CHAPTER XI
The Other Lady
It was plain enough to Johnson Boller.
Anthony, poor devil, was raving at last! Since there was no one likely to ruin Anthony, the strain had developed the illusion that--or was it an illusion? Anthony had calmed these last few seconds, clinging childlike to his friend; his eyes denoted the general state of mind of a hunted doe, but there was nothing more abnormal.
"Say, kid," Johnson Boller began kindly. "You----"
"You don"t understand," Anthony said hoa.r.s.ely but more quietly. "I"ve never told you about the Dalton matter, because I"ve tried my best to forget the interview--but Dalton is the man who controls virtually the whole proprietary liniment market, barring only Fry"s Imperial. My--my liniment," said Anthony, and there was an affectionate note in his voice which Johnson Boller had never heard before in connection with the Imperial, "is the only one he has failed to acquire."
"Yes?" said Johnson Boller, with rising interest.
Anthony smiled wanly, dizzily.
"Well, Dalton came to the office one day about five years ago, having made an appointment to meet me personally there. He wanted to buy us out, and I wouldn"t hear of it--partly sentiment and partly because he didn"t want to pay enough. Then he tried his usual tactics of threatening to drive Imperial off the market, and I sat down and pointed out to him just what it would cost and what it would gain him. He"s a hard devil, Johnson, and he was pretty angry, yet he saw the reason in what I told him."
"Go on," said Johnson Boller.
"We parted on rather curious terms," groaned Anthony. "One might call it an armed truce, I suppose. He seemed to be willing to let matters rest as they were, and he has done just that ever since; but he told me in so many words that if ever I tried to break into his particular market, if ever, for any cause, I offended him in any way, he"d sail in and advertise me out of business."
"Can he do it?"
"He can do it," Anthony said, with pained conviction. "He can do it, because he"s able to spend a million where I spend ten thousand, and once he starts Fry"s Imperial Liniment is as dead as Julius Caesar. And when he learns about this thing----"
"He--he might never learn," Johnson Boller said, without even trying to be convincing.
Anthony laughed forlornly.
"h.e.l.l learn; I"m done for!" said he. "It"s as good as done and over with now, Johnson. Almost every cent I have in the world is invested in the firm, you know, and once that goes to pieces I--why, great Heaven, Johnson! I"ll have to get out and work for a living!"
Johnson Boller, for a little, said nothing at all. Coming from another man, he would have fancied the statements largely exaggeration and imagination; coming from Anthony he knew that they were mostly solid truth.
"Well, I told you in the first place that kid meant trouble," he muttered.
"You have a prophetic soul!" Anthony sighed.
"Trouble isn"t the word!" Mr. Boller mused further. "If you tell the truth, according to your figuring, the old gentleman will ruin you--but that doesn"t matter much, because when you"ve told the truth it"s a dead sure thing Vining will let the daylight through you, so that you"ll have no need for money anyway. And if you go on trying to keep it all dark and succeed in doing it, that Hitchin idiot will have us both jailed for murder--_and we"ll have to produce a David Prentiss before we get out_!"
Anthony, gazing fixedly at him, felt hope that hardly dared to be creeping into his eyes.
"Johnson, could we get hold of a boy somewhere and bribe him?" he asked.
"To do what?"
"To go into a police court and swear that he was David Prentiss and that he came here last night and left again about half-past twelve," said the model citizen, without even reflecting that it involved perjury. "If we could manage that it might be best of all to let Hitchin go ahead."
"Stick you and me in jail?" Johnson Boller asked harshly.
"Better that than risk----"
"I don"t see it!" the less chivalrous gentleman snapped. "There"s nothing inside urging me to go to jail for anybody"s sake, even overnight. And another thing, I"ve got a wife, Anthony! Just consider where this would put me with Beatrice, and how dead certain it would be, with Hitchin airing his views and conclusions, that he"d mention the lady you introduce as Mrs. Boller!"
"But----"
"But nothing!" Johnson Boller said, his personal trouble coming uppermost again. "That"s the worst break you"ve made so far, Anthony!
That Mrs. Boller business is likely to cause me----"
He shut his teeth on the end of the sentence. Wilkins, white and distressed, was coming down the corridor with what looked rather like kangaroo leaps. He came to David"s door and stopped, turning the k.n.o.b.
He entered--and immediately he left the room again and sped to Anthony.
"She wishes to see you again, sir!"
Anthony jerked obediently to his feet and laid a cold hand on Johnson Boller"s.
"Get up there and keep Vining busy," he said. "That"s all. Hurry!"
Johnson Boller shuffled back to the living-room, where the unfortunate paced up and down and wrung his hands. Anthony, waiting tremulously until he heard both their voices, hurried into Mary"s room--and looked at her with a new, dreadful terror. She was no longer a merely unfortunate, unknown young woman whose good name he had placed in considerable jeopardy; Mary, by now, had become the potential stick of dynamite that bade fair to blast him out of the Lasande, out of his regular life, out of everything but the chance to sally forth and hunt a job!
"Well? Well?" she asked swiftly.
"Yes?"
"Is he gone? Is he gone?" Mary cried.
"He will--go shortly!" Anthony said thickly. "You--you are Theodore Dalton"s daughter!"
Mary stared at him.
"So you"ve discovered that?"
"He--in a business way----" Anthony muttered vaguely.
"Yes, that was my reason for coming here," Mary said, cheerfully enough.
"I"ve heard him speak of you--oh, no, not very flatteringly; I don"t think he likes you. I"ve heard him say that some day he"d wreck you, when he was ready; and I was very curious indeed to see what sort of man you were and whether you were nice enough to plead for, if he ever started. I don"t like dad to wreck people."
Anthony nodded.
"And that was another reason why I was afraid to tell the truth last night," said Mary. "If you were business enemies--bitter ones, I mean--and you found out that you had father"s daughter here--well, that has nothing to do with getting Bobby away, has it?"
"He"ll go presently."
"Presently isn"t soon enough!" Mary informed her captor. "I sent for Wilkins to tell you that he must go _now_!"
"But the boy is distracted and----"