Mary Regan

The drowsy elevator boy carried Clifford to the eleventh floor, and Clifford rang Loveman’s bell. After a moment the door was opened by Loveman’s Japanese butler, to whom Clifford, after stepping in, gave his card. The little Oriental, showing no slightest surprise at a call at such an hour, disappeared noiselessly through a door; and reappeared after a brief delay and held the door open as a sign that Clifford was to enter.

Clifford stepped through the doorway and found himself in the large richly furnished library of Peter Loveman. Loveman, in a rope-girdled dressing-gown and with his tonsured head looking very much a jolly little monk, crossed the room with smiling hospitality. In a deep, tapestried chair, wearing a dinner jacket, sat the square figure of Bradley.

“This is a surprise, Clifford!” cried Loveman, taking his hand. “And a pleasure, too,—also a relief: dropping in on a pair of grouches, just as they were getting ready to murder each other to drive dull care away. You there, you other grouch,”—to Bradley,—“say good-evening to our relief expedition.”

Bradley, without rising, nodded curtly. Clifford gave back a similar greeting.

“Off with your overcoat, Clifford,” the little man said briskly, “and make yourself comfortable.”

“I’ll keep it on, Loveman. I can only stay a few minutes.”

“Well, anyhow, sit down,” and Loveman pushed him into a chair and gestured toward a little table on which stood bottles and glasses and siphons. “All the ingredients here of the Fountain of Perpetual Youth: what’ll you have—high-ball, cocktail, liqueur—or shall I have Oni bring you a split of champagne?”

“Thanks, I’m not drinking to-night.”

“Smoke, then?” offering cigars and cigarettes.

“No, thank you.”

“Say, you’re making a host look dam’ inhospitable,” humorously complained the little man. “How about a little whist? I’ll run the dummy. Bradley there loves it: he’s acting vice-chairman of the Daughters of Brooklyn Memorial and Bridge Associ—”

“Cut it out!” growled Bradley. “Ask him what he wants.”

“Pardon him, Clifford: Bradley’s a gentleman of no social parts. But since he has mentioned the point—is there anything special you came for?”

“I came to talk,” said Clifford.

“Talk—good! Talking’s my trade!” Loveman drew up a chair, so that the three of them formed a square, the table of bottles filling the fourth side. “Let ’er go—guest has the opening speech.”

“I suppose, Clifford, that this is where you’d like to have me make a quick exit,” said Bradley—and he crossed his legs, folded his arms, bit upon his invariable big cigar, and gave Clifford a challenging look.

“On the other hand, Bradley,” Clifford returned, “I count it luck that I found you here, and I beg you as a favor to remain. Bradley, Loveman,” he said sharply, “I’ve come here for a show-down—to tell you that I’m on to your little game!”

“Our game?” queried Loveman, with puzzled blandness.

“Your game with Mary Regan and the Mortons.”

“Indeed!” Loveman said softly. “Now, I wonder if you’d mind giving a little information to an ignorant man?”

Bradley’s face had suddenly become hard; his little eyes were gleaming. But though Loveman’s manner was blandly puzzled, Clifford knew the little lawyer was as alertly watchful of him as was Bradley—and was as much to be watched.

“I’ll put all my cards on the table, Loveman,” he said with deliberation. “I’ll tell you exactly what I know—which is also exactly what you know. There’s nothing at all extraordinary about it; it’s just the sort of thing that with a few variations you’re doing over and over.”

“Oh, I say, am I really so monotonous!” protested Loveman.

“You said you were going to put your cards on the table,” cut in Bradley. “Come on, let’s see your two-spots.”

“We’ll go back a bit, Loveman,” said Clifford. “Morton, senior, had entrusted you with the legal end of some of his New York affairs; and when Jack Morton came to New York, and began to get himself tangled up through having too much money, the father put it up to you to extricate his son. Good profit in handling such affairs, Loveman: nice fee for legal services rendered; a private split of the sums for which the matters were settled; and an unobtrusive arrangement whereby the son could be drawn into further profitable predicaments. A big-paying business, Loveman.”

“Go on,” said the little lawyer pleasantly.

“Three or four months ago the father descended upon New York in a fury. He declared he was through settling for Jack’s troubles. He was going to send Jack somewhere far away from New York—and Jack had to take a brace, or the father would drop him. Also there was a marriage with a rich girl that the father wanted to put across—and there’d be nothing doing unless Jack straightened up. So Jack simply had to be braced up. Right there, Loveman, was where you saw yourself losing a big piece of your income. But you did some quick thinking, and you fell in with the father’s idea that Jack should be sent into retirement to reform. In fact, you knew the very place, Pine Mountain Lodge. And on your suggestion Jack was sent there.”

“And if I did mention Pine Mountain Lodge, what of that?” Loveman mildly inquired.

“You knew Mary Regan was there, and knew she was the only attractive woman staying at the hotel. And you knew that Jack Morton fell for about every pretty woman that he met. Thrown together in that isolation, you hadn’t a doubt of what he would do. It was only a chance—but it was your only chance; and if it worked out the way you thought it might, there would be rich possibilities in the situation for you—without your seeming to have been mixed in the affair. Well, it worked out just as you thought it might—and the possibilities lie ready to your hand.”

“In case I’m overlooking anything good,” Loveman remarked in the same gentle voice, “would you mind telling me just what these possibilities are?”

“Of course the marriage had to be secret; otherwise the possibilities would have been cut down by two thirds. First item, after the marriage had taken place, there was the possibility of getting hush money out of Mary Regan by threatening to expose her. You would never have appeared in this; Bradley would have attended to this detail—perhaps through one of his men. Second, after you had exhausted the possibilities of blackmail, the next step would have been to inform the father that you suspected something was wrong with Jack. The father would order the matter looked into; you would engage Bradley for the job, and after a lengthy examination Bradley would report a secret marriage—a big bill for detective services. Third, you would then be retained to annul the marriage—and a big fee there. Well, Loveman, Bradley,” he ended grimly, “I believe that’s just about the outline of this particular sweet little game!”

Bradley was glaring at him, his square jaws clamped upon his cigar. Little Loveman, still with his affable look, was twirling the tasseled end of his girdle around a chubby forefinger.

“You’re very ingenious, very imaginative, Clifford. But granting for the moment that you are correct, what next?”

Clifford leaned sharply forward. “You are not going through with it! I’m going to stop you!”

Clifford gazed tensely at the two men. A slight quivering ran through Bradley’s frame; his cigar fell, bitten through; his small, brilliant eyes were points of vicious flame. Loveman still twirled the end of his girdle, but now a bit more slowly. And thus the three sat for several moments.

Then suddenly, without warning of word, seemingly without any preliminary motion, Bradley’s powerful body launched itself from a sitting posture straight at Clifford. Clifford started to rise, and instinctively threw up his arms; but to no avail, for Bradley’s big hands broke past his weak defense and gripped his throat. His chair went toppling over, the table with its cargo of liquors went crashing to the floor, and Clifford was carried resistlessly backward by the force of Bradley’s lunge, until he came up against the great library table. Over this he toppled, his spine against the table’s edge, and Bradley drove his head down upon the wood with a terrific thump.

“You’ll stop nothing!” grated Bradley. “You’ve butted into my affairs for the last time!”

Clifford tried to struggle free, but he was caught at too hopeless a disadvantage—his spine upon the edge of the table, Bradley’s weight crushing upon him, and that pair of hands clutching his throat. He could move only his arms, and those to no purpose; he could not cry out; he could not breathe. As his chest heaved for lack of air, he read his doom in the deadly fury of Bradley’s face. And he realized, even could he call for help, the futility of such an outcry in this apartment at the top of a lofty building, at this heavily slumbrous hour of four.

He had been faintly conscious of hurried fumblings about the desk—of the snap of a lock—of the whine of a sliding drawer. Now, suddenly, as his wide eyes were growing bleared, he saw a dark something appear between his face and the face of Bradley a bare two feet away. And then he saw the something was a short, black pistol, and that the pistol was flush against Bradley’s jaw, and that the pistol was gripped in a soft, round hand that was indubitably Loveman’s. And he heard Loveman’s voice, no longer velvety, snap out:—

“Damn you, Bradley,—that rough stuff don’t go with me! Let loose of him, or, by God, I’ll blow your dam’ face off!”

Clifford saw Bradley’s flaming little eyes shift toward the speaker. Then he saw the monk-like figure shift the pistol from jaw to Bradley’s shoulder.

“No, I’ll not kill you; I’ll splinter your dam’ bones,” the sharp voice cried with fierce decision. “Get off that man before I count three, or your left arm’ll be the first bone to go. One—two—”

The hands left Clifford’s throat, and the heavy figure lifted itself from his body; and, thus freed, Clifford slumped to the floor where he sat limply, pantingly, against the table. Loveman had stepped around the table, and Clifford now saw that he was looking up at Bradley, and he saw that the cherubic, large-eyed face of the lawyer was grim with an awful wrath.

“You dam’ big boob!” cried the little man. “You’d let yourself—and me!—in for a criminal charge! And people have always said you have a brain!”

“I’ve taken all I can from him!” Bradley said thickly.

“Either you control your temper and cut out the rough stuff,” snapped Loveman, “or you and I are through!”

The pair gazed fixedly at each other. Neither spoke. While they stood silent, Clifford became aware of the Japanese butler, his back toward the three of them and seemingly unaware of their doings, on his knees picking up bottles and broken glass and toweling up the spilled liquor from the rug.

Without replying, Bradley put his hands in his trousers’ pockets, resumed his chair, and crossed his legs. With an easy motion Loveman dropped the pistol into a pocket of his dressing-gown, and stepped to Clifford’s side. He was again the agreeable man-about-town that Broadway liked so well.

“Too bad—but natural—the way men will lose their tempers,” he said, as he helped Clifford to his feet and into a chair. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’ll be all right in a breath or two.”

“Better let me give you a brandy?”

“No, thanks.”

“Aw, it’s nothing!” cut in Bradley. “Let him finish saying how he was going to stop us!”

“Do you feel like that—yet?” Loveman queried solicitously.

Clifford was still dazed, but he was no less set in his purpose. “Bradley’s right—a little scuffle like that is nothing.”

“Good; a great thing to be in training!” Loveman sank into his chair, smiling urbanely. “We’ve forgotten what’s happened”; and he brushed the matter into oblivion with a pleasant wave of the hand that two minutes before had gripped the pistol. “As I was about to remark—granting that you are right, how are you going to stop it?”

“Of course I could stop it,” said Clifford, “by telling Jack and Mr. Morton about Mary Regan and her father and her uncle and her brother. At any rate, that would smash your game.”

“As you say, provided, of course, there is a contemplated marriage, that would stop it,” Loveman agreed pleasantly. “Why don’t you do that?”

“Considering the character of the Mortons and the fact that she’s more worth while than they are, telling on her seems to me a pretty raw deal to give Mary Regan: to show her up to them, and give the father, who’s as sympathetic as a shark, a chance to take the lead, break it off, make a scandal out of it, and to humiliate her in public.”

“That’s dam’ delicate of you, Clifford,” said Loveman, “and I approve of your sentiments as a gentleman. But if you don’t do that, how else are you going to stop it?”

Clifford spoke calmly. “I’m going to stop it through you.”

“Through me! Well, well! Do you mind telling me, Clifford, just how I am going to do it?”

“You have some influence over Mary Regan; I don’t pretend to know what it is. You go to her to-morrow and you tell her, saying whatever is necessary to bring her around, that she can’t go through with the marriage. Then she breaks it off—and not the Mortons, and they’ll not be any the wiser about her.”

“Well, well, you certainly do seem to think I have a very strong influence with the ladies,” Loveman said blandly. “Very flattering, I assure you. But supposing—all we’ve been talking about is mere supposition, you know—supposing I have a mild disinclination to do what you propose?”

“Supposing that,” Clifford returned grimly, “then I go to Mr. Morton, tell him about Mary Regan, and tell him the whole thing was your plan. And he’ll believe what I say about you, Loveman; I’ve merely got to remind him that you suggested Pine Mountain Lodge, prove to him that you knew Mary Regan was there, prove to him that you’ve been seeing Mary Regan in New York, and he’ll swallow everything else. Result, the present scheme of you and Bradley goes smash, and, further, you lose all future business with your best-paying client.”

“Supposing, on the other hand,” Loveman remarked in his same bland voice, “that I have no disinclination to do what you suggest?”

“In that case, you only lose out on your present plan. I’m not interested in Morton. You keep his business. You see, Loveman, I’ve got you: and what I’m offering is the best proposition for you.”

Loveman gently stroked his crown. “Clifford, do you believe in fairies?”

“Where does that come in?”

“You ought to believe in fairies, Clifford. You really ought. With that imagination of yours, you’d coin money, writing fairy-stories for children—simply coin money.” He turned to Bradley. “What do you say to Clifford’s proposition?”

“Tell him to go to hell!” said Bradley, his old hatred flaring out.

“You’ll excuse Fido’s behavior, Clifford,” Loveman said apologetically. “He hasn’t had a biscuit all day.”

“The real question is,” returned Clifford, “what does Peter Loveman say to the proposition?”

“What do I say? Well, now, well,” Loveman said pleasantly, “you know I never did believe in fairies and so I can’t be expected to gulp down this remarkable little story you’ve told me. But since you are interested in Miss Regan, and are concerned that nothing goes wrong with her—why, for your sake, of course I’ll do it—I’ll do anything you say.”

Clifford stared penetratingly at the round face, which never before looked more like the face of an amiable monk. Behind that amiable face was a swift thought that, after all, he might slip Nina Cordova into this situation and that he’d square matters with Nina the first thing in the morning.

“You’ll do it to-morrow?” demanded Clifford.

“To-morrow—sometime before noon.” And as Clifford continued his keen glance: “You doubt me? All right.” He walked to a section of his bookshelves and came back with a large, dingy volume. “Here’s a Bible—a Gutenberg, 1455. There can’t be a holier Bible than this; just think, man, what it cost. Go ahead—swear me.”

“I guess you’ll do it,” said Clifford. He rose. “I believe that’s all, gentlemen. Good-night.”

As he started away Bradley glowered at him; but Loveman, slipping an arm through his, escorted him to the door. There Loveman held him for a moment.

“That was one grand fairy-tale, Clifford, you dreamed about me,” he said with a smile through which (perhaps purposely) there glinted ever so little of mockery. “But supposing I do have any little plan under way, I wonder how close you’ve come to guessing it? Now, I wonder?”

Down in the quiet street, Clifford found himself wondering too.