The Whisper on the Stair/Chapter 12
The ancient Greeks had a word for it—peripetia. In dramatic usage of the present day it has become peripety. When the man who has been suspected of the murder all through three acts suddenly, at the end of the play, turns out to be the hero-detective in disguise who finds the real girl and marries the murderer—er—finds the real murderer and marries the girl—or when the poor suitor, who has been scorned by the family because of his poverty, suddenly turns out to be William Q. Rockerbilt, the richest man in the world—or when the supposed hero suddenly is unmasked as a villain of the deepest dye—that is a peripety, the sudden, surprising reversal of fortune that sends you home happy at eleven o’clock, making you forget about the eight eighty you had to pay for the tickets. The reversal must be sudden and unexpected, but it can be in either direction, happy or horrible.
Val was at this instant the center point of a peripety, and it is quite unnecessary, perhaps, to state in which direction the thing worked. It was horrible. In fact, he was peripettied almost into a dazed unconsciousness by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the thing. Of course, he had vaguely supposed that so lovely a girl would have masculine affiliations of one kind or another—he knew all men were not blind. But this man! Really, you know, it was a bit thick. He lived an eternity or two in Purgatory in the instant or two that followed the moment when old Battling Peripetia hauled off and swung his right to the jaw.
He just simply sat there and watched the room go round and round, the while he fought for his breath. Through the haze that was in front of his eyes he heard her voice, and suddenly he was sitting quietly in front of Jessica Pomeroy in the restaurant, and he was cold and calm. It had lasted but an instant, but he had learned what it was to suffer as he had never suffered in the trenches. When love hits a man of Val’s type the naked little rascal has a haymaker in either mitt—and he had landed fair and square on Val.
“Does that surprise you?” she was saying, calmly. A shade of feeling flickered through her expressive eyes before she shaded them again with her silken lashes; he was sure of that. Ah, well, she wasn’t married yet. That was something.
“Yes, a little, of course—from what I know of him⸺” he began.
“You mean from what you suspect of him,” she corrected him, and he thought her tone was a trifle stiff and cold; unnecessarily so, it seemed to him.
“Well, suspect, then,” he admitted. “How did he lose his hands?” he asked.
“He saved my life when I was a six year old child,” she enlightened him. “I had fallen in front of a runaway horse dragging a heavy, loaded truck. He jumped in front and threw me aside, but lost his balance before he could quite jump aside himself—he fell—both hands together, you know, in front of him—the horse missed him but the terribly heavy wheels of the truck went over his hands, crushing them. They had to be amputated.” She was silent again, and he did not speak, letting this sink in. There was more to this than he had thought.
He had thought for a moment that perhaps this cripple had so frightened her that . . . But it was more than that, he saw. There was a debt of gratitude to be paid, and she was paying it with the only thing she had—herself. It was a big price—too big, he decided. A shade of this must have flickered across his mobile countenance, because she spoke to his unuttered thought.
“Well, of course, it is partly, gratitude—it would have to be,” she told him frankly. “There are other things, though . . . Things I cannot speak to you about. He was working for my father then—sort of an assistant manager of the stables, you know. My father kept him on all these years, until his death, as a confidential man—he often said he owed him more than he could ever repay. I think it became a sort of obsession with him in his last days, because he made me promise to marry Ignace.”
“And you were willing to⸺”
“I had to,” she said. “I would have done anything for my father—even marry Ignace Teck. Even though⸺”
“Even though you loathe him and are afraid of him?” he asked.
She nodded. “I am afraid of him—I don’t know why I should tell you all this, Mr. Morley—there is something about him, an intimation of cruelty—I know he’s unscrupulous and hard. He revolts me, at times—and then at other times he is a charming gentleman and I could almost bring myself to like him. But he’s a man who will go to any lengths to accomplish his ends. Yet I’ll marry him—eventually,” she said. They lapsed into silence for a brief moment. She went on, then.
“But to get back to the story,” she said. “After my father’s death we could discover no trace of his money or other personal property. There must have been a great deal of it, because he had no debts—he paid everything cash—and he had just sold his stables. Ignace thought there must have been half a million dollars, somewhere.”
“Do you think so?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Somewhere, my father has hidden away a great deal of money. As I said, he was a trifle queer in his last years—in fact, I think that on the subject of Ignace Teck and also on the subject of his money, he was unbalanced. He always had an idea that people wanted to take it from him—and he hid it in the most peculiar places; you know, like that ten thousand dollar bill you found. But the great bulk of it has not been uncovered, although we have looked almost everywhere. Frankly, I think it’s the money Ignace is after, more than he is desirous of marrying me, even. He and his gang⸺”
“His gang?”
“He’s an assistant district leader on the east side—he lives there in a shabby tenement when he’s in town—and he has men from the district who would do anything for him—commit robbery—murder, even⸺”
Val nodded his head. “Then you think poor old Mat Masterson⸺”
“Probably,” she acquiesced. “Oh, it is horrible to think of it!” she exclaimed. A shudder passed through her and her face grew white as death as the matter was recalled to her mind. “The bookseller had what Ignace wanted, so⸺”
“The books!” broke in Val. “Why was it so important for him to get the books back?”
“That’s what I don’t know,” she shook her head. “Perhaps he thinks they contain some clue to where the money is—but if that is so, why did he not take them long ago—I had them with me all that time?”
“Maybe it just occurred to him?” suggested Val. She nodded.
“You know, I was absolutely broke when you came in with that ten thousand dollars,” she said. “You see, father left practically nothing—as far as we could ascertain. I had to move out from the hotel where we lived—though he wanted me to stay there—and take a cheaper place. My cash got lower and lower. I could have got money from Ignace, but I wouldn’t take any of his money, of course. At last I went really bankrupt,” she smiled, “and there was nothing in the house for Elizabeth and me to eat. Elizabeth is the old woman who answered the door for you—she’s been with us for years, and she’s staying on, though she knows I have no money to pay her. I would have tried to sell some of my expensive clothes and furs,” she said, “but I’m trying to get on the stage and a wardrobe is a very handy thing to have. So I thought I’d get a little for the books—they’ve been around the house a long time and they really were a nuisance, you know. We never had much in the way of books in the house, because I was away all the time and my father was not much of a reader. So I had no bookcase, and they were in the way. I thought it would be a good time to get rid of them—and so stall Ignace off a little while longer—you see,” she said naïvely; “he wanted me to marry him right away, and if I was starving I would have had to do it. And then you came along with that ten thousand dollars like a bolt from the blue—it put a different aspect on life entirely. I can pay off the mortgage.”
“What mortgage?” he inquired.
“On our Virginia place. A long time ago, when my father had some legal trouble, he thought that if he lost the case they might take away his property, so he protected the Virginia place by a mortgage for seven thousand dollars which he gave to Ignace Teck—it’s really worth many times that, you know. Now Ignace is foreclosing the mortgage—not because he wants the place so badly, but because he always had an idea that dad’s money was hidden somewhere down there; there are thousands of acres on the estate, and there’s lots of room for it. He’s getting the idea that I don’t want to marry him, and he figures that if he owns the Virginia estate he can shut me out of it and look for the money at his leisure. The action isn’t finished yet—which is why you were so much of a godsend. I’ve already sent enough money down to my lawyers in Norfolk to fix the matter up.”
“But surely you don’t intend to marry this man?” inquired Val, leaning forward.
“Why not?” she answered coolly. “I promised to.” It was a statement of fact, as though there were no other course, yet Val was glad to see the flush of color that had come up into her cheeks and the emotion that caused her to veil her eyes once more.
“Well,” he said slowly and deliberately, “he’s a murderer, you know.”
She paled at this, though she had probably thought on the matter many times since it had first occurred to her. But she answered coldly. “I don’t know that he is,” she said, with a womanly inconsistence.
“But if you knew⸺” he persisted.
“If I knew . . .” she turned away from him and seemed to be peering into the face of the future. It was as though he was not there, but her words were like a caress in their soft modulation, like a song dying down the wind. “If I knew . . .”
“Where does he live?” he asked abruptly.
She mentioned a number on the East Side. “Why do you want to know?” she asked quickly, as though repenting that she had given him this information. He made a mental note of the number before answering.
“Well, I thought that if I could bring you proof that he had the books you might be willing to believe⸺”
She interrupted him with a note of alarm in her voice. “Oh, I’m sorry I told you where he lives—I shouldn’t have done that! You mustn’t go there, Mr. Morley! It would be terrible⸺”
“But why?” he asked. “Surely I cannot be hurt by a man with no hands. Even if he did find me⸺”
“It isn’t he, you know. It’s the gangsters he has around him. They would do anything—oh, you have no idea what a vicious crew they are. Why, if⸺”
“Well, don’t worry,” soothed Val, pleased and flattered that she should be alarmed over the question of his comparative safety, “Why, there is no reason under the sun⸺”
“Miss Pomeroy?” questioned an utterly respectful voice at his elbow. They both looked up, and until that moment they had not realized how completely absorbed they had been in one another. It had been as though they were in some private place, as though nobody else in the world existed. They, each of them, actually had to wrench away their gaze.
“I have a note for you, if you will pardon me,” continued the head waiter, looking at Miss Pomeroy. “A boy delivered it and told me it was important.”
He handed her the note. She took it, thanking him mechanically, and he withdrew, rubbing his hands in cadence one over the other.
With an apology to Val she ripped open the envelope and read the missive swiftly; her face became pale as ashes and her breath came more quickly in the tremor of her alarmed emotions. He noticed these symptoms of fright as she read, and it was difficult to resist the feeling that the proper move for him was to take her in his arms and quiet and soothe her. If it had not been a public place. . . .
“Is it as bad as that?” he asked softly.
“Oh, I must go at once—it’s important!” she ejaculated. “It’s from⸺”
“Can you tell me what it’s about?” he inquired. “Of course, if there’s anything I can⸺”
“No, I think there’s nothing you can do, Mr. Morley,” she broke in. “I—I think I can’t tell you—now—what it’s all about, but I must go at once.” They both rose.
“Perhaps I can help you,” he persisted. “You know, I would like nothing better than⸺”
“You’re very good, Mr. Morley, but I can’t call upon you in this particular case. It’s—it’s all right—there’s no help needed. I was foolish to be so alarmed. It’s from Ignace, and he’s at my house—I must go back at once.”
He stepped up close to her, so close that they almost touched, where he towered above her like a good natured rock.
“I want you to promise me, Miss Pomeroy, that if you need assistance of any kind, you will call upon me. Any time of the day or night, any place⸺”
“Thank you so much, Mr, Morley,” she breathed softly. “It will be good to know that. I promise. You’ll come any time⸺”
“All you have to do is send for me. Miss Pomeroy, I’ll break all records coming to you. Now, let me send you home in my car—it’s waiting outside.”
“No, you had better call a taxi for me,” she decided, shaking her head dubiously. “I think it would be wiser for neither you nor your car to be seen near my apartment for awhile.”