Munsey's Magazine/Volume 86/Issue 4/The Unwritten Story/Chapter 17
XVII
“It's the damnedest, the double-damnedest mix-up I've ever run across, and I've followed some pretty queer trails, too!” remarked Rodman Wyatt. “You wouldn't think people could get themselves into such a hell of a mess!”
“Getting into a hell of a mess seems to be the normal state of affairs for most people—that, and trying to get out again,” replied John Lomax, smiling dryly, under the green-shaded light that hung from the metal ceiling of the Messenger “bone yard.” As he spoke, he was cutting newspapers with long shears. “If it wasn't for that, what would become of the newspaper game?”
“As an abstract proposition, that's all right,” admitted Wyatt; “but—”
Lomax glanced sharply at Wyatt—a personable figure with crisply set brown hair.
“But what?”
“But in this case it's different.” Wyatt blew smoke. “And when Miss Forrester, out there in the Fens, told me about old Lockwood not being a millionaire after all—told me, in fact, that the old boy was pretty nearly busted—well, it sure did put some new kinks in the case!”
“Been walking with her again?”
“And, frankly, I was mighty glad to hear it.”
“How so?” drawled Lomax. “Don't you want deserving refined Southern belle, daughter of boarding house keeper, to inherit million?” Lomax swore painstakingly, as was his habit. “Think, man, what a bird of a headline that would make!”
“Oh, damn the headline! Don't you see? So much more honest for her not to get what she's not entitled to, even if she thinks she is! And then, too, if she doesn't have big expectations, she—I—that is—”
“So that's the way pussy's leaping, eh?” The eye of Lomax became quizzical. He stopped his paper cutting. “Without the big expectations, she might partly depend on you? For God's sake, man, you aren't up and making a fool of yourself, are you?”
“D'you call falling in love with a beautiful and talented girl making a fool of yourself? Just because you've only got ice water in your shriveled veins, by gad, is that any reason—”
“Love,” pronounced John Lomax, “is a species of insanity, and you're non compos mentis, this very minute. Your judgment aS a newspaper man is impaired. Go take a walk for yourself, my boy, and cool off!”
“Sour grapes!”
“One doesn't get drunk on sour grapes, anyhow, and you—you're drunk. Every man in love is drunk, and bughouse, and capable of any and all follies. Ah, Absalom, my son Absalom, I never thought you'd come to this!”
“You go to hell!” retorted Wyatt.
More agitated than any newspaper man whatever has any right to be, he breathed anathemas at the slow-smiling Lomax and retreated in rather bad order.
At this same hour a tense and sordid scene was taking place in Professor Veazie's library, between the psychic and the woman who above all things on earth hated and feared him.
“So that's the way it rides, eh?” Veazie was snarling at her, as she shrank before him in a chair. The professor's suave manner had all departed. His short, soft-bodied person seemed swollen like a toad with venom and malice, and his red mustache fairly bristled. “I don't believe you! It's a damned lie—a lie, to cheat me out of my just dues, and feather your own nest”
“It's the truth, Brackett!” she desperately insisted. “He told me the whole story—told Disney, too. He showed us all the statements and accounts—everything. He's worse off even than he realizes himself, and—”
“As if I'd believe any such bunk! But never mind—there's enough for me, anyhow! How about the will? You've got him to make that new will, leaving you everything?”
“He—he's going to.”
“Going to? You mean he hasn't yet?”
Mrs. Forrester shook her head.
“No, he hasn't.”
“What d'you mean, he hasn't?” the professor railed at her, almost chittering with rage. “Didn't I tell you to make him do that right away? D'you think I want to take any chances of that poor idiot kicking off and leaving things to that old witch of a housekeeper, or charity, or homes for crazy cockroaches? D'you think, after I've put this deal through, so far—”
“It's no use, Brackett. I'm not going to be driven any more.”
“What?”
She regarded him with eyes that cringed, yet showed a gleam of defiance.
“I don't care what you do,” she chokingly articulated. “You've hounded me as far as you're going to. He believes in me. He believes in Disney—and Disney thinks he's her real grandfather, too. You can't shake that belief. I may have been weak and foolish, in the past, but that's all over now. I'm not going to play any game that 'll ever bring you a penny of his property!”
The professor leaped up, caught her swiftly by the wrist, and dragged her to her feet with cruel force. He seemed within a featherweight's turn of striking her. His gold tooth glinted through a distorted grin of passion.
“Why, damn you!” he mouthed. “You won't, eh? D'you know what I'll do to you?”
“Do anything you like, Brackett. You can never hurt me any more than you've hurt me already.”
“I'll involve you as party to a holdup game, a conspiracy—jail you, by God!”
“That 'll involve you, too.”
“Don't you worry about me. I'll look out for myself. You and your precious daughter!” The professor was fairly panting with poisonous rage. “I'll (illegible text) out a story that 'll make the whole world sit up and take notice! I'll brand you all right! As for me, I'll be somewhere else. Don't you lose any sleep about me!”
Mrs. Forrester only laughed. When a woman laughs in just that way, a wise man will take warning; but at this moment the professor was far from wise.
“Well, what say?” he demanded. “What—”
His grip tightened; his hairy paw of a hand ridged her flesh.
“Let go my wrist!' You're breaking it!”
“I'll break more than your wrist, if you stand against me! I'll break your heart and your soul and your reputation! I'll break your girl's love and respect for you! You go against me, if you dare!”
“As if I didn't dare!”
“You won't dare long! You don't know me yet! There's just two things got to happen, damn you! That old lunatic's got to make a new will, and then—”
“Then what?”
“Then the quicker he kicks off, the better!”
Mrs. Forrester wrenched her hand free. The blow she struck him, fair in his venomous mouth, had back of it a loathing and a hate too deep for any other proof. She turned, and fled—ran from the room, the apartment, down the stairs, away.
Veazie did not pursue. He was too wise to risk any public demonstration, but the light of hell's flames glowed in his eyes—red eyes, like a rat's—as he stood wiping a thin trickle of blood from lips that poisonously cursed.