Deuces Wild/Chapter 13
XIII
A LOVE STORY
TABLEAU. The rosy light from the fire touching the gold-leaf on a royal cartonnage, or moving the shadows on the wall behind, ruddying a face three thousand years old, twinkling back from the shoe-buttons. So much for the inanimate. Crawford, erect, proud and defiant; the girl poised on the threshold, with the winged eagerness of Victory; Forbes, twirling his hat, diffident and abashed. All these things Haggerty saw from behind his curtain.
In life as in fairy-tales, 'tis woman who breaks the enchantment. The picture dissolved as she ran toward Crawford, whose glance went past her to Forbes.
“My letters!”
“They are mine!”
“And I?”
Crawford did not understand. “Forbes, did you tell her? If you did God forgive you, I never will!”
Forbes flung his hat on a chair. “All I've done is to bring her to you.”
“He came and told me you were sailing and never coming back. I've been a miserable fool!” She held out her arms, round and firm and white. To Forbes she was as lovely as the Madonna he had once dreamed of painting. “I don't care who the other woman is. Whatever she has been to you...”
“Janet, you are hysterical!”
“No. Do you want me, Jim?”
Crawford leaned with his hands upon the desk. He was as white as she was. Forbes turned his back and began idly to pluck at the frayed brittle wrapping of a mummy. Lord! he thought, even this gruesome thing had loved something once.
“Janet,” he heard Crawford say, “will you go with me to Italy in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Without question, past or future?”
“As I am.” The fever was gone from her voice.
“You will give up the life you have known and share the hardships of mine?—For they are hard and as much a part of me as the air.”
“Yes, as I am, now.”
The girl was poised on the threshold
The mummy at which Forbes was staring strangely wavered. Forbes blinked hard and caught the tears before they fell. It wasn't Crawford's story he was thinking of it; it was his own, his own idle, drifting, innocuous story. His head stole round in spite of his effort to keep it from doing so. There they stood, face to face, tense. The girl's sables had fallen apart, disclosing her peignoir. She had come out like that! Why the devil didn't the man take her, take her? His heart swelled with rage. But the rage died as quickly as it had come. Crawford swung the girl into his arms; all the weariness gone from his scholarly face, which was now transfigured with something Forbes had never seen on any man's face before.
“Girl,” said Crawford, “I'm a brute, but I wanted to be sure. Five years! Well, this moment is worth it.”
“Tell her the truth,” cried Forbes hoarsely.
“Why should I? In her heart of hearts she knows it, knows that there never was and never will be another woman. Oh, Mort!”—with a hand outstretched over the girl's shoulders—“when I saw you come in I could have cursed you, for I believed you must have told her; and I wanted no other love than this, absolute, without reservation. I am an odd man, but I am as God made me. You wonder why I did not explain long ago. She accused me of bringing her a second-hand love. I deny that I evinced foolish pride when I left her. She had listened to idle gossip without first hearing my side before she judged. Had she come to me at any time as she has come to-night.... What's the use of going over all that? She is mine now, even if you did bring her to me.”
“On the contrary,” said Forbes, “I believe she brought me.”
The girl's arm wound about Crawford's neck, tightly.
“What's the matter?” asked Crawford suddenly, as he marked the expression of astonishment on his friend's face.
The answer came from behind. “Sorry, sir, t' interrupt,” said Haggerty, pushing the valet before him; “but duty's duty, an' time don't wait.”
For Haggerty, familiar as he was with battle, murder and sudden death, had never witnessed a scene like this one, and it had outlasted his patience.
“And who the devil are you?” demanded Crawford, swinging about and facing the detective.
The girl stepped back, her fingers trembling with the collar of her cloak. Immediately she dropped her hands, smiled and laid one hand on Crawford's arm confidently. What did all the other people in the world matter?
“I am Haggerty, of th' Central Office.” Haggerty knew when to bluster and when not to.
“What are you doing here in my house?”
Forbes was beset by all his previous doubts. A detective, and why should he be here? He thought of a thousand ways of overcoming Haggerty, of holding him till Crawford was safely aboard the Celtic; and then remembered the surest and deadliest of all detectives—the wireless. There was no escape.
“He would not inform me, sir,” spoke the valet, drawing down his cuffs.
“Was he threatening you, Mason?”
“Oh, no, sir. He merely desired you to enter without suspecting his presence. I don't understand him at all, sir.”
“Well, Mr. Haggerty?” said Crawford.
“You are James Crawford,” began Haggerty, walking over to the desk.
“I am.”
“A rich man with a fad for digging up these things”—indicating the walls.
“Yes.”
“All right; have a little patience till I get th' shell off an' down t' th' meat.”
“I'm waiting.”
“This morning you got tickets in a hurry for yourself an' valet for Italy. Then you did th' rounds of your banks. You had lunch at your club with an ol' gent with whiskers who's just back from Upper Egypt. You worked most o' th' afternoon here in this room. Listen. On Tuesday night, th' second week in June last, you played poker till six in th' morning in th' studio of that young chap over there”—with a jerk of his head toward Forbes. “You won three hundred dollars. Coming home that morning you gave ten dollars t' th' ol' apple-woman on the corner near th' pawn-shop. There's a flat not far away, with a young woman living in it. No harm done in telling that since th' young lady here knows all about it. I could 'a' told her you was straight an' decent an' that th' young woman was living on your charity.”
“What, in God's name, is all this about?” gasped Crawford.
Mason the valet went to the side window and threw it up. He remained standing by it, unnoticed.