The Breaking Point

  XXXIX

  The evening had shaken Dick profoundly. David's appearance and Lucy'sgrief and premonition, most of all the talk of Elizabeth, had depressedand unnerved him. Even the possibility of his own innocence wassubordinated to an overwhelming yearning for the old house and the oldlife.

  Through a side window as he went toward the street he could see Reynoldsat his desk in the office, and he was possessed by a fierce jealousy andresentment at his presence there. The laboratory window was dark, andhe stood outside and looked at it. He would have given his hope ofimmortality just then to have been inside it once more, working over histubes and his cultures, his slides and microscope. Even the memory ofcertain dearly-bought extravagances in apparatus revived in him,and sent the blood to his head in a wave of unreasoning anger andbitterness.

  He had a wild desire to go in at the front door, confront Reynolds inhis smug complacency and drive him out; to demand his place in the worldand take it. He could hardly tear himself away.

  Under a street lamp he looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock, andhe had a half hour to spare before train-time. Following an impulse hedid not analyze he turned toward the Wheeler house. Just so months agohad he turned in that direction, but with this difference, that then hewent with a sort of hurried expectancy, and that now he loitered on theway. Yet that it somehow drew him he knew. Not with the yearning he hadfelt toward the old brick house, but with the poignancy of a long pasthappiness. He did not love, but he remembered.

  Yet, for a man who did not love, he was oddly angry at the sight of twoyoung figures on the doorstep. Their clear voices came to him acrossthe quiet street, vibrant and full of youth. It was the Sayre boy andElizabeth.

  He half stopped, and looked across. They were quite oblivious of him,intent and self-absorbed. As he had viewed Reynolds' unconscious figurewith jealous dislike, so he viewed Wallace Sayre. Here, everywhere, hisplace was filled. He was angry with an unreasoning, inexplicable anger,angry at Elizabeth, angry at the boy, and at himself.

  He had but to cross the street and take his place there. He coulddrive that beardless youngster away with a word. The furious possessivejealousy of the male animal, which had nothing to do with love, made himstop and draw himself up as he stared across.

  Then he smiled wryly and went on. He could do it, but he did not wantto. He would never do it. Let them live their lives, and let him livehis. But he knew that there, across the street, so near that he mighthave raised his voice and summoned her, he was leaving the best thingthat had come into his life; the one fine and good thing, outside ofDavid and Lucy. That against its loss he had nothing but an infatuationthat had ruined three lives already, and was not yet finished.

  He stopped and, turning, looked back. He saw the girl bend down andput a hand on Wallie Sayre's shoulder, and the boy's face upturned andlooking into hers. He shook himself and went on. After all, that wasbest. He felt no anger now. She deserved better than to be used to helpa man work out his salvation. She deserved youth, and joyousness, andthe forgetfulness that comes with time. She was already forgetting.

  He smiled again as he went on up the street, but his hands as hebuttoned his overcoat were shaking.

  It was shortly after that that he met the rector, Mr. Oglethorpe. Hepassed him quickly, but he was conscious that the clergyman had stoppedand was staring after him. Half an hour later, sitting in the emptysmoker of the train, he wondered if he had not missed something there.Perhaps the church could have helped him, a good man's simple belief inright and wrong. He was wandering in a gray no-man's land, without faithor compass.

  David had given him the location of Bassett's apartment house, and hefound it quickly. He was in a state of nervous irritability by thattime, for the sense of being a fugitive was constantly stressed in thefamiliar streets by the danger of recognition. It was in vain thathe argued with himself that only the police were interested in hismovements, and the casual roundsman not at all. He found himself shyingaway from them like a nervous horse.

  But if he expected any surprise from Bassett he was disappointed. Hegreeted him as if he had seen him yesterday, and explained his lack ofamazement in his first words.

  "Doctor Livingstone telephoned me. Sit down, man, and let me look atyou. You've given me more trouble than any human being on earth."

  "Sorry," Dick said awkwardly, "I seem to have a faculty of involvingother people in my difficulties."

  "Want a drink?"

  "No, thanks. I'll smoke, if you have any tobacco. I've been afraid torisk a shop."

  Bassett talked cheerfully as he found cigarettes and matches. "The oldboy had a different ring to his voice to-night. He was going down prettyfast, Livingstone; was giving up the fight. But I fancy you've givenhim a new grip on the earth." When they were seated, however, a sort ofawkwardness developed. To Dick, Bassett had been a more or less shadowymemory, clouded over with the details and miseries of the flight. AndBassett found Dick greatly altered. He was older than he remembered him.The sort of boyishness which had come with the resurrection of his earlyidentity had gone, and the man who sat before him was grave, weary, andmuch older. But his gaze was clear and direct.

  "Well, a good bit of water has gone over the dam since we met," Bassettsaid. "I nearly broke a leg going down that infernal mountain again.And I don't mind telling you that I came within an ace of landing in theNorada jail. They knew I'd helped you get away. But they couldn't proveit."

  "I got out, because I didn't see any need of dragging you down withme. I was a good bit of a mess just then, but I could reason that out,anyhow. It wasn't entirely unselfish, either. I had a better chancewithout you. Or thought I did."

  Bassett was watching him intently.

  "Has it all come back?" he inquired.

  "Practically all. Not much between the thing that happened at the ranchand David Livingstone's picking me up at the cabin."

  "Did it ever occur to you to wonder just how I got in on your secret?"

  "I suppose you read Maggie Donaldson's confession."

  "I came to see you before that came out."

  "Then I don't know, I'm afraid."

  "I suppose you would stake your life on the fact that Beverly Carlysleknows nothing of what happened that night at the ranch?"

  Dick's face twitched, but he returned Bassett's gaze steadily.

  "She has no criminal knowledge, if that is what you mean."

  "I am not so sure of it."

  "I think you'd better explain that."

  At the cold anger in Dick's voice Bassett stared at him. So that washow the wind lay. Poor devil! And out of the smug complacence of hisbachelor peace Bassett thanked his stars for no women in his life.

  "I'm afraid you misunderstand me, Livingstone," he said easily. "I don'tthink that she shot Lucas. But I don't think she has ever told all sheknows. I've got the coroner's inquest here, and we'll go over itlater. I'll tell you how I got onto your trail. Do you remember takingElizabeth Wheeler to see 'The Valley?'"

  "I had forgotten it. I remember now."

  "Well, Gregory, the brother, saw you and recognized you. I was with him.He tried to deny you later, but I was on. Of course he told her, andI think she sent him to warn David Livingstone. They knew I was on thetrail of a big story. Then I think Gregory stayed here to watch me whenthe company made its next jump. He knew I'd started, for he sent DavidLivingstone the letter you got. By the way, that letter nearly got mejailed in Norada."

  "I'm not hiding behind her skirts," Dick said shortly. "And there'snothing incriminating in what you say. She saw me as a fugitive, and shesent me a warning. That's all."

  "Easy, easy, old man. I'm not pinning anything on her. But I want, ifyou don't mind, to carry this through. I have every reason to believethat, some time before you got to Norada, the Thorwald woman was on mytrail. I know that I was followed to the cabin the night I stayed there,and that she got a saddle horse from her son that night, her son byThorwald, either for herself or some one else."

  "All right
. I accept that, tentatively."

  "That means that she knew I was coming to Norada. Think a minute; I'dkept my movements quiet, but Beverly Carlysle knew, and her brother.When they warned David they warned her."

  "I don't believe it."

  "If you had killed Lucas," Bassett asserted positively, "the Thorwaldwoman would have let the sheriff get you, and be damned to you. She hadno reason to love you. You'd kept her son out of what she felt was hisbirthright."

  He got up and opened a table drawer.

  "I've got a copy of the coroner's inquest here. It will bear going over.And it may help you to remember, too. We needn't read it all. There's alot that isn't pertinent."

  He got out a long envelope, and took from it a number of typed pages,backed with a base of heavy paper.

  "'Inquest in the Coroner's office on the body of Howard Lucas,'" heread. "'October 10th, 1911.' That was the second day after. 'Examinationof witnesses by Coroner Samuel J. Burkhardt. Mrs. Lucas called andsworn.'" He glanced at Dick and hesitated. "I don't know about thisto-night, Livingstone. You look pretty well shot to pieces."

  "I didn't sleep last night. I'm all right. Go on."

  During the reading that followed he sat back in his deep chair, hiseyes closed. Except that once or twice he clenched his hands he made nomovement whatever.

  Q. "What is your name?"

  A. "Anne Elizabeth Lucas. My stage name is Beverly Carlysle."

  Q. "Where do you live, Mrs. Lucas?"

  A. "At 26 East 56th Street, New York City."

  Q. "I shall have to ask you some questions that are necessarily painfulat this time. I shall be as brief as possible. Perhaps it will beeasier for you to tell so much as you know of what happened the nightbefore last at the Clark ranch."

  A. "I cannot tell very much. I am confused, too. I was given a sleepingpowder last night. I can only say that I heard a shot, and thought atfirst that it was fired from outside. I ran down the stairs, and back tothe billiard room. As I entered the room Mr. Donaldson came in througha window. My husband was lying on the floor. That is all."

  Q. "Where was Judson Clark?"

  A. "He was leaning on the roulette table, staring at the--at my husband."

  Q. "Did you see him leave the room?"

  A. "No. I was on my knees beside Mr. Lucas. I think when I got up hewas gone. I didn't notice."

  Q. "Did you see a revolver?"

  A. "No. I didn't look for one."

  Q. "Now I shall ask you one more question, and that is all. Had therebeen any quarrel between Mr. Lucas and Mr. Clark that evening in yourpresence?"

  A. "No. But I had quarreled with them both. They were drinking toomuch. I had gone to my room to pack and go home. I was packing when Iheard the shot."

  Witness excused and Mr. John Donaldson called.

  Q. "What is your name?"

  A. "John Donaldson."

  Q. "Where do you live?"

  A. "At the Clark ranch."

  Q. "What is your business?"

  A. "You know all about me. I'm foreman of the ranch."

  Q. "I want you to tell what you know, Jack, about last night. Beginwith where you were when you heard the shot."

  A. "I was on the side porch. The billiard room opens on to it. I'd beentold by the corral boss earlier in the evening that he'd seen a manskulking around the house. There'd been a report like that once ortwice before, and I set a watch. I put Ben Haggerty at the kitchen wingwith a gun, and I took up a stand on the porch. Before I did that Itold Judson, but I don't think he took it in. He'd been lit up like ahouse afire all evening. I asked for his gun, but he said he didn'tknow where it was, and I went back to my house and got my own. Alongabout eight o'clock I thought I saw some one in the shrubbery, and Iwent out as quietly as I could. But it was a woman, Hattie Thorwald, whowas working at the ranch.

  "When I left the men were playing roulette. I looked in as I went back,and Judson had a gun in his hand. He said; 'I found it, Jack.' I saw hewas very drunk, and I told him to put it up, I'd got mine. It hadoccurred to me that I'd better warn Haggerty to be careful, and Istarted along the verandah to tell him not to shoot except to scare. Ihad only gone a few steps when I heard a shot, and ran back. Mr. Lucaswas on the floor dead, and Judson was as the lady said. He must havegone out while I was bending over the body."

  Q. "Did you see the revolver in his hand?"

  A. "No."

  Q. "How long between your warning Mr. Clark and the shot?"

  A. "I suppose I'd gone a dozen yards."

  Q. "Were you present when the revolver was found?"

  A. "No, sir."

  Q. "Did you see Judson Clark again?"

  A. "No, sir. From what I gather he went straight to the corral and gothis horse."

  Q. "You entered the room as Mrs. Lucas came in the door?"

  A. "Well, she's wrong about that. She was there a little ahead of me.She'd reached the body before I got in. She was stooping over it."

  Bassett looked up from his reading.

  "I want you to get this, Livingstone," he said. "How did she reach thebilliard room? Where was it in the house?"

  "Off the end of the living-room."

  "A large living-room?"

  "Forty or forty-five feet, about."

  "Will you draw it for me, roughly?"

  He passed over a pad and pencil, and Dick made a hasty outline. Bassettwatched with growing satisfaction.

  "Here's the point," he said, when Dick had finished. "She was therebefore Donaldson, or at the same time," as Dick made an impatientmovement. "But he had only a dozen yards to go. She was in her room,upstairs. To get down in that time she had to leave her room, descenda staircase, cross a hall and run the length of the living-room,forty-five feet. If the case had ever gone to trial she'd have had to dosome explaining."

  "She or Donaldson," Dick said obstinately.

  Bassett read on:

  Jean Melis called and sworn.

  Q. "Your name?"

  A. "Jean Melis."

  Q. "Have you an American residence, Mr. Melis?"

  A. "Only where I am employed. I am now living at the Clark ranch."

  Q. "What is your business?"

  A. "I am Mr. Clark's valet."

  Q. "It was you who found Mr. Clark's revolver?"

  A. "Yes."

  Q. "Tell about how and where you found it."

  A. "I made a search early in the evening. I will not hide from you thatI meant to conceal it if I discovered it. A man who is drunk is notguilty of what he does. I did not find it. I went back that night, whenthe people had gone, and found it beneath the carved woodbox, by thefireplace. I did not know that the sheriff had placed a man outside thewindow."

  "Get that, too," Bassett said, putting down the paper. "The Frenchmanwas fond of you, and he was doing his blundering best. But the sheriffexpected you back and had had the place watched, so they caught him. Butthat's not the point. A billiard room is a hard place to hide things in.I take it yours was like the average."

  Dick nodded.

  "All right. This poor boob of a valet made a search and didn't find it.Later he found it. Why did he search? Wasn't it the likely thing thatyou'd carried it away with you? Do you suppose for a moment that withDonaldson and the woman in the room you hid it there, and then went backand stood behind the roulette table, leaning on it with both hands, andstaring? Not at all. Listen to this:

  Q. "You recognize this revolver as the one you found?"

  A. "Yes."

  Q. "You are familiar with it?"

  A. "Yes. It is Mr. Clark's."

  Q. "You made the second search because you had not examined the woodboxearlier?"

  A. "No. I had examined the woodbox. I had a theory that--"

  Q. "The Jury cannot listen to any theories. This is an inquiry intofacts."

  "I'm going to find Melis," the reporter said thoughtfully, as he foldedup the papers. "The fact is, I mailed an advertisement to the New Yorkpapers to-day. I want to ge
t that theory of his. It's the servants inthe house who know what is going on. I've got an idea that he'd stumbledonto something. He'd searched for the revolver, and it wasn't there.He went back and it was. All that conflicting evidence, and against it,what? That you'd run away!"

  But he saw that Dick was very tired, and even a little indifferent.He would be glad to know that his hands were clean, but against theintimation that Beverly Carlysle had known more than she had disclosedhe presented a dogged front of opposition. After a time Bassett put thepapers away and essayed more general conversation, and there he foundhimself met half way and more. He began to get Dick as a man, for thefirst time, and as a strong man. He watched his quiet, lined face, andsurmised behind it depths of tenderness and gentleness. No wonder thelittle Wheeler girl had worshipped him.

  It was settled that Dick was to spend the night there, and such plansas he had Bassett left until morning. But while he was unfolding thebed-lounge on which Dick was to sleep, Dick opened a line of discussionthat cost the reporter an hour or two's sleep before he could suppresshis irritation.

  "I must have caused you considerable outlay, one way and another," hesaid. "I want to defray that, Bassett, as soon as I've figured out someway to get at my bank account."

  Bassett jerked out a pillow and thumped it.

  "Forget it." Then he grinned. "You can fix that when you get yourestate, old man. Buy a newspaper and let me run it!"

  He bent over the davenport and put the pillow in place. "All you'll haveto do is to establish your identity. The institutions that got it had togive bond. I hope you're not too long for this bed."

  But he looked up at Dick's silence, to see him looking at him with afaint air of amusement over his pipe.

  "They're going to keep the money, Bassett."

  Bassett straightened and stared at him.

  "Don't be a damned fool," he protested. "It's your money. Don't tell meyou're going to give it to suffering humanity. That sort of drivel makesme sick. Take it, give it away if you like, but for God's sake don'tshirk your job."

  Dick got up and took a turn or two around the room. Then, after an oldhabit, he went to the window and stood looking out, but seeing nothing.

  "It's not that, Bassett. I'm afraid of the accursed thing. I might talka lot of rot about wanting to work with my hands. I wouldn't if I didn'thave to, any more than the next fellow. I might fool myself, too, withthinking I could work better without any money worries. But I've got toremember this. It took work to make a man of me before, and it will takework to keep me going the way I intend to go, if I get my freedom."

  Sometime during the night Bassett saw that the light was still burningby the davenport, and went in. Dick was asleep with a volume of Whitmanopen on his chest, and Bassett saw what he had been reading.

  "You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you short-lived ennuis; Ah,think not you shall finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth.It shall march forth over-mastering, till all lie beneath me, It shallstand up, the soldier of unquestioned victory."

  Bassett took the book away and stood rereading the paragraph. For thefirst time he sensed the struggle going on at that time behind Dick'squiet face, and he wondered. Unquestioned victory, eh? That was a prettylarge order.