Chapter 24
“Don't talk that way, Mr. Crane, please don't. I know you think that what you say is right, but what difference does it all make to me? You know what love is like, you say it has come to you now. My heart tells me that Mortimer is guiltless. The time has been so short that he has had no chance to clear himself. If I didn't believe in him I wouldn't love him; but I still love him, and so I believe in him. I can't help it--I don't want to help it; I simply go on having faith in him, and my love doesn't falter. Can't you understand what a terrible thing it would be even if I were to consent to become your wife? I know it would please my mother. But if afterward this other man was found to be innocent, wouldn't your life be embittered--wouldn't it be terrible for you to be tied to a woman who loved another man?”
“But it is impossible that he is innocent, or will ever be thought so.”
“And I know that he is innocent.”
“Your judgment must tell you that this is only fancy.”
“My heart tells me that he is not guilty of this crime. My heart is still true to him; so, shall I decide against myself? Don't--don't stab me to death with words of Mortimer's guilt; it has no effect, and only gives me pain. I must wait--we must all wait, just wait. There is no harm in waiting, the truth will come out at last. But you will keep your promise?” she said, lifting her eyes to his face.
“Yes, I meant no harm to Mortimer in searching for this evidence; it was only to clear your brother.”
They had come to the station by now.
“Would you like to speak to Mr. Farrell?” Crane asked. “You are taking my word.”
“No, it is useless. I can do nothing but wait; that I can and will do.”
“Don't think me cruel,” Crane said, “but the wait will be so long.”
“It may be forever, but I will wait. And I thank you again for your--for your goodness to me. I'm sorry that I've given you trouble. If you can--if you can--make it easier for Mortimer--I know he'll feel it if you could make him think that you didn't altogether believe him as--dishonest--will you, for my sake?”
It was generally supposed that Crane's heart had been mislaid at his inception and the void filled with a piece of chiseled marble; for years he was a convert to this belief himself; but as he stood on the platform of the primitive little station and looked into the soft luminous gray eyes, swimming moist in the hard-restrained tears of the pleading girl, he became a child. What a wondrous thing love was! Mountains were as mole-hills before such faith. In the unlimited power of her magnetism, what a trifle she had asked of him! With an influence so great she had simply said, “Spare of censure this man for my sake.” In thankfulness rather than in condescension he promised.
Even in disgrace--a felon--how Mortimer was to be envied! Above all else was such abiding love. In his, Crane's, victory was the bitterness of defeat; the other, beaten down, triumphed in the gain of this priceless love.
A sharp material whistle, screeching through its brass dome on the incoming train, cut short these fantastically chaotic thoughts.
“Good-bye, and thank you,” said the girl, holding out her hand to Crane.
“Good-bye,” he repeated, mechanically.
What had he accomplished? He had beaten lower his rival and wedded firmer to the beaten man the love he prized above all else. In his ears rang the girl's words, “Wait, wait, wait.” Irresponsibly he repeated to himself, “All things come to them that wait.”
Seated in the car swift whirled toward the city, he was almost surprised to find Farrell by his side. He was like a man in a dream. A vision of gray eyes, blurred in tears of regret, had obliterated all that was material. In defeat his adversary had the victory. He, Philip Crane, the man of calculation, was but a creature of emotion. Bah! At forty if a man chooses to assume the role of Orlando he does it to perfection.
With an effort he swept away the cobweb of dreams and sat upright--Philip Crane, the careful planner.
“You nearly missed the train,” said Farrell.
“Did I?” questioned Crane, perplexedly. “I thought I got on in plenty of time.”
Farrell smiled knowingly, as befitted a man of his occupation--a New Yorker, up to snuff. The veiled insinuation disgusted Crane. Was everything in the world vile? He had left a young life swimming hopelessly in the breakers of disaster, buoyed only by faith and love; and at his side sat a man who winked complacently, and beamed upon him with senile admiration because of his supposed gallantry.
Perhaps a year before this moral angularity would not have affected him; it would not have appealed to him as being either clever or objectionable; he would simply not have noticed it at all. But Allis Porter had originated a revolution in his manner of thought. He even fought against the softer awakening; it was like destroying the lifelong habits of a man. His callousness had been a shield that had saved him troublous misgivings; behind this shield, even in rapacity, he had experienced peace of mind, absence of remorse. If he could have put away from him his love for the girl he would have done so willingly. Why should he battle and strive for an unattainable something as intangible as a dream? It was so paradoxical that Allis's love for Mortimer seemed hopeless because of the latter's defeat, while his, Crane's love, was equally hopeless in his hour of victory.
Farrell's voice drew him from this psychological muddle in tones that sounded harsh as the cawing of homing ravens at eventime.
“Will it be a court case?” he queried.
“What?” asked Crane, from his tangled elysium.
“That high roller in the bank.”
“Oh! I can't say yet what it will lead to.” Crane's caution always asserted itself first.
“Well, I've been thinking it over. That's the guy, right enough, but when it comes to swearing to a man's identity in court, it's just a bit ticklish.”
Crane frowned. He disliked men who hedged. He always planned first, then plunged; evidently his companion had plunged first, and was now verifying his plans.
Farrell continued, “You see what I mean?”
“I don't,” answered Crane, shortly.
“You will if you wait,” advised Farrell, a tinge of asperity in his tone. “I'm makin' a book, say. All the blazin' idiots in Christendom is climbin' over me wantin' to know what I'll lay this and what I'll lay that. They're like a lot of blasted mosquitos. A rounder comes up an' makes a bet; if it's small p'r'aps I don't twig his mug at all, just grabs the dough an' calls his number. He may be Rockefeller, or a tough from the Bowery, it don't make no difference to me; all I want is his goods an' his number, see? But a bettor of the right sort slips in an' taps me for odds to a thousand. Nat'rally I'm interested, because he parts with the thousand as though it was his heart's blood. I size him up. There ain't no time fer the writin' down of earmarks, though most like I could point him out in a crowd, an' say, 'That's the rooster.' But sposin' a judge stood up another man that looked pretty much like him, an' asked me to swear one of the guys into ten years in Sing Sing, pr'aps I'd weaken. Mistaken identity is like grabbin' up two kings an' a jack, an' playin' 'em fer threes.”
“Which means, if I understand it, that you're guessing at the man--that I've given you all this trouble for nothing.”
Crane wished that Farrell had kept his doubts to himself; the case had been made strong by his first decision, and now the devil of uncertainty would destroy the value of identification.
“Not by a jugful!” ejaculated Farrell. “I'm just tellin' you this to show you that we've got to make it complete--we've got to get collateral to back up my pickin'.”
“You mean some one else to identify him also?”
“No, not just that; but that's not a bad thought. My clerk, Ned Hagen, must have noticed him too. I mean that the bettor's badge number will be in line with that bet, an' you can probably find out the number of the badge this rooster wore.”
An inspiration came with Farrell's words--came to Crane. Why had he not thought of that before? Still it didn't matter. The badge number, Mortimer's number, would be in Faust's book where had been entered the hundred dollars Mortimer put on Lauzanne. He could compare this with the number in Farrell's book; no doubt they would agree; then, indeed, the chain would be completed to the last link. No man on earth could question that evidence.
“It's a good idea, Farrell,” he said.
“Bet yer life, it's clear Pinkerton. You'd better come round to my place to-morrow about ten, an' we'll look it up.”
“I will,” Crane answered.
XLIII.
The old bay horse that crawled back to Ringwood with Allis Porter after her interview with Crane must have thought that the millennium for driving horses had surely come. Even the ambition to urge the patriarch beyond his complacent, irritating dog trot was crushed out of her by the terrible new evidence the banker had brought in testimony against her lover.
“I didn't need this,” the girl moaned to herself. In her intensity of grief her thoughts became audible in expressed words. “Oh, God!” she pleaded to the fields that lay in the silent rapture of summer content, “strengthen me against all this falseness. You didn't do it, George--you couldn't--you couldn't! And Alan! my poor, weak brother; why can't you have courage and clear your friend?”
Her heart rose in angry rebellion against her brother, against Crane, against Providence, even against the man she loved. Why should he sacrifice both their lives, become an outcast himself to shield a boy, who in a moment of weakness had committed an act which might surely be forgiven if he would but admit his mistake? yes, it might even be called a mistake. The punishment accepted in heroic silence by Mortimer was out of all proportion to the wrong-doing. It meant the utter ruin of two lives. Firmly as she believed in his innocence, a conviction was forced upon her that unless Alan stood forth and boldly proclaimed the truth the accumulated guilt--proof would cloud Mortimer's name, perhaps until his death. Even after that his memory might linger as that of a thief.
The evening before Alan had been at Ringwood and Allis had made a final endeavor to get him to clear the other's name by confessing the truth to Crane. On her knees she had pleaded with her brother. The boy had fiercely disclaimed all complicity, protested his own innocence with vehemence, and denounced Mortimer as worse than a thief in having poisoned her mind against him.
In anger Alan had disclosed Mortimer's treachery--as he called it--and crime to their mother. Small wonder that Allis's hour of trial was a dark one. The courage that had enabled her to carry Lauzanne to victory was now tried a thousandfold more severely. It seemed all that was left her, just her courage and faith; they had stood out successfully against all denunciation of Lauzanne, and, with God's help, they would hold her true to the man she loved.
Even the pace of a snail lands him somewhere finally, and the unassailed Bay, with a premonition of supper hovering obscurely in his lazy mind, at last consented to arrive at Ringwood.
Allis crept to her father like a fearsome child avoiding goblins. Providentially he had not been initiated into the moral crusade against the iniquitous Mortimer, so the girl clung to him as a drowning person might to a plank of salvation. She longed to tell him everything--of her love for Mortimer, perhaps he had guessed it, for he spoke brave words often of the sturdy young man who had saved her from Diablo. Perhaps she would tell him if she felt her spirit giving way--it was cruel to stand quite alone--and beseech him, as he had faith in her, to believe in her lover.
Allis went to the tea table by her father's side, fearing to get beyond his hearing; she dreaded her mother's questioning eyes. What could be said in the accused man's defense, or in her own? Nothing; she could only wait.
A square old-fashioned wooden clock on the mantelpiece of the sitting room had just droned off seven mellow hours, when the faint echo of its music was drowned by the crunch of gravel; there was the quick step of somebody coming up the drive; then the wooden steps gave hollow notice. The visitor's advent was announced again by the brass knocker on the front door.
“I'll go,” said Allis, as her mother rose. The girl knew who it was that knocked, not because of any sane reason; she simply knew it was Mortimer.
When she opened the door he stepped back hesitatingly. Was he not a criminal--was he not about to leave his position because of theft?
“Come in,” she said, quietly; “I am glad you have come.”
“Shall I? I just want to speak to you for a minute. I said I would come. But I can't see anybody--just you, alone.”
“I understand,” she answered. “Come inside.”
“I am going away,” he began; “I can't stand it here.”
“You have done nothing--nothing to clear yourself?”
“Nothing.”
“And you won't?”
“No.”
“Is this wise?”
“It is the inevitable.”
They were silent for a little; they were both standing. The girl broke the stillness.
“I am glad you have come, because I can tell you again that I know you are innocent. I know it, because my heart repeats it a thousand times a day. I listen to the small voice and I hear nothing else.”
“You never waver--you never doubt?”
“Never.”
“You never will?”
“Never.”
“Then I care not. Other men have had misfortune thrust upon them and have borne it without complaint, have had less to solace them than you have given me now, and I should be a coward if I faltered. Some day perhaps, you will know that I am worthy of your faith: God grant that the knowledge brings you no fresh misery--there, forgive me, I have said too much; I am even now a coward. If you will say good-bye I'll go.”
“Good-bye, my hero.” She raised her eyes, blurred with tears, and held out her hand gropingly, as one searches in the dark, for the room whirled like a storm cloud, and just faintly she could see the man's strong face coming to her out of the gloom like the face of a god. He took her hand. “Good-bye,” his voice vibrated brokenly; “if--if Justice wills that my innocence be known some day, may I come back? Will you wait, believing in me for a little?”
“Forever.”
He drew her to him by the hand he still clasped, and put his strong arms about her. What mattered it now that he had been falsely accused--what mattered it to either of them that he must accept the grim penalty of his endeavor? With them in the soft gloom was nothing but love, and faith, and innocence; and within the strong arms a sense of absolute security, as though the false accusing world had been baffled, beaten down, and the victory theirs--love.
He raised the girl's face and kissed her. “Let God witness that I press your brave lips in innocence,” he said; “and in this pledge I love you forever and ever.”
“Amen,” came from Allis involuntarily; it sounded to them both like the benediction of a high priest.
“Amen,--” he responded. To speak again would have been sacrilege.
He put her from him gently, turned away and walked quickly from the house.
The girl sat for a long time a gray shadow in the gathering darkness. He was gone from her. It seemed as though she had scarce spoken the encouragement she wished to give him. It had been a meeting almost without words; but she felt strangely satisfied. The accusing revelation that had come from Crane in the afternoon had been a crushing blow. It was a mistake, of course; it wasn't true--somehow it wasn't true, but still it had stunned. Now in the gloaming she sat with an angel of peace; big, steadfast, honest eyes, full of thankfulness, looked lovingly at her from where he had stood. If she could sit there forever, with the echo of his deep “Amen” to their love lingering in her ears, she would ask no further gift of the gods.
Mortimer, as with swinging stride he hurried toward the village, let his mind flit back to the room of gray shadows. How little he had said! Had there been aught spoken at all? The strong arms still tingled with tender warmth where the impress of an angel had set them thrilling ecstatically. Yes, what mattered their speech? There had been little of the future--no promise to send word of his well-being--but let the future look to itself. In the present he was king of a love realm that was greater than all the world.
Field after field flitted by, studded here and there by square, gray specters of ghost-like houses that blinked at him with red dragon eyes. Sub-consciously he knew the eyes were searching out the secret that made him in all his misery of misfortune so happy. And he would answer to the eyes, dragon or human, without fear and without shame--because he was innocent--that it was love, the greatest thing in all the world, the love and faith sublime of a good, true woman. Woman had he said?--an angel!
XLIV
As Farrell had suggested, Crane sought him at the office the next day at ten o'clock.
Farrell and his clerk were busy planning an enterprising campaign against men who had faith in fast horses for the coming week at Sheepshead Bay.
“Ah!” the Bookmaker exclaimed when Crane entered, “you want that badge number. Hagen, get the betting sheet for the second last day at Gravesend, and look up a bet of one thousand dollars we roped in over Mr. Crane's horse. I want the number to locate the man that parted--I wish there'd been more like him.”
“Do you mean Billy Cass?” queried the clerk.
“Who the devil's Billy Cass?”
“Why the stiff that played The Dutchman for a thou'.”
“You know him?” This query from Farrell.
“I should say! He's a reg'lar. Used to bet in Mullen's book last year when I penciled for him.”
The clerk brought the betting sheet and ran his finger down a long row of figures.
“That's the bet. A thousand calls three on The Dutchman. His badge number was 11,785. Yes, that's the bet; I remember Billy Cass takin' it. You see,” he continued, explanatory of his vivid memory, “he's gen'rally a piker--plays a long shot--an' his limit's twenty dollars; so, when he comes next a favorite that day with a cool thou' it give me stoppage of the heart. Damn'd if I didn't get cold feet. Bet yer life it wasn't Billy's money--not a plunk of it; he had worked an angel, an' was playin' the farmer's stuff for him.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Hagen--did you know the man?” Crane asked.
“Know him? All the way--tall, slim, blue eyes, light mustache, hand like a woman.”
“That's the man,” affirmed Farrell; “that's the man--I saw him yesterday in your place.”
Crane stared. For once in his life the confusion of an unexpected event momentarily unsettled him.
“I thought you identified--which man in the bank did you mean?”
“I saw three: a short, dark, hairless kid”--Alan Porter, mentally ticked off Crane; “a tall, dark, heavy-shouldered chap, that, judged by his mug, would have made a fair record with the gloves--”
“Was not that the man you identified as having made the bet?” interrupted Crane, taking a step forward in his intense eagerness.
“Not on your life; it was the slippery-looking cove with fishy eyes.”
“Cass,” muttered Crane to himself; “but that's impossible--he never left the bank that day; there's some devilish queer mistake here.” Farrell had identified David Cass in the bank as the man who had bet with him, while the clerk asserted that one “Billy” Cass had made the same wager. Hagen's description of “Billy” Cass fitted David Cass in a general way. Again the badge number--11,785--was not Mortimer's, as registered in Faust's book.
Crane stood pondering over the complication. He saw that until further investigation disproved it there could be but one solution of this intricate riddle. Billy Cass, the maker of the bet, was a race track frequenter; David Cass was not. They must be separate personalities; but they resembled each other; they were of the same name--they might be brothers. Billy Cass had been in possession of the stolen note; he must have got it from some one having access to it in the bank--Mortimer, Alan Porter, or Cass--the cashier was quite out of the question.
The next move was to trace back through Billy Cass the man who had delivered to him the stolen money. There was still a chance that Mortimer, unfamiliar with betting and possibly knowing of Billy Cass through his brother in the bank--if they were brothers--had used this practical racing man as a commission agent. This seemed a plausible deduction. It was practically impossible that David Cass could have got possession of the bill, for it was locked in a compartment of which Mortimer had the key; the latter had admitted that the keys were not out of his possession.
This far in his hurried mental retrospect Crane spoke to Farrell: “I think this is all we can do at present. I may find it necessary to ask you to identify this Cass, but I hope not to trouble you any further in the matter.”
“Hang the trouble!” energetically responded Farrell, with huge disclaiming of obligation; “I'll spend time and money to down a crook any day; I've no use for 'em; a few of that kidney gives the racin' game a black eye. If you need me or Hagen, just squeak, an' we'll hop onto the chap if he's a wrong one with both feet.”
Crane said nothing about the other number he had culled from Faust's book; he said nothing about his suspicions of a brotherhood; he wanted to go back to his quarters and think this new problem out.
What if in seeking for conclusive evidence against Mortimer he should prove him innocent? He was treading upon dangerous ground, pushing out of his path with a firebrand a fuse closely attached to a mine that might explode and shatter the carefully constructed fabric.
Sitting in his own chamber he once more went over the whole extraordinary entanglement. Mistaken as it was, Farrell's identification at Brookfield must have strongly affected the mind of Allis Porter. At the time Crane had played an honest part in recounting it to the girl. He had firmly believed that Farrell, owing to his ambiguous report, had meant Mortimer; in fact, Cass had not entered his mind at all. Even yet Mortimer might be the guilty man--probably was. Why should he, Crane, pursue this investigation that might turn, boomerang-like, and act disastrously. Mortimer was either a thief or a hero; there could be no question about that. As a hero, in this case, he was pretty much of a fool in Crane's eyes; but Allis Porter would not look upon it in that light--she would deify him. Crane would commit diplomatic suicide in developing Mortimer's innocence. Again he asked himself why he should proceed. Mortimer was guilty in the strong, convicting light of the apparent evidence; better let it rest that happy way--happy for Crane. But still would he rest satisfied himself? He was not accustomed to doing things by halves. If Cass had stolen the money it would never do to retain him in a position of trust. Then the devil of subtle diplomacy, familiar at all times to Crane, whispered in his ear that he need not blazen to the world the result of his further investigation; he might satisfy himself, and then if Mortimer were found still deeper in the toils it might be spoken of; but if he were found innocent--well, was Crane his brother's keeper? He could adopt one of two plans to get at the truth; he could trace out Billy Cass and extort from him the name of his principal; but if startled, the latter might refuse to divulge anything. Police pressure meant publicity. There was a better plan--Crane always found a better plan in everything. If David Cass had stolen the money he must have sent it to his brother; if that fact were established it would show a connection between the two.