The lion's share

The changes which Mrs. Melville had accepted so philosophically, the metamorphosis of the tragic and lonely house of mystery into a luxurious country villa, the flinging open of the shutters, the marshaling of servants, the turning, one may say, of the lime-light on a rich man’s ordinary life—all this had occurred as swiftly and with as little warning as a scene shifts on the stage.

Mrs. Rebecca Winter may have the credit for this bouleversement of plans. By an astonishingly early hour, the next morning, she was awake and down-stairs, where Kito and Tracy were making coffee, toasting bread and admiring the oatmeal which had cooked, while they slept, in the Fireless Stove. Tracy had planned a surprise of brown bread, but through no fault of the Fireless, owing solely to his omitting what he called “the pick-me-up,” commonly known as soda—an accident, as he truly said, which might happen to any lady—the bread was “rather too adhesive.” The breakfast, notwithstanding, was a cheerful one, because Miss Smith reported the patient a shade better. She looked smiling, although rather heavy-eyed. Mercer and the colonel had taken turns sitting in the adjoining room to bring her ice or hot water or be of service outside.

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. “Our only chance now is to exhaust trumps. Yesterday the game was won. Keatcham had surrendered, he had told his partners in the deal to make no fight on Tracy’s election; they could get what they wanted without the Midland; he advised them to cover their shorts and get ready for a bull market—”

“How did he do all that when he had lost his private code book?”

“How would you do it? You would use the long distance telephone. We caught them at Seattle, where his men had gone for the meeting. I don’t understand why they needed me to suggest that. There the poor man was, as your Harvard stove agent calls it, rubbering about the library, trying to find The Fortunes of Nigel in the edition Darley had illustrated; of course, it wasn’t there. He had lost it just before he came to the Palace, he thought. It seems his old cipher needs a particular book, that kind. No doubt in my mind that your theory is right and that Atkins stole it and perhaps thought he stole the key, but didn’t get it. He took a memorandum of ciphers which looked like a key. There Keatcham was, with millions hanging on his wires and his modern substitute for the medieval signet-ring that would enforce the message quite lost. What to do? Why, there was nothing to do but get another cipher! They made up a temporary one, right in that library, yesterday afternoon.”

“But how could Mercer be sure Keatcham would not play a trick on him? Did he hear the conversation?”

“Certainly not. He took Keatcham’s word. Whatever his faults, Keatcham has always kept his word. Mercer was sure he would keep it. He went out of the room. He was in the library when Keatcham was stabbed.”

The colonel drew a long, difficult breath. “Then you don’t believe Mercer did it?”

“I’m sure he didn’t. He didn’t hurt him. Why should he kill him after he had surrendered? He had nothing to gain and considerable to risk, if not to lose. We want that bull market.”

“But who did then? Atkins? But he is trying to rescue him.”

“Is he? How do we know? The rescue was only our supposition. I’m only certain none of our crowd did it.”

“Kito?”

“No, Kito keeps absolutely within his orders; he knew how things stood when he went away. Mercer saw him go. He couldn’t get in, either; he had to signal to be let in. They were as careful as that. Now, assuming they all are innocent, isn’t it the best plan to telephone to Seattle to Keatcham’s next friend there?”

“He hasn’t any family, has he? His wife died and there were no children, I think.”

“No, and if he ever had any brothers or sisters they died when they were little; his business associates are the only people Cary knows about. He is anxious to have word sent at once, because there are important things to do in Keatcham’s own interest; he came to California and he has employed Cary in a big Portland cement investment; Cary has been working all the time on it for him—I beg your pardon—” for the colonel had raised his hand with a little gasp.

“Do you mean,” said he, “that Mercer has been acting as Keatcham’s agent, working in his interest all the time he was holding him a prisoner and ready to kill him rather than let him go?”

“Why not? Cary is a man of honor. This cement deal is a perfectly fair one which will give a fair price to the present owners and make a great business proposition. There are other schemes, too, very large ones, which need the man at the wheel. Now, I have talked with Cary and Endicott Tracy and my plan is to call up Warnebold, his next friend, who knows Mercer has been employed by Keatcham and knows his voice and knows he is a trusty man (for Mercer has done some inquiries for him and saved him once from buying a water-logged steel plant) to call him up and—tell him the truth. We can say Mr. Keatcham was mysteriously stabbed; we can ask what is best to do. By that time we can report that we have the best medical assistance—young Arnold will get his family physician, who can be trusted. Warnebold will instruct Mercer, I reckon, to keep the fact of the assault a secret, not even mention that Mr. Keatcham is ill; and very likely he or some one else will come straight on here. Meanwhile, young Arnold can open the house, hire some servants who won’t talk—I can get them for him; we all say nothing of the magnate’s presence. And the bull market will come all right.”

After a little reflection the colonel agreed that the bold course would be the safest. Thus it came about, with amazing rapidity, that the haunted house was opened; that sleek, smiling Chinamen whisked brooms and cleaning cloths at open windows; and Haley and Kito frankly told any curious inquirers who hailed them over the lawn and the flower-beds that young Mr. Arnold was coming home and going to have a house-party of friends. The servants had been carefully selected by Mrs. Winter’s powerful Chinese friend; they had no dread of white spooks, however they might cringe before yellow ones. Mrs. Winter and Randall left their hotel, after all the appropriate ceremonies, amid the lavish bows and smiles of liberally paid bell-boys and porters. They gave out that they were to visit friends; and the colonel, who remained, was to take charge of their mail; hence, with no appearance of secrecy, the trail took to water and was lost, since the motor-car which carried them was supplied by Birdsall and driven by a safe man of his own.

Regarding the detective, Rupert Winter had had what he called “a stiff think;” he could not afford even the remote risk of his going with the picturesque assortment of information which he had obtained about Casa Fuerte and Mercer, into Atkins’ employ; therefore he hired him, still, himself. He made a partial but absolutely truthful statement of the case; he said frankly: “Birdsall, I’m not going to treat you fair, for I’m not going to tell you all I know, because—well, for one thing, I don’t feel sure how much I do know myself. But all I’m going to ask of you is to watch the house, day and night, without seeming to watch it. You will oblige Mr. Keatcham as well as me. There is a big game going on, but it isn’t what you thought. Mr. Keatcham’s best helpers are right in that house. Mercer and I and young Fireless and Arnold are doing our best to guard him, not hurt him. Now, there is big money for you if you will watch out for us.”

Birdsall reflected a moment before he answered, but he did answer, screwing up his face: “I don’t like these jobs in the dark; but I like you, Colonel, and it’s a go.”

Keatcham’s valet was next summoned from his vacation and became, in Tracy’s phrase, “a dandy sub-nurse.”

The Tracys’ family physician came twice a day. He was known to be visiting one of the guests who had fallen ill. Mercer sent three or four telegrams a day to Seattle and to New York, to Keatcham’s associates. Several times he held a conversation of importance over the telephone with the man who acted as distributer of intelligence. Warnebold, himself, came on to San Francisco from Seattle, and was received with every courtesy. He questioned Kito, questioned Mercer, questioned the colonel. Tracy had effaced himself and was in Pasadena for a day or two.

The colonel was the star witness (at least this was young Arnold’s verdict). His narrative was to the effect that he had gone out to see Mercer, who was a family connection; no, he was not alone, he had a young friend with him; confidentially, he would admit that the friend was Mr. Tracy’s son; and, while he could not be sure, he had reason to suspect that he, “young Tracy,” had been conducting some delicate negotiations with Mr. Keatcham. At this point the interlocutor nodded slightly; he was making the deductions expected and explaining to himself Keatcham’s astonishing communication over the telephone. So, he was surmising shrewdly, that was the clue; the old man had been making some sort of a deal with Tracy through the son; well, they were protected, thanks to Keatcham’s orders. Likely as not they never would know all the reasons for this side-stepping.

“I understand, then,” he said, as one who holds a clue but has no notion of letting it slip out of his own fingers, “you and young Tracy got here and you found Mr. Keatcham? How did you get in? Did Mr. Mercer let you in? How did it happen he didn’t discover Mr. Keatcham instead of you, or did you come in on the side?”

Mrs. Winter who was in the room had a diversion ready, but it was not needed; the colonel answered unhesitatingly, with a frank smile: “No, we came in ourselves; young Tracy had a key.”

“Oh, he had, had he?” returned Warnebold with a shrug of the shoulders.

“He is a great friend of young Arnold’s; they were at Harvard together, belonged to the same societies.”

“Yes, I understand; well—”

The rest of the interview was clear sailing. Mrs. Winter’s presence was explained in her very own words. “Of course I was put out a good deal at first,” added the colonel, “by the women getting mixed up in it; but Miss Smith undoubtedly saved Mr. Keatcham’s life. I never saw any one who seemed to think of so many things to do. Half a dozen times, that first night, he seemed to be fading away; but every time she brought him back. I was anxious to have a doctor called in; but Mercer seemed opposed to making a stir—”

“He knew his business thoroughly,” interjected Keatcham’s confidant, “he undoubtedly had his instructions to keep Keatcham’s presence here a secret.”

“He had,” said Mrs. Winter; “besides, Miss Smith is his sister-in-law and he knew that she could be trusted to do everything possible. And, really, it didn’t look as if anything could help him. I hardly believed that he could live an hour when I saw him.”

“Nor I,” the colonel corroborated.

Warnebold, plainly impressed by Mrs. Winter’s grand air, assured them both that he felt that everything that could be done had been done; Miss Smith was quite wonderful; and he would admit (of course, confidentially) that Mr. Keatcham did have a heart trouble; Mr. Mercer had recalled one or two fainting fits; there was some congestion; and the doctor found a sad absence of reaction; he believed that there had been a—er—syncope of some sort before the stabbing; Mr. Keatcham himself, although he was still too weak to talk much, had no recollection of anything except a very great faintness. Mr. Mercer’s theory seemed to cover the ground.

“Except as to who did the stabbing,” said the colonel.

“Has Mr. Keatcham any bitter enemies?” asked Aunt Rebecca thoughtfully.

“What man who has made a great fortune hasn’t?” demanded Warnebold with a saturnine wrinkle of the lips. “But our enemies don’t stab or shoot us, nowadays.”

“They do out West,” said the colonel genially; “we’re crude.”

“Are you in earnest?”

“Entirely. I know a man, a mine superintendent, who got into a row with his miners because he discharged a foreman, one of the union lights, for stealing ore. In consequence he got a big strike on his hands, found a dynamite bomb under his front piazza, and was shot at twice. The second time he was too quick for them; he shot back and killed one of them. He thought it was time to put a stop to so much excitement, so he sent for the second assassin—”

“And had him arrested?”

“Oh, dear, no; he wasn’t in Massachusetts; I told you he wanted the thing stopped. No, he sent for him and told him that he had no special ill feeling toward him, but that the next time anything of the kind happened he had made arrangements to have not him, or any other thug who was doing the work, but the two men who were at the bottom of the whole business, killed within twenty-four hours. They took the hint and kind feeling now prevails.”

Warnebold grunted; he declared it to be a beastly creepy situation; he said he never wanted to sit down without a wall against his back; and he intimated that the president of the United States was to blame for more than he realized. “I hope you have some one watching the house,” he fumed, “and that he—well, he doesn’t belong to the police force.”

“No, he’s an honest mercenary,” said the colonel; “I’ll introduce him to you.”

“And you haven’t found any method of entering the house?” fumed the financier.

“No,” said Aunt Rebecca.

“Yes,” said the colonel.

He laughed as they both whirled round on him.

“You speak first, my dear aunt,” he proposed politely; “I’ll explain later.”

Mrs. Winter said that a most careful examination had been made not only by Mercer and the colonel together, but also by young Arnold. They found everything absolutely secure; all the windows were bolted and all the cellar gratings firm and impossible to open.

“Now, you?” said Warnebold.

“I only found out to-day,” apologized the colonel, “or I should have spoken of it. I got to thinking; and it occurred to me that in a house built, as I understood from Arnold, by a very original architect, there might be some queer features, such as secret passages. With that in my mind, I induced the young gentleman to hunt up the architect, as he lives in San Francisco. He not only showed us some very pretty secret passages about the house, but one that led into it. Shall I show it to you?”

On their instantly expressed desire to see the hidden way, the colonel led them to the patio. He walked to the engaged column which once before had interested him; he pressed a concealed spring under the boldly carved eight-pointed flower; instantly, the entire side of the columns swung as a door might swing. As they peered into the dusky space below, the colonel, who had put down his arm, pressed an electric button and the white light flooded the shaft, revealing an ingenious ladder of cleats fitted into steel uprights.

“Here,” said the colonel, “is a secret way from the patio to the cellar. The cellar extends a little beyond the patio and there is a way down from the yard to the cellar—I can quickly show you, if you like.”

“No, thank you,” replied Warnebold, who was a man of full habit and older than the colonel, “I will take your personal experience instead.”

“Then if you will go out into the yard with me I will show you where a charming pergola ends in a vine-wreathed sun-dial of stone that you may tug at and not move; but press your foot on a certain stone, the whole dial swings round on a concealed turn-table such as they have in garages, you know. You will have no difficulty in finding the right stone, because an inscription runs round the dial: Más vale tarde que nunca; and the stone is directly opposite nunca. When you have moved away your dial you will see a gently inclining tunnel, high enough for a man to walk in without stooping, wide enough for two, and much better ventilated than the New York subway. That tunnel leads to a secret door opening directly into the cellar, so skilfully contrived that it looks like an air-shaft. This door is only a few feet from the shaft to the patio. We have found a bolt and put it on this entrance, but there wasn’t any before; nor did any one in the house know of the secret passage.”

The colonel went on to say that on questioning the architect he averred that he had never mentioned the secret passage to his knowledge—except that very recently, only a few days before, at a dinner, he had barely alluded to it; and one of the gentlemen present, an Easterner, had asked him where he got a man to make such a contrivance—it must take skill. He had mentioned the name of the workman. The colonel had hunted up the artisan mentioned, only to find that he had left town to take a job somewhere; no one seemed to know where. Of course he had inquired of everybody. The name of the Easterner was Atkins.

“Atkins,” cried Warnebold, at this turn of the narrative, “Keatcham’s secretary? Why, he’s the boldest and slyest scoundrel in the United States! He started a leak in Keatcham’s office that made him a couple of hundred thousands and lost us a million, and might have lost us more if Mercer hadn’t got on to him. Keatcham wouldn’t believe he had been done to the extent he was at first—you know the old man hates to own to any one’s getting the better of him; it’s the one streak of vanity I’ve ever been able to discover in him. Otherwise, he’s cold and keen as a razor on a frosty morning. He was convinced enough, however, to discharge Atkins; the next news I had, he was trying to send him to the pen. Gave us instructions how to get the evidence. No allusion to his past confidence in the fellow, simply the orders—as if we knew all the preliminaries. Wonderful man, Mr. Keatcham, Colonel Winter.”

“Very,” agreed the colonel dryly.

By this time the warrior and the man of finance were on easy terms. Warnebold remained three days. Before he left the patient had been pronounced out of danger and had revived enough to give some succinct business directions. Mercer had been sent to look out for the cement deal; and Keatcham appeared a little relieved and brighter when he was told that Mercer was on his way.

“He will put it through if it can be put,” he had said weakly to Warnebold; “he’s moderately smart and perfectly honest.” Such words, Warnebold explained later to Mrs. Winter, coming from Keatcham might be regarded almost as extravagant commendation. “Your cousin’s fortune is made,” he pronounced solemnly; “he can get Atkins’ place, I make no doubt.”

Mrs. Winter thought that Mercer was a very valuable man.

“Only always so melancholy; I’ve been afraid he had something serious the matter with his digestion. It’s these abominable quick lunches that are ruining the health of all our steady young men. I don’t know but they are almost as bad as chorus girls and late suppers. Well, Mrs. 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; and he doesn’t praise you too much, but somehow you always have the consciousness that he sees every bit of good work you do and is marking it up in your favor; and you won’t be the loser. There is no question he has a hold on his associates; but he certainly is not what I call a genial man.”

Only on the day of his departure did Warnebold, in young Arnold’s language, “loosen up” enough to tell Arnold and the colonel a vital incident. The night of the attack a telegram was sent to Warnebold in Keatcham’s confidential cipher, directing the campaign against Tracy to be pushed hard, ordering the dumping of some big blocks of stock on the market and arranging for their dummy purchasers. The naming of Atkins as the man in charge was plausible enough, presuming there had been no knowledge of the break in his relations with Keatcham. The message was couched in Keatcham’s characteristic crisp phraseology. But for the receiver’s knowledge of the break and but for the previous long-distance conversation, it had reached its mark. The associates of Keatcham were puzzled. The hands were the hands of Esau but the voice was the voice of Jacob. There had been a hurried consultation into which the second long-distance telephone from San Francisco broke like a thunderclap. It decided the hearers to keep to their instructions and disregard the cipher despatch.

“And didn’t you send any answer?” the colonel asked.

“Oh, certainly; we had an address given, The Palace Hotel, Mr. John G. Makers. We wired Mr. Makers—in cipher. ‘Despatch received. Will attend to it,’ I signed. And I wired to the manager of the hotel to notice the man who took the despatch. It wasn’t a man, it was a lady.”

“A lady?”

“Yes, she had an order for Mr. Makers’ telegrams. Mr. Makers gave the order. Mr. Makers himself only stopped one night and went away in the morning and nobody seemed to remember him particularly; he was a nondescript sort of party.”

“But the lady?” The colonel’s mouth felt dry.

“The lady? She was tall, fine figure, well dressed, dark hair, the telegraph girl thought, but she didn’t pay any special attention. She had a very pleasant, musical voice.”

“That doesn’t seem to be very definite,” remarked the colonel with a crooked smile.

It didn’t look like a clue to Warnebold, either; but he was convinced of one thing, namely, that it would pay to watch the ex-secretary.

“And,” chuckled he, “there’s a cheerful side to the affair. Atkins is loaded to the guards with short contracts; and the Midland is booming; if the rise continues, he can’t cover without losing about all he has. By the way, we got another wire later in the day demanding what we were about, what it all meant that we hadn’t obeyed instructions. Same address for answer. This time we thought we had laid a nice trap. But you can’t reckon on a hotel; somehow, before we got warning, Mr. Makers had telephoned for his despatch and got it.”

“Where did he telephone from?”

“From his room in the Palace.”

“I thought he had given up his room?”

“He had. But—somebody telephoned to the telegraph office from somewhere in the hotel and got Mr. Makers’ wire. You can get pretty much everything except a moderate bill out of a hotel.”

“I see,” said the colonel and immediately in his heart compared himself to the immortal “blind man;” for his wits appeared to him to be tramping round futilely in a maze; no nearer the exit than when the tramp began.

That night, after Warnebold had departed, leaving most effusive thanks and expressions of confidence, Winter was standing at his window absently looking at the garden faintly colored by the moonlight, while his mind was plying back and forth between half a dozen contradictions.

He went over the night of the attack on Keatcham; he summoned every look, every motion of Janet Smith; in one phase of feeling he cudgeled himself for a wooden fool who had been absolutely brutal to a defenseless woman who trusted him; he hated himself for the way he would not see her when she looked toward him; no wonder at last she stiffened, and now she absolutely avoided him! But, in a swift revulsion against his own softness he was instantly laying on the blows as lustily because of his incredible, pig-headed credulity. How absolutely simple the thing was! She cared for this scoundrel of an Atkins who had first betrayed his employer and then tried to murder him. Very likely they had been half engaged down there in Virginia; and he had crawled out of his engagement; it would be quite like the cur! Later he found that just such a distinguished, charming woman, who had family and friends, was what he wanted; it would be easy enough for him to warm up his old passion, curse him! Then, he had met her and run in a bunch of plausible lies that had convinced her that he had been a regular angel in plain clothes; hadn’t done a thing to Cary or to her. Atkins was such a smooth devil! Winter could just picture him whining to the girl, putting his life in her hands and all that rot; and making all kinds of a tool of her—why, the whole hand was on the board! So she was ready to throw them all overboard to save Atkins from getting his feet wet. That was why she looked so pale and haggard of a morning sometimes, in spite of that ready smile of hers; that was why her eyes were so wistful; she wasn’t a false woman and she sickened of her squalid part. She loved Aunt Rebecca and Archie—all the same, she would turn them both down for him; while as to Rupert Winter, late of the United States army, a worn-out, lame, elderly idiot who had flung away the profession he loved and every chance of a future career in order to have his hands free to keep her out of danger—where were there words blistering enough for such puppy-dog folly! At this point in his jealous imaginings the pain in him goaded him into motion; he began furiously pacing the room, although his lame leg, which he had been using remorselessly all day, was sending jabs and twists of agony through him. But after a little he halted again before the casement window.

The wide, darkening view; the great, silent city with its myriad lights; the shining mist of the bay; the foot-hills with their sheer, straw-colored streaks through the forests and vineyards; the illimitable depths of star-sown, violet sky—all these touched his fevered mood with a sudden calm. His unrest was quieted, as one whose senses are cooled by a running stream.

“You hot-headed Southerner!” he upbraided himself, “don’t get up in the air without any real proof!”

Almost in the flitting of the words through his brain he saw her. 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. But, as he looked, his face growing tender, she knelt on the sod and pulled something out of the ground. This something she seemed to dust off with her handkerchief—he could not see the object, but he could see the flutter of the handkerchief; and when she rose the white linen partly hid the thing in her hand. Only partly, because when she passed around the terrace wall the glow from an electric lantern, in an arch, fell full upon her and burnished a long, thin blade of steel.

He looked down on her from his unlighted chamber; and suddenly she looked up straight at the windows of the room where she thought he was sleeping; and smiled a dim, amused, weary, tender smile. Then she sped by, erect and light of foot; and the deep shadow of the great gateway took her. All he could see was the moonlight on the bluish green lawn; and the white electric light on the gleaming rubber-trees and dusty palms.

He sat down. He clasped his hands over his knee. He whistled softly a little Spanish air. He laughed very gently. “My dear little girl,” said he, “I am going to marry you. You may be swindled into helping a dozen murderers; but I am going to marry you!”