32 Caliber Part 1

32 Caliber.

by Donald McGibeny.

CHAPTER ONE.

BRING JIM HERE.

I was in the locker-room of the country-club, getting dressed after the best afternoon of golf I had ever had. I had just beaten Paisley "one-up" in eighteen holes of the hardest kind of sledding.

If you knew Paisley you'd understand just why I was so glad to beat him. He is a most insufferably conceited a.s.s about his golf, for a man who plays as badly as he does; in addition to which he usually beats me. It's not that Paisley plays a better game, but he has a way of making me pull my drive or over-approach just by his confounded manner of looking at me when I am getting ready to play.

We usually trot along about even until we come to the seventh hole--in fact, I'm usually ahead at the seventh--and then conversation does me in. You see, the seventh hole can be played two ways. There's a small clay bank that abuts the green and you can either play around or over it to the hole, which lies directly behind. The real golfers play over with a good mas.h.i.+e shot that lands them dead on the green, but dubs, like Paisley, play around with two easy mid-iron shots. When we get to the place where the choice must be made, Paisley suggests that I go around, which makes me grip my mas.h.i.+e firmly, recall all the things I have read in the little book about how to play a mas.h.i.+e shot, and let drive with all my force, which usually lands me somewhere near the top of the clay bank, where it would take a mountain goat to play the next shot. After that, Paisley and I exchange a few hectic observations and my temperature and score mount to the highest known alt.i.tude.

Of course, every now and then, I forget my stance and Paisley long enough to send the ball in a beautiful parabola right on to the green, and when I do--oh, brother!--the things I say to Paisley put him in such a frame of mind that I could play the rest of the course with a paddle and a basket-ball and still beat him. This particular afternoon he had tried to play the seventh hole as it should be played, and though we had both foozled, I had won the hole and romped triumphantly home with the side of pig.

I was gaily humming to myself as I put on my clothes when James Felderson came in. His face was drawn and his mouth was set in a way that was utterly foreign to Jim, whose smile has done more to keep peace in committee meetings and to placate irate members than all other harmonizing agencies in the club put together. There was something unnatural, too, about his eyes, as though he had been drinking.

"Have you seen Helen?" he demanded in a thick voice.

"No. Not to-day," I answered. "What's the matter, Jim? Anything wrong?"

Felderson has been my law partner ever since he married my sister Helen. I had left him at the office just before lunch and he had seemed then as cheerful and unperturbed as usual.

"Helen has gone with Frank Woods!" he burst out, his voice breaking as he spoke.

It took a second for me to grasp the meaning of what he said, then I grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Jim, Jim, what are you saying?"

My sister--left her husband--run off with another man! I had read of such things in stories, but never had I believed that real people, in real life and of real social position, ever so disgraced themselves. Every one knew that Frank Woods had been seeing a lot of Helen, and several close friends had asked me if Jim knew the man's reputation. I had even spoken to Helen, only to be laughed at, and a.s.sured that it was the idle gossip of scandal-mongers. That she should have left Jim, darling old Jim, for Frank Woods, or any other man, was unthinkable. Jim sank on a bench and turned a face to me that had grown utterly haggard.

"It's true, Bupps! I found this on the table when I went home to lunch."

He held out a crumpled note written in Helen's rather mannish back-hand.

"Jim, "It is now ten-thirty. Frank is coming for me at eleven. He has made me realize that, loving him the way I do, I would be doing you a horrible injustice to keep up the wretched pretense of being your wife.

"Had you left any other way open, I would have taken it, but you refused a divorce. I hate to hurt you the way I must, but try to understand and forgive me.

"Helen."

I turned toward Jim. His chin was sunk in his hands. Two men came in from the tennis-courts and nodded as they went by.

"What have you done?" I asked.

He raised his head, and on his face was written incalculable misery.

"Nothing!" he answered, dropping his hands hopelessly. "What can I do, except let them go and get a divorce as soon as possible? It's my fault. After we--quarreled the other night, she asked me to divorce her, and I refused. G.o.d, Bupps! If you only knew how much I love her and how hard I've tried to make her love me. And she did love me till Woods came along."

I hurried up my dressing, turning over in my mind the details of Jim's married life. In the light of the latest developments, I realized the painful fact that I was partly to blame myself. Helen hadn't really loved Jim when she married him. Oh, she'd loved him in the same way she'd loved a lot of other men whom she'd been more or less engaged to at one time or another. She had married Jim, because it had been the thing to do that year, to get married; and she realized that Jim loved her more and could give her more than any of the others. Where I came in was that I had urged her to marry Jim because he was the best man in the world and because I wanted him for my brother-in-law.

I remembered now how cold Helen had been, even during their engagement, trumping up almost any excuse to keep from spending an evening alone with the man who was to be her husband. It had made me so hot that I had reproached her even in Jim's presence. My words didn't seem to affect Helen any, but they did affect Jim a lot. He had taken me for a long ride in his car and filled me full of moons.h.i.+ne about how he was unworthy of her and how he would win her love after they were married. I was in such sympathy with him that I tried to believe it true, although I knew Helen as only a younger brother can know a sister. I knew that she had been pampered and petted ever since she was a child; that she had never shown much affection for father and mother, who were her slaves, while toward me, who had insulted and made fun of her, she was almost effusive. With this in mind, I had urged Jim to neglect her, to "treat her rough," but when a man is head-over-heels in love with a girl, what's the good of advice? To tell him to mistreat her was like telling a Mohammedan to spit in the face of the prophet.

They had been married a little over a year when Frank Woods came to Eastbrook on war business for the French Government. He had been in Papa Joffre's Army during part of the melee, wore the Croix de Guerre with several palms, and could hold a company of people enthralled with stories of his experiences. Whether he had a right to the decorations, or even the uniform, no one was quite sure, but it set off every good point of his ma.s.sive, well-built frame. He would stand in front of the fire and tell of air-sc.r.a.ps in such a way that, while he never mentioned the hero by name, it was easy to guess that "hero" and Frank Woods were synonymous. He could dance, ride, play any game and shoot better than the best of us, and when he sat at the piano and sang, every man looked at his wife or his fiancee and wondered where the lightning was going to strike. For although he was a very proper young bachelor for months, showing no unseemly interest in women, we all of us, I think, secretly felt that he was setting the stage for a "grand coup."

If he had singled out Helen from the first, he couldn't have played his game better, for his seeming indifference to her loveliness piqued her almost to madness. During the early months of our entrance in the war he was called back to France, and every man in Eastbrook breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't one of us who could say why we thought him a cad, but just the same, I doubt if there was a father in Eastbrook who would willingly have given his daughter to him. He was too much of the ideal lover to make a good husband. There was something about him, too, that made no man want to claim him as a particular friend, but perhaps it was because we were all jealous.

While most of the younger men of the town were in France, or, like Jim and myself, in a training-camp, Frank Woods came back, and this time there was no mistaking whom he had picked out for his attentions. Until the war was over and Jim home, it was not noticeable, for he was most meticulous in his behavior, but with Jim busy trying to straighten out our tangled practise, Woods lost no time in taking advantage of his opportunities. And there had been opportunities enough, heaven knows, with Jim surrounded by clients, yet trying in his clumsy, lovable way to remonstrate with Helen for seeing so much of Woods. My interference had only increased his opportunities, for the evening I told her what people were saying, she quarreled with Jim, and as a result he threw himself into his work with an energy in which enthusiasm had no part.

All the time these thoughts were running through my head--and they ran much faster than I can set them down--I had been throwing my clothes on, knowing something had to be done, yet what that something was I couldn't for the life of me figure out.

"Come on, Jim!" I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him from his dejected position.

"Where to?" he responded wearily.

"First of all, we're going to shut this thing up. The Sun would like nothing better than to spread it thick all over the front page of their filthy sheet."

"You're right, old boy! I'd forgotten about the newspapers. It would be horrible for Helen to have her name dragged through the mud."

"I wasn't thinking of Helen," I responded testily, "but a lot of cheap notoriety won't help our law practise any."

All the spirit seemed to have seeped out of his system, so I pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition.

We were just backing into the drive when one of the servants came running from the club.

"Oh, Mr. Thompson!" he called.

I stopped the car and waited for him to come up.

"What is it?"

"You're wanted on the telephone."

I jumped from the car and started for the club. There were the usual groups of tea-drinkers and bridge-players scattered about on the broad veranda, and it seemed to me, as I ran up the steps, that they all stopped talking and looked at me, I thought, with curiosity, if not with pity. There would be no use shutting up the newspapers if that bunch of gossips were in possession of the scandal.

I hurried to the telephone and slammed the door to the booth, expecting to hear the voice of some reporter demand if there was any truth to the rumor that Mrs. James Felderson had run off with Frank Woods. To my buzzing brain it seemed that the whole world must have heard the news.

"h.e.l.lo," I called.

"Is that you, Warren?" It was Helen's voice.

"Helen!" I yelled. "For G.o.d's sake, where are you?"

"I am at the house. Listen, Warren! Have you seen Jim?"

Her voice sounded faint and strangely uncontrolled.

"Yes--yes," I shouted. "He's here with me now."

"Then bring him here quickly, Warren! Please hurry."

"But, Helen----"

"Don't ask me any questions, please." There was a catch in the voice on the other end of the wire. "I c-can't answer any questions now, but bring Jim, and hurry!"

The receiver clicked and I dashed out of the booth, a thousand questions pounding in my brain. Why was Helen at the house? Had Frank Woods failed to keep his appointment, thinking better of eloping with another man's wife; or, had Helen come to her senses, seen through the thin veneer that covered the cad and the libertine in Frank Woods and returned to her husband for good? Over and above these questions and conjectures and hopes, there was thanksgiving in my heart that the irremediable step had not been taken; that something had intervened to keep scandal and disgrace away from Jim.

There must have been something in my face that told Jim I had been talking to Helen, for he moved into the driver's seat and greeted me with the single question: "Where is she?"

"Home!" I panted, "and drive like the devil!"

I might have saved myself the trouble of the last, for even before I got into the car there was a roar of exhaust and the crunch of grinding gears and we were off down the smooth drive with a speed that quickly brought tears to my eyes and put the fear of G.o.d in my heart.

How we ever escaped a smash-up after we got into the city I can't tell to this day, for Jim never once slackened speed. He sat there with jaws set, pumping gas and still more gas into the little car. Thrice I saw death loom up ahead of us, as vehicles approached from side-streets, but with a swerve and a sickening skid, we missed them somehow. Once a street-car and a wagon seemed completely to block the road ahead, but Jim steered for the slender opening and when I opened my eyes we had skinned through, leaving a corpulent and cursing driver far behind. After that I forgot my wretched fear and the blood surged through my veins at the delicious feel of the air as it whipped my cheeks. We turned at last into the long approach to Jim's house and it was then that my heart sank.

Frank Woods' car was standing before the door.

CHAPTER TWO.

TWO MEN AND A WOMAN.

Had Helen been alone, I would have dropped Jim and gone on, knowing that what they had to say to each other was not for outside ears, but when I saw Frank Woods' car there, I felt that a cool head might be needed. There was an ominous set to Jim's shoulders as he walked toward the steps, a sort of drawing in of the head, as though all the muscles in his big frame were tensed. He hesitated a fraction of a second at the door, either to let me catch up with him or because of distaste for the prospective meeting, and we entered the cool dark hall together.

Helen was standing at the entrance to the big living-room, her tall figure erect, her head proudly poised, one graceful arm upraised, with the hand buried in the velvet hangings. She had on a gray traveling-suit, the coat of which lay tossed over the back of a near-by chair. A large patent-leather traveling-case lay beside it. I had expected, from the urgency of the message and the sound of her voice over the telephone, to find Helen agitated, but, except for slight traces of recent tears and a high color, she looked as cool and collected as though she had invited us to tea. Jim, on the other hand, was trembling, his face a pasty white, with great beads of perspiration standing on his forehead.

She motioned us to enter, and I led the way, gripping Jim's hand in pa.s.sing. Woods was standing by the window, his back to us, and his whole pose so artificial, so expressive of disdain, that I felt the short hair rising along the back of my neck in antagonism. When he heard us, Woods turned with contemptuous deliberation, but when he caught sight of the dumb misery on Jim's face, his own turned a dull crimson. Helen crossed the room and seated herself on the divan, back of which Woods was standing. The whole performance--the place she chose near him, the look she flashed at him as she sat down, showed so completely which of the men she loved, that my heart sank and I lost hope of ever bringing her back to Jim. It was Helen who first spoke.

"You received the note I left this morning?"

Jim moistened his lips once and said, "Yes." The word was barely audible.

"Then there is no need to tell you I have made up my mind to go with Frank."

Her tone was coldly final. Woods had turned and was again gazing out of the window. Jim looked at Helen with the eyes of a hound-dog. My heart ached for him, but there was nothing I could do.

"Why did you come back?" Jim almost whispered, keeping his eyes directly on her face.

"Because I didn't want a scandal." She glanced down at her lap where she was opening and closing a beaded vanity bag. Evidently she was finding the interview harder than she had expected.

"I felt--I hoped that if I could show you definitely and finally that I don't love you, that I am devoted to Frank, your pride, if nothing else, would induce you to give me the divorce for which I asked. That is the reason we decided to come back--so you might make it possible for us to marry without a scandal."

The gross selfishness of the woman--I could hardly think of her as my sister--her cold cruelty, yes, even her d.a.m.nable beauty, seemed to go to my head and something snapped inside. I couldn't bear the sight of Jim standing there helpless, while these two turned the knife.

"That was very considerate of you," I sneered.

"You keep out of this, Warren!"

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I do," I retorted. "I at least have a brother's right to tell you that a man who will sneak into another's home to make love to his wife, behind his back, and then----"

Woods turned quickly. "That's a lie, and you know it."

Jim put his hand on my shoulder. He knew I was ready to fight.

"Don't, Bupps!"

Suddenly he seemed to straighten into life. From the way he set his jaw, I knew that the old courage, which had won so many cases in the court-room, was back on the job.

"You were quite right, Helen. While I imagine your reason for not wanting a scandal was largely selfish, yet I think that consideration for my position was partly responsible for your return, and for that I thank you. When you asked for a divorce the other night, I didn't realize that your love for me was so entirely dead, or that you had fallen so completely under this man's influence. Under the circ.u.mstances, I shall give you a divorce, if only to keep you from taking matters into your own hands. But I shall not do it until I have satisfied myself that your new love is real, that the man is worthy of it. If there is anything in Woods' life that does not bear looking into, I'll find it out; if he has done anything in the past that is likely to hurt you in the future, I shall know it, and you shall know it, too, before you take this irrevocable step."

Woods flushed for a moment when Jim spoke of digging into his past, but he laughed easily and said: "You're getting a bit melodramatic, aren't you?"

"Better melodrama than tragedy," Jim responded bitterly.

"Helen has told you she doesn't love you, and that she does love me. This morning she was ready to face the scandal of leaving her husband; to go to live with me, to live openly with me, unmarried, until you could get a divorce. That rather answers your first point, doesn't it?"

"It makes me think no better of you, that you should have agreed to such a sacrifice."

"I never expected to win the husband's love at the same time I won his wife's," Woods responded evenly.

Never have I seen murder s.h.i.+ne out of a man's eyes as it did out of Jim's at that moment. Each man measured the other across the narrow s.p.a.ce, and I longed that the laws of civilization might be swept aside so that the two might tear at each other's throats, for the woman they loved. Both men were powerful, and neither feared the other.

"As to looking up my past," Woods continued, "one might think you were the father of the lady and I a youthful suitor. While I recognize no right of yours to meddle in my affairs, the fact that I was sent to America as the duly accredited agent of the French Government should have some weight. They are not accustomed over there to hiring thugs and cutthroats to carry on their business."

"This is all beside the point," Helen broke in. "May I ask, Jim, where I am going to stay and what I am going to do while you are investigating Frank's past?"

"You are going to stay here."

"Here? But where will you stay?"

"I am going to stay here with you."

Woods came around the divan. "Look here, Felderson! Can't you see Helen doesn't love you, that you've lost--?"

"Keep back!" warned Jim huskily.