Octave Thanet

“ How weak a thing is man! Here was an eminently cool-headed, reasonable man of affairs who knew that paws which had escaped from the fire unsinged had no excuse to venture back for other people’s chestnuts; he had expressed himself clearly to this effect to young Tracy; now, behold him as unable to resist the temptation of a conflict and the chance to baffle Atkins as if he were a hot-headed boy in plain shoulder-straps!
“I’ll do better for you, Aunt Rebecca,” said he. “I’ll not only take Fireless the money, I’ll go with him to the house. ”

“ CASA FUERTE
Winter would have said that he was too old a man to stay awake all night, when he had a normal temperature; yet he saw the stars come out and the stars fade on that fateful April night. He entered his room at the hour when midnight brushes the pale skirts of dawn and misguided cocks are vociferating their existence to an indifferent world. Before he came there had been a long council with Mercer and his aunt. ”

“ When Winter came to Mercer’s own exposition of his motives and his design if successful in his raid on the kings of the market, Keatcham grunted; at the end he breathed a noiseless jet of a sigh. “You don’t think Mercer is at all”—he tapped the side of the head.
“No more than you are.”
“Or you?”
[304] “Oh, well,” the colonel jested, “we all have a prejudice in favor of our own sanity. What I meant was that Mercer is a bit of a fanatic; his hard luck has—well, prejudiced him—”
Keatcham’s cold, firm lips straightened into his peculiar smile, which was rather of perception than of humor. ”

“ Winter struck was too rapid for comments or questions; it swept them both past the palm-shaded patio into the side hall, out on the noisy, dazzling, swaying street. Looking before her, Miss Smith could see the dusty body of a hack a block away. Mrs. Winter had stepped up to a huge crimson motor-car, in the front seat of which lounged the chauffeur, his forehead and eyes hunched under his leather visor. The machine was puffing, with the engine working, ready to leap forward at a touch of the lever. ”

“ There was something so chilling in his level tones that Winter broke out sharply: “Are you fooling with me? Have you been such an incredible madman as to kill him already?”
Mercer’s faint smile made the colonel feel boyish and impetuous. “Of course not, suh,” he answered. “I told you he was alive, myself. I reckoned you knew when a man is lying and when he is telling the solemn truth. You know I have told you the truth and treated you on the square. But, just the same, if you try to take that man away, you’ll only have his dead body. ”

“ Just as Winter modestly entered the arena, no less a personage than Henry James was under the wheels. Janet Smith had modestly confessed to believing him a consummate artist; and Millicent in an orotund voice declared that he went deep, deep down into the mysteries of life.
“I don’t deny it; he ought to get down deep,” returned Aunt Rebecca in her gentlest, softest utterance; “he’s always boring.” ”

“ Keatcham laughed a short, grunting laugh. “Don’t you understand, this is no little every-day ’quake? Look out! Is there a way you can look and not see a spout of flame? I’ve got to go down-town. Are the machines all right?”
“We must find Randall; the poor soul has a mortal terror of ’quakes—” Aunt Rebecca’s well-bred accents were unruffled; she appeared a thought stimulated, nothing more; danger always acted as tonic on Winter nerves—“Archie, you go put your clothes on this minute, honey. And I suppose we ought to look up Millicent.” ”

“ There is a door out on the court which, if you will open—thank you. A charming prospect! Excuse me if I send Haley out there; and may I go myself?”
Anticipating the answer, he stepped under the low mission lintel into a fairy-like Californian court or patio of pepper-trees and palms and a moss-grown fountain. There was the usual colonnade with a stone seat running round the wall. Mercer, smiling, motioned to one of them. “I wish I could convince you, Colonel, that you are in no need of that plaything in your hand, and that you are going to dine with your boy—isn’t he a fine fellow?” ”

“ Mercer alone kept his melancholy poise; he had obtained the aim of years; he was not sure but his revenge was subtler and completer than he had dared to hope. Being a zealot he was possessed by his dreams. Suppose he had converted this relentless and tremendous power to his own way of faith; what mightn’t he hope to accomplish? Meanwhile, so far as the business in hand was concerned, he believed in Keatcham and in Keatcham’s methods of help; he bowed to the innate power of the man; and he was as simply obedient and loyal as Kito would have been to his feudal lord. ”

“ Winter, I’m afraid we shall not have another chance at bridge until I see you in New York. But, anyhow, we stung the colonel once—and with Miss Smith playing her greatest game, too. Pity she can’t induce Mr. Keatcham to play; but he never touches a card, hardly ever takes anything to drink, doesn’t like smoking especially, takes a cigarette once in a while only, never plays the races or bets on the run of the vessel—positively such icy virtue gives an ordinary sinner the cramps! Very great man though, Mrs. Winter, and a man we are all proud to follow; he may be overbearing ”

“ The white gown, which was her constant wear in the sick-room, defined her figure clearly against a clump of Japan plum-trees. Their purplish red foliage rustled; and an unseen fountain beyond made a delicate tinkle of water splashing a marble basin. Her face was hidden; only the moonlight gently drew the oval of her cheek. She was standing still, except that one foot was groping back and forth as if trying to find something. ”

“ Nothing has been heard from Archie except the letter—if he wrote it—which tells nothing except that his kidnappers use the same kind of writing paper as Miss Janet Smith. I grow more suspicious of her all the time. You ask (but of course you wrote before the recent mysterious and tragical occurrences) you ask do I like Miss Smith any better, now that I am thrown with her so closely. No, Melville, I have not the fatal credulity of the Winters! I distrust her more. She has, I admit, an engaging personality; there is a superficial amiability that would be dangerous to one not on her guard. ”

“ The colonel had suggested calling a doctor, but Aunt Rebecca had demurred: “Janet can do everything; it is just a question of his heart; and she has digitalis and nitroglycerin and strychnine, the whole outfit of whips. She has dressed the wound with antiseptics. To-morrow will be soon enough for the medical talent.” It was she, however, who, as soon as breakfast was over, took first Mercer and Tracy, then the colonel apart, and proposed calling up Keatcham’s confidential associates on the long-distance telephone. “Strike, but hear me, nephew,” she said languidly, smiling at his bewilderment. ”

“ It is when the long-suffering, pusillanimous, conservative element gets fighting mad that something is doing.”
“Maybe,” muttered Keatcham thoughtfully. “I believe we can manage for you better than you can for yourselves; but when the brakes are broken good driving can’t stop the machine; all the chauffeur can do is to keep the middle of the road. I like to be beaten as little as any of them; but I’m not a fool. Winter, you are used to accomplishing things; what is your notion of the secret?”
“Knowing when to stop exhausting trumps, I reckon—but you don’t play cards.” ”

“ I don’t admire the present century, Bertie. We had people of quality in my day; we have only people of culture in this. I confess I prefer the quality. They had robuster nerves and really asked less of people, although they may have appeared to ask more. We used to be contented with respect from our inferiors and courtesy from our equals—”
“And what from your betters, Aunt Rebecca?” drawled the colonel. ”

“ Millicent always butts in. How did she get acquainted with this unpleasant, assassinating, poor white trash? My dear child, she didn’t probably; he made an acquaintance with her. He pumped her and lied to her. We know he wanted to find out Mr. Keatcham’s abode; he may have got his clue from her; she knew young Arnold had been to see him. There’s no telling. I only know that in the interest of keeping a roof over our heads and having our heads whole instead of in pieces from explosives, I butted in a few days ago when somebody wanted Mrs. Melville Winter on the telephone. ”

“ His fiftieth birthday it happened to be, and it occurred to him that a man ought to do something a little notable on such an anniversary. This rounding of the half-century had attributes apart; it was no mere annual birthday; it marked the last vanishing flutter of the gilded draperies of youth; the withering of the garlands; the fading tinkle of the light music of hope. It should mark a man’s solid achievements. Once, not so long ago, Winter had believed that his fiftieth birthday would see wide and beneficent and far-reaching results in the province where he ruled. ”

“ He agreed with me that such a nervous temperament as Archie’s suffers much more from unkindness. I could see, in spite of his assumed hopefulness, that he shared my fears. He has met quite a number of our friends. He may (through Mr. Keatcham) be a most valuable acquaintance. Didn’t you tell me, once, that Keatcham was the leading benefactor of the university?
He (Mr. Atkins) got his vacation on account of his health; and he is going to Southern California. I don’t wonder. I have never suffered more than in this land of sunshine! It is not so much the cold of the air as the humidity! ”

“ I don’t respect the damned imbecile laws that let me be plundered any more than they do; and since my poor mother died last summer I am not afraid of anything; they are; that’s where I have the choice of weapons. I tell you, suh, nobody is big enough to oppress a desperate man! Keatcham had one advantage—he had unlimited money. But Aunt Rebecca helped us out there. Colonel, I want you to know I didn’t ask her for more than the bare grub-stake; it was she herself that planned our stock deal. ”

“ There are blanks to be supplied by no one. Every one of the men and women present on that fatal morning had a different story. Colvin was packing; he could only remember the deafening roar and the shouting; and when he got down-stairs and saw—he turned deadly sick; his chief impression is the backs of people and the way their hands would shake. Janet Smith, inside, dressing Haley’s wounds, [366] was first warned by the tumult and cries; she as well as Archie and Haley who were with her could see nothing until they got outside. ”

“ Rather grimly the soldier’s eyes were noting marble wainscoting and tiled floors, and contrasting this academic environment with his own at West Point. A caustic comment rose to his lips, but it was not uttered, for he heard the sharp bark of a pistol, followed by a thud, and a crackle as of breaking glass.
“Do you fellows amuse yourselves shooting up [2] the dormitory?” said he. The boy halted; he had gone white.
“It came from Mercer’s room!” he cried, and ran across the corridor to a door with the usual labeling of two visiting cards. ”

“ I can talk like Millicent—or anybody else; so I intoned through the telephone in her silken Anglican accents, ‘Do you want Mrs. Melville Winter or Aunt Rebecca, Madam Winter?’ I hate to be called Madam Winter, and she knows it, but Millicent is catty, you know, and she always calls me Madam Winter behind my back. The fellow fell into the trap at once—recognized the voice, I dare say, and announced that it was Mr. Makers; Mr. Atkins, who had left for Japan, had not been able to pay his respects and say good-by ”

“ Rebecca Winter, who perhaps had the coolest head of all, and who was standing on the dais of the arcade exactly opposite the car, distinctly saw Keatcham with an amazing exertion of vigor for a man just risen from a sick-bed, and with a kind of whirling motion, literally hurl Mercer out of the car. ”

“ I had to have stronger men than I am to help. By and by they tried their jackal business on a real lion—on Tracy. They wanted to steal his road. I got on to them first. I see a heap of people in a heap of different businesses—the little people who talk. They notice all right, but they can see only their own little patch. ”

“ Lucky; for the gas-range is out of action, and we have to try charcoal. Notice one interesting thing, Archie? Old Keatcham, whom we were fighting tooth and nail three weeks ago, is now bossing us as ruthlessly as a foot-ball coach; and Cousin Cary is taking his slack talk as meek as a freshman. Great old boy, Keatcham! And—oh, I say! has any one gone to the rescue of the Rogerses? I saw Kito speeding over that way from the garage and Haley hiking after him. I hope the nine small yellow domestics are not burned at the stake with Rogers; the bally fire-trap is blazing like a tar-barrel! ”