CHAPTER XV

THE SWELLING OF JORDAN

Laroque almost skipped with delight as he hurried back to the Three Crowns. The prospect of making plenty of money without working for it acted like champagne on his restless, reckless mind. Before he had walked a hundred steps he was building air-castles to be inhabited four or five years hence. He had no intention of remaining long as an employé of Messrs. Perissard and Merivel. The pay was good and the percentage of the two "missions" that had already been unfolded to him would be larger. He told himself that the first really big sum of money that he collected he would brazenly put in his pocket and whistle at the partners. Then he would buy out a small café somewhere in a paying neighborhood and settle down to a life of ease.

And if the woman at the hotel had really brought her husband a dower of considerable size, as Perissard's logic seemed to prove, here was the chance made right to his hand. He would get the money, abandon the woman, and the rest of his years would be a pathway of ease.

So he sprang up the stairs, three at a time and threw open the door of the room, singing a song of the dance-halls. Jacqueline glanced up as he came in and then went on with her reading of the future.

He tossed his hat on to the bed, kicked a chair up to the table and dropped into it with a cheery:

"Do you know, old girl, this man Perissard is a wonderful old chap?"

"Is he?" she asked, absent-mindedly, without raising her head.

"I should think he was!" was the enthusiastic response. "Brimful of ideas!"

"Has he got anything for you?"

"Rather! He's offered me a place in his office?"

"What does he do in his office?"

"Oh--business!"

At the evasive reply, Jacqueline raised her head curiously.

"What kind of business?" she asked, with a trace of interest in the thick voice.

"Oh, business of all kinds! He really is an extraordinary man! Do you know, the moment he set eyes on you he saw that you were a woman of good family?"

These were the first words that she seemed to hear clearly, and her face displayed a foolish smile of gratified vanity.

"Did he really?"

"Yes! 'There's blood in her,' he said," went on Laroque, impressively. "Those were the very words he used."

Jacqueline raised the ether bottle.

"Here's his health!" she cried, taking another drink.

"I told him he could go and bet on it!" continued Laroque.

"You--you didn't tell him--who I was!" exclaimed Jacqueline, a dawning fright in her bleared eyes. She had forgotten for the moment that Laroque did not really know.

"Not much!" was the emphatic reply. "No," he laughed. "I told him, after making him promise to keep it secret, that you were the daughter of a general--that your father and mother were very rich--that your husband was a marquis and you had brought him 300,000 francs on your marriage!"

Jacqueline's hysterical cackle was added to his laugh.

"That's good! Veree good!" she chuckled. "And he b'lieved it, did he?"

"Every word of it! What do you think of that? Three hundred thousand francs! Ha, ha! And I suppose you didn't bring him a son, did you?"

Jacqueline fell into the trap without a thought. She stiffened with drunken dignity.

"I beg your pardon!" she said, with a haughtiness somewhat impaired by her difficulty of enunciation. "I did not bring my husband 300,000 francs on my marriage, certainly! But I did bring him 125,000!"

Laroque hid the gleam in his eyes.

"Oh, nonsense! You're joking!" he laughed, "125,000 francs!"

"I 'sure you it's true!" declared Jacqueline, solemnly.

"Tut, tut! You're stretching it some!"

"Not a sou--more nor less!"

"Truth and honor?" he cried, laughing and raising his hand in the gesture of the oath.

"Truth _an_' honor!"

"A hundred and twenty-five thousand francs?"

"A hundred and twenty-five thousand francs!" And she nodded her head with heavy importance.

"Then where's the money?" he suddenly demanded. Jacqueline stared at him in mild surprise.

"Wha'd'you mean?"

"Did your husband give the money back to you?" His voice had changed from a bantering tone to excited harshness.

"No, of course not!" she replied roughly.

Laroque sprang up, pretended anger in his face.

"I can't believe you were such a fool as that! Do you mean to tell me that when your husband turned you out you didn't ask him for the money?"

"The money's not mine!" she mumbled, her eyes wandering.

"Whose is it, then?"

"My son's!" The words were barely audible.

"But you're alive still!" he protested angrily. "Your son will get it when you die!"

"My son thinks I'm dead," she replied, wearily. "His father told him I was. And when he was twenty-one he probably came into my fortune."

Laroque half-turned away with a quick gesture of impatience.

"What a fool you are!" he cried, disgustedly. "I don't suppose he saw a sou of it!" He was racking his mind for some lure that would draw her husband's name from her. But this last lead was fatal. Jacqueline glared at him suddenly, her eyes wild.

"What the hell's it to you?" she blazed out fiercely. "You've got nothing to do with it, have you? What business is it o' yours, anyway?"

"But you ought to clear it up!" protested Laroque, in a milder tone, as he saw that he had erred. "That's what Perissard thinks, and Perissard knows what he's talking about."

"What business is it of Perissard's?" she shouted. Laroque extended his hands soothingly.

"He only spoke in your interests!" he hastily explained. "When I told him you had brought your husband 300,000 francs, he asked me whether you had got them back again. I said I didn't know, and he declared that you had a perfect right to the money."

"Well, I shan't claim it!" declared Jacqueline, sullenly sinking back into her chair.

"Why not?" he persisted.

"Because I don't--want to!"

"But why?"

Jacqueline burst into tears again.

"I'd rather beg in the streets!" she wept in a high whine. "I'd rather starve in the gutter man ask that man for a son!"

"Yes! yes! Of course, I understand that!" he agreed, eagerly. "That's natural pride, that is! But you might get somebody else to get your money for you. You might give somebody the power of attorney."

The sobs stopped abruptly and she stared at him in drunken scorn.

"Signed with my name and address, eh? No, thanks!"

"Well, a letter then," he suggested. "I should think a letter would do just as well. Look here! Give me a letter and I'll go and get your money for you!"

"I'd rather die than let my son know I'm alive!" she cried, her voice hoarse with passion and weeping. "He's not to know at any price! I'd rather kill myself! Yes, I would! Kill myself!"

"But he'll never know!" protested Laroque. He was fairly dancing with excitement. But Jacqueline apparently did not hear him.

"If he ever thinks of me," she went on between raging and sobbing, "I want him to regret me and I want him to feel sorry now and then because I'm not with him. He never knew me! I want him to respect my memory and love me!"

"Now, don't get excited!" interrupted Laroque soothingly.

"I don't want him to know what kind of a woman his mother is. And he shan't know it!" she shouted with sudden fury. "He shall never know it, I tell you! _Never_! I tell you! _Never!"_

"All right! Don't lose your temper! Who on earth is going to tell him? I certainly won't, and It isn't likely his father will."

Jacqueline sank back into her chair and glowered at him.

"I don't want to talk about it any more!"

"But the money's worth the trouble!" he insisted, trying to hide his exasperation.

"D----n the money!"

"A hundred and twenty-five thousand francs! Think what a difference they'd make to us!"

"Oh, shut your d----d mouth!" she growled. "I don't want to talk about the money, I tell you!" Laroque's eyes sparkled.

"Look here, my girl!" he cried, threateningly. "You keep a civil tongue in your head or I'll teach you who you're talking to!"

Jacqueline measured him with that boundless contempt that is given only the very drunk to feel.

"You can't teach me any more than I know about you!" she retorted with unmistakably insulting meaning.

Laroque elected to ignore this last thrust and ostentatiously looked at his watch.

"Will you write me a letter so I can get the money?" he demanded with an air of finality.

"_No_!" she screamed. He took off his coat and vest and went into the dressing-room with the remark that "he could do without the letter."

Jacqueline did not at first catch its significance but an idea slowly worked into her brain.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"Oh, there's no trouble about finding a Deputy Attorney!" was the cheerful reply, accompanied by noise of splashing. She rose unsteadily.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Dressing."

"Are you going out?"

"Yes, my girl, I'm going out."

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

"To Paris," he replied, calmly, through the open door.

"This evening?"

"Right away!"

"Then I'll come with you!" she declared, determinedly.

"No, you won't!" he replied, coolly, returning into the room. "Perissard objects."

Jacqueline faced him with dilated eyes.

"You're not to try and find my husband!" she cried, between anger and dread. She swayed on her feet. The thick slur had disappeared from her voice in the instant.

"Mind your own business!" snapped Laroque, picking up his hat and coat, "and I'll mind mine!"

"You are not to ask him for that money!" she cried, her voice rising shrilly.

"I'll do just as I like!" he sneered. Jacqueline clutched the lapel of his coat with both hands and glared into his face with blazing eyes.

"You shall not go!" she screamed furiously.

"What kind of a fool do you think I am?" he cried, roughly, trying to break away from her grip. "Who'll stop me?"

Jacqueline, with clenched teeth, clung grimly to his coat.

"Take care, my girl!" he cried, threateningly, as he tried to wrench his coat out of her hands. "Take care or you'll regret it!"

"You shall not go, I tell you! You shan't go into that house and see my child. I won't let you go!"

Laroque jerked his coat out of her grip and in the same motion threw her violently against the bed.

"Let me alone!" he snarled, and stalked into the dressing-room to get his traveling bag.

Jacqueline lurched to her feet and staggered over toward the hall door.... The room was reeling around her in crimson streaks. He must not pass that door! At the price of her life, he must not pass that door! ... There was no key! ... He would go and tell her husband of her shame!... Her boy would blush now for the mother, for whose memory he had wept.... Crazed with rage and horror and drugs she put her back to the door and stared helplessly around the room. The dresser was at her right, and there within easy reach was his revolver! With a gasp she clutched it as Macbeth might have reached for the phantom dagger.... What was his life compared with the thought that her boy would know his mother's shame?... She heard him coming and hid the revolver in the folds of her skirt.

Bag in hand, he walked briskly up to the door and attempted to push her to one side.

"No! You shan't go! you shan't go!" she panted, struggling.

"We'll see!" he laughed, derisively, getting his hand on the knob.

"Take care!"

"Don't be a fool!" he snarled. "Get out of the way or I'll _make_ you!"

And at the word he shoved her roughly against the foot of the bed. With an effort she regained her balance.

"_There_--then!"

The pistol flashed up and at the same instant the report rang through the house.

Laroque dropped his bag, and his right hand went up to his left side. She gazed at him fearfully and he stared back for a few moments with a look of blank amazement.

Then his eyes suddenly glazed and he pitched forward on his face at her feet, rolled over and was still.

There was a rush of footsteps up the stairs and down the hall and frightened voices calling back and forth. Then the door was thrown open and Victor, followed by a dozen guests and servants, dashed into the room.

Jacqueline was still standing with the warm pistol in her hand, looking down at the face of the dead man. She did not even lift her head when they entered. Victor took the pistol out of her limp fingers and called in a shaking voice: "She's killed him! Run for the police, somebody. Quick!"

Jacqueline did not take her eyes off Laroque's still, white face.

"There's no hurry," she said, in dull, passionless tones. "I shan't try to get away!"