The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XX
- Chapter XX. The Shadow.
Your most astute strategist is the general ready, at any stage of the campaign, to authorize a complete change of plan, if the circumstances call for it, and to make for the end in view along wholly altered lines. The Braddocks of warfare are those who at all hazards persist in the course at first laid out.
Radwalader, contrary to his custom, did not leave his apartment until mid-afternoon of the following day. He carried a valise, and stopped for a moment on the step to snuff the fresh air with appreciation. Then he said “Psst!” and the yellow cab which was standing at the comer of the avenue squeaked into motion and drew up at the kerb.
“Gare St. Lazare,” said Radwalader briefly. He flung his valise upon the seat, climbed in after it, put one foot on the strapontin to steady himself, and plunged, with a grin of amusement, into the latest number of Le Rire. He could afford a few moments of sheer frivolity: for he had just finished eight hours of careful reflection, and his plans were quite complete.
The driver of the yellow cab had only grunted in reply, but he drove briskly enough, once they were under way. Though the day was warm, he wore his fawn-coloured coat, with the triple cape, and had turned up the collar about his ears. His white cockaded hat, a size too large, was tipped forward over his nose, and between it and his coat-collar, in the back, showed a strip of bright red hair. For features, he had a nobbly nose, with a purple tinge, and a mustache like a red nail-brush.
From time to time Radwalader looked up from his reading to remark their progress, and invariably he smiled. The Place de l’Etoile, freshly sprinkled, and smelling refreshingly of cool wet wood; the omnibus and tramway stations, with their continual ebb and flow of passengers seeking numbers; the stupendous dignity of the Arc, and the preposterous insignificance of three Englishwomen staring up at it, with their mouths open, and Baedekers in their hands; the fresh green of the chestnuts on the Avenue de Friedland; the crack of a teamster’s whip, and his “Ahi! Houp!” of encouragement to the giant gray stallions, toiling up the steep incline of the Faubourg St. Honoré; the crowds of women at Felix Potin’s, pinching the fat fowls, and stowing parcels away in netted bags; the “shish-shish-shish” of an infantry company shuffling at half-step toward the gateway of La Pépinière; the people terrassé before the restaurants on the Place du Hâvre — it was all very amusing, very characteristic, very Parigot. More than ever, Radwalader felt that he needed it all, that he must have it at any price, that life would not be worth living else or elsewhere. Fortunately, there was no reason for a change, so long as he kept his wits. Indeed his prospects were brighter now than they had ever been.
Once a bridal carriage whirled past him, all windows, and with a lamp at each corner, and a red-faced quartette inside; and other carriages followed, full of exultant guests, whose full-dress costumes, in this broad daylight, were, to his Saxon sense, as incongruous as a Welsh rabbit on a breakfast-table — all bowling across to the Champs, and so away to the Restaurant Gillet. Again, it was a glimpse of a funeral moving up to a side door of St. Augustin, with an abject little band of mourners trailing along on foot, behind the black and purple car; again, nothing more than a sally between an agent and a ragamuffin at a crossing — “Ouste, galopin!” “Eh, ’spèce de dalai! As-tu vu la ferme?” — or a driver’s injunction to his horse — “Tu prends done racine, saucisse” — or a girl’s laugh, or the squawk of a tram-horn, or the cries of the camelots — “Voyez l’Parispor! Voici la Pa-resse! Voyez l’D-rrr-oi ’d’l’homme!” The importance of the phenomenon was not significant. It was all Paris, and Thomas Radwalader was very glad to be alive. When he left the yellow cab in the Cour du Hâvre, the driver had fifty centimes pourboire, though it was not like his passengers to go beyond three sous.
Trivial as this circumstance was, it apparently had a strangely demoralizing effect upon the driver of the yellow cab. He drew on for perhaps twenty feet, and then deliberately clambered down from his box, and followed his late client to the ticket office, at the foot of the eastern stairway. Here, with some ingenuity, he remarked, “Même chose.”
“Poissy première?”
“Oui.”
In the first-class carriage of the Poissy train, a little, oblong pane of glass, above Radwalader’s head, enabled him, had he been so minded, to glance into the next compartment — enabled the single occupant of the next compartment, who was so minded, to glance, as they started, into his.
In the Cour du Hâvre an infuriated agent apostrophized the deserted vehicle:
“Sale sous-les-pieds! He amuses himself elsewhere, then, ton drôle!”
The which was strictly true.
As the train rumbled through the illuminated tunnel, the driver of the yellow cab did a number of things with the most surprising rapidity and decision. He threw his varnished white hat out of the window, and followed it immediately with his triple-caped overcoat. He stripped off his fawn-coloured trousers, thereby revealing the unusual circumstance that he wore two pairs — one of corduroy. The latter hurtled out into the smoky tunnel, in the wake of the hat and coat, and the climax was capped by a like disappearance of the red hair, the nail-brush mustache, and the nobbly nose. Then Monsieur Jules Vicot smoothed his workman’s blouse, dragged a Tam-o’-shanter from his pocket, pulled it down over his eyes, settled the scarlet handkerchief at his throat, threw himself back on the cushions, and lit a cigarette with hands that trembled excessively.
At Poissy Radwalader alighted, and swung rapidly away, across the place, in the direction of the Villa Rossignol. At Poissy the other also alighted, strolled over to the Hôtel de Rouen, and, in the company of a slowly consumed matelote and four successive absinthes, dozed, pondered, smoked — and waited for the dark.
That morning Margery and Andrew had told Mrs. Carnby. For an instant the good lady faced Andrew, her eyes blazing with inquiry. He met their challenge serenely.
“Won’t you congratulate me,” he asked, smiling — “and the only girl in the world?”
“The only girl in the world?” demanded Mrs. Carnby audaciously.
“Yes — just that.”
Mrs. Carnby pounced upon Margery.
“Of course I congratulate you! You dear! And, as for you,” she added, whirling upon Andrew once more, “you’re the luckiest man I know — except Jeremy! And you’ve worried me almost into a decline. I thought you’d never get her — I mean, I thought she’d never get you — I don’t know what I mean, Andrew Vane! Go along in, both of you, and sing about your roses and jugs of wine and nightingales and moons of delight. I can see that’s all you’ll be good for, from now on!”
And so, shamelessly, they did — all over again, from “Wake! for the Sun” to “flown again, who knows!”
“It’s tied up in double bow-knots with our hearts, all this ‘Persian Garden’ music,” said Andrew. “Do you remember how we used to rave over it at Beverly? And I loved you even then — from the first night.”
Standing behind him, Margery touched his hair.
And so evening came again, drenched in starlight and rose-perfume, and stirring rapturously to the voice of the nightingale.
“I want to speak to you.”
Radwalader touched Andrew’s arm as they rose from the table, and led the way directly through the open window into the garden, and, through the garden gate, into the Avenue Meissonier beyond. Once there, he fell back a step, so that they were side by side.
“Let’s walk toward the river,” he suggested, taking Andrew’s arm.
A single lamp swung at the archway of the railroad bridge, but along the villa walls and under the trees of the Boulevard de la Seine beyond, the shadows were very dark. Once, as they passed a poplar, one shadow disengaged itself from the trunk, and at a distance followed them. A little ahead was the gaily illuminated terrace of L’Esturgeon, overhanging the river, and crowded with people dining and talking all at once.
“I saw Mirabelle yesterday,” observed Radwalader. “It seems you’re off scot-free.”
“Did she tell you that?” asked Andrew in surprise.
“No — only that you’d parted company for good and all. I guessed the rest. I thought you’d hardly be so foolish as not to consult me, if the question of money came up.”
“Thank the Lord, the episode was free from that element of vulgarity, at all events!” exclaimed Andrew. “Yes, it’s over. It wasn’t easy, Radwalader. I was surprised to find how much she thought of me. But, of course, there was nothing else to do. In any event, the thing couldn’t have gone on for ever, and when I heard about that telegram, I couldn’t ring down the curtain too soon. But it hurt. Poor little girl! I’ll always think kindly of her, Radwalader, although she came near to losing me the only thing in the world that’s worth while. Well, we said good-by, and I came down here just on the chance that it mightn’t be too late. It was a thin-enough chance, to my way of thinking, in view of the past three weeks. By Gad, here was I deserving the worst kind of a wigging that ever a man got, and lo and behold, it was the prodigal son after all! Mrs. Carnby was the first to congratulate me. Will you be the next?”
“Do you mean that Miss Palffy is going to marry you?” asked Radwalader, coming to a full stop.
“Just that,” said Andrew; “though why she should, after all this—”
“Oh, rot!” laughed the other. “You’ve been no worse than other men, and so long as you’ve owned up—”
“We’ll never agree on the question of whether I deserve her or not,” put in Andrew. “Never in the whole course of my life shall I forgive myself this folly. But we won’t talk of that. The fact remains that I’m forgiven, and that she’s going to marry me. Oh, Gawd!”
He looked up at the sky and bit his lip. He was desperately shy of slopping over, and, for a moment, desperately near to it.
Presently he continued. They had rounded L’Esturgeon now, and were walking along the southern side of the Pont de Poissy, close to the rail. Radwalader’s pieces were all in place for the opening of the new game.
“When a chap’s only been pulled out of a horrible mess by the merest chance, and when, into the bargain, he’s been engaged to the one-and-only for something under twenty-four hours, he is apt to do considerable slobbering. I hope you’ll give me credit for sparing you all I might say, Radwalader, when I confine myself to saying that I’m in luck.”
“And that, you most certainly are,” said Radwalader cheerfully. “I’m glad you’re so well out of your scrape, Vane, and I congratulate you heartily.” A pressure of his fingers on Andrew’s arm lent the phrase the emphasis of a hand-shake. “Miss Palffy is charming — so clean and straight, and, to say nothing of her beauty, with such high standards. To be quite frank with you, I’m a bit surprised that you got off so easily. But, since you have, there’s nothing to be said, except that she’s a stunner, and I can understand now how much all this has meant to you. What a thing to have standing between you, eh? If Mirabelle had been ugly, I fancy you’d have paid her about anything she chose to ask.”
“If I’d been sure of getting Margery!” said Andrew.
“Of course — yes. That’s what I mean. With Miss Palffy as an object, there could scarcely be a limit to the hush-money one would put up to clear away any obstacles that might exist.”
“I expect not,” said Andrew nervously. “I couldn’t lose her now — I simply couldn’t. It would kill me.”
“I once knew of such a case,” said Radwalader musingly. “Chap just about to marry the girl, and he found out that there was something very crooked about his birth — that he was illegitimate, in fact. The father hung on to him like an octopus and bled him like a leech. But the — er — girl never knew.”
“It was worth it to him,” commented Andrew, “if he’d have lost the girl else.”
“I’ve forgotten what he paid,” said Radwalader, “but I know it was pretty stiff — in the form of a regular allowance by the year.”
“Was the chap rich?” asked Andrew. He was looking down the river, and taking great breaths of the delicious night air, thrilling with the memory of Margery waiting back there for him; and his part in the conversation was little more than automatic.
“Reasonably,” said Radwalader. “Enough to stand the strain. Curious old house, this — isn’t it?”
He paused, and leaned upon the railing of the bridge.
“The plaster’s rotten as possible,” answered Andrew after a moment, during which he had been hacking boyishly at it with his knife.
“You know both sides of the bridge were lined with houses once,” said Radwalader. “Picturesque it must have been! This is the only one left, and it doesn’t look as if it could keep from toppling over into the river very much longer. Lord! how fast the water runs down there! It’s a veritable mill-race. I shouldn’t care to have to swim against it.”
He hesitated deliberately, and then continued, with a slight change of tone:
“There’s something I want to tell you, Vane. I didn’t care to bother you with it as long as you were worrying on your own account, but now— confidence for confidence. The fact of the matter is that I need money, and need it badly.”
Andrew pursued his hacking.
“If that’s all that’s troubling you,” he said, “I can probably make you a loan that will tide you over. I’ll be very glad to, if I can. How much do you need?”
A workman slouched past them, his hands in the pockets of his corduroy trousers, his tam o’ shanter pulled down over his eyes.
“No,” said Radwalader, “I don’t want to borrow; I might never be able to repay. But suppose I were to give you a piece of information — a tip — that was of the very greatest importance to you, mightn’t it be worth a small sum?”
Andrew stared at him curiously.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Do you mean that you know something that is very important to me?”
“Vastly important.”
“And that is known to no one else?”
“To one other person only.”
“And that you want to sell to me?”
“That I want to tell you. You can do as you see fit about paying me for it. I think you will, but if not—”
He smiled evilly, secure of the darkness.
“There are other ways of utilizing it,” he added.
Andrew chopped thoughtfully at the plaster.
“I don’t seem to understand what you’re driving at,” he said presently, “but, somehow — well, I don’t like the sound of it, Radwalader. Of course, I know you don’t mean it that way, but it sounds rather — rather unfriendly, if you’ll allow me to say so. Oh, damn it all!”
“What?” asked Radwalader, surprised at the sudden exclamation.
“There goes my knife. I ought to have known better than to hew at this stuff with it. I suppose that’s the last I shall ever see of it — and a new one, too. Why — that’s queer! Did you notice? There wasn’t any splash.”
He peered over the rail.
“Hello!” he added, “here’s a ladder — leading down.”
“There’s a little garden down there,” explained Radwalader, peering over in his turn. “I remember now. It’s on part of the foundations of another old house, and the chap who lives in this one grows flowers there, oddly enough, and goes up and down on the ladder. Your knife’s down there, somewhere. Jove! but it’s dark!”
But Andrew already had one leg across the railing, one foot on the top round of the ladder.
“This is easy,” he said, “and I have my match-box, too. You see — well, Margery bought the knife only this morning in the bazar, and I wouldn’t lose it for the world. And, by the way, Radwalader, forget what I said just now, will you? It wasn’t very decent.”
Then, with a short laugh of embarrassment, he descended into the shadows.
The shadows! They were very deep below there, until broken by the flicker of Andrew’s match. Then the shadows under the doorway of the old house, up by the top of the bridge, were deeper, and — what was this? — one shadow moved — moved — drew near to the man who leaned upon the rail, whistling “Au Clair de la Lune.”
“All right!” called Andrew. “I have it. Now we come up again.”
“Go slow,” advised Radwalader. “You’ll find it darker than ever, after the match. Why — what—”
A hand on his shoulder had spun him round, but he had no more than recognized the white face grinning into his, no more than time to comprehend the words, “You’ve whistled for the last time, by God!” before the steel-shod butt of a revolver crashed three times in succession on — and through — his forehead.
“Once for me!” said Jules Vicot, between his teeth, “and once for my wife, and once for your son!”
He hurled Radwalader from him, ran a few feet, turned at the rail to see the smitten man writhing and groping blindly on the cobbles of the driveway, and then, emptying the entire contents of the revolver in his direction, vaulted with a laugh into the swirling Seine below.
The guilty river caught him, hid him, hurried him away. Only once he moved of his own volition, and then she laid her brown hand on his mouth and stilled him, once for all. Around the wide curves of her course, he was to go, through the thrashing locks of Les Mureaux and Notre Dame de la Garenne, past Les Andelys and Pont de l’Arche, and the high quays of Elbeuf, and the twinkling lights of Rouen, and the vineyards and the poplars and the red-roofed villages — on, on, on, to where the lights of Le Hâvre and Honfleur wink, each to each, across the widened channel. For such was the course appointed whereby the most pitiful shadow that ever fell from Poissy Bridge should make its way to sea.
Back there was the sound of many voices and of running feet. Radwalader lay with his head on Andrew’s arm, his eyes closed, and his breath coming in short hard gasps. The first arrivals from the town were three young Englishmen, who had been dining at L’Esturgeon, were on their way to the station, and outran all others at the sound of the five shots. One of them proved to be a medical student, and fell at once to making an examination, while the others held back the crowd.
“How did it happen?” he asked. “What was it all about?”
“God knows!” said Andrew. “I’d been down the ladder there to look for a knife I’d dropped, and I was just coming up again when I heard him call out, and then a scuffle and the sound of blows, and then the firing. I think whoever shot him jumped into the river. There was a big splash just as I came up to the level of the bridge.”
“Yes,” said the other. “We heard that from the street, just as we started to run. God! how that blackguard piled it on! Look here — his head’s all pushed in, and he’s shot in at least two places. I’m afraid the poor chap’s done for. Hello! he’s coming to.”
Radwalader slowly opened his eyes, and after a moment seemed striving to speak. Andrew bent down, wiping away the blood.
“What is it?” he asked. “Is there something you want to say, dear old man?”
Without replying, Radwalader glanced eloquently at the Englishman, and, at this mute signal, the latter stepped back.
“What is it?” whispered Andrew. “Do you want to tell us who it was?”
Radwalader shook his head.
“Is it what you were going to tell me a few minutes ago?” asked Andrew, with a kind of intuition.
For a full half-minute, the dying man’s eyes were fixed upon the eager, solicitous face that bent so close to his — upon the earnest eyes so curiously like and yet unlike his own, upon the white teeth showing between the parted lips, upon the straight patrician nose and the smooth clear complexion. Then, with a singular smile, a smile almost affectionate in its sweetness:
“It’s of no consequence now,” he murmured.
He raised one hand, and gently touched Andrew on the cheek.
“Good-by, my boy,” he added, more feebly.
His head fell limply, and he shuddered once, and then was very still.
A moment later, Andrew laid him back upon the driveway, and covered his face.
THE END.