Mary Regan

A tiny dressing-room opened off this very private supper-room, and into this they moved Jack and drew the curtains. Then the two men sat down and in a silence which had as its background the laughter and the wild, harsh dance music without, they smoked for half an hour—Clifford wondering how this pale, grim man was going to bear himself, and how, and as what, Mary would emerge from the double situation toward which she was hurrying.

Presently there was a knock. “That’s our party,” said Clifford, and crossed and opened the door.

But instead of Mary, there entered Bradley and behind him little Peter Loveman. Both halted in seeming surprise. Instinctively Clifford knew that Hilton had sent quick warning to the pair.

“Been on the track of your son, Mr. Morton,” explained Bradley; “and we just trailed him here. Was going to shoot you word we’d located him.”

“You’re right on the job,” Morton said curtly. “But since I have him in hand, I guess I won’t need you gentlemen. Good-night.”

Loveman stepped quickly forward; Clifford could guess the nervous fear that prompted the keen-witted little man to want to be at hand in what he sensed as a moment of peril to himself and the delicately balanced edifice of his schemes.

“Pardon me, Mr. Morton,” he said firmly, in a voice of sympathetic concern, “but I’m sure we might be of some service, and should remain.”

“I’m giving orders here,” snapped Mr. Morton. “Good-night!”

They stood a moment, Morton’s cold gray eyes commandingly fixed on them; then they backed toward the door. Clifford thought rapidly: These two, leaving here, might stumble across Mary Regan, so long searched for by them, and prepared as he knew they always were to act on the instant of discovery, they might somehow manage to put their daring plan, whatever it might be, into instant execution. That risk must be avoided.

“Wait!” Clifford called sharply to them. “Mr. Morton, I prefer to have them remain.”

Mr. Morton stared. “Just as you like.”

“Loveman, Bradley, your request is granted,” said Clifford.

And then a further possibility flashed upon Clifford. Since Hilton had communicated with Loveman and Bradley, what more likely than that they should still be able to communicate?—which would mean that Hilton was close at hand on the lookout. And if that were true, what more likely than that when Mary drove up—

Before this thought had completed itself Clifford had started out. But even as he laid hand upon the knob there was a knock. He swung open the door, and Mary, a light summer cloak thrown loosely about her shoulders, stepped into the room.

“I’m here—what is it?” she said as she entered.

“Miss Gilmore!” exclaimed Mr. Morton, using the name by which he had best known her.

She glanced swiftly and keenly from one to the other of the three unexpected men. Then she wheeled upon Clifford.

“What’s this you’ve led me into?” she demanded—“a plant?”

“Bradley and Loveman are uninvited, and were not here when I telephoned,” he explained. Then he went on in a quiet, dominating, driving voice. “I didn’t tell you whom you were really to meet, and I didn’t tell Mr. Morton who was coming, for the reason that I felt you might each refuse to see the other. Pardon my subterfuge. But I sent for you, Miss Gilmore, because Mr. Morton wished to talk to you about Jack.”

Mr. Morton flushed wrathfully. “I talk to her about Jack! After the letter I’ve had from her!”

“You’ll forget that letter!” Clifford said sharply. “You put this affair in my hands—and your chief concern is Jack.”

He turned to Mary, and looked at her squarely, meaningly.

“You’ve had your dreams—big dreams. I don’t need to remind you what they are. And you’ve worked to have those dreams come true.”

He turned back on Morton, and spoke in the same dominating voice. “And you, Mr. Morton—I told you a little while ago that there was just one thing that might save Jack. Miss Gilmore here is the only person who has in recent years had any influence on Jack. For a time she had him working and behaving. You recall her offer that night to take Jack back to that Riverside Drive apartment and make a man of him. You turned her offer down—you said you could manage your son—and you’ve seen the result.” He spoke more dominantly, more drivingly. “That was your big chance. No matter what you may think of Miss Gilmore, she is still your big chance, and your only chance.”

Clifford paused and waited. Mary, very pale, gazed at him, her lips apart. Morton, his proud, masterful face also pale, stared fixedly at Mary, but said nothing.

“Well,” Clifford prompted him sharply, “here’s your last chance. Speak up.”

“First of all,” said Mr. Morton, his voice steady with an obviously great effort and his gray eyes now piercing, “I’d like to ask Miss Gilmore a few questions. Miss Gilmore, how did you and Jack—”

“One moment!” cut in Peter Loveman, stepping quickly between Mary and Mr. Morton, and seizing the latter’s arm. Clifford had seen a quick fear leap into the little man’s face, and he knew the little lawyer’s impulse was to be first at the explaining and save himself if possible. “I can answer what I know to be your questions,” Loveman said rapidly. “That’s one reason I wanted to hunt you up to-night with Mr. Bradley, because I’ve just learned some things.”

“Loveman!” snapped Clifford, swiftly drawing his automatic and aiming it over Mary’s shoulder. The little lawyer turned, and all the color left the face, ruddied by high living. “Loveman, Miss Gilmore and Mr. Morton have the floor!”

Loveman, dropping Morton’s arm, stepped from between the two. Mary had not seen what argument had brought about the lawyer’s subsidence; her eyes, which had shifted to Mr. Morton, had remained steadily upon him, waiting.

“Mr. Morton, you have the floor,” Clifford prompted him.

Mr. Morton seemed to swallow something—something so large that it would hardly go down. Then he spoke.

“Miss Gilmore, I’ve done all I can to save Jack—but I’ve failed. The Broadway life seems to have got him at last. Here is what he seems to have come to.” He drew apart the curtains of the little dressing-room, revealing the huddled form of Jack, and then let the curtains swing together. “As Mr. Clifford has said, I see that there is only one chance left, and that you are the only chance. Will you be willing to undertake what you offered to do that night down in front of this café?”

The moment of Mary’s great test—her great opportunity, if she saw it as such—had arrived. Clifford watched her—waiting—his whole being taut. Her face had become a mask; she looked with cold, direct eyes upon the man on the adroit winning of whose favor she had for months striven to build her great worldly dreams.

“I suppose you mean undertake it on the conditions that were then mentioned,” she said quietly—“that it is to be what you once termed the ‘usual Riverside Drive affair’? That we are to be Mr. and Mrs. Grayson?”

“Of course, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“No, thank you,” she said quietly.

“But I will give you any present allowance you may desire,” he urged, “and will make any permanent settlement upon you that is in reason.”

“I do not care to run—”

“But, Mary—Miss Gilmore,” gently interrupted Loveman. This affair was taking an amazingly different turn from what he had expected. After all, bewildering as it was, matters were falling out in a way to make his original plan seem once more possible. “Mr. Morton’s offer is fair. Take it.”

Mary did not heed him, but spoke directly at Mr. Morton. “I do not care to undertake to conduct a sanitarium for one person for pay—and then have the patient removed as soon as a cure is effected.”

“But if you were willing to do it before, why not now? I don’t understand!”

“It is no concern of mine if you do not understand.”

She spoke calmly, coldly. Clifford’s eyes were fixed upon her, trying to pierce her brain and heart. Morton stared at her discomfited, desperation growing in his face. There was another moment of silence, against the background of the dance music which twanged stridently without.

Mary spoke again. “If that completes what you wish to say to me, Mr. Morton, then good-night.”

She turned to leave. Her hand was on the knob, when Morton spoke up, his voice now husky.

“Another minute, Miss Gilmore!” She turned about. “Miss Gilmore, you are my last chance—and Jack’s last chance.” He spoke more rapidly. “I’ve simply got to have you—you understand. You must have had some real kind of attachment for Jack or you’d never have offered what you did. And certainly Jack likes you or you’d never have had the influence over him that you’ve proved you possess. Listen—let’s consider it all from another angle. Miss Gilmore, when you were at the Grantham as ‘Mrs. Gardner’ you told me you had a husband—but excuse me, I do not believe it. Miss Gilmore”—he halted, there was a super-gulp, then he went on—“Miss Gilmore, if you are free, I want you to marry Jack.”

Clifford, Loveman, and Bradley, equally astounded, gazed at Mary. She seemed to be able only to stare at Mr. Morton.

“Whatever I may have said or thought against you, I’ll say this in your favor,” Mr. Morton continued, rapidly as before—“that you were so discreet in your affair with Jack, you kept it all so secret, that I’m sure there will be no scandal. We’ll not have that to face. So I ask you, as a favor, to marry him.”

Clifford, still dazed by the swift manner in which his plan had leaped beyond itself, breathlessly held his gaze on Mary. Her dark eyes were wild, her lips loosely parted—the figure of one bewildered beyond realization of what had happened. Then she caught a sharp breath and high excitement came into her face. At that same instant Clifford saw the magnitude of what had suddenly been opened to her—and he saw that she was seeing it, too. At last, by a strange twist of circumstances and of Clifford’s attempt to guide events, she had won! Won all that was included in her original plan! And most amazing of all, what she had thought to get as the reward of scheming, she was now being begged to accept as a favor—wealth, worldly position, and all that each could bring!

And Clifford, in this high moment, realized another thing. All these months of her big dreams, of her indomitable and skillful scheming, she had had one great, ever-present fear—that some one might expose her identity and her past, and bring to instant nothingness her magnificent dreams. How she had fought exposure—desperately and daringly, with her all of cleverness! And now, if she were only moderately careful, she need no longer fear exposure—and when exposure came, if it did, she would have so established herself that it could no longer injure her.

Events, Clifford’s efforts, the working-out of conflicting human impulses, the operations of that erratic thing which we call chance or fate or destiny—all these could not have combined more perfectly to be her friend—could not have combined better to bring her the worldly substance of her daring dreams.

“You’ll do it, won’t you?” prompted Mr. Morton.

Mary did not speak at once. She was even more pale than before; she was breathing rapidly, almost panting, and her eyes were even more staringly wide. Clifford, his heart pounding, wondered at her prolonged silence—wondered feverishly just what was passing in that bold, daring, worldly mind, which he had found to be so many different minds.

She turned and gave Clifford a long, direct look—a bewildered, almost startled look. Then she sharply caught her breath, and slowly wheeling she moved a step nearer Mr. Morton.

“Mr. Morton,” she began in a low, strained voice, “I want to tell you something—I want to tell you everything—”

“Stop!” came a frantic cry from Loveman—and Clifford again saw fear in Loveman’s large, protuberant eyes.

In an instant what had been a bewildered tableau became a whirl of activity. Bradley’s right hand darted for the electric-light switch, and before Clifford could move there was a click and the room was in darkness. A shrill two notes, which Clifford knew to be a signal, sounded from Bradley’s lips. Clifford sprang toward where he had last seen Bradley, and collided with that burly figure with so great an impact that both went crashing to the floor, Clifford on top.

Clifford had not drawn his automatic; he wanted no shooting affray—not in this darkness where bullets would be impartial and irresponsible. But instinct told him Bradley’s probable first tactic; and he reached for Bradley’s right hand, and fortunately caught the wrist. Sure enough, the right hand was jerking out a heavy pistol. With both hands Clifford seized the weapon, and tried to twist it from the other’s hand; and grunting, twisting, the two old enemies fought in the darkness.

Clifford heard the door open and sharply close, heard Mary cry out—and then heard another struggle, with Mary gasping. He gave a desperate wrench, and the pistol was his: he did not then know that his comparatively easy victory over the powerful Bradley was over a half-dazed man—that his catapultic leap had driven the falling Bradley’s head against the corner of the table. Raising the pistol, held club-wise, Clifford twice struck at where Bradley’s head should be. At the second blow Bradley’s grappling arms relaxed, and he was suddenly limp.

Clifford sprang to his feet, fumbled for the switch, found it, and turned it on. Out of the blackness there leaped before Clifford’s eyes the other struggle, Mary Regan its center, her cloak torn loose and slipping from one shoulder. Loveman was gripping her left arm, and Hilton had her struggling right arm in a twisting clutch. A tiny bright something flashed in Hilton’s right hand and made a stab at the white arm he held.

But even as this picture was revealed, Clifford sprang toward Hilton; while Mr. Morton blinking from the darkness, started, bewildered, toward the two. “Look out!” warningly cried Loveman—but too late, for as the bright fang touched Mary’s arm, Clifford’s fist caught Hilton under the jaw. Hilton, fairly lifted from his feet, went spinning and fell in a loose heap. Clifford whirled upon Loveman, but Loveman was backing away, a pasty smile on his full face, and his hands held up.

“I’m not doing a thing, Bob,” gasped the little man—“honest, not a thing!”

“Better keep on doing it!” said Clifford, and blew his whistle.

“What’s—what’s happened?” panted Mary.

“Nothing—except some parties have just tried to kidnap you, first trying to shoot a hypo into you.”

“Kidnap me! What for?”

“To shut you up—get you out of the way—later, to frame you to suit their own purpose. But you’re bleeding!” Clifford whipped out a handkerchief and bound the arm. Then he picked up from the floor the syringe that had fallen from Hilton’s hand and examined it. “It’s still loaded, so you got nothing more than a scratch of the needle.”

At this moment Jimmie Kelly entered, answering Clifford’s whistle. With Jimmie’s help Clifford put handcuffs first upon Loveman and then upon Hilton and Bradley, who had both begun to revive.

“For the present, we’ll line ’em up against the wall,” said Clifford—which they did. “Later we can decide what to do with them.”

“But what’s all this about?” demanded Mr. Morton.

“Explanations can wait until later,” returned Clifford. “The first thing is your business with Miss Gilmore. Miss Gilmore, I believe you started to tell us something.”

Once more Clifford looked at Mary keenly—back again in that mood of palpitant suspense as to what lay in her heart—as to what she was about to say and do—she who this moment held her dream-world in her hands! Morton, silent, awaited her speech. From the wall Loveman, Bradley, and Hilton looked on in varying degrees of fear, chagrin, and glowering wrath.

When at length Mary spoke, she spoke quietly. “The first thing I wish to tell you, Mr. Morton, is comparatively of no importance. I wrote you that letter, yes. That was weeks ago. I wrote it the very night you refused to entrust Jack to me. I was angry. I was determined you should suffer, too. I was going to lead you on—get you caught in a predicament that would make you writhe—and then would come public humiliation.”

“What kind of a predicament?” asked Mr. Morton.

“It doesn’t matter now. But I had my plan—and I think I could have made it work. You got only that one letter, Mr. Morton. That was because, when I calmed down, I changed my mind. I did not want to do what I had planned to do.”

Somehow—though Mary Regan could mean nothing in his life—this statement brought great relief to Clifford.

She went on in the same quiet voice. “The rest of what I have to tell you is of more importance. My name is not Miss Gilmore nor Mrs. Gardner, and never was. My name is Mary Regan. My father was ‘Gentleman Jim’ Regan, a confidence-man; I’ve helped my Uncle Joe Russell, another confidence-man. I’ve been something of a confidence-woman, a crook, in the past. Now I’m what you’d probably call an adventuress.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Morton.

Clifford blinked at her, hardly believing what he was hearing. She had feared exposure—she had fought to ward it off—and now that she had won all that she had ever dreamed of winning, here she was quietly exposing herself!

“I met your son,” she went on. “I saw the chance to get something I wanted through marrying him. So I married him.”

“What—you are already married to Jack!” ejaculated Mr. Morton. “Why—why—”

“It doesn’t sound believable, I know. You once called the engagement and wedding rings fakes, which I wore as Mrs. Grayson. I have them with me.” From a bag which hung from her wrist she took two rings and handed them to him. “You may look at them. They are both engraved.”

He glanced at the engraving within the golden circles.

“Married!” he repeated.

“I have been your daughter-in-law all the time you believed me Jack’s mistress. I made him keep the marriage secret. Jack knows nothing about who I really am. If the marriage became public there was the danger of you and Jack learning I was Mary Regan; I didn’t want this to become known until I had made myself indispensable, and then you’d have to accept me. That’s why I tried to make Jack settle down and go to work. It was all part of my game.”

“So—you’re a crook!” breathed Morton, dumbfounded.

She went on in her even, controlled voice. “Also it was part of my game to break off the affair between Jack and Maisie Jones—you remember that time at the Grantham.”

“What—you were behind Maisie Jones’s action!”

“I told her that I was married to Jack, and that we had to keep the marriage secret. And so she wrote you, breaking the engagement. She did that to help Jack—and help me; she didn’t know me, didn’t understand me, therefore she overestimated me and believed I could make a strong man out of Jack and could make him happy. For that part of what I did, even though it was trickery, I am glad. Maisie Jones is too good for Jack; he would have broken her heart. I saved her from life-long misery.”

Mr. Morton stared. And then: “But why have you told me all these things now?—when you had succeeded in your plan?”

“Because I see things differently now,” replied the same quiet voice. “Jack—he was attractive, and I liked him—but I never really loved him. I am sick of the things I tried to do, sick of the things I dreamed of. You may have Jack’s freedom any way you like. I’m through with it all.” She repeated the last sentence, still quietly, but vibrantly. “I’m through with it all!”

In Clifford there was wild exultation—a thrilling sense of triumph, too new as yet for him to think of its possible relation to himself. He had tried to influence her by influencing the events which touched her life—but never had he foreseen just such a dénouement of events, just such a dénouement of character. He had been right all the while, as to the fundamental worth of her nature!

Morton stared at the pale, composed face of his daughter-in-law, which gazed with such steadiness into his own. He was utterly without words for a few seconds. Then he burst out:—

“Even if all of what you have said is true,” he cried desperately, “you are nevertheless the one person who can save Jack. We’ll overlook what you’ve been and what you’ve done. You’re Jack’s wife. Well, you’ve got to stand by him!”

“I’m through with it all,” she said once more.

Morton’s desperate, suppliant manner changed. Once again he was the keen, powerful personality that made him master of men and things.

“You can’t slide out of it like that, Mary Morton,—to give you your right name for once,” he drove at her grimly. “Something seems to have awakened you—awakened you to what you regard as a real sense of honor. Well, here is something for this new sense of honor to consider: Whatever your motive was in marrying Jack, in marrying him you have incurred a definite obligation. It’s your duty, unless you want to be a quitter, and more of a crook than you were before, to fulfill that obligation!”

She looked at him fixedly—for a long time. Then she slowly looked around at Clifford—then she looked back again, and her figure tensed. For a long time no one spoke.

“It’s an obligation you have incurred!” Mr. Morton drove at her. “It’s your duty to fulfill it!”

“My duty!” Her eyes grew wide, and she shivered. Her wide eyes remained fastened in their sickly stare upon Mr. Morton’s grim mandatory face; she was thinking, weighing the wide alternatives of life; influenced perhaps by the new point Mr. Morton had made, but not influenced by his attempted dominance.

“My duty!” she breathed again. Then the life seemed to flow out of her. Her straight, slender body drooped and swayed, but a hand clutching the back of a gilt chair held her up. “Very well,” she said in a thin dry whisper. And then: “Very well—if you’ll let me tell Jack all I’ve told you, and if Jack then still wants me.”

“You mustn’t tell him!” cried Mr. Morton sharply. “Even your hold on him is precarious. Telling him might ruin everything. Why, I guess you’d better not even let him know that I know. Take him back to the Mordona—be Mr. and Mrs. Grayson for the present—pretend to be working toward a reconciliation with me. Keep everything a secret until Jack is established.”

She smiled. The irony of it! How circumstances had reversed their positions: here was Mr. Morton urging almost the same arguments for secrecy that she had formerly used upon herself!

It had been a very little smile. She was instantly sober.

“Very well—I’ll keep it secret and I’ll do what I can,” she said.

Clifford gazed at her heavily, a great, numb pain where his heart was. Then he slowly turned to Lieutenant Kelly.

“Let ’em all go, Jimmie,” he said briefly. “A pinch means publicity, and publicity is just what this situation doesn’t require.”

Jimmie removed the handcuffs and the three went out, Bradley glowering vengeance as he passed. “There’ll be a next time, you bet!” he growled. Clifford made no reply.

“Mr. Morton, you go next,” Clifford said brusquely. “You shouldn’t be found here by Jack when he comes to—which may be any minute. Mrs. Morton can take care of Jack. I’ll follow you as soon as I’ve had a word with her.”

A moment later Clifford was alone with Mary. He tried to keep his voice steady, but it did not altogether obey him.

“I merely wanted to say that Bradley, Loveman, and the others may not be satisfied. You exposed yourself completely, but you exposed no one else. You let them off easy, but they may be afraid of you. What they tried to-night they may try again. I wanted to ask you to be careful.”

“I will be,” she said.

“And I wanted to say that I hope everything is going to work out for the best for you. For you know”—he ended lamely, not very sure of what he was saying—“I really have wanted to be your friend.”

“I know you really have been my friend,” she answered—“my best friend. And I thank you.”

“Good-night,” he said.

“Good-night,” she answered, in her face a drawn, gray look.

For a moment he seemed unable to stir; then, “Good-night,” he repeated, and left her, gray-faced, and standing rigidly upright in the midst of the débris of the evening’s carousal—to wait the awakening of Jack.

Out on the sidewalk Clifford turned into a shadowy doorway; he was going to keep watch, and from a distance see Mary safely to the Mordona. Presently he was aware that Loveman was at his side, smiling his amiable smile.

“Clever work, Bob,” Loveman said pleasantly. “Now that it’s all finished up, I suppose you are satisfied with the game you’ve played.”

“I’ll not be satisfied till I really land you, Loveman.”

“No?” said Loveman, very softly. “Perhaps—who knows?—the game may really not all be finished up—for human nature, you know, is human nature—and perhaps there are several other cards to be played—several extremely good cards.”

With that the little lawyer moved away. Patiently, with heaviness upon his heart, Clifford stood motionless on guard in the doorway waiting for Mary to appear with her charge ... wondering now over Loveman’s soft remark about cards yet to be played ... now wondering about that gray, drawn look with which Mary had followed him out....