The Cheat (Holman)/Chapter 20
When Dudley Drake stepped out of his bathing suit in his bedroom and rubbed himself to a healthy pink, he started dressing leisurely and meticulously because he regarded this evening as the beginning of a sort of second honeymoon and he wanted to look accordingly. The day had faded into twilight when he came down to the living-room, whistling as he came, and he snapped on the light, a little disappointed because Carmelita had not returned from Lucy's and was not there to greet him. He pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch and was applying the match when he noticed that the wall safe stood half open.
He walked over, his eye half upon the firing pipe bowl, unwilling to believe that some outsider had been tampering with the safe. He saw quickly what was holding the door in a peculiar half-open position. A pearl necklace was caught in the hinges and hanging half out. Somebody had yanked the inner drawer inside the safe open with careless haste, spilled the jewels out of their case, and neglected to replace them. Was it Carmelita. This was certainly her necklace, the one she had told him Lucy Hodge gave her for her birthday. And it came from that peculiarly shaped teakwood box. He picked up the box, intending to replace the necklace, when the Bengal tiger seal of Rao-Singh on the back of the box fairly hit him between the eyes. He stared and uttered an incredulous expression of surprise. What was that doing here? Had he merely presented her with the case? Or was the necklace too—
"Hello, Dudley, I didn't know you were in these parts."
He wheeled around to his second surprise. Lucy Hodge, attired in a stunning peach-colored evening gown and wrap and looking in the best of health, was standing in the doorway.
"We are on our way to the Brandons for bridge. I thought I would drop in and try and persuade Carmelita to come along—you too if you like."
"I don't understand. I thought Carmelita went over to your house, that you were ill."
"Whatever put that into your head, old boy? I am never ill?"
"But you telephoned Carmelita that you were."
"Some one has been spoofing you, Dudley. Perhaps some of our practical jokers who think Carmelita should go out more instead of worrying around the house as she has been doing lately. At any rate I'll run along. Possibly I shall run into her."
Dudley, who had been standing with his broad back to the safe to conceal from Lucy that anything was amiss and thus forestall her curious questions, turned and lifted up the necklace again and started to replace it mechanically in the box. He was puzzled. He closed the safe door and twirled the combination, puffing thoughtful clouds of smoke from his pipe.
Then a light dawned upon him. The necklace, the mysterious telephone call which, he now recalled, had seemed to agitate Carmelita strangely—Rao-Singh! Damn him, he was at the bottom of this.
We instinctively connect our enemies with unpleasant mysteries which confront us. The Reds are at the bottom of the mysterious Wall Street explosion, according to the Department of Justice; the Democrats are responsible for everything from unemployment to the South Dakota drought, according to the Republicans. Dudley jammed his pipe into an ash-bowl and started out of the door with quick strides. A strange fear that something was wrong clutched at his heart as he walked over the damp grass in the moonlight, leaped a hedge or two, and at length approached Rao-Singh's house. The study in the wing of the place where he had been banished the night of the Fête, was ablaze with light. He stopped behind a tree to reconnoiter a bit and as he did so the main door of the house was flung open and a turbaned servant rushed out and made for the study wing.
At the same time one of the French windows in the study swung violently open. A woman was climbing out in mad haste. In the stream of light that the opened window permitted to egress, he recognized her. Carmelita! She was running now in the direction he had come, but about twenty yardsaway. Hehad takena few strides in her direction and was just about to call to her when he looked back to see the face of Rao-Singh, strangely distorted with pain, show at the opened window. The face suddenly disappeared downward and backward as if Rao-Singh, no longer able to support himself, had fallen.
Dudley hesitated no longer. Before the servant from the front of the house could reach the study, he was at the French window and had lifted himself lightly up and bounded in. He had been prepared by the strange occurrences outside for something wrong, but the sight that met his eye confirmed his worst fears. Rao-Singh lay at full length on the floor, eyes nearly closed, bleeding from a gash in the back of his head where he had struck the desk in his last fall and from a wound in his side which Dudley saw had been made by a bullet at very close range. He stared unbelievedly. But it must be true. Carmelita had shot the Hindu! Whether she had come here for that deliberate purpose, whether she had done it in self-defense, or whether the whole thing was an accident he had not the time nor evidence to discover. The main thing was to protect her at any cost.
He sensed the presence of other people near and looked up to find three Hindu servants staring in at the window. Dhinn, having at last located another key, now swung open the door leading from the study into the living-room. Dudley steadied his nerves with an effort and picked up the revolver from the floor.
"Send for a doctor at once," he said sharply to Dhinn, running his hand over the wounded man's body and ascertaining that his heart was beating faintly. Dhinn disappeared and did more than he was ordered. He telephoned for a doctor and then for the police. There was a box-like roadside station where a motorcycle policeman was on duty down the main highway about half a mile.
Dudley, recovering from the first shock, was pulling himself together rapidly, which was more than could be said for the usually impassive Dhinn, who was now excited enough to be useless. The other servants hovered around volubly, pausing in their chatter only to scowl at Dudley. It was pretty well established with them already that he was the slayer. Dhinn was the only one who spoke English.
"Help me get him into his bed," Dudley ordered him, and he lifted Rao-Singh's limp head while Dhinn, a small man, tugged at his feet. "Here you, lend a hand," Dudley snapped to the others, who had now come through the windows to the scene of the tragedy. They stared stupidly, not comprehending his meaning. "Tell one of them to help you," he turned to Dhinn. The others seemed to be afraid to touch their master, whom they thought to be already dead. But Dhinn requisitioned one of them roughly by the shoulder, and it took all three using all their strength to carry the helpless Rao-Singh up to the stairs and to his ornate bedroom.
If Dudley wondered what was going to happen next in this strange out-of-place Oriental mansion, with its air of mystery and tragedy, he had not long to wait. The doctor and a dusty motorcycle policeman appeared simultaneously at the head of the stairs. The policeman had already paid a preliminary visit to the study and had in his hand Rao-Singh's revolver. He was a ruddy Irishman with a booming voice and seemed to regard the shooting as a pleasant diversion during an otherwise dull evening.
"Well, well," he greeted Dudley, who seemed to be the only conscious, sensible person in the house, "a little shooting-match? Is the dark lad dead?"
"No. I don't think he's fatally hit. The wound is too low." The doctor, who had bared the Hindu's body in the region of the wound, finished his rapid examination. "I wouldn't be too sure," he broke in cheerfully. "It has missed the heart but it's in a vital spot. He is in a very grave condition."
Dhinn, despatched by the doctor, appeared with a tall glass of whiskey and the physician forced it down Rao-Singh's throat, then, taking the material from his medicine kit, began cauterizing the wound.
Officer Joseph Delaney was all attention. The majesty of the law demanded that he find the Hindu's assailant at once before the trail was cold. But he was anxious, if possible, to be present when Rao-Singh regained consciousness, if ever. A statement from his lips would simplify his task considerably. That was his first duty. The officer therefore pounced upon the wounded man as soon as the whiskey took effect and Rao-Singh's eyes began to open a little. The Hindu turned slightly and groaned.
"Who shot you?" Officer Delaney bellowed almost into his ear.
"Now, officer," the doctor remonstrated, "that can wait a little."
"Not if this man is going to die." He turned to Rao-Singh and voiced his own hastily formed conclusion. "Did this man shoot you?" He grasped Dudley by the sleeve of his coat.
The Hindu's eyes opened a little further, enough to comprehend Dudley's presence, and a grim smile played round his pain-tightened lips. There was silence a moment, and then he seemed about to speak. Were his lips forming Carmelita's name? Dudley thought they were! He must fend that off at any cost.
"Yes, I shot him, officer," he said quietly.
"I found the gun in his hand," Dhinn put in eagerly, growing bolder now that his master was conscious to back him.
In the right hand of Rao-Singh, which lay exposed away from the eyes of the doctor and the policeman, was a little piece of torn black chiffon still tightly clutched. It had come from Carmelita's gown, Dudley was sure as he caught sight of it. She had shot him in self-defense probably. That was some consolation then as far as her part in the matter went. He would not believe she had gone to his rooms for a discreditable purpose, despite the fact that circumstances pointed against her. This man, lying there now with that terrible, malicious smile upon his dark, grayed face and quite willing to have Dudley suffer his revenge in place of Carmelita if Dudley desired it, was capable of anything. He had lured her there, he must have.
Rao-Singh had lapsed again into unconsciousness and the piece of chiffon had slipped from his fingers. It lay not three feet from Dudley's hand, and the rest of the occupants of the room for a moment were not looking in his direction. He took a cautious step backward, snatched up the tell-tale evidence, and thrust it into his trousers pocket. It was just in time, for the policeman turned toward him with a grin and remarked in that exasperatingly cheerful voice of his, "I'll take you along, I guess. And what is the name?" He had in his hand one of those little notebooks that policemen can always flourish at a second's notice, and his stubby pencil was poised to write.
"Dudley Drake," and he answered a few other identifying questions.
"All right. Let's get going," and the policeman indicated the stairs leading below.
Dudley thought that Rao-Singh had opened his eyes a little to watch him leave in the hands of the law but he could not be sure.
Arrived below, Officer Delaney inquired from Dhinn the location of the telephone. Dudley guessed that he was going to ask for the patrol wagon. He would be taken to the county jail, located in the basement of the new concrete court house at Hedgewood. Nothing would start the tongues wagging and the reporters running as the sound of that patrol gong clanging through the night. There would be publicity enough about this case later, heavens knew, and he couldn't hope to keep Carmelita out of it altogether. But for the present the more quietly things were done the better.
"I say, officer," Dudley offered pleasantly, enough, considering the circumstances, "couldn't I call a taxi and go to jail that way? Your motorcycle's outside, I know, and you can ride right alongside so there'll be no chance of my getting away. I'd appreciate it a lot if I could arrange it that way."
Officer Delaney was not a bad scout. Moreover, he preferred men of his own color to the rather unpleasant-looking wounded Hindu who lay upstairs and he knew that the driver of the patrol would not be joyed at having his poker game interrupted at this hour of the night if it could be avoided.
"Of course, it ain't exactly regulation," Delaney admitted, "but I guess it will be all right. I got my gat right here and I'll pop you off if you try any funny work, you can bank on that." He was an extraordinary fellow, seeming to take a childish pleasure in thoughts of crime and sudden death.
So he gave Central the number of the taxi company instead of the jail. In the interval they waited he ordered Dudley to come into the study again with him while he noted the position of the blood marks upon the Oriental rugs and questioned the three other Hindu servants through Dhinn as an interpreter.
Thus it happened that there were none of the curious on hand when the Ford sedan drove up to the curb in front of the court house and Officer Delaney parked his motorcycle not two feet in its wake. The civilian from the taxi paid his fare while the policeman stood beside him, and the two walked around the side of the building to the entrance to the jail. A grizzled, florid-faced sergeant sat behind the desk, and Dudley had to detail the same information he had given Delaney over again.
"Would you care to write out a statement?" asked the sergeant.
There flashed through Dudley's mind the only thing he remembered from a college prank that had brought him into contact with the Princeton police—a classmate saying sagely, "Never write out a statement for the cops. They always try to get you to do it, and it always gets you in bad later. See a lawyer first."
Dudley shook his head in the negative, and the sergeant, to Dudley's relief, said indifferently, "Oh, all right."
Two reserve policemen were looking up curiously from their pinochle game in the opposite corner of the room at the news of a shooting. Dudley felt the cold-shower effect of the brisk, businesslike hostility with which the police treat people whom they are detaining under suspicion. To a man arrested for the first time and innocent of the charge against him the cold-blooded manner in which the police take it for granted he is guilty and treat him accordingly in their preliminary dealings with him is very depressing. The warm outside world seems miles away, though it may be just the other side of the grated window.
Everybody in the room seemed to Dudley to be arrayed against him. It would be wise to notify somebody, to set them working in his interest.
Notify Carmelita? That wouldn't do. She was in a highly nervous state no doubt, being excitable by nature anyway, and she might come rushing down and give the whole thing away. There was only one other person—Sanford Drake. Yesterday Dudley would have balked at asking aid from his uncle; but after their intimate talk that morning and the surprising interest the elder Drake seemed to take in his welfare, he was sure the financier would respond. Sanford Drake was levelheaded, a man of the world, and he could put him in touch with a good lawyer.
The sergeant behind the high desk was still scratching entries in the police blotter. "I'd like to make a long-distance call," Dudley addressed Delaney.
"It strikes me you'd like to do a lot of things that ain't permitted."
Dudley essayed flattery. "You've been mighty decent to me, officer, and I appreciate the way you've handled this thing. I know you won't prevent me from telling my only relative about the fix I'm in."
"What do you say, Jim?" Delaney spoke up to the sergeant, who answered, "Guess it won't do any harm." And Delaney reached down the telephone from beside the sergeant. Delaney rather liked this quiet, well set up young fellow and wondered how it had all happened. Probably a woman. Delaney sighed.
Dudley rang his uncle's number in Greenwich. Sanford Drake retired at ten usually and it was nearly that then. But after a session of whirring and buzzing and relaying operators, his voice came over the wire.
"I'm in a mess," Dudley told him, "and at present I'm being held at the Hedgewood County Jail. I think you can help me very much if you could run out here to-morrow some time." . . . "No, not an automobile accident or speeding—more serious than that—a shooting." . . . "I am being held for it." . . . "You will? That's fine. No, I have no lawyer in mind. Any one you get will be a good man, I know." . . . "No, she doesn't know anything about it. I'll probably call her in the morning. She's asleep now."
He meticulously paid the sergeant the price of the Greenwich call. Then Delaney led him away through the door that opened upon the tier of cells and picked out the cleanest and coolest of the two that were unoccupied.
"It ain't the Ritz," offered Delaney, "but you might do worse."
Dudley nodded. An Italian recovering from a Volstead jag was muttering in Sicilian in the next cell. The jail was new and stuffy and smelt of varnish. When Delaney left him, Dudley sat upon the hard cot wearily, his head in his hands, and reviewed this gladdest, maddest, saddest day of his life. He had thrown himself into the breach to defend Carmelita's name because it seemed the only thing to do.
If any one had told Dudley that there was anything heroic in his self-sacrifice he would have honestly denied it. To a person with his ideals of honor it was as logical an action as permitting the women and children to leave a burning ship first. Whether she was worthy of his action, whether the shooting of Rao-Singh had been preceded by something that would forever kill his love for her, would develop later. There had been no time to ask questions. He had done the thing that instinctively appealed to him as right. The striking business success and fortune he had won on the morning of that hectic day were far back in his mind now; it seemed ages away. He had not asked himself what this new burden he had taken on his shoulders would mean to his business career, his life.
What the future held for him he didn't know, but it loomed up like a huge black cloud without the sign of a silver lining. That much he admitted to himself.
He stretched out upon the hard cot, certain that he would not sleep during the remainder of the hours of darkness. But presently his utterly wearied body conquered his mind, and when he awoke it was broad daylight.