Part 26

"You bet your life!" he blurted, then turned and bolted from the room. Tayna next flung her arms about her uncle's neck and wet his cheek with scalding tears, then dashed away after Dick. Last of all, Rose stood with her hands upon his shoulders. She was taller for a woman than he for a man, and could look almost level into his eyes.

"My brother!" she said significantly. "My strong, noble, innocent"--and then a gleam of light shot into her eyes as she added--"my triumphant brother!"

"My bravest, truest of sisters!" The big man breathed softly, and drawing the woman to him imprinted that kiss upon the forehead which, seldom bestowed, marked when given his genuine tribute of respect and affection to the woman who, older than himself by ten years, had been the mother to his orphaned youth and had created the obligation which, uncharged, he none the less acknowledged and had striven to repay by a life of conscientious devotion to her and to her children.

The door closed after her "Good night", and John stood alone glancing reflectively about the long, book-lined room. Here many of his greatest experiences had come to him. Here he had caught the far-off kindling visions of that rarely human Galilean, with his rarely human group about him, trudging over the hills, sitting by the side of the sea, teaching, healing, helping. Here he had caught the vision of himself following, afar off, two thousand years behind, but following--teaching, healing, helping--in His name.

The telephone rang, its sharp, metallic jingle shocking the very atmosphere into apprehensive tremors. Yet instantly recalled to himself and to the new height on which he stood, Hampstead lifted the receiver with a firm hand and replied in an even, measured voice: "_The Sentinel_?--Yes--Yes--No--There is nothing to say--Absolutely!--I do."

The receiver was hung up. The only change in Hampstead's voice from the beginning to the end of this conversation, the larger part of which had taken place upon the other end of the line, was a deepening gravity of utterance. In a few moments the 'phone rang again. It was _The Press_. The papers all had the story now. The Oakland offices of the San Francisco papers were also clamoring. Each wanted to know what the minister had to say to the damning discovery of the diamonds in his box.

For them all Hampstead had the same answer: "I have nothing to say--yet." Some of the inquisitors cleverly attempted to draw the clergyman out by suggesting that there was plenty of opportunity for a countercharge that the diamonds had been planted in his box, since it was improbable in the last degree that a man of ordinary intelligence would conceal stolen diamonds in a safe deposit box held in his own name, the key to which he carried in his own pocket; but the self-controlled man at the other end of the telephone fell into no such trap. To direct attention to an inquiry as to who had visited his vault, or might have visited it, during the time since the diamonds were stolen was the last thing the minister would do. Already he had reasoned that the vault custodian on duty in the morning, knowing that Hampstead had not been to the vault during the day, but that Assistant Cashier Burbeck had, would do some excogitating upon his own account; but the minister reflected that this would not be dangerous, since the custodian, sharing in the very great confidence which Rollie enjoyed, would conclude that this young man had been made the innocent messenger for depositing the diamonds in the vault, and for the sake of unpleasant consequences which might result to the bank, would no doubt keep his mouth tightly shut.

The last call of all came from Haggard, whose city editor had just told him that the minister declined any sort of an explanation. Haggard was managing editor of _The Press_ and Hampstead's true friend.

"Do you know what this does to your friends?" demanded Haggard passionately. "It makes them as dumb as you are. I know you; you've got something up your sleeve. But this case isn't going to be tried in the courts. It's being tried in the newspapers right now. Once the court of public opinion goes against you, it's hard to get a reversal. And it's going against you from the minute this story gets before the public--our version of it even--for we have got to print the news, you know. We've never had bigger."

Some sort of a protest gurgled from Hampstead's lips.

"Oh," broke out Haggard still more impatiently, "I think the majority have too much sense to believe you're a common thief; but they're going to be convinced you're a damned fool. A public man had better be found guilty of being a thief than an ass, any day. Now, what can I say?"

"I am very sorry," replied Hampstead in a patient voice, "but you can say nothing--absolutely nothing."

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*A MISADVENTURE*

Counting back from the scene in the vault room of the Amalgamated National, which took place at about nine-thirty, it was five and one-half hours to the time when Marien Dounay and Rollie Burbeck had steamed out with Mrs. Harrington upon her luxurious launch, the _Black Swan_, which was so commodious and powerful that it just escaped being a sea-going yacht.

But now, after the lapse of this five and one-half hours, neither Marien nor Rollie had returned, and only one of them had an inkling of what might have been happening in their absence. Information from the Harrington residence that the _Black Swan_ would return to the pier about ten-thirty, caused a group of hopeful young men from the newspaper offices to take up their station on the yacht pier slightly in advance of that hour. But their wait was long, so long in fact that one by one they gave up their vigil and returned to their respective offices with no answer as yet to the burning question of what had led Miss Dounay to suspect that her diamonds were in the minister's safe deposit vault. But the distress and disappointment of the reporters was nothing like so great as the distress and disappointment upon the _Black Swan_, although for a very different reason.

The evening with Mrs. Harrington and her guests had begun pleasantly enough. The party itself was a jolly one, and so far as might be judged from outward appearances, Miss Marien Dounay was quite the jolliest of all; excepting perhaps Mrs. Harrington herself who was elated over the unexpected appearance of the actress; and Rollie, over its effect in immediately restoring him to the lost favor of his hostess. As many times as it was demanded, Miss Dounay told and retold the story of the loss of her jewels. She was the recipient of much sympathy and of many compliments because of the admirable fortitude with which she endured her loss.

Rollie thought Miss Dounay appeared able to dispense with the sympathy, but perceived that she greatly enjoyed the compliments. That she should keep the company in ignorance that her diamonds were to be recovered and continue to enact the role of the heroine who had been cruelly robbed of her chief possession, did not even surprise him. It was her affair entirely since she had bound him to secrecy, and whatever the motive, in the present state of his nerves, he was exceedingly grateful for it; having meantime not a doubt that the disclosure would be made ultimately in a manner which would permit the actress to gratify to the full her childish love of theatrical sensation.

The cruise began with a run far up San Pablo Bay toward Carquinez Straits, followed by a straightaway drive out through the Golden Gate to watch the sun sink between the horns of the Farallones; but here the heavy swells made the ladies gasp and clamor for a return to the shelter of the Bay. Re-entering the Gate as night fell, there was good fun in playing hide-and-seek from searchlight practice of the forts on either side the famous tideway, and some mischievous satisfaction in lounging in the track of the floundering, pounding ferryboats, and getting vigorously whistled out of the way. It was even enjoyable to grow sentimental over the phosphorescent glow of the waves in the wake or the play of the moonbeams on the bone-white crest at the bow. But after an hour or so of this, when it would seem that all of these things together with the tonic of the fresh salt breeze had made everybody wolfishly hungry, Mrs. Harrington's butler, expertly assisted, opened great hampers of eatables and drinkables, and began to serve them in the cabin which would have been rather spacious if the crowd had not been so large.

"Calmer water, James, while supper is being served!" Mrs. Harrington had ordered with a peace-be-still air.

James communicated the order to the captain, who understood very well that Mrs. Harrington was a lady to be obeyed. But it happened that there was a very fresh breeze on the Bay that night, and that a swell which was a kind of left-over from a gale outside two days before was still sloshing about inside, so that "calmer water" was not just the easiest thing to find, though the captain looked for it hard.

"Calmer water, James, I said!" Mrs. Harrington directed reprovingly, after an interval of watchful impatience, accompanying the observation by a look that shot barbs into the eye of the butler. A close observer would have noticed--and James was a close observer of his mistress--that Mrs. Harrington's neck swelled slightly, and that a flush began to mount upon her cheeks.

James knew this pouter-pigeon swelling well and its significance. Mrs. Harrington _must_ now be obeyed. Calmer water had to be had, if it had to be made.

"Back of Yerba Buena, it is calmer," the lady concluded, with an increase of acerbity.

James lost no time in conveying this second command and a description of its accompanying signal, to the captain.

"'Behind the Goat,' she said," James concluded.

Now this island which humps like a camel in the middle of the San Francisco Bay is known to the esthetics as Yerba Buena, but to folks and to mariners it is Goat Island. James was folks; the captain was a mariner. Mrs. Harrington might have been esthetic.

"She draws too much to go nosin' round in there," replied the captain reluctantly, and explained his reluctance with a mixture of emphasis and the picturesque, by adding, "Behind the Goat it's shoal from hell to breakfast."

"She said it," replied James truculently; and stood by to see the helm shift.

"In she goes then, dod gast her!" muttered the captain.

"So much calmer in here under the sheltering lee of Yerba Buena," chirped Miss Gwendolyn Briggs, another quarter of an hour later.

"Why, to be sure," assented the hostess, as with a provident air she surveyed her contented and consuming guests who were ranged like a circling frieze upon the seat of Pullman plush which ran round the luxurious cabin, with James and his two assistants serving from the long table in the center.

It has been hinted that Mrs. Harrington was inclined to stoutness. She was also inclined to Russian caviar. Having seen her guests abundantly supplied, she lifted to her lips a triangle of toast, thickly spread with the Romanof confection. James stood before her, supporting a plate upon which were more triangles of toast and more caviar in a frilled and corrugated carton.

But quite abruptly Mrs. Harrington, who was proper as well as expert in all her food-taking manners, did an unaccountable thing. She turned the toast sidewise and smeared the caviar across her wide cheek almost from the corner of her mouth to her ear. At the same moment James himself did an even more unaccountable thing. He lurched forward, decorated his mistress's shoulders with the triangles of toast, like a new form of epaulette and upset the carton of caviar upon her expansive bosom, where the dark, oleaginous mass clung helplessly, quivered hesitantly, and then began to roll away in tiny, black spheres and to send out trickling exploratory streams, the general tendency of which was downward.

Nor was Mrs. Harrington alone in this sudden eccentricity of deportment. Over on the right Major Hassler, florid of person and extremely dignified of manner, was filling the wine glass of Mrs. Marston Conant, when abruptly he moved the mouth of the bottle a full twelve inches and began to pour its contents in a frothy gurgling stream down the back of the withered neck of John Ray, a rich, irascible, slightly deaf, and sinfully rich bachelor, who at the moment had leaned very low and forward to catch a remark that the lady next beyond was making. As if not content with the ruin thus wrought, Major Hassler next swept the bottle in a dizzy, cascading circle round him, sprinkling every toilet within a radius of three yards, and after dropping the bottle and flourishing his arms wildly, ended by plunging both hands to the bottom of the huge bowl of punch on the end of the table nearest him.

The only palliating feature of these amazing performances of Major Hassler, of James, and of Mrs. Harrington, was that nearly everybody else was executing the same sort of scrambling, lurching, colliding, capsizing, and smearing manoeuvres upon their own account. For a moment everybody glared at everybody else accusingly, and then Ernest Cartwright, sitting on the floor where he had been hurled, offered an interpretation of the phenomena.

"We struck something!" he suggested brightly.

"By Gad!" declared Major Hassler with sudden conviction, as he straightened up and viewed his dripping hands and cuffs with an expression quite indescribable. "By Gad! That's just what I think!"

"James!" murmured a voice almost entirely smothered by rage.

James, despite the horrible fear in his soul, dared to turn his gaze upon his mistress, when suddenly a spasm of pain crossed the lady's face.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh, my heart!" Wrath had given way to fright, and the hue of wrath to pallor.

In the meantime, the _Black Swan_ was standing very still, as still as if on land,--which to be exact was where she was. From without came the sound of waves slapping idly against her sides, and then she shivered while the screws were reversed and churned desperately. From end to end of the cabin there were "Ohs" and "Ahs," and shrieks of dismay, with short ejaculations, as the guests struggled to their feet and stood to view the ruin which the sudden stoppage of the craft had wrought upon toilets, dispositions, and the atmosphere of Mrs. Harrington's happy party.

The next half hour, to employ a marine phrase, was devoted to salvage of one sort and another. One thing became speedily clear. The _Black Swan_ had her nose fast in most tenacious clay. No amount of churning of the screw could drag her off. And no amount of tooting of whistles brought any sort of craft to her assistance. She was stuck there till the tide should take her off. The tide was running out. By rough calculation, it would be eight hours till it came back strong enough to lift up her stern and rock her nose loose.

It was an unpleasant prospect.

With Mrs. Harrington sitting propped and pale in the end of the cabin, her guests tried to cheer her by making light of their plight and the prospect; but as the waters slipped out and out from under the _Black Swan_, till she lay on the bottom with a drunken list, and the hours crept along with dreary slowness through the tiresome night, one disposition after another succumbed to the inevitable and became cattish or bearish, according to sex. But the very first disposition of all to go permanently bad was that of Marien Dounay. Young Burbeck thought he understood to the full her capacity to be disagreeable, but learned in the first hour that this was a ridiculously mistaken assumption.

Nor could any mere petulance on account of weariness or cramped quarters among people who under these circumstances speedily became a bore to themselves and to each other, account for her behavior. Never had Rollie seen so many manifestations of her feline restlessness, or her wiry endurance. When other women had sunk exhausted to sleep upon a cushion in a corner, or upon the shoulders of an escort who obligingly supported the fair head with his own weary body, Miss Dounay sat bolt and desperate, staring at the myriad shoreward lights as if they held some secret her wilful eyes would yet bore out of them.

Though Rollie loyally tried, as endurance would permit, to watch with Marien through the night, sustaining snubs and shafts with humble patience and venturing an occasional dismal attempt at cheer, the first sign of relaxation in Miss Dounay's mood was vouchsafed not to him but to Francois.

This was when at eight o'clock the next morning, after toiling painfully up the steps at the landing pier, her eyes fell upon the huge black limousine, with the faithful chauffeur, his arms folded upon the wheel, his head leaning forward upon them, sound asleep. He had been there since ten-thirty of the night before. Other chauffeurs had waited and fumed, had sputtered to and fro in joy-riding intervals, and had gone home; but not Francois. A smile of pride and satisfaction played across Miss Dounay's face at this exhibition of faithfulness,--and especially in the presence of this jaded, dispirited crowd.

"Francois," Miss Dounay exclaimed, prodding his elbow until his head rolled sleepily into wakefulness, "I could kiss you!"

However, she did not. Rollie opened the door, Miss Dounay stepped back, motioned into the comfortable depths Mrs. Harrington and as many other of the ladies as the car would accommodate, and was whirled away.

*CHAPTER XXXII*

*THE COWARD AND HIS CONSCIENCE*

On the theory that his duty as an escort still survived, Rollie was given a seat upon the limousine beside Francois; but at the door of the St. Albans Miss Dounay dismissed him as curtly as if she had quite forgotten that he was now or ever of any importance to her.

While to escape a breakfast with that thistle-tempered lady on such a morning would, under ordinary conditions, have been a distinct relief, this morning it appealed to Rollie as merely palliative. It was a mercy, but no more. He did not expect to know one single sensation of real relief until he saw Miss Dounay holding her precious diamonds once more in her hands. It was his intention, after a hasty breakfast, to make the swiftest possible transit to the residence of the Reverend John Hampstead and there secure the loan of a certain key and rush back to the bank. Within, say, seven minutes thereafter, he anticipated that this taste of true relief would come to him.

It was twenty minutes past eight as he crossed the wide lobby of the hotel. His physical condition was far from enviable. He was clad in a baggy-elbowed, wretchedly wrinkled, and somewhat stained yachting suit. He had not slept since the night before, in which, he now recalled, he had not slept at all. During this extended period of wakefulness he had been upset and out of his orbit. Yet all this while the world had been rocking along, provokingly undisturbed by his troubles, and right now a big new day was hurrying on. The cars were banging outside, and the newsboys were making a devil of a racket about something, their cries filling the street and ringing vibrantly into the lobby from without. Everything was strident and noisy, jarring upon his nerves. His first instinct was a dive for the bar, but he stopped before the door was reached. He was on a new tack. He resolved not to drink to-day. He had signed no pledges; but he felt that a highball was not in keeping with what he proposed to do.

Instead he veered toward the grillroom and ordered a pot of hot, hot coffee with rolls. To fill the impatient interval between the order and the service, he snatched eagerly at the morning paper in the extended hand of a waiter. At the first glance his eyes dilated, and his lips parted.

When the coffee came, he was still absorbed. The dark liquid was cold before he swallowed it, mechanically, in great gulps. It was well the chair had arms, or his body might have fallen from it. His mind was reeling like a drunken thing as he tried to grasp the process by which a woman's malice had used him for a vicious assault upon the man who had saved him when he stood eye to eye with ruin.

Slowly Burbeck's muddled intelligence groped backward over the events of yesterday. What a fool, he! How clever, she! How demoniacally clever! No wonder she forgave him so lightly; no wonder she cooed so ecstatically once she found the diamonds were in the preacher's vault! No wonder she had made sure that he went upon the yachting party, even to the point of going herself. It was to keep him out of reach until her diabolical plot against Hampstead could take effect. And no wonder she sat bolt and staring at the shore lights all the long night through.

But why did she plot against Hampstead? What was between the clergyman and herself? Why did Hampstead not strike out boldly and clear himself at one stroke, by the mere opening of his lips? He not only had not defended himself, but the papers declared he had a guilty air, that he fought against the opening of the box, and bore himself in a manner that convinced even his bondsmen he was guilty.

But the newspaper chanced to relate as an interesting detail how the minister had quickly recovered his self-possession, to the extent of rearranging the contents of his box after their handling by Assistant District Attorney Searle, and that he had even casually destroyed one paper with the remark that it was something no longer to be preserved.

This almost accidental sentence gave Rollie the strangest feeling of all. He knew what it must have been that was destroyed,--the evidence of his own indebtedness, to explain which would inevitably lead to his exposure. This, too, accounted for the preacher's protest and his apparent guilty fear. He could not know the diamonds were in the box; he did know the I.O.U. was there. He had destroyed it at the very moment when the discovery of the diamonds must surely have convinced him that the culprit he was shielding had betrayed him like a Judas.

"And yet he stands pat!" breathed Rollie huskily, while the greatest emotion of human gratitude that his heart could hold swelled his breast almost to bursting.

"I didn't know they made a man that would stand the gaff like that," he confessed after a further reflective interval.

Burbeck's first instinct was to rush to the telephone and acquit himself in the minister's mind of all complicity in the plot; for inevitably Rollie thought first of himself. But thought for himself recalled the threat of Marien Dounay. How fiercely she had warned him that his secret was not his own, but hers! He grasped the significance of her threat now as she had shrewdly calculated that he would. Let him murmur a word, let him attempt, no matter how subtly or adroitly, to set in motion any plan that would loosen the tightening coils about John Hampstead, and this woman would turn her crazy vengeance on him, would fasten his crime upon him, would do a baser thing than that,--would make it appear that he had deliberately placed the diamonds in the minister's vault, thus causing her innocently to do him this grave injustice. Thus in his exposure he would not be contemplated with indulgent sadness as a gentleman weakling who had descended to vulgar crime to make good another crime as heinous; but, on the contrary, would be regarded hatefully, repulsively, with loathsome scorn and withering contempt, as a despicable ingrate base enough to shift his guilt to the shoulders of the one who had rescued him.

Before this prospect, fear paralyzed every other impulse of his heart, every faculty of his brain. His head was aching violently. He pressed his hands against his temples, and wondered how he could get quietly out of here and where he could fly.