Part 13

“Poor old Peleg!” said one. “Them Prestons has kep’ him pretty busy cookin’ up excuses. An’ ef she marries Whitcomb I guess Peleg ’ll be up against it a while longer.”

“‘Twon’t be any time b’fore Jarvis gits another mortgage; mebbe he’ll fetch it this time. ’Tain’t often the ’onor’ble gent gits left. I hed t’ laugh when I heerd she’d paid him off.”

“The’s somethin’ mighty queer ’bout that business, anyhow. Who d’ye suppose anted up with the money?”

“Some fool, like ’s not. A fool an’ his money’s soon parted. Now like’s not it was Dave Whitcomb. Mebbe he——”

“Get out, man! What’d be the use o’ that, if he’s goin’ t’ marry her?”

“He wa’n’t engaged to her when he fust come back; mebbe he thought——”

“Thought nothin’! Dave wouldn’t pass over no four thousand dollars b’fore he knew she’d have him, would he? He’d be a bigger fool ’n he looks to do that.”

“Say, Hank,” drawled young Hewett, “which ’d you druther be, a bigger fool ’n you look? or look a bigger fool ’n you be?”

“I dunno,” said Hank, thoughtfully expectorating in the general direction of the rusty stove. “Guess on the hull, I’d ruther look a bigger fool ’n I be, b’cause——”

“That’s impossible!” quoth the genial Al, with a snigger of amusement.

“Pooh! that’s a dried-up chestnut, Hank,” interposed the liveryman, “f’om five years b’fore last; don’t you let Al get a rise out o’ you that easy. He’d ’a’ said the same thing whichever way you’d answered.”

“Darn!” vociferated Hank. Then he joined in the general laugh.

In the silence that followed the subsidence of mirth a small, spare individual, wearing a gray linen duster, buttoned to the throat, and carrying a suit-case and tightly strapped umbrella, entered the store. He gazed inquiringly at the assembled circle, his eyes wrinkling pleasantly at the corners.

“I just blew in,” he observed to nobody in particular, “and I’m going to hang out for a few days at the best hotel in town.”

“The’ ain’t but one,” volunteered the voluble Smith, stealthily moving his chair that he might get a look at the stranger’s feet. They were neatly covered with tan Oxfords, he satisfied himself; but the toes were not pointed.

“Where’ll I find it?” asked the stranger. “I’m an inspector from the Phœnix Fire Insurance Company,” he added, correctly interpreting the suspicious glances levelled at him and his sparse belongings. “Expect to be in town two or three days, looking over our risks and correcting a map of the town. I do a little life insurance business on the side.”

“Takin’ on any new risks in buildin’s?” inquired the man on the pickle barrel.

“W’y, yes; I ain’t a regular soliciting agent for the Phœnix; but I’ll be mighty glad to write any persons desiring insurance,” replied the stranger. “My name,” he added pleasantly, “is Todd, Albert Todd, at your service, gentlemen.”

Mr. Todd bowed and smiled expansively.

“Wall, ye want t’ cast yer eye over Hiram Plumb’s prop’ty, fust thing you do,” advised the liveryman, with a facetious grimace toward the individual on the pickle barrel. “It’s in a fierce condition.”

The gentleman in question slowly descended from his perch, thoughtfully caressing the seat of his trousers, as he replied in kind.

“Y’ don’t hev to worry none ’bout me, Mister Todd—if that’s your name—I don’t insure in the Phœnix; but Bud Hawley, him that keeps the liv’ry-stable, is a teetotally bad risk. He’s been takin’ au-to-mo-beels t’ board lately, an’ they sure do kick up a powerful smell o’ gasolene.”

“I’ve got a permit,” hastily interposed Mr. Hawley. “I c’n show it to you.”

The stranger waved his hand deprecatingly.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said gently. “I have nothing to do with that class of business. But if Mr. Hawley has a good horse and buggy to hire, I’ll be glad to talk business. How about it, Mr. Hawley?”

Mr. Hawley favored the stranger with a comprehensive stare.

“Guess I got a rig ’at ’ud suit,” he admitted. “Fi’ dollars a day an’ up, ’cordin’ t’ the sort o’ rig you’re lookin’ for.”

“I want,” said Mr. Todd, “a good smart horse; one that can cover considerable territory in a day, and a buggy; nothing fancy, you know; but neat and comfortable.”

“All right,” said Mr. Hawley slowly. “I’m goin’ along t’ my place now; ’tain’t fur from the Eagle.”

“Many folks stopping at the hotel?” inquired Mr. Todd briskly, as the two men walked along the village street under the heavy noonday shade of the big maples.

“Not s’ many,” replied the liveryman non-committally.

He scowled as a smart, yellow-wheeled trap whizzed past.

“I dunno what sort of a driver you be,” he said. “Most anybody wants t’ git over the ground these days; but the’s some folks ’at thinks they c’n drive a horse like it was an automobeel. That’s one o’ my rigs an’ one o’ my best horses,—or was till that chap took t’ drivin’ it.”

Mr. Todd stretched his long neck after the yellow-wheeled trap, which had stopped in front of the Barford Eagle a little further up the street.

“You don’t say!” he observed mildly. “Kind of a young feller, too. They say a merciful man is merciful to his beast.”

“Dave Whitcomb must be a hard case, ’cordin’ to that,” was Mr. Hawley’s opinion. “Y’ seen him get out an’ go in; did you? Wall, that young chap used t’ teach school here. Fact; he was principal of our union school, an’ considered a smart enough chap, though quiet; didn’t cut much of a swathe, even with the young folks. But all of a sudden he up an’ went west! an’ we heard after a spell he was dead. But he turned up a while ago, live as ever, an’ consid’able changed. He’s quite a heavy swell now; they say he owns a mine, or suthin’, out west. He’s stayin’ t’ the Eagle; ’n’ say, if you’re one of the sort ’at likes t’ put on style ’n’ eat your dinner at night mebbe you c’d chum in with Dave.”

“What’s the young man’s line of business?” asked Mr. Todd. “I’d like to interest him in a little proposition——”

“Business?” echoed Mr. Hawley, and he chuckled as he drove his hands a little deeper into his trousers pockets. “Dave’s principal business around these parts is courtin’, I sh’d say. I guess he don’t do much else these days. Girl out in the country; got a big apple farm. If you git acquainted with Dave he’ll tell you all about it.”

To make the acquaintance of the ex-schoolmaster appeared to be exactly what the energetic Mr. Todd was seeking. He put up at the Eagle, where he made a point of asking for a six o’clock dinner.

“I am told,” he said to Sutton, the proprietor, “that this is one of the few properly managed hotels in this part of the country, with evening dinners, breakfasts _à la carte_, and so forth!”

Sutton silently shook his heavy body, his wide mouth turning up at the comers, an exercise which passed with him as a laugh.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “we’re stylish an’ up t’ date all right, when it comes t’ ’leven o’clock breakfasts an’ six o’clock dinners. We’ve kind of changed our day around here t’ ’commodate our patrons. We calc’late t’ please.”

And so it came about that young Whitcomb sat down to dinner that night with Mr. Albert Todd. The latter individual was quite the gentleman in his manners at table, David observed. Little by little the two fell into friendly conversation, and David, at first irritable and silent, passed all at once into his alternating mood, when he desired nothing so much as to talk about himself. He had found few he cared to talk to in Barford, except Barbara, and there were things one could not mention to a woman.

Not once did the tactful Mr. Todd allude to the subject of life insurance, and he appeared wonderfully interested in David’s account of his life in the West; of his failures, few and far between, and of his successes, social and otherwise which, according to David, had been many and remarkable. Mr. Todd was a man of the world, that much was clear, with no foolish or fanatical prejudices. After dinner the two in a state of post-prandial amity strolled across to the barroom, where they partook of various cooling drinks, compounded, under David’s direction, by the alert young person behind the bar. And when later they strolled out to the piazza and David produced cigarettes, they had fallen into relations of such exceeding friendliness that David reopened the conversation in a more intimate tone than he had yet taken.

“This is the most confoundedly stupid hole a man ever dropped into,” he observed through the fragrant smoke wreaths.

“It looks kind of peaceful and soothing,” agreed Mr. Todd, with a chuckle; “I guess I can stand it for a few days, though.”

He looked away up the dusty street where an occasional pedestrian enlivened the solitude. “Thinking of settling here?” he asked.

David scowled.

“Yes,” he said. “Out in the country a mile or so.”

“Then you’ll have hopes of striking the metropolis here occasionally?” queried Mr. Todd facetiously. “I wouldn’t want to get too far away.”

David’s eyes were still fixed and frowning.

“What do you think of a man of my experience settling down in a place like this to raise apples?” he asked. “Sometimes I think I’m several kinds of a fool for doing it.”

Mr. Todd spat thoughtfully over the rail.

“That depends,” he said tentatively, but with a keen look at the other.

David flicked the ash off his cigarette, then flung it impatiently away and lighted a fresh one.

“Yes, of course,” he said; “but take it anyway you like, is the game worth the candle? Once I’m tied up here, I suppose I’ll have to stand by the rest of my life. Do I want to do it? Would you want to do it? Honest now.”

The small spare gentleman who had introduced himself to Barford society under the name of Albert Todd smiled thoughtfully.

“Well, it strikes me as a bit slow for my taste. What do you say to a game of cards to pass away the time?”

David shook his head.

“I don’t take much to cards,” he said. “The other chap generally wins, and I like to be on the winning side.”

He tramped up and down the piazza a few times; impatiently kicking at the railings as he paused to turn.

“There’s a man in this town I’ve got to see on rather disagreeable business,” he said at last. “I’ve been putting it off for several days; but I believe I’ll do it now. So long. See you in the morning.”

Left to himself Mr. Todd elevated his feet to the railing, as if to indulge in a prolonged period of post-prandial meditation. In the gathering twilight he watched David’s muscular figure swinging along the street. He was walking like a man with a purpose. After a minute or two of keen-eyed watchfulness Mr. Todd quietly arose, clapped his hat on his head, and strolled toward the steps.

“Goin’ out t’ take in the town?” inquired a voice from the rear.

The insurance man glanced at the slim youth in the rather untidy white apron who stood in the doorway.

“W’y, yes,” he replied, very pleasantly indeed. “I thought I might as well.”

“I’d advise you not to have much to do with that fellow you was talkin’ to,” pursued the youth sulkily. “He’s one of our customers, but I don’t care. Talk ’bout cards; he cleaned me out of a month’s wages one night last week; then laughed at me for bein’ mad. I ain’t got no use fer him.”

“I don’t know about that,” Mr. Todd said pacifically. “He seems like a nice sort. Nothing really vicious, or——”

“He’s a durned, good-fer-nothin’ blowhard; that’s what he is,” said the bartender rancorously. “An’ that’s what I tell Jennie. But she—— I’d like t’ punch his head; that’s all!”

“Who’s Jennie?”

“She waited on your table t’ supper. She’s the prettiest girl in this town.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Todd understandingly.

“She’s prettier ’n that Preston girl ever thought of bein’—that’s his girl. He’s engaged t’ her. But some folks want the earth.”

“That’s so,” observed Mr. Todd smilingly. “And sometimes,” he added, with a wink, “they get it, too!”

This speech appeared to irritate the youth exceedingly. “Huh!” he exploded violently. “Well, I’d like to punch his head; that’s all.”

XIX

DAVID’S suddenly formed resolution carried him swiftly to the one big house of the village, where he rang the bell. The night being warm the outer door stood open and he could look through the screen into the dimly lighted hall. To the left of the passage was Jarvis’s library, and David, waiting impatiently before the outer door, perceived that the master of the house was within, quietly reading by a shaded lamp. Somehow the sight stirred the unreasoning anger within him to a hotter glow. His unanswered summons appeared in the guise of a deliberate insult. Raising his walking-stick he smote the door. He saw the man within raise his eyes from his book, as if to listen, and repeated his knock smartly; then as Jarvis rose and came hastily toward the door, he spoke:

“Good-evening, Mr. Jarvis,” he said, mumbling the prefix so that it was little more than an inarticulate sound. “Guess your door-bell isn’t in working order.”

Jarvis recognized his visitor with an involuntary start, which David perceived with ill-disguised triumph.

“The fellow’s afraid of me,” he told himself, and hung up his hat on the rack as if quite at his ease.

He followed Jarvis into the library and sat down, looking about him with cool curiosity.

“You’ve been expecting to see me, I dare say,” he began, his eyes returning from their tour of inspection to the other man’s face.

Jarvis returned the look doubtfully.

“It occurred to me that you might wish——”

“Yes; I do,” interrupted David. “You’re entirely right, sir.”

Having said this much in a loud, aggressive tone, David stopped short. He had become suddenly aware that Jarvis was looking at—or rather, through—him, in a way which made him irritably conscious of his hands, his feet, the set of his collar, and the material of his light summer clothes. Then those strange eyes went deeper; they were busying themselves with his thoughts, his motives, they even saw his fears, which crowded forward, a cloud of gibbering shapes, out of his past.

He spoke again, hurriedly, and backed up his words with a laugh, which sounded foolishly loud in the quiet room.

“Well,” he said, “now that you’ve had time to look me over, how d’ you like me? Think I’ll do—eh?”

“No,” Jarvis said quietly, almost sadly. “I’m afraid not. But I don’t intend to trust my own judgment—entirely.”

He sighed deeply and looked down, as if there was nothing more to be seen or said.

David straightened himself in his chair with a jerk.

“See here,” he said truculently. “I was joking, you know; you were staring at me as if you’d never seen a human being before. But now I’d like you to answer me straight. What d’you mean by saying I ‘won’t do’? What business is it of yours what I——”

He choked a little with the rage that was consuming him.

“Why, confound your impudence!” he cried, his face flaming with anger.

“I owe you an apology, sir,” said Jarvis, with stately composure. “I ought not to have spoken as I did. But there is much at stake.”

“Not for you,” said David insolently.

He fell to staring at Jarvis, striving to imitate the other’s disconcerting look.

“She loves me, you know.”

He had not intended to taunt his rival, but the words slipped out without volition. He was glad of it, in view of the blighting change that swept over the other’s face.

“Yes,” Jarvis said dully, “I know that.”

He was realizing all at once that the blow that felled Whitcomb must reach her tender breast also.

“There’s no use of beating about the bush,” David went on. “She told me about your visit to her the other night. At first I didn’t catch on about that remarkable client of yours and the care of the interesting child and all that. But when I got out of her the fact that you had been courting her while I was away, of course I was on to your little game.”

He paused to allow his words their full weight, exulting in the look of quiet despair that appeared to have settled upon Jarvis’s face.

“You thought if you couldn’t catch and hold her one way you would another. You planned to keep her from me! Deny it if you dare!”

Jarvis looked up, opened his lips as if minded to reply; then his head drooped, and again he sighed deeply. He was striving to master himself; that self which even now struggled like a leashed hound under his iron hand.

“I must be fair,” he groaned half aloud. “I must—I must, for her sake.”

“What’s that?” inquired David smartly. “We may as well have it out first as last, you know.”

“Yes,” agreed Jarvis, rousing himself. “I didn’t mean to—yet. But——”

He looked calmly at David.

“Can we not talk this over in a reasonable way?” he asked. “There is really no need of anger or——”

“Oh, come, man; let’s get down to business!” cried David, vastly pleased with himself and his own acumen.

He had not been at all certain as to the money, which he was now convinced Jarvis had given Barbara out of his own pocket. That he had surprised, compelled, browbeaten Jarvis, in what he was pleased to call “the fellow’s own game,” was a matter for pride, exultation. Who was Jarvis, anyway, that a whole countryside should stand in awe of him and his achievements? He, Whitcomb, had met the man and conquered him on his own ground. He even began to feel a sort of complacent pity for his abased rival, as his spirits rose from the depths of the humiliation falsely put upon him by Jarvis.

“‘You can fool some of the people all of the time,’ you know,” he quoted, with a confident laugh; “and you did succeed in fooling Barbara nicely; but the minute I heard you were in love with her, of course I——”

“One thing first,” interrupted Jarvis; “did she tell you—what had passed between us of her own free will?”

David burst into a laugh.

“Oh, that’s where the shoe pinches, is it?” he said good-humoredly. “Well, I don’t mind informing you that Barbara didn’t tell me a single thing about you—not at first. She’s a good little scout, Barbie is, and she saved your pride all right for you. She’d never have told me, I guess; but I taxed her with it, and, of course, she couldn’t deny it. Some girls would have snapped you up quick, with all your money and everything, and with me supposedly buried up in the Klondyke. But not Barbara. She’s worth while, that girl.”

“Yes,” mused Jarvis, “she is—worth while.”

“You wouldn’t catch me loafing around this dead and alive hole for many women,” David went on, drumming with his fingers on the edge of his chair. “As it is, I’ve had about all I can stand of it; and she won’t give in and marry me—won’t even wear my ring, till that client of yours—that peculiar, hard-to-get-along-with individual you’re representing—can be either bought off, or disposed of in some way. Naturally, neither of us want to be under obligations to—_you_!” he finished dramatically.

“Does she—suppose that I——”

David laughed again.

“No,” he said. “Oh, no! Barbie isn’t gifted with a very keen imagination. She swallowed all you told her about that singular, out-of-town client of yours. She seems to have implicit faith in you.”

A subtle lightning flash leaped from Jarvis’s eyes.

“She’s quite right to trust me,” he said calmly. “I’ll be glad if you can do the same.”

“Oh, come now, it’s too late for any more joking between us!” cried David roughly. “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You gave her that money, Jarvis, you know you did. And you did it just so as to tie her down. It’s a damned shame!”

Jarvis had risen, and David sprang eagerly from his chair to face him. The two men were of equal height, and for an instant David’s boyish blue eyes strove to master Jarvis, glance to glance. Then he drew back, baffled, furious.

“You aren’t going to stick to that cock-and-bull story a minute longer with me,” he blustered. “You know very well where the money came from!”

Jarvis bowed ceremoniously.

“Certainly I know,” he acknowledged.

“Didn’t you give it to her?”

“I shall not answer you.”

“Well, you did, and I can prove it.”

“How?”

David sprang forward with a triumphant laugh and snatched a small object from the desk.

“I have been sitting where I could look at your writing traps,” he exulted. “And I saw—this!”

Jarvis appeared quite unmoved.

“That is my seal,” he observed, “with my family crest. What of it?”

“What of it?” shouted David. “Why, it’s the thing that was used to sign that damned contract. It’s proof positive. That’s what it is!”

“My client,” said Jarvis coolly, “did not wish to use his own name. I suggested the seal. He used it—at my request.”

“Well, you’re the man, anyway,” David retorted violently. “I insist that you release her—at once. Do you hear? At once!”

“So that she can be free to marry you?” Jarvis asked. His eyes were fixed and glittered strangely.

“Yes! Why not? She’s my promised wife.”

Jarvis stood silent for a long minute, as if considering David’s words. Then he looked up, moving a little toward the door with the manifest intention of bringing the unfruitful interview to an end.

“I cannot say more at present than that I will endeavor to so arrange matters with my client as to meet Miss Preston’s wishes,” he said.

He looked calmly, dispassionately at David, and again the young man felt himself vaguely humiliated. He had meant to say more, much more; but quite unexpectedly he found himself bidding Jarvis good-night. The door closed quietly upon his wrath and discomfiture.

Stephen Jarvis did not at once resume the reading of the thin blue volume which lay face down in the bright circle of lamp-light. Instead he walked slowly up and down the room, his brows knit, his sinewy hands locked behind him. He was trying as conscientiously as possible to look at the situation from the view-point of the young man; to find, if possible, in his own conduct some valid excuse for the (to him) intolerable behavior of Whitcomb. While he yet strove with himself a second visitor was announced.

Jarvis received this person with visible reluctance, bade him be seated, and sat down himself, before he opened the conversation with a tentative, “Well!” rather impatiently uttered.

“I arrived this afternoon, Mr. Jarvis, and quite fortunately fell in at once with the person in question,” the newcomer said.

“Yes,” said Jarvis dryly.

“As I understand my commission,” pursued Mr. Todd, “I am to inform myself as to the person’s past, his present occupation and habits, and——”

Jarvis made an impatient gesture of assent.

“I want to know all about him,” he said. “It is important that I should be informed as to whether he is fitted for a position of trust.”

The other man nodded.

“I understand,” he said.

“I want to know,” pursued Jarvis in a harsh voice, “if the man is truthful, honest, temperate. If, in short, he is the man to be implicitly trusted with—interests of the highest value and importance.”

Mr. Todd again assented, his sharp ferret eyes taking in the details of his employer’s face and person with professional acumen.

“Mercantile?” he asked briskly, “or professional? There’s a difference, you know. Now a man might be something of a braggart, addicted to cigarette smoking, not averse to a temperate use of intoxicants, an occasional—er——”

“Do you see all this in him already?” demanded Jarvis.

Mr. Todd considered.

“I dined with the young man,” he said slowly, “and acquired certain information which may or may not have a bearing on your case.”

Jarvis leaned forward, glistening drops of moisture starting out on his forehead.

“Is the man merely a weak fool—weak because untried by any of the deeper experiences of life, and foolish only because he is young? or is he—worse?” he asked, in a low voice; “that is what I want to know. Temperamentally the person in question is at odds with myself. I—don’t like him. But, understand, I must not rely on my likes and dislikes in this matter. I—am obliged to be—fair to him, at all costs.”