The Hunter and Other Stories Part 29

"Removal?"

"Yes. Haven't you heard?"

Elfinstone grasped him by the slim shoulder and drew him into the machine, gave the driver the name of his hotel, and frowned impatiently at the youthful reporter when they were in motion.

"Now what?"

The reporter was all bright-eyed informativeness.

"An a.s.sociated Press dispatch from the Northwest this morning says your contract has been canceled and a new captain of detectives has been appointed in your place."

"Any explanation given?"

"That you broke your contract with the city when you engaged in outside work."

Elfinstone scowled ahead until the taxicab had reached his hotel.

"Come along," he said to the reporter as they got out. "You may as well get the rest of the story."

The tall man strode to the hotel telegraph office and wrote a message to the mayor of the northwestern city.

CONCERNING REPORTED VIOLATION OF CONTRACT CHIEF OF POLICE DABNEY GAVE ME LEAVE OF ABSENCE UP TO ONE MONTH TO ENGAGE IN WORK HERE.

"This is no good," he confided to the reporter as he showed him the message. "They've got me. I was in too much of a hurry to have anything put in writing. But we'll see."

In his room Elfinstone bathed, shaved, and got into fresh clothes while the reporter, after talking with his paper by phone, put his hat and overcoat on a chair and sat in another by the window, ruffling his vague mustache, affecting a placidity denied by the brightness of his young eyes and the many cigarettes he smoked.

Elfinstone had just finished dressing when the telephone bell rang.

"Is Alden there?" a crisp voice demanded.

"Are you Alden?" the tall man asked the reporter, and the young man sprang to take the instrument from him.

He listened for several minutes, his own contribution to the conversation limited to occasional whats, yesses, and all rights. His blue eyes were clouded when he put the receiver back on its hook.

"My city editor," he said. "Another dispatch from the Northwest. A woman named May Rayner has filed a fifty-thousand-dollar breach of promise suit against you. The city officials are bringing graft charges against you," he said as if part of the misfortune were his. "Your bank account and safe deposit box are being attached."

Elfinstone, standing across the room with his hands in his pockets, drew himself straight up to his full height and laughed a brief savage laugh.

"I knew it," he exulted. "By G.o.d, it's big!"

The reporter stared at him with wide s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"I can't give you anything on this except what everybody'll expect me to say, Alden," Elfinstone said dryly. "It's a frame-up, originated here in Was.h.i.+ngton. The only May Rayner I know is the ladylove of a swindler now doing a term in the state pen. I've seen her exactly four times, on the city's business each time. I dare say if her game goes through her man will be pardoned or paroled. The graft charges, my removal from office are likewise moves in a bigger game. I haven't any intention of laying down under them. The center of the game is here, so I shall stay here."

"But what is the bigger game?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you what I know of it, and I suspect it's bigger than I know. You'll have to wait for that."

"Have you seen The Capital Whispers?"

"No, what is it?"

"It's a local weekly-a scandal sheet-the sort of paper that buys gossip and scandal from servants or from anybody. There's a paragraph in it this week you might be interested in. This news about the breach of promise suit reminded me. Would you like to see it?"

Elfinstone nodded, and the reporter used the telephone to have a copy sent up by bellboy from the hotel newsstand. The paragraph was brief.

The circ.u.mstances surrounding General Dolliard's unfortunate death still supply a major portion of tea-table conversation and many are the guesses and theories advanced. Little is still known however beyond the fact that when General Dolliard called on the das.h.i.+ng Captain Elfinstone in his Baltimore hotel he found him alone, but that when he called at his Was.h.i.+ngton hotel the next night he found him in conversation with the young and beautiful Mrs. Dolliard. But out of that gossips have made much, especially since it is reported that the tall captain was as skillful in penetrating feminine attractions as he was in penetrating the Teutonic lines during the war.

"Nice garbage," Elfinstone commented as he put down the paper. "Has much of that sort of thing been said? I haven't seen any papers."

"A little, not much considering the circ.u.mstances."

Elfinstone picked up Capitol Whispers again. "Who runs this?"

"A fellow named John Parlett. A rotter all the way through, but there's this: he's not a blackmailer. He doesn't sell silence. Nothing's too rotten for him to publish if he can get by with it, but you can't buy him off."

Elfinstone scowled thoughtfully over that information, was still scowling over it when a bellboy with a telegram knocked on the door. The telegram was a reply to the one had sent the mayor of the northwestern city.

CHIEF OF POLICE DABNEY DOES NOT REMEMBER GRANTING LEAVE STOP IN ANY EVENT HE HAD NO AUTHORITY TO DO SO STOP PARAGRAPH NINE YOUR CONTRACT STATE EXPLICITLY SUCH AUTHORITY VESTED IN MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL ALONE.

An added touch of finality hung over the telegram by virtue of its having been sent collect.

Elfinstone, smiling grimly but not without satisfaction, gave the telegram to the young supporter to read and copy and then held out a lean hand to him.

"Stop in and see me tomorrow, Alden. I may not have anything for you, but you've helped me get a couple of ideas straightened out.

The boy's eyes were bright, his voice a little uneven.

"I do hope you come out all right, Captain Elfinstone. I can't answer for my paper-I'm only a cub who got into this on a fluke-but if there's anything I personally can do you've only to mention it. I mean whether there's news in it or not."

For several minutes after the young reporter had gone, Elfinstone stared thoughtfully after him. Then he picked up the telephone and gave the Dolliards' number. He had some difficulty in getting Mrs. Dolliard on the wire.

"This is Captain Elfinstone," he said when he had at last succeeded. "I must see you at once, alone. I have some information you should have."

"I would rather you gave it to me through my attorneys, Otis and Juel," she said with chill finality.

"Won't do," he said impatiently. "I'll give you a name. You can tell by that whether it's wiser to get my information personally. The name is Brefina."

For a s.p.a.ce nothing was said. Then her voice came cool as before: "I don't understand you at all. The name means nothing to me. However you may come if you wish. I will see you."

"I thank you," he responded ironically and, avoiding the lobby and princ.i.p.al exits, left the hotel for a taxicab.

Mrs. Dolliard, black-dressed, was standing in the wine and gold room in which he had been introduced to her by her husband when the tall man was shown in. She neither bowed, spoke, nor invited him to sit down.

He plunged headlong into the matter between them.

"Is it possible you think I haven't guessed what your husband's missing papers were?" he demanded.

MY BROTHER FELIX.

"Time to Die"

1.

He sat in the Stuyvesant Hotel lounge and read a newspaper. His hands holding the paper were thin, and except for their pale scars, sunburned brown as his loose tweed suit. His thin face was sunburned and scarred: two narrow white parallel lines ran from his left ear to the bridge of his nose. The clear light blue of his eyes was startling in so browned a face. His hair was thin, ash blond, cut short. He could have been thirty-five years old or forty-five.

He read his newspaper deliberately, patiently, column by column from top to bottom, until, at about midnight, a man and a woman in evening clothes came in together from the street. Then he put down the paper, picked up his straw hat, and went to meet them.

The man who had come in cried, "Felix!" and put both hands on the thin man's shoulders; the woman cried, "Felix!" and clasped one of his hands.

Felix said, "How are you all?" He seemed frail and worn beside them. His voice and smile, pleasant enough, were thinner, held less warmth, than theirs.

"But when did you come to New York?" the woman asked. Her English was unaccented: she spoke it more carefully than if it had been her native language.

"Day before yesterday." He moved his head a little to indicate her companion. "Naturally I looked Michael up first thing."

The man called Michael said, "Naturally," with considerable heartiness. He smiled down on Felix: he was a big man, tall and meaty, owing little of his impressive size to fat. "And it's d.a.m.ned good seeing you. Come along." He turned toward the elevators.

"It is good," the woman said, and took Felix's arm. "It is good that we three should be together again." She squeezed his arm and insisted, "Is it not?"

"Mais oui."

She peered into his face with eyes that were very large and dark and on a level with his-she was a tall woman-but in his pale eyes there was no hint of the mockery that had tinged his voice.

Michael, standing aside to let them enter the elevator, said, "Julie was afraid you were sore-not answering my letter-but I told her you had too much sense for that."

The woman squeezed Felix's arm again and smiled at him.

He asked, "What letter?"

"The letter I gave Tomas for you." When the smaller man said nothing, Michael asked, "You got it, didn't you?"

"No."

"By G.o.d!" The big man frowned, said slowly, "I don't understand what-" He broke off, opened his eyes wide. His eyes were a deeper blue than Felix's. "Then you must think-" He broke off again. "This is our floor."

They got out of the elevator.

The big man touched Felix's shoulder lightly, said, "Then I reckon we've got a lot of talking to do," and led the way to a white door at the end of the corridor. He walked lightly for his weight and his stride was a young man's, though his thick brown hair and carefully trimmed mustache were sprinkled with gray and he must have been within a few years of fifty. He opened the white door, reached inside to turn on lights, and held the door open. "Didn't you see Tomas at all?"

"No," Felix replied. "He'd left Concepcion-some kind of Milicia Republicana trouble." He dropped his hat on a seat in the vestibule. "But you got my letter."

The big man opened his eyes wide again. "No. What letter? Not a word from you since that night at- Julie, Felix says he sent us a letter." He shut the corridor door.

The woman was switching on lights in a gray and green sitting-room. She stared at the big man, said slowly, "That is most peculiar," and continued to stare at him.

Felix went up close to the big man and said, "I don't believe either of you. You got my letter. You didn't send me one."

The woman laughed.

Michael's cheeks flushed, but his voice was unruffled. "It's no use talking like that. We-"

Felix's right hand moved and a clasp-knife snapped open in it. He put the tip of its four-inch blade against Michael's smooth white s.h.i.+rt-bosom and said, "I don't want any more of you. Give me that letter."

"For Christ's sake, Felix!" The flush had gone out of Michael's cheeks, most of the color had gone out of his face, but his face-except for the eyes strained downward to watch the s.h.i.+ny threatening knife-was still firm-featured and handsome.

Felix's body hid the knife from the woman. She put her wrap-olive green velvet and dark fur-on a chair and chid them impartially: "Why must men quarrel always? Can't you wait at least until we have talked awhile and I have gone off to my bed? It is so long since we three have been together."

"Cornejo's letter," Felix said to the big man. The point of his knife, moving an inch or two, left behind it a deep scratch in the starched linen.

Michael winced, but did not step back from the knife. He moistened his lips with his tongue. "Put that thing away. That temper of yours. Give me a chance to talk."

"I don't want talk," Felix said. "I want Cornejo's letter."

"But listen to me a minute." The big man forced his eyes to look up from the knife-blade to Felix's hard thin face. "I'm not trying to-"

"Shut up." Felix held out his left hand. "Cornejo's letter."

The woman, staring perplexedly at Michael, had come far enough toward them by this time to see the knife. The perplexity went out of her eyes. She said amicably, "You are being most foolish, Felix. There is no letter."

Felix said, "No?" and the point of his knife opened a three-inch slit in Michael's s.h.i.+rt-bosom.

"Don't!" the big man cried hoa.r.s.ely, and flattened himself back against the wall, away from the knife. "I got it, Felix."

Felix dropped the open knife, handle down, into his jacket pocket and slapped Michael's face.

Michael sobbed, "Don't, don't," but did not raise his hands to protect his face.

The woman said, "Virgen santisima," very softly. She was leaning forward a little, full red lips parted, looking at Michael as if she had never seen him before.

Felix turned his back on Michael. "Do you know where he keeps the letter?" he asked the woman.

She shook her head and said slowly, "I do not think he has it-now."