The Vagrant Duke Part 57

Suppose I refuse?"

"Y' won't. Why, Pete, it ought to be easiest job in world. A few dropsh in gla.s.s when you're talkin' business and he'd never know it happened.

Then we 'beat it,' y'understand, 'n' write lettersh--nice lettersh. One of 'em to that swell daughter of his. That would do the business, _p.r.o.nto_."

"Yes, it might," admitted Peter ruminatively.

"Sure it will--but we'll give him chance. Are y' on?" he asked.

Peter was silent for a moment. And then,

"I don't see why you want that paper of McGuire's," he said. "They're exactly alike, you say--both incriminating. And if you've got your paper handy----"

Peter paused but Kennedy was in the act of swallowing another gla.s.s of whisky and he didn't stop to answer the half-formulated query. He gave a gasp of satisfaction and then shrugged.

"No use, Pete," he said huskily. "I said I had paper and I _have_ paper handy, but I've got to have McGuire's paper too. I ain't got money and spotless rep'tation like Mike McGuire but I don't want paper like that floatin' roun' universh with _my_ name signed to it."

"I don't blame you," said Peter dryly.

Hawk Kennedy was talking thickly now and spilled the whisky in trying to pour out a new gla.s.sful.

"Goo' whisky this--goo' ole whisky, Pete. Goo' ole Peter. Say, you'll get pater, Peep--I mean Peter pape--Oh H---- Paper. _You_ know."

"I'll have to think about it, Jim."

"Can't think when yer drunk, Pete," he muttered with an expiring grin.

"To-morr'. 'Nother drink an' then we'll go sleep. Don't mind my sleepin'

here, Pete. Nice plache shleep. Goo' old shleep...."

Peter paused in the act of pouring out another drink for him and then at a sound from Kennedy set the bottle down again. The man suddenly sprawled sideways in the chair, his head back, snoring heavily. Peter watched him for a moment, sure that he couldn't be shamming and then looked around the disordered room. Hawk's overcoat and hat lay on the bed. On tiptoe Peter got up and examined them carefully, watching the man in the chair intently the while. Hawk stirred but did not awaken.

Peter searched the overcoat inch by inch. There was nothing in the pockets, but a tin of tobacco and a Philadelphia newspaper. So Peter restored the articles and then hung the hat and coat on the nails behind the door. Hawk Kennedy did not move. He was dead drunk.

The repulsive task of searching the rec.u.mbent figure now lay before him.

But the game had been worth the candle. If the fateful confession was anywhere in Hawk's clothing Peter meant to find it and yet even now he hesitated. He put the whisky bottle away, cleared up the mess and then bodily picked his visitor up and carried him to the bed. Hawk muttered something in his sleep but fell p.r.o.ne and immediately was snoring stertorously. Then Peter went through his pockets methodically, removing an automatic pistol from his trousers, and examining all his papers carefully by the light of the lamp-a hotel bill receipted, some letters in a woman's hand, a few newspaper clippings bearing on the copper market, a pocketbook containing bills of large denomination, some soiled business cards of representatives of commercial houses, a notebook containing addresses and small accounts, a pa.s.s book of a Philadelphia bank, the address of which Peter noted. And that was all. Exhausting every resource Peter went over the lining of his coat and vest, inch by inch, even examined his underwear and his shoes and stockings. From the skin out, Hawk Kennedy had now no secrets from Peter. The incriminating confession was not on Hawk Kennedy's clothing.

At last Peter gave up the search and went out into the air, and lighted his corncob pipe, puzzled at his failure. And yet, was it a failure after all? Hawk had eluded every attempt to discuss his copy of the confession. He had it "handy," he had said. A safe deposit box at the Philadelphia bank of which Peter had made record would be handy, but somehow Peter thought the chances were much against Kennedy's having put it there. Men of his type usually carry everything they possess about their persons. Peter remembered the ragged wallet of the _Bermudian_.

What if after all these years of hards.h.i.+p the paper had been worn so that it was entirely illegible, or indeed that in Kennedy's many wanderings it had been lost? Either of these theories was plausible, but none provoked a decision. So after awhile Peter went indoors and opening all the windows and doors to cleanse the air, sat in the big chair and bundling himself in a blanket fell asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII

FACE TO FACE

We are told, alas, that at the highest moment of our expectations the G.o.ds conspire to our undoing, and therefore that it is wise to take our joys a little sadly, that we may not fall too far. But Beth, being wholesome of mind and body and an optimist by choice, was not disposed to question the completeness of her contentment or look for any dangers which might threaten its continuance. And so when Peter went home through the forest, she took her kerosene lamp to her room, there to smile at her joyous countenance in the mirror and to a.s.sure herself that never since the beginning of the world had there been a girl more glad that she had been born. All the clouds that had hung about her since that evening in the woods had been miraculously rolled away and she knew again as she had known before that Peter Nichols was the one man in all the world for her.

Their evening together was a wonderful thing to contemplate, and she lay in bed, her eyes wide open, staring toward the window, beyond which in a dark ma.s.s against the starlit sky she could see the familiar pines, through which was the path to Peter's cabin. The stars twinkled jovially with a.s.surance that the night could not be long and that beyond the night were to-morrows still more wonderful than to-day. And praying gently that all might be well with them both, she fell asleep, not even to dream.

Early morning found her brisk at her work around the house, cleansing and polis.h.i.+ng, finis.h.i.+ng to her satisfaction the tasks which Peter's impatience had forbidden the night before. All of Aunt Tillie's blue china set was carefully restored to its shelves, the napery folded away, the s.h.i.+ny pots hung upon their hooks and the kitchen carefully mopped.

Then, with a towel wrapped about her head (for such was the custom of the country), she attacked the dining-room and parlor with broom and dust-cloth, singing _arpeggios_ to remind herself that everything was right with the world.

It was upon the plush-covered sofa where she and Peter had sat the night before that Beth's orderly eye espied a square of paper just upon the point of disappearing in the crease between the seat and back of Aunt Tillie's most cherished article of furniture and of course she pounced upon it with the intention of destroying it at the cookstove. But when she drew it forth, she found that it was an envelope, heliotrope in color, that it bore Peter's name in a feminine handwriting, and that it had a strange delicate odor with which Beth was unfamiliar. She held it in her hand and looked at the writing, then turned it over and over, now holding it more gingerly by the tip ends of her fingers. Then she sniffed at it again. It was a queer perfume--strange--like violet mixed with some kind of spice.

She put her broom aside and walked to the window, her brow puckered, and scrutinized the postmark. "London!" Of course--London was in England where Peter had once lived. And Peter had drawn the letter from his pocket last night with some other papers when he had shown her the communication from "Hawk" Kennedy. It was lucky that she had found it, for it might have slipped down behind the plush covering, and so have been definitely lost. Of course Peter had friends in London and of course they should wish to write to him, but for the first time it seemed curious to Beth that in all their conversations Peter had never volunteered any information as to the life that he had lived before he had come to Black Rock. She remembered now that she had told him that whatever his past had been and whoever he was, he was good enough for her. But the heliotrope envelope with the feminine handwriting and the strange odor immediately suggested queries along lines of investigation which had never before entered her thoughts. Who was the lady of the delicate script and the strange perfume? What was her relations.h.i.+p to Peter? And upon what topic was she writing to him?

Beth slipped the note about a quarter of an inch out of its envelope until she could just see a line of the writing and then quickly thrust it in again, put the envelope on the mantel above the "parlor heater"

and resolutely went on with her sweeping. From time to time she stopped her work and looked at it just to be sure that it was still there and at last took it up in her fingers again, a prey to a more lively curiosity than any she had ever known. She put the envelope down again and turning her back to it went into the kitchen. Of course Peter would tell her who this lady was if she asked him. And there was no doubt at all that it _was_ a lady who had written the letter, some one familiar with a delicate mode of existence and given to refinements which had been denied to Beth. It was this delicacy and refinement, this flowing inscription written with such careless ease and grace which challenged Beth's rusticity. She would have liked to ask Peter about the lady at once. But Peter would not be at the Cabin at this early hour of the morning, nor would Beth be able to see him until late this afternoon--perhaps not until to-night. Meanwhile, the note upon the mantel was burning its way into her consciousness. It was endued with a personality feminine, insidious and persuasive. No ladies of London affecting heliotrope envelopes had any business writing scented notes to Peter now. He was Beth's particular property....

When she went up to the second floor of the cottage a few minutes later she took the heliotrope letter with her and put it on her bureau, propped against the pincus.h.i.+on, while she went on with her work. And then, all her duties for the morning finished, she sat down in her rocking chair by the window, the envelope in her idle fingers, a victim of temptation. She looked out at the pine woods, her gaze afar, her guilty fingers slipping the letter out of its covering an inch, two inches. And then Beth opened Peter's heliotrope note and read it. At least, she read as much of it as she could understand,--the parts that were written in English--with growing amazement and incert.i.tude. A good deal of the English part even was Greek to her, but she could understand enough to know that a mystery of some sort hung about the letter and about Peter, that he was apparently a person of some importance to the heliotrope lady who addressed him in affectionate terms and with the utmost freedom. Beth had learned in the French ballads which Peter had taught her that _ami_ meant friend and that _bel_ meant beautiful. And as the whole of the paragraph containing those words was written in English, Beth had little difficulty in understanding it. What had Peter to do with the cause of Holy Russia? And what was this danger to him from hidden enemies, which could make necessary this discretion and watchfulness in Black Rock? And the last sentence of all danced before Beth's eyes as though it had been written in letters of fire. "There is at least one heart in London that ever beats fondly in memory of the dear dead days at Galitzin and Zukovo."

What right had the heliotrope lady's heart to beat fondly in memory of dear dead days with Peter Nichols at Galitzin or Zukovo or anywhere else? Who was she? Was she young? Was she beautiful? And what right had Peter given her to address him in terms of such affection? Anastasie!

And now for the first time in her life, though to all outward appearance calm, Beth felt the pangs of jealousy. This letter, most of it in the queer-looking script (probably Russian) that she could not even read, in its strange references in English to things beyond her knowledge, seemed suddenly to erect a barrier between her and Peter that could never be pa.s.sed, or even to indicate a barrier between them that had always existed without her knowledge. And if all of the parts of the letter that she could not understand contained sentiments like the English part that she _could_ understand, it was a very terrible letter indeed and indicated that this heliotrope woman (she was no longer "lady" now) had claims upon Peter's heart which came long before Beth's. And if this Anastasie--other women too....

Beth read the letter again and then slipped it back into its envelope, while she gazed out of the window at the pines, a frown at her brows and two tiny lines curving downward at the corners of her lips. She was very unhappy. But she was angry too--angry at the heliotrope woman, angry at Peter and angrier still at herself. In that moment she forgot that she had taken Peter Nichols without reference to what he was or had been.

She had told him that only the future mattered and now she knew that the past was beginning to matter very much indeed.

After a while she got up, and took the heliotrope letter to the bureau where she wrote upon the envelope rather viciously with a soft lead pencil, "You left _this_ last night. You'd better go back to Anastasie."

Then she slipped the letter into her waist and with an air of decision went down the stairs (the ominous parentheses still around her mouth), and made her way with rapid footsteps toward the path through the forest which led toward Peter's cabin.

Beth was primitive, highly honorable by instinct if not by precept, but a creature of impulse, very much in love, who read by intuition the intrusion of what seemed a very real danger to her happiness. If her conscience warned her that she was transgressing the rules of polite procedure, something stronger than a sense of propriety urged her on to read, something stronger than mere curiosity--the impulse of self-preservation, the impulse to preserve that which was stronger even than self--the love of Peter Nichols.

The scrawl that she had written upon the envelope was eloquent of her point of view, at once a taunt, a renunciation and a confession. "You left _this_ last night. You'd better go back to Anastasie!"

It was the intention of carrying the letter to Peter's cabin and there leaving it in a conspicuous position that now led her rapidly down the path through the woods. Gone were the tender memories of the night before. If this woman had had claims upon Peter Nichols's heart at the two places with the Russian names, she had the same claims upon them now. Beth's love and her pride waged a battle within her as she approached the Cabin. She remembered that Peter had told her last night that he would have a long day at the lumber camp, but as she crossed the log-jam she found herself hoping that by some chance she would find Peter still at home, where, with a fine dignity (which she mentally rehea.r.s.ed) she would demand explanation, and listening, grant forgiveness. Or else ... she didn't like to think of the alternative.

But instead of Peter, at the Cabin door in the early morning sunlight she found a strange man, sitting in a chair in the portico, smoking one of Peter's cigarettes, and apparently much at home. The appearance of the stranger was for a moment disconcerting, but Beth approached the familiar doorway, her head high, the heliotrope letter burning her fingers. She had intended to walk in at the door of the Cabin, place the letter in a conspicuous position where Peter could not fail to see it, and then return to her home and haughtily await Peter's arrival. But the presence of this man, a stranger in Black Rock, making free of Peter's habitation, evidently with Peter's knowledge and consent, made her pause in a moment of uncertainty.

At her approach the man in the chair had risen and she saw that he was tall--almost as tall as Peter, that he had a hooked nose and displayed a set of irregular teeth when he smiled--which he did, not unpleasantly.

There was something about him which repelled her yet fascinated at the same time.

"Mr. Nichols has gone out?" Beth asked, for something to say.

"Yes, Miss," said the stranger, blinking at her with his bleary eyes.

"Mr. Nichols is down at the lumber camp--won't be back until night, I reckon. Anythin' I can do for ye?"

"No, I----?" Beth hesitated. "I just wanted to see him--to leave somethin' for him."

"I guess he'll be right sorry to miss you. Who shall I say called?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Beth, turning away. But she was now aware of a strange curiosity as to this person who sat with such an air of well-being in Peter's chair and spoke with such an air of proprietors.h.i.+p. The insistence of her own personal affair with Peter had driven from her mind all thoughts of the other matters suggested in the letter, of the possible dangers to Peter even here in Black Rock and the mysterious references to Holy Russia. This man who stood in Peter's portico, whoever he was, was not a Russian, she could see that at a glance and read it in his accents, but she was equally certain from his general character that he could be no friend of Peter's and that his business here was not of Peter's choosing.

"If ye'd like to wait a while----"

He offered her the chair, but Beth did not accept it.

"Ye don't happen to be Miss Peggy McGuire, do ye?" asked the stranger curiously.