kidding the old man a little when they had that self-playing attachment built in. It looked to me as though they thought he was going to be alone a good part of the time and might as well have something to amuse himself with. And he did amuse himself with it, too. I recall going up there one day and finding him alone, in so far as the family was concerned, but entirely surrounded by twenty-five or more of those hard, slick and yet nervous (where social form was concerned) western and southern business agents and managers of his, present there to hold a conference. A luncheon was about to be served in the grand dining-room adjoining the reception-room, and there were all these fellows sitting about that big room like a lot of blackbirds, and Osterman upon a raised dais at one end of the room solemnly rendering _The Bluebells of Scotland_, one of his favorites, from the self-player attachment! And when he finished they all applauded!

“Well, what I wanted to tell you is this: One day while I was there, some dealer dropped in with a small picture which for some reason took his fancy. According to Beseroe, it wasn’t such a bad thing, painted by a Swedish realist by the name of Dargson. It showed a rather worn-out woman of about forty-three who had committed suicide and was lying on a bed, one hand stretched out over the edge and a glass or bottle from which she had taken the poison lying on the floor beside her. Two young children and a man were standing near, commiserating themselves on their loss, I presume. It seemed to have a tremendous impression on Osterman for some reason or other. I could never understand why—it was not so much art as a comment on human suffering. Nevertheless, Osterman wanted it, but I think he wanted Nadia to buy it for her collection and so justify his opinion of it. But Nadia, according to Beseroe, was interested only in certain pictures as illustrations of the different schools and periods of art in different countries. And when the dealer approached her with the thing, at Osterman’s suggestion, it was immediately rejected by her. At once Osterman bought it for himself, and to show that he was not very much concerned about her opinion he hung it in his bedroom. Thereafter he began to be quarrelsome in regard to the worthwhileness of the gallery idea as a whole and to object to so much money being squandered in that direction. But to this day no one seems to know just why he liked that particular picture so much.

“What I personally know is that it was just about this time that Osterman began to be interested in that fellow Klippert and his plan for improving the condition of the orphan. He finally turned him over to me with the request that I go into the idea thoroughly, not only in regard to the work done by the Gratiot Home but by orphan asylums in general in America. He told us that he wanted it all kept very quiet until he was ready to act, that if anything was said he would refuse to have anything further to do with it. That was a part of his plan to outwit Mrs. Osterman, of course. He told us that he wanted some scheme in connection with orphans that would be new and progressive, better than anything now being done, something that would do away with great barracks and crowd regulations and cheap ugly uniforms and would introduce a system of education and home life in cottages. I had no idea then that he was planning the immense thing that was really in his mind, and neither did Klippert. He thought he might be intending to furnish enough money to revive the Gratiot Home as an experiment, and he urged me to use my influence to this end if I had any. As it turned out, he wanted to establish an interstate affair, as wide as the nation, of which the place at Shell Cove was to be the centre or head—a kind of Eastern watering-place or resort for orphans from all over America. It was a colossal idea and would have taken all of his money and more.

“But since he wanted it I went into the idea thoroughly with this fellow Klippert. He was very clever, that man, honest and thorough and business-like and disinterested, in so far as I could see. I liked him, and so did Osterman, only Osterman wanted him to keep out of sight of his wife until he was ready to act. Klippert made a regular business of his problem and went all over the United States studying institutions of the kind. Finally he came back with figures on about fifty or sixty and a plan which was the same as that outlined to me by Osterman and which I incorporated in his will, and there it ended for the time being. He didn’t want to sign it right away for some reason, and there it lay in my safe until—well, let me tell you how it was.

One Saturday morning—it was a beautiful day and I was thinking of going out to the club to play golf—I received a long distance call from Osterman asking me to get hold of Klippert and another fellow by the name of Moss and bring them out to Shell Cove, along with the will for him to sign. He had made up his mind, he said, and I have often wondered if he had a premonition of what was going to happen.

“I remember so well how excited Klippert was when I got him on the wire. He was just like a boy, that fellow, in his enthusiasm for the scheme, and apparently not interested in anything except the welfare of those orphans. We started for Shell Cove, and what do you think? Just as we got there—I remember it all as though it had happened yesterday. It was a bright, hot Saturday afternoon. There were some big doings on the grounds, white-and-green and white-and-red striped marque tents, and chairs and swings and tables everywhere. Some of the smartest people were there, sitting or walking or dancing on the balcony. And there was Osterman walking up and down the south verandah near the main motor entrance, waiting for us, I suppose. As we drove up he recognized us, for he waved his hand, and then just as we were getting out and he was walking towards us, I saw him reel and go down. It was just as though some one had struck him with something. I realized that it must be paralysis or a stroke of apoplexy and I chilled all over at the thought of what it might mean. Klippert went up the steps four at a time, and as we all ran down the verandah they carried him in and I telephoned for a doctor. Klippert was very still and white. All we could do was to stand around and wait and look at each other, for Mrs. Osterman and her sons were there and were taking charge. Finally word came out that Mr. Osterman was a little better and wanted to see us, so up we went. He had been carried into an airy, sunny room overlooking the sea and was lying in a big white canopied bed looking as pale and weak as he would if he had been ill for a month. He could scarcely speak and lay there and looked at us for a time, his mouth open and a kind of tremor passing over his lips from time to time. Then he seemed to gather a little strength and whispered: ‘I want—I want—’ and then he stopped and rested, unable to go on. The doctor arrived and gave him a little whisky, and then he began again, trying so hard to speak and not quite making it. At last he whispered: ‘I want—I want—that—that—paper.’ And then: ‘Klippert—and you—’ He stopped again, then added: ‘Get all these others out of here—all but you three and the doctor.’

“The doctor urged Mrs. Osterman and her sons to leave, but I could see that she didn’t like it. Even after she went out she kept returning on one excuse and another, and she was there when he died. When she was out of the room the first time I produced the will and he nodded his approval. We called for a writing board, and they brought one—a Ouija board, by the way. We lifted him up, but he was too weak and fell back. When we finally got him up and spread the will before him he tried to grasp the pen but he couldn’t close his fingers. He shook his head and half whispered: The——the——boys—th—the—boys.’ Klippert was all excited, but Osterman could do nothing. Then his wife came into the room and asked: ‘What is it that you are trying to make poor Johnnie sign? Don’t you think you had better let it rest until he is stronger?’ She tried to pick up the paper but I was too quick for her and lifted it to one side as though I hadn’t noticed that she had reached for it. I could see that she was aware that something was being done that neither we nor Osterman wanted her to know about, and her eyes fairly snapped. Osterman must have realized that things were becoming a little shaky for he kept looking at first one and then another of us with a most unhappy look. He motioned for the pen and will. Klippert put down the board and I the paper, and he leaned forward and tried to grasp the pen. When he found he couldn’t he actually groaned: ‘The—the—I—I—I want to—to—do something—for—for—the—the—the—’ Then he fell back, and the next moment was dead.

“But I wish you could have seen Klippert. It wasn’t anything he said or did, but just something that passed over his face, the shadow of a great cause or idea dying, let us say. Something seemed to go out from or die in him, just as old Osterman had died. He turned and went out without a word. I would have gone too, only Mrs. Osterman intercepted me.

“You might think that at such a moment she would have been too wrought up to think of anything but her husband’s death, but she wasn’t. Far from it. Instead, as her husband was lying there, and right before the doctor, she came over to me and demanded to see the paper. I was folding it up to put into my pocket when she flicked it out of my hands. ‘I am sure you can have no objection to my seeing this,’ she said icily, and when I protested she added: ‘I am sure that I have a right to see my own husband’s will.’ I had only been attempting to spare her feelings, but when I saw what her attitude was I let it go at that and let her read it.

“I wish you could have seen her face! Her eyes narrowed and she bent over the paper as though she were about to eat it. When she fully comprehended what it was all about she fairly gasped and shook—with rage, I think—though fear as to what might have happened except for her husband’s weakness may have been a part of it. She looked at him, at his dead body, the only glance he got from her that day, I’m sure, then at me, and left the room. Since there was nothing more to do, I went too.

“And that’s the reason Mrs. Osterman has never been friends with me since, though she was genial enough before. But it was a close shave for her, all the same, and don’t you think it wasn’t. Just an ounce or two more of strength in that old codger’s system, and think what would have been done with those millions. She wouldn’t have got even a million of it all told. And those little ragamuffins would have had it all. How’s that for a stroke of chance?”

XIII

THE SHADOW

I

What had given him his first hint that all might not be as well at home as he imagined was the incident of the automobile. Up to that time he had not had a troubled thought about her, not one. But after—Well, it was a year and a half now and although suspicion still lingered it was becoming weaker. But it had not been obliterated even though he could not help being fond of Beryl, especially since they had Tickles to look after between them. But anyhow, in spite of all his dark thoughts and subtle efforts to put two and two together, he had not been able to make anything of it. Perhaps he was being unjust to her to go on brooding about it.... But how was it possible that so many suspicious-looking things could happen in a given time, and one never be able to get the straight of them?

The main thing that had hampered him was his work. He was connected with the Tri-State Paper Company, at the City Order desk, and as a faithful employé he was not supposed to leave during working hours without permission, and it was not always easy to get permission. It was easy to count the times he had been off—once to go to the dentist, and two or three times to go home when Beryl was ill. Yet it just happened that on that particular afternoon his superior, Mr. Baggott, had suggested that he, in the place of Naigly who always attended to such matters but was away at the time, should run out to the Detts-Scanlon store and ask Mr. Pierce just what was wrong with that last order that had been shipped. There was a mix-up somewhere, and it had been impossible to get the thing straight over the telephone.

Well, just as he was returning to the office, seated in one of those comfortable cross seats of the Davenant Avenue line and looking at the jumble of traffic out near Blakely Avenue, and just as the car was nearing the entrance to Briscoe Park he saw a tan-and-chocolate-colored automobile driven by a biggish man in a light tan overcoat and cap swing into view, cross in front of the car, and enter the park. It was all over in a flash. But just as the car swung near him who should he see sitting beside the man but Beryl, or certainly a woman who was enough like her to be her twin sister. He would have sworn it was Beryl. And what was more, and worse, she was smiling up at this man as though they were on the best of terms and had known each other a long time! Of course he had only had a glimpse, and might have been mistaken. Beryl had told him that morning that she was going to spend the afternoon with her mother. She often did that, sometimes leaving Tickles there while she did her mother’s marketing. Or, she and her mother, or she and her sister Alice, if she chanced to be there, would take the baby for a walk in the park. Of course he might have been mistaken.

But that hat with the bunch of bright green grapes on the side.... And that green-and-white striped coat.... And that peculiar way in which she always held her head when she was talking. Was it really Beryl? If it wasn’t, why should he have had such a keen conviction that it was?

Up to that time there never had been anything of a doubtful character between them—that is, nothing except that business of the Raskoffsky picture, which didn’t amount to much in itself. Anybody might become interested in a great violinist and write him for his photo, though even that couldn’t be _proved_ against Beryl. It was inscribed to Alice. But even if she had written him, that wasn’t a patch compared to this last, her driving about in a car with a strange man. Certainly that would justify him in any steps that he chose to take, even to getting a divorce.

But what had he been able to prove so far? Nothing. He had tried to find her that afternoon, first at their own house, then at her mother’s, and then at Winton & Marko’s real estate office, where Alice sometimes helped out, but he couldn’t find a trace of her. Still, did that prove anything once and for all? She might have been to the concert as she said, she and Alice. It must be dull to stay in the house all day long, anyhow, and he couldn’t blame her for doing the few things she did within their means. Often he tried to get in touch with her of a morning or afternoon, and there was no answer, seeing that she was over to her mother’s or out to market, as she said. And up to the afternoon of the automobile it had never occurred to him that there was anything queer about it. When he called up Beryl’s mother she had said that Beryl and Alice had gone to a concert and it wasn’t believable that Mrs. Dana would lie to him about anything. Maybe the two of them were doing something they shouldn’t, or maybe Alice was helping Beryl to do something she shouldn’t, without their mother knowing anything about it. Alice was like that, sly. It was quite certain that if there had been any correspondence between Beryl and that man Raskoffsky, that time he had found the picture inscribed to Alice, it had been Alice who had been the go-between. Alice had probably allowed her name and address to be used for Beryl’s pleasure—that is, if there was anything to it at all. It wasn’t likely that Beryl would have attempted anything like that without Alice’s help.

But just the same he had never been able to prove that they had been in league, at that time or any other. If there was anything in it they were too clever to let him catch them. The day he thought he had seen her in the car he had first tried to get her by telephone and then had gone to the office, since it was on his way, to get permission to go home for a few minutes. But what had he gained by it? By the time he got there, Beryl and her mother were already there, having just walked over from Mrs. Dana’s home, according to Beryl. And Beryl was not wearing the hat and coat he had seen in the car, and that was what he wanted to find out. But between the time he had called up her mother and the time he had managed to get home she had had time enough to return and change her clothes and go over to her mother’s if there was any reason why she should. That was what had troubled him and caused him to doubt ever since. She would have known by then that he had been trying to get her on the telephone and would have had any answer ready for him. And that may have been exactly what happened, assuming that she had been in the car and gotten home ahead of him, and presuming her mother had lied for her, which she would not do—not Mrs. Dana. For when he had walked in, a little flushed and excited, Beryl had exclaimed: “Whatever is the matter, Gil?” And then: “What a crazy thing, to come hurrying home just to ask me about this! Of course I haven’t been in any car. How ridiculous! Ask Mother. You wouldn’t expect her to fib for me, would you?” And then to clinch the matter she had added: “Alice and I left Tickles with her and went to the concert after going into the park for a while. When we returned, Alice stopped home so Mother could walk over here with me. What are you so excited about.” And for the life of him, he had not been able to say anything except that he had seen a woman going into Briscoe Park in a tan-and-chocolate car, seated beside a big man who looked like—well, he couldn’t say exactly whom he did look like. But the woman beside him certainly looked like Beryl. And she had had on a hat with green grapes on one side and a white-and-green striped sports coat, just like the one she had. Taking all that into consideration, what would any one think? But she had laughed it off, and what was he to say? He certainly couldn’t accuse Mrs. Dana of not knowing what she was talking about, or Beryl of lying, unless he was sure of what he was saying. She was too strong-minded and too strong-willed for that. She had only married him after a long period of begging on his part; and she wasn’t any too anxious to live with him now unless they could get along comfortably together.

Yet taken along with that Raskoffsky business of only a few months before, and the incident of the Hotel Deming of only the day before (but of which he had thought nothing until he had seen her in the car), and the incident of the letters in the ashes, which followed on the morning after he had dashed home that day, and then that business of the closed car in Bergley Place, just three nights afterwards—well, by George! when one put such things together—