Kitabı oku: «The Paliser case», sayfa 16

XXXV

Later that day, Jeroloman, the attorney for the other side, who at the time had no idea that there was another side, or any side at all, entered the rotunda and asked for Dunwoodie.

In asking, he removed his hat, glanced at its glisten, put it on again. The hat was silk. It topped iron grey hair, steel-blue eyes, a turn-under nose, a thin-lipped mouth, a pointed chin, a stand-up collar, a dark neckcloth, a morning coat, grey gloves, grey trousers, drab spats and patent-leather boots. These attributes gave him an air that was intensely respectable, equally tiresome. One pitied his wife.

"This way, sir."

In the inner and airy office, Dunwoodie nodded, motioned at a chair.

"Ha! Very good of you to trouble."

Jeroloman, seating himself, again removed his hat. Before he could dispose of it, Dunwoodie was at him.

"Young Paliser's estate. In round figures what does it amount to?"

Jeroloman, selecting a safe place on the table, put the hat on it and answered, not sparringly, there was nothing to spar about, but with civil indifference: "Interested professionally?"

"His widow is my client."

Jeroloman's eyes fastened themselves on Dunwoodie, who he knew was incapable of anything that savoured, however remotely, of shysterism. But it was a year and a day since he had been closeted with him. In the interim, time had told. Diverting those eyes, he displayed a smile that was chill and dental.

"Well, well! We all make mistakes. There is no such person." He paused, awaiting the possible protest. None came and he added: "The morning after the murder, his father told me that the young man contemplated marriage with a lady who had his entire approval. Unfortunately – "

"Yaas," Dunwoodie broke in. "Unfortunately, as you say. The morning after was the 26th. On the 21st, a gardener, who pretended to be a clergyman, officiated at his marriage to my client."

Dryly but involuntarily Jeroloman laughed. Dunwoodie was getting on, getting old. In his day he had been remarkably able. That day had gone.

"Well, well! Even admitting that such a thing could have happened, it must have been only by way of a lark."

Dunwoodie whipped out his towel. "You don't say so!"

Carelessly Jeroloman surveyed him. He was certainly senile, yet, because of his laurels, entitled to all the honours of war.

"Look here, Mr. Dunwoodie. You are not by any chance serious, are you?"

"Oh, I'm looking. While I was about it, I looked into the case. Per verba de præsenti, my client consented to be young Paliser's wife. Now she is his widow."

Jeroloman weighed it. The weighing took but an instant. Dunwoodie was living in the past, but there was no use in beating about the bush and he said as much.

"You are thinking of the common law, sir."

Absently Dunwoodie creased his towel. "Now you mention it, I believe I am."

Jeroloman glanced at his watch. It was getting late. His residence was five miles away. He was to dress, dine early and take his wife to the theatre. He would have to hurry and he reached for his hat.

"The common law was abrogated long ago."

Dunwoodie rumpled the towel. "Why, so it was!"

Jeroloman took the hat and with a gloved finger rubbed at the brim. "Even otherwise, the term common-law wife is not legally recognised. The law looks with no favour on the connection indicated by it. The term is synonymous for a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, seeks to assume the relationship of wife after his death and thereby share in the proceeds of his property."

From under beetling brows, Dunwoodie looked at him. "Thanks for the lecture, Jeroloman. My client has no such desire. In this office, an hour ago, she refused them."

Jeroloman stood up. "Very sensible of her, I'm sure." He twirled the hat. "Who is she?"

"I thought I told you. She is Mrs. Paliser."

Jeroloman waved that hat. "Well, well! I thought I told you. As it is, if you will take the trouble to look at the laws of 1901, you will find that common-law marriages are inhibited."

"Hum! Ha! And if you will trouble to look at the Laws of 1907, you will find they are inhibited no longer."

Jeroloman stared. "I have yet to learn of it."

Dunwoodie repocketed his towel. "Is it possible? Then when the opportunity occurs you might inform yourself. At the same time let me recommend the Court of Appeals for March. You may find there additional instruction. But I see you are going. Don't let me detain you."

Jeroloman sat down. "What case are you referring to?"

"The Matter of Ziegler."

Uncertainly Jeroloman's steel-blue eyes shifted. "It seems to me I read the syllabus."

"Then your powers of concealment are admirable."

"But just what does it hold?"

"Can it be that you don't remember? Well, well! – to borrow your own agreeable mode of expression – it holds that common-law marriages that were valid before and until the enactments which you were good enough to cite, were again made valid by their appeal in Chapter 742 of the Laws of 1907."

"But," Jeroloman began and paused. "But – " He paused again.

Comfortably Dunwoodie helped him. "Yes?"

"You say that marriages valid before and until the Laws of 1901 are, by virtue of a repeal, now valid again?"

"That is what I say, Jeroloman. Merely that and nothing more. In addition to the Ziegler case, let me commend to you 'The Raven.'"

"Let's get down to facts, sir. From your account of it, this alleged marriage never could have been valid."

Dunwoodie wiped his mouth. "Dear me! I had no idea that my account of it could lead to such interesting views. You do surprise me."

"Mr. Dunwoodie, you said the ceremony was performed by a gardener who pretended to be a clergyman. Those were your very words."

"Yaas. Let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?"

Archly but chillily Jeroloman smiled. "Well, no, I would not care to put it in that way, but your office-boy must know that false representations void it."

"Good Lord!" Dunwoodie exclaimed. It was as though he had been hit in the stomach.

Jeroloman, who was eyeing him, gave a little nod that was tantamount to saying, "Take that!"

But Dunwoodie was recovering. He sat back, looked admiringly at Jeroloman, clasped his hands and twirled his thumbs.

Jeroloman, annoyed at the attitude and in haste to be going, pursed his thin lips. "Well, sir?"

With an affability that was as unusual as it was suspicious, Dunwoodie smiled at him. "Your objection is well taken. Not an hour ago, in that chair in which you are sitting, this lady, my client, who not once in her sweet life has opened the Revised Statutes, and who, to save it, could not tell the difference between them and the Code, well, sir, she entered that same objection."

"I don't see – "

"Nor did she, God bless her! And I fear I wearied her with my reasons for not sustaining it. But I did not tell her, what I may confide in you, that in Hays versus The People – 25 New York – it is held immaterial whether a person who pretended to solemnise a marriage contract, was or was not a clergyman, or whether either party to the contract was deceived by false representations of this character. Hum! Ha!"

Jeroloman pulled at his long chin. In so doing he rubbed his hat the wrong way. He did not notice. That he was to dress, dine early, take his wife to the theatre, that it was getting late and that his residence was five miles away, all these things were forgotten. What he saw were abominations that his client would abhor – the suit, the notoriety, the exposure, the whole dirty business dumped before the public's greedy and shining eyes.

"Who is she?" he suddenly asked.

"Who was she?" Dunwoodie corrected. "Miss Cara."

Jeroloman started and dropped his hat. "Not – ?"

Dunwoodie nodded. "His daughter."

Jeroloman, bending over, recovered his hat. Before it, a picture floated. It represented an assassin's child gutting the estate of a son whom the father had murdered. It was a bit too cubist. Somewhere he had seen another picture of that school. It showed a young woman falling downstairs. He did not know but that he might reproduce it. At least he could try. Meanwhile it was just as well to take the model's measure and again his eyes fastened on Dunwoodie.

"What do you suggest?"

Dunwoodie, loosening his clasped hands, beat with the fingers a tattoo on his waistcoat.

"Let me see. There is 'The Raven,' the first primer, the multiplication table. Is it for your enlightenment that you ask?"

Jeroloman moistened his lips. Precise, careful, capable, intensely respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck.

"Yes, thank you, for my enlightenment. You have not told me what your client wants."

"What a woman wants is usually beyond masculine comprehension."

Methodically Jeroloman dusted his hat. "You might enquire. We, none of us, favour litigation. In the interests of my client I always try to avoid it and, while at present. I have no authority, yet – Well, well! Between ourselves, how would a ponderable amount, four or five thousand, how would that do?"

Blandly Dunwoodie looked at this man, who was trying to take Cassy's measure.

"For what?"

"To settle it."

That bland air, where was it? In its place was the look which occasionally the ruffian turned on the Bench.

"Hum! Ha! Then for your further enlightenment let me inform you that my client will settle it for what she is legally entitled to, not one ponderable dollar more, not one ponderable copper less."

Mentally, from before that look, Jeroloman was retreating. Mentally as well, already he had reversed himself. He had judged Dunwoodie old, back-number, living in the past. Instead of which the fossil was what he always had been – just one too many. Though not perhaps for him. Not for Randolph F. Jeroloman. Not yet, at any rate. The points advanced were new, undigested, perhaps inexact, filled with discoverable flaws. Though, even so, how M. P. would view them was another kettle of fish. But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up.

"Very good. I will give the matter my attention."

"Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your good lady."

He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount! Hum!

For a moment he considered the case. But it may be that already it had been heard and adjudged. Long since, perhaps, at some court of last resort, the Paliser Case had been decided.

XXXVI

On the morrow, Jeroloman waited on his client, who received him in the library, an agreeable room in which there was nothing literary, but which succeeded at once in becoming extremely unpleasant.

M. P. was in tweeds. When his late lamented departed this life, he wore crêpe on his hat for ninety days. It was a tribute that he paid, not to the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black.

Now, on this day, dressed in tweeds, he greeted Jeroloman with his usual cordiality.

"I hope to God you are not going to bother me about anything?"

The wicked old man, who had faced wicked facts before, faced a few of them then. The stench of the main fact had been passing from him, deodorised by the fumigating belief that his son had been killed by a lunatic. Now here it was again, more mephitic than ever, and for the whiffs of it with which Jeroloman was spraying him, he hated the man.

"Whom has she?"

"Dunwoodie."

He reviewed the bar. There was Bancroft, whose name was always in the papers and to whom clients flocked. There was Gwathmay, whom the papers ignored and whom only lawyers consulted. He might have either or both, the rest of the crew as well, and in spite of them all, unless he permitted himself to be done, the publicity would be just as resounding.

In the old nights, when social New York was a small and early, threats had amused him. "I have my hours for being blackmailed, this is not one of them," he had lightly remarked at a delightful gang. "Do your damnedest."

They took him at his word and so completely that the small and early saw him no more. What was that to him? There were other pastures, less scrumptious perhaps, but also far less fatiguing. He had not cared, not a rap. Behind him the yard of brass yodled in a manner quite as lordly as before. His high-steppers lost none of their sheen; his yacht retained all its effulgence; so, too, did the glare of his coin. No, he had not cared. But that was long ago, so long that it might have happened in an anterior existence. He had not cared then. Age is instructive. He had learned to since. Moreover, in testimony of his change of heart, a miracle had been vouchsafed. The affair at the Opera, attributed to a lunatic, had been buried safely, like his son, the scandal tossed in for shroud. How freely he had breathed since then! The little green bottle of menthe he had barely touched. He might live to see everything forgiven or, what is quite as satisfactory, forgotten. And now! Columns and columns, endlessly, day in, day out; the Paliser Case dragged from one court to another, the stench of it exceeded only by that of the Huns! But, by comparison, blackmail, however bitter, was sweet. When one may choose between honey and gall, decision is swift.

"What'll she take?"

Jeroloman, who had left his hat on the malachite bench in the hall, smoothed his gloves. He was about to reply. Before he could, his client shook a fist at him.

"The slut hasn't a cent. Came to the Place with a bundle, damn her. A suit like this costs something. Where's she going to get it? What'll she take?"

Jeroloman looked up from his gloves. "I don't know."

"Then find out."

"I offered Dunwoodie a ponderable amount."

"Well?"

"He refused it."

"Double it, then, triple it."

"Mr. Paliser, I'm sorry, but it won't do."

"Damnation, why not?"

"It is all or nothing with him and maybe nothing in the end. I told him so. I told him that the courts view with no favour a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, claims, on his demise, to be his widow. Such a claim is but the declaration of a woman entered after the death of her alleged husband and, as such, is inadmissible under Section 829 of the Code. I have posted myself very thoroughly in the matter, though I find it has been held – "

"Damn what has been held. It's all or nothing, is it?"

Jeroloman pulled at his long chin.

All, the wicked old man reflected. All! All would be ten million and ten million was less than a tenth of his wealth – ten million for which he had no earthly need, which it would fatigue him to spend, burden him to hoard, disgrace him to fight for, and which, normally, would go to a brat whom he had never seen and whom, as next in line, he hated.

Already he had decided. Though, it may be that on planes of which he knew nothing, long since it had been decided for him.

None the less it hurt. It hurt horribly. From a pocket, he drew a little bottle.

"Settle it then."

"On what basis?"

"All and be damned to her."

But now the menthe that he had raised to his lips was trickling from the bottle, staining his tweeds. He hiccoughed, gasped, motioned.

"And good-day to you."

Below, on the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had ended before it began.

XXXVII

Cassy sat in the kitchen. Before her were a cheque and a letter. The letter was from the theatre-man. The cheque was Dunwoodie's. The cheque begged to be cashed, the letter begged her to call.

During the night she had gone looking along an avenue where there were houses with candid windows from which faces peered and smiled. But it was not for these that she was looking and she awoke in a tempest of farewells.

Now, across the court, in the kitchen opposite, were two inoffensive beings. On that evening when her father had made her cry, they had seemed unreal. On this forenoon their baseless appearance persisted. But their unreality was not confined to them. Their kitchen, the court, the building shared it. They were all unreal, everything was, except one thing only, which perhaps was more unreal than all things else.

She looked at the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, purple-rigged, freighted with dreams come true. You have but a gesture to make. Those dreams are spaniels crouching at your feet. At a bath not dissimilar but financially far shallower, Monte Cristo cried: "The world is mine!" It was very amusing of him. But though, since then, values have varied, a bagatelle of ten millions is deep enough for any girl, sufficiently deep at least for its depths to hold strange things.

At those things, strange indeed and yet not unfamiliar, Cassy beckoned. In their embrace she saw herself, as Jones had pictured her, going about, giving money away, strewing it full-handed, changing sobs into smiles. The picture lacked novelty. Often she had dreamed it. Only recently, on the afternoon just before the clock struck twelve, just before the gardener lit his pipe and the mask had fallen, only then, and, relatively, that was but yesterday, she had promenaded in it. It was a dream she had dreamed when a child, that had haunted her girlhood, that had abided since then. It was the dream of a dream she had dreamed without daring to believe in its truth. Now, from the core of the web that is spun by the spiderous fates, out it had sprung. There, before her eyes, within her grasp was that miracle, a rainbow solidified, vapour made tangible, a dream no longer a dream but a palette and a palette that you could toss in the air, put in the bank, secrete or squander, a palette with which you could paint the hours and make them twist to jewelled harps. No more walk-up! Good-bye, kitchy! Harlem, addio! The gentleman with the fabulous nose could whistle. Vaudeville, indeed! She could buy the shop, buy a dozen of them, tear them down, build them up, throw them into one and sing there, sing what she liked, when she liked, as she liked. Yes, but for whom? God of gods, for whom?

A local newspaper bears – or bore – a sage device: La nuit porte conseil. That night, on her white bed, in her black room, Cassy sought it. But the counsel that night brings is not delivered while you toss about. Night waits until you sleep. Then, to the subjective self that never sleeps, the message is delivered. It may be fallible, often it is and, in our scheme of things, what is there that is not? Yet in any dilemma bad advice may be better than none. Then, without transition, the black room changed into an avenue where faces peered and smiled. It was not though for these that she was looking, but for her way. It must have been very narrow. Though she looked and looked she could not find it. Yet it was near, perhaps just around the corner. But in some manner, she could not reach it. Sleep sank her deeper. When she awoke, there it was.

Now as she sat in the kitchen, before which, in the kitchen opposite, bundles of baseless appearances came and went, she began counting her wealth on her fingers. Youth! Up went her thumb. Health! The forefinger. Lungs! The second finger. Not being a fright! The fourth. How rich she was! But was there not something else? Oh, yes! Sadly she smiled. A clear conscience! She had forgotten that and that came first. Youth, health, lungs, looks, these were gamblers' tokens in the great roulette of life. In the hazards of chance at any moment she might lose one or all, as eventually she must lose them and remain no poorer than before. But her first asset which she had counted last, that was her fortune, the estate she held by virtue of a trust so guardedly created that if she lost one mite, the whole treasure was withdrawn.

On the washtub – covered admirably with linoleum – at which she sat, were the cheque for a thousand dollars and the bid from the vaudeville man. The bid, she knew, meant money. But the cheque would beggar her.

She drew breath and sat back. From above a filter of sunlight fell and told her it was noon. Across the court the bundles of baseless appearances transformed themselves into a real woman, an actual child. The kitchen in which they moved, the house in which they dwelled were no longer the perceptions of a perceiver. They also were real. So, too, was life.

An hour and Mr. Purdy's pasty face turned feebly red. He stammered it.

No, unfortunately, Mr. Dunwoodie was out. Would Mrs. Paliser wait? In Mr. Dunwoodie's private office? And the 'Herald' perhaps or the 'Times' – or – or —

Everything there, Broad Street to boot, the Stock Exchange included, Mr. Purdy was ready and anxious to offer.

No, Mrs. Paliser would not wait – and mentally she thanked her stars for it. But would Mr. Purdy do something for her?

Would he! The brave spirit of Talleyrand must have animated that sickly young man. If what Mrs. Paliser desired were possible it would be done: if impossible, it was done already.

Cassy gave him the rare seduction of her smile. She also was entertaining an emotion or two. She had not at all known where she would find the strength to confront and confute a grandmotherly old ruffian. But luck was with her. He was out.

So very good of Mr. Purdy then and would he please give Mr. Dunwoodie this cheque and say she's sorry she can't accept it or the other money either? She had said she would, but, really, it was not intended for her. Supposing she took it. She would feel like a thief in a fog. Exactly that. A thief in a fog. No, she couldn't. Couldn't and wouldn't. Just as grateful though to Mr. Dunwoodie. Her regrets to him and a thousand thanks.

"And good-day, Mr. Purdy. I thank you also."

Mr. Purdy, flushing feebly, saw her to the door, saw her to the hall without. There, while he waited with her for a descending lift, a silk hat that had just come from a malachite bench, alighted from an ascending one. Immediately the other lift took her.

"Who was that?" the hat's owner alertly asked.

Mr. Purdy rubbed his perspiring hands. "Mrs. Paliser."

Jeroloman wheeled like a rat. He looked at the cage. It had vanished. He looked at the other. Above it a moving finger pointed upward. Cold-blooded, meticulously precise, intensely respectable, none the less, for one delirious second, madness seized him. He wished to God he could hurry down, overtake the impostor, lure her into his own office, frighten her out of such wits as she possessed and buy her off for tuppence. Instantly Respectability had him by the collar. He could not. Precision gave him a kick. Wouldn't stand if he did.

Deeply he swore. The millions were gone. Hands down, without a struggle, the Paliser estate was rooked. No fault of his though, and mechanically he adjusted that hat. Damn her!

In the street below, superbly, with sidereal indifference, the sun shone down on the imbecile activities of man. The storm of the day before that had drenched Cassy so abundantly, had been blown afar, blown from her forever. The sky in which a volcano had formed was remote and empty.

"Ouf!" Cassy muttered in relief and muttered, too: "Now for the agent!"

She had reached the corner. Just beyond was the subway. It would land her within two squares of the man's greasy office. Now, though, suddenly, she felt a gnawing. A sandwich would taste good. Two sandwiches would taste better. Then, quite as suddenly, that vision, the street with it, everything, except one thing only, vanished.

Blocking the way stood Lennox.

"Where to in such a hurry?"

Easily she smiled and told him. "I'm going to buy a rhinoceros." But for all the easiness of it her tongue nearly tripped. "And what are you doing?"

"I? Oh! Cleaning up."

Wall Street is not a Japanese tea-garden. It lacks the klop-klop of fountains. Yet, even in its metallic roar there may – for exceptional beings – be peace there. Not for Cassy, though. She could have screamed.

A moment only. Lennox turned and both moved on.

"Let's get out of this."

Cassy looked up at him. "You forget my little errand."

"Ah, yes! The rhinoceros. Couldn't you ask me to meet him?"

"I shall be giving dinner-parties for him every evening. Would you care to come?"

They had reached cavernous steps down which Cassy was going.

Lennox raised his hat. "I will come to-night."

Through the metallic roar, the four words dropped and hummed.