Kitabı oku: «Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel», sayfa 18

"What did you say then, Jack? Tell me all – tell me quick, or you will kill me!"

"Yes, it's true," groaned Jack. "I found out when I went back to Buffalo that Simpson was only a blackleg criminal and no clergyman. We are no more married than we ever were."

As Jack said this he had his head down; it was bowed with the misery he felt. He dreaded to look at Nina. If he had looked, he would have seen her lips grow almost blue and her eyes lose their sight. The next moment, before he could catch her, she sank on the floor in shapeless, inert confusion.

Jack did not wish to call for help. He seized a large ornamental fan of peacock's feathers and fanned her vigorously.

She soon came to. But still lay for some time before she had strength to rise. At last he assisted her to a sofa, where she reclined wearily until able to go on with the conversation.

"Jack," she said, after a while, "if I don't get away from here in three days I will go mad. Think, now! I can not help you much in the arrangements to get away. You must arrange everything yourself. Just let me know when to go, and I will look after myself and will meet you somewhere – anywhere you propose. But I can not – I don't feel able to assist you more than that. Stop! an idea strikes me! You can not arrange everything yourself. There are always things that are apt to be forgotten. You must get somebody to help you think out things. When we go away I feel that it will be forever – at least, I felt so this afternoon. You will have to arrange everything, so that there need be no correspondence with Toronto any more."

"Yes," said Jack, "I think your advice is good. I have always relied on Hampstead. If you did not mind my telling him the whole story, Nina, I think his assistance would be invaluable."

"There is nothing that I dread his knowing," said Nina, as she buried her face in the cushions. "He is a man of the world, and will know I am innocent about our intended marriage. I thoroughly believe in his power, not only to help you to arrange everything, but also to take the secret with him to his grave."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Jack. "I have always thought dear old Geoffrey, in spite of a good many things I would like to see changed, to be the finest all-round man I ever knew."

"Yes. Now go, Jack! I am too ill to talk a moment more. Simply tell me when and how I am to go and I will go. As for arranging anything more, my mind refuses to do it. Give me your arm to the foot of the stairs! So. Good-night!"

CHAPTER XXIII

 
Mad, call I it; for to define true madness.
What is't, but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
 

Hamlet.

After leaving Nina, Jack went to the club, where he found Geoffrey playing pool with half a dozen others, whose demeanor well indicated the number of times the lamp had been rubbed for the genius with the tray to appear. Geoffrey seemed to be in good-humor, but he gave Jack the idea of playing against time. He strode around the table rapidly as he took his shots, as if not caring whether he won or lost. The only effect the liquor seemed to have upon him was to make him grow fierce. Every movement of his long frame was made with a quick nervous energy, inspiriting enough to watch, but giving an impression of complete unrest. He was playing to stave off waking nightmares. Thoughts of his probable ruin on the following day came to him from time to time – like a vision of a death's head. The others with him noticed nothing different in him, but Jack, who was quietly smoking on one of the high seats near by, saw that he was in a more reckless mood than he had ever seen him before. He could not help smiling as his friend strode around the table in his shirt-sleeves, playing with a force that was almost ferocity and a haste apparently reckless but deadly in the precision that sense of power, skill, and alcohol gave him. After a while, in a pause, he spoke to Geoffrey, who at once divined that more trouble of some kind awaited him.

When they arrived at their chambers, Jack told him briefly of the journey with Nina for the purpose of getting married in Buffalo, and of what Nina had just said.

Geoffrey nodded; he was waiting for the something new that would affect himself – the something he was not prepared for.

"Is that all?" he asked sharply.

"No. That is not all," answered Jack gloomily.

"Go on, then."

"I don't feel as if I could go on," said Jack, not noticing the rough tone in which he was commanded to proceed. "But I suppose I must. The fact is, Geoffrey, I found out afterward that I was not married at all to her, and I never let her know until to-night."

"Is she dead, then?"

Geoffrey looked at him with his brow lowered, his eyes glittering. He felt like striking Jack.

"Gracious heavens, no! Why should she die?" cried Jack, startled from his gloom.

"It's enough to kill her," said Geoffrey. His contempt for Jack assisted the rage he felt against him. He had been drinking steadily all day, and now could hardly restrain the violent fury that seethed in him. "Go on, you infernal ass! Dribble it out. Go on."

"I see you feel for her, Geoffrey. I am the biggest fool that ever was allowed to live."

Then, with his face averted, he told Geoffrey the whole story of the mistake in Buffalo. His listener watched him, with lips muttering, while sometimes his teeth seemed to be bared and gleaming.

In this story, Geoffrey at first seemed to see a new danger to himself and his future prospects. Then it occurred to him that the new information did not much affect his own position. Two things seemed certain. One was, that Joseph Lindon would spare no expense to find out where Jack and Nina had gone and to be fully informed of everything that happened. Secondly, that Nina could never be able to show any legal marriage prior to the one now intended. This meant that Nina and Jack could not return to Toronto. A vague idea went through Geoffrey's head at this time.

When Jack had finished his story Geoffrey was calm in appearance. But his eyes were half closed, which gave him a cunning look.

Then he talked with Jack, so as to impress upon his mind the fact that it would be impossible for them ever to visit Canada again.

"Yes," said Jack. "Unless you come out to visit us you will never see us again. I could never make it right with the Toronto people. I will never again be able to return to Toronto; that's clear."

When he proposed to make arrangements as to the best ways and means of leaving Toronto, Geoffrey said he must have time to think over everything. It was late. It would be better to sleep, if possible, and arrange things further to-morrow. They parted for the night, having settled that Jack was to draw out his money at once.

On the next morning Geoffrey ascertained that he was ruined. The stock that he held in the Canadian railway had gone down beyond redemption as far as he was concerned. He had mortgaged everything he possessed, raised money on indorsed notes, raised it in every shape and way within his means, but he had been unable to tide over the depression. A further call had been made for margins, and he had not another cent to fill the gap and all his stock passed to other hands. He drank steadily all day and even carried a flask with him into the office, which he soon emptied. Hampstead was not by any means the same man now that he was three weeks previously. He looked sufficiently like his right self to escape a betrayal, but the liquor and the thought of his losses raged within him, and all the time an idea was insinuating itself into his frenzied brain. He had gone so far as carefully to consider many schemes to avert his ruin which he would not have countenanced before. His weakened judgment now placed Jack before him as one who conspired against his peace. He cunningly concealed it, but to him the mere sight of Jack was like a red flag to a bull. Just when all his plans were demolished, all his hopes gone, his entire ruin an accomplished fact, this fool came in to add fuel to the fire that burned him. In this way he regarded his old friend.

While in this state and while at his work in the bank the next morning he said to Jack, who occupied the next stall to him, that he had hit upon the best way for him and Nina to depart. It would be better for Jack to go away without giving any notice to the bank. The notice would be of no use if he did so, because, if he must go away the next morning, the notice would only raise inquiry. He told Jack to slip out and go down to the docks and find if there would be any sailing vessels leaving for American ports the next day. Jack could depart on a schooner; Nina could make some excuse at home and follow him by steamer.

Jack liked this proposal. He would have one more sail on old Ontario before he left it forever. He skipped out of the side door, and soon found a vessel at Yonge Street wharf that would finish taking in its cargo of fire-bricks and start for Oswego at noon the following day. He tried to arrange with the mate to go as a passenger, but the captain was going to take his wife with him on this trip, so Jack, if he wanted to go, would be obliged to sleep in the forecastle. He did not mind this much, and engaged to go "before the mast."

In the afternoon he told Nina about his intentions, and explained that she could take the steamer to Oswego on the day after he left, so that she would probably arrive there about the same time. He had drawn all his money out of the bank and was now ready to go. Nina said she could arrange about her own departure, and after they had made a few other plans as to her course in case she got to Oswego first, Jack kissed her and tried to cheer her from the depression in which she had sunk, and then he departed.

All that day Geoffrey grew more moody and further from his right self. To drown the recollections of his ruin and his other worries, he went on drinking steadily. The thought came to him again and again that his marriage with Margaret was now almost impossible. He knew that, as a married man, he could never live on his bank salary alone, and the capital to speculate with was entirely gone. What made him still more frenzied was the fact that he knew that this stock he had bought was bound to re-establish itself in a very short time. But, for the moment, every person else had gone mad. He alone was sane. Public lunacy about this stock had robbed him of his fifteen thousand dollars. He drank still harder when he thought this, and although he did not get drunk, he got what can be described vaguely as "queer," and the next stage of his queerness was that he became convinced that the public had in a manner robbed him, and that society owed him something. When a man's brain is in this state, he is in a dangerous condition.

Jack wished heartily that they should dine together, as this was his last evening in Toronto, but Geoffrey avoided doing so. He hated the sight of Jack, but he carefully concealed the aversion which he felt. He made an excuse and absented himself until nine or ten o'clock, and during this time he wandered about the city and continued drinking. He had not seen Margaret for over two weeks. Everything had been going wrong with him. Besides his own losses, he would be heavily in debt to the men who had "backed" his paper and who would have to pay for him.

Jack found him in their chambers when he returned for his last night at the old rooms, and there they sat and talked things over. Geoffrey tried to brace himself up for the conversation with a bottle of brandy which he had just uncorked, but it was quite impossible for him to pretend to be as cheerful as he wished.

Jack thought he was depressed, and said:

"I am sorry to see you in such bad spirits to-night, Geoffrey."

"Well, it's a bad business," said Hampstead, sententiously, looking moodily at the floor. As this might mean anything, Jack thought that Geoffrey was taking his departure to heart. He had every right to think that Hampstead would miss him.

It was now getting late, and Jack arose and laid his hand on Geoffrey's shoulder: "Don't be cut up, old man," he said; "I have been a fool, but I am glad that I know it and am able to make things as right as they can be made. I know you feel for Nina and me, but you will get some other fellow to room with you and – "

During the conversation Hampstead had drunk a good deal of the brandy. The kind words that Jack was speaking filled him with a fury which lunatic cunning could scarcely conceal. The idea in his mind had been settling itself into a resolve, and at this moment it did finally settle itself. He shook Jack's hand off his shoulder as he arose, glared at him for an instant, and then turned off to his bedroom. "Good night," he said over his shoulder. "It's late. I'm off." Then he entered his bedroom, shut the door, and bolted it.

As he went, Jack looked at his retreating form with tears standing in his eyes.

"I never," he said, "saw Geoffrey show any emotion before. I never felt quite sure whether he cared much about me until now. And now I know that he does. I hate to see him so cut up about it; but it is comforting to think, on going away, that he really liked me all this time."

Jack was a clean-souled fellow. He was one of those who, no matter how uproarious or slangy they are, always give the idea that they are gentlemen. With this nature a certain softness of heart must go. He stood watching the door through which Geoffrey had passed, and he thought drearily that never again would they have such good times together, and that most likely they would never meet again. He thought of Geoffrey's winning ways, of his prowess, of his strength, his stature, his handsome face, and his devil-may-care manner. He thought of their companionship, the incidents, and even dangers they had had together. He thought of the way Geoffrey had done his work that night on the yacht when returning from Charlotte. He stood thinking of all these things with an aching heart. As he turned away sadly, his heart full of grief at parting, he burst out with "Darned if I don't love that man," and he closed his door quickly, as if to shut out the world from witnessing a weakness.

On the inner side of Geoffrey's bedroom door there was something else going on, which represented a very different train of thought.

Geoffrey, after bolting his door, went to his dressing-case and took from it a pair of scissors and a threaded needle. Then he took an old waistcoat and cut the lining out of it. Then he took a second old waistcoat and sewed the pieces of lining against the inside of it, and also ran stitches down the middle of each piece after it was sewed on. Thus he had a waistcoat with four long pockets on the inside – two on each side of it, all open at the top.

When this was done he rolled into bed, where Nature hastened to restore herself.

Before breakfast in the morning, Jack hailed a cab and took his two valises to the Yacht Club beside the water's edge, and left them in his locked cupboard there. He only intended to take this amount of luggage with him. The rest of his things could come on when Geoffrey packed up and forwarded his share of their joint museum and library. Geoffrey did not turn up at breakfast. He breakfasted on a cup of strong coffee and brandy at a restaurant, and went to the bank early.

Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote, commonly called "Sappy" in the bank, was a younger son of a long-drawn-out race. He had been sent out to make his fortune in the colonies, and he had progressed so far toward affluence that, in eight years of "beastly servitude, you know," he had attained the proud position of discount clerk at the Victoria Bank, and it did not seem probable that his abilities would be ever recognized to any further extent. The great scope of his intelligence was shown in the variety of wearing apparel he was able to choose, all by himself, and he was the showman, the dude, the incroyable of the Victoria Bank. When he met a man for the first time he weighed him according to the merits of the garments he wore. He met Geoffrey as he came into the bank this morning.

"My deah fellah," he said, "where did you get that dreadful waistcoat?"

"None of your business, Sappy. You used to wear one yourself when they were in fashion. I remember your rushing off to get one from the same piece when you first saw this one."

Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote had a weak child's voice, which he cultivated because it separated him from the common herd – most effectually. It made all ordinary people wish to kick him every time he opened his mouth. He liked to be thought to have ideas about art, and he talked sweetly about the furniture of "ma mothah" (my mother.)

Geoffrey walked past this specimen with but little ceremony. The brandy and coffee and another brandy without coffee had succeeded in putting him into just the same state in which he had gone to bed on the previous night. He could talk to any person and could do his work, but fumes of alcohol and abandonment of recklessness had for a time driven out all the morality he ever possessed; and where some ideas of justice had generally reigned there flourished, in the fumes of the liquor which he had drunk, noxious weedy outgrowths of a debased intelligence unchecked by the self-respect of civilization. To-day, he was, to himself, the victim of a public that had robbed him. Society owed him a debt.

They all went to work in the usual way. About a quarter-past eleven o'clock Jack put his head to Geoffrey's wicket and they whispered together:

Jack said, "Time for me to be off?"

"Yes, just leave everything as if you were coming back. If you put away anything, or close the ledger, they may ask where you are before you get fairly off. By the way, how are you carrying your money?"

"By Jove! I forgot that," said Jack, "or I might have made the package smaller by exchanging for larger bills. It makes a terrible 'wollage' in my pocket."

Geoffrey stepped back a moment and picked two American bills for one-thousand dollars each from a package of fifty of them lying beside him.

"Here," he said. "Take these two and pin them in the watch-pocket of your waistcoat. Don't give me back your money here. Just run up to our chambers and leave your two thousand under my bed-clothes. I don't want any one to see you paying me the money here, or they will think I connived at your going. I can get it during the afternoon and make my cash all right."

Jack did not quite see the necessity of this, but he had not time to think it out, and even if he had, he would have done what Geoffrey told him.

"All right," he said, "thank you. That will make two 'one-thousands' and seven 'one hundreds,' and the rest small, for immediate use."

"Very well. Go into the passage, now, and wait at the side door. I will come out and say good-by to you."

Jack took his hat and sauntered out into the passage.

In a minute Geoffrey, with his hands in his pockets, strolled to the side door.

"Good-by, Jack," he said hastily. "When your schooner sails past the foot of Bay Street here, just get up on the counter and wave your handkerchief so that I may see the last of you."

"All right, dear old man. I'll not forget to take my last look at the old Vic, and to do as you say. I must run now, and leave the two thousand in your bed, and then get on board. Good-by. God bless you!"

Geoffrey sauntered back to his stall and took a drain at a flask of brandy to keep off the chill he felt for a moment, and to brace himself up generally.

Jack hurried off to the chambers, counted out the two thousand dollars which he had wished to get rid of, and after taking a last look at the old rooms, he hurried to the Yacht Club. Here he put the valises into his own skiff after changing his good clothes for the old sailing clothes already described. Then, under an old soft-felt hat with holes in the top, he rowed down to the schooner, threw his valises on board, and climbed over the side. He let his skiff go adrift. He had no further use for it. There were some stone-hookers at the neighboring dock. He called to the men on one of them and said, "There's a boat for you!" Then he dropped down the forecastle ladder with his luggage.

His arrival on board was none too early, for the covers were off the sails and the tug was coming alongside to drag the vessel away from the wharf, and start her on her way with the east wind blowing to take her out of the bay. The tug was towing her toward the west channel as they passed the different streets in front of the city. At Bay Street, Jack left off helping to make canvas for a minute, and, running to the counter, sprang up on the bulwarks and waved his handkerchief to somebody who, he knew, was watching through the windows of the Victoria Bank.

There was nothing to detain the schooner now. The wind was from the east, and consequently dead ahead for the trip, but it was a good fresh working breeze, and Geoffrey, when he saw how things looked on the schooner, knew that it had fairly started on its passage to Oswego.

He glanced around him to make assurance doubly sure, and then he divided the pile of forty-eight (formerly fifty) one-thousand-dollar bills into four thin packages. These he slipped hurriedly into the four long pockets which he had made in the waistcoat the previous night. He then buttoned up the waistcoat, and from the even distribution of the bills upon his person it was impossible to see any indication of their presence.

When this was done and he had surveyed himself carefully, he took another pull at the flask on general principles and proceeded to take further steps. He might as well have left the liquor alone, because his nerve, once he commenced operations, was like iron.

He banged about some drawers, as if he were looking for something, and then called out:

"Jack?"

No answer.

"Jack?"

Still no answer.

The ledger-keeper from A to M, who occupied the stall beyond Jack's, then growled out:

"What's the matter with you?"

"Where's Jack?"

"I don't know. He asked me to look after his ledger for a moment, and then went out. He has been out for over an hour, and if the beggar thinks I'm going to be skipping round to look up his confounded ledger all day he's mistaken. I'll give him a piece of my mind when he comes in."

"A to M" went on growling and sputtering, like a leaky shower-bath.

"That's all very well," said Geoffrey; "but you fellows are playing a trick on me, and I don't scare worth a cent."

Everybody could hear this conversation. Geoffrey then stepped on a stool and leaned over the partition, smiling, and seized the hard-working receiving-teller by the hair.

"Come, you beggar, I tell you I don't scare. Just hand over the money. Really, it's a very poor kind of a joke."

"What's a poor kind of a joke? Seizing me by the hair?"

Geoffrey looked at him smilingly, as if he did not believe him and still thought there had been a plan to abstract the money and frighten him.

"Well, I don't care much personally; but that packet of fifty thousand is gone, and if any fellow is playing the fool he had better bring it back."

Several of the clerks now came round to his wicket. This sort of talk sounds very unpleasant in a bank.

"Where did you leave the bills?" they asked.

"Right here," said Geoffrey, laying his hand on a little desk close beside the wicket, opening into the box in which Jack had worked.

"Well, you had better report the thing at once," said several, who were looking on with long faces.

"I shall, right straight," said Geoffrey energetically. His face bore an admirable expression of consternation, checked by the sang froid of an innocent bank-clerk. He strode off into the manager's room.

"Excuse me for interrupting you, sir. I thought it was a hoax at first, but it looks very much as if fifty thousand dollars had been taken from my box."

"What, stolen!"

"Looks like it – very. If you would kindly step this way, sir, I will explain what I know about it."

Geoffrey then showed the manager where the bills had been laid, and did not profess to be able to tell anything more.

"Mr. Northcote, ring up the chief of police, and tell me when he is there," said the manager. "Where is Mr. Cresswell?"

No answer.

"Does anybody know where Mr. Cresswell is?"

Ledger-keeper from A to M then said that Mr. Cresswell went out over an hour ago, and had asked him to look after his ledger for five minutes. Mr. Cresswell had not returned.

The manager walked into Jack's box and looked around him. Everything was lying about as if he had just stopped working, and this, to the manager's mind, seemed to give the thing a black look. It seemed as if Jack, if he had made off with the money, had left things in this way as a blind.

The telephone was ready now, and the manager requested the chief of police to send a couple of his best detectives at once. Only one was available at first. This man, Detective Dearborn, appeared in five minutes, and was made acquainted with all the known circumstances. When this was done, fully two hours had elapsed since Jack's departure, and still he had not turned up.

Detective Dearborn was a man with large, usually mild, brown eyes. There was nothing in the upper part of his face to be remarked except general immobility of countenance. The lower part of his face, however, was suggestive. His lower jaw protruded beyond the upper. Whether this means anything in the human being may be doubted, but one involuntarily got the idea that if this man once "took hold," nothing short of red-hot irons would burn him off.

He took a careful, mild survey of the premises, listened to everything that was said, remarked that the package could not have been taken from the public passageway if left in the place indicated, looked over Jack's abandoned stall, asked a few questions from the manager, and, like a sensible man, came to the conclusion that Jack had taken the money.

He walked into the manager's room and asked him several questions about Jack's habits and his usual pursuits. Geoffrey was called in to assist at this. Yes, he could take the detective to Jack's room. Jack had no habits that cost much money. "Had he been speculating at all?" Geoffrey thought not, although some time ago Mr. Cresswell had said that he was "in a little spec.," and hoped to make something. Did not know what the "spec." was.

"May I ask," said Dearborn, "when you last spoke to Mr. Cresswell?"

"We spoke to each other for a minute just before he went out. He asked me if I was going to the Dusenalls' 'shine' to-night. I said I was. Then he spoke about several young ladies of our acquaintance, and other things which had no reference to this matter."

"Was the lost money in the place you say at that time?"

"Yes. I remember having my hand on the packet while I spoke to him."

"May I ask if you at any time during the morning left your stall?"

"Yes, I did, once. I went out as far as the side door for an instant shortly after Mr. Cresswell went out."

"What for?"

"Well," said Geoffrey, smiling, "I was thinking of boating this afternoon, and I wanted to see how the sky promised for the afternoon."

The mild eyes looked at Geoffrey with uncomfortable mildness at this answer. It might be all right, but Dearborn thought that this was the first suspicious sound which he had heard.

"My young gentleman, I'll keep my eye on you," he thought. "That reply did not sound quite right, and you seem a trifle too unconcerned."

Another detective arrived now, and he was detailed to inform the others and to watch the railway stations and steamboats. Immediately afterward, descriptions of Jack flew all over Canada to the many different points of exit from the country. Had he tried to leave Canada by sail or steamboat he would have been arrested to a certainty. Geoffrey laughed in his sleeve as he thought of the way he had sent Jack off in a schooner – a way that few people would dream of taking, and yet, perhaps, the safest way of all, as schooners could not, in the ordinary course of things, be watched by the detectives. But if the news got beyond police circles that Jack had absconded with money, or if it should be discovered in any way that he had gone on the schooner to Oswego – if this were published – Joseph Lindon might become alarmed, and prevent his daughter from going to Oswego also. Even the news of Jack's departure for parts unknown might make him suspicious. With this in view he immediately said to the manager and the detective:

"I would like to make a suggestion, if there be no objection."

"Certainly, Mr. Hampstead. We will be glad to listen to what you have to say."

"Of course, I can not think that Mr. Cresswell took the money," said Geoffrey. "But I think if complete secrecy were ordered, both in the bank and elsewhere, while every endeavor was being made at discovery, the detectives would have a better chance of success, on whatever theory they may work. Possibly the money may be recovered before many hours are over, and in that case the bank might wish to hush the matter up quietly. Prematurely advertising a thing like this often does harm; and there can be no question about the interests of the bank in the matter."

"I will act upon that suggestion at once," said the manager. "In the mean time, you will go, please, with the detective and admit him to Mr. Cresswell's rooms, and see what is to be seen there. I will give the strictest orders that nothing of this is to be told outside by the officials or police."

Orders were delivered to all the detectives to give no items to newspaper reporters, and the chance of Nina's getting away on the following morning seemed secured. Geoffrey laughed to himself as he thought he had crushed the last adder that could appear to strike him.

He let Mr. Dearborn into Jack's room. Everything was in confusion. Bureau drawers were lying open, and Jack's valises were gone. Dearborn saw at a glance that Cresswell had fled, and he lost no time, but turned on his heel immediately, thanked Hampstead, and rattled down-stairs. Geoffrey first ascertained that he was really gone, and then went back, took out the two thousand dollars that Jack had put under his bed-clothes, and, hastily taking the forty-eight stolen bills from the interior of his waistcoat, he stuffed the whole amount into an old Wellington boot that was hanging on a nail in a closet. Out of Jack's two thousand he put several bills in his pocket to pay for his evening's amusements. He then returned to the bank. It will be seen that his object in not taking this two thousand from Jack at the bank was that he could not safely conceal such a large package on his person, and he could not put it with his cash, because, in case his cash was examined, it would be found to contain two thousand dollars too much, which would cause inquiry.