"Talk!"
"Syou know it! I ain"t goin"...." He choked up and tottered back; Alan, supporting him, laid him down and stayed beside him until his coughing and choking ceased, and there was only the rattling rasp of his breathing. When Alan spoke to him again, Luke"s eyes opened, and he narrated recent experiences bitterly; all were blamed to Ben Corvet"s absence; Luke, who had been drinking heavily a few nights before, had been thrown out when the saloon was closed; that was Ben Corvet"s fault; if Ben Corvet had been around, Luke would have had money, all the money any one wanted; no one would have thrown out Luke then. Luke slept in the snow, all wet. When he arose, the saloon was open again, and he got more whiskey, but not enough to get him warm.
He hadn"t been warm since. That was Ben Corvet"s fault. Ben Corvet better be "round now; Luke wouldn"t stand any more.
Alan felt of the pulse again; he opened the coat and under-flannels and felt the heaving chest. He went to the hall and looked in the telephone directory. He remembered the name of the druggist on the corner of Clark Street and he telephoned him, giving the number on Astor Street.
"I want a doctor right away," he said. "Any good doctor; the one that you can get quickest." The druggist promised that a physician would be there within a quarter of an hour. Alan went back to Luke, who was silent now except for the gasp of his breath; he did not answer when Alan spoke to him, except to ask for whiskey. Alan, gazing down at him, felt that the man was dying; liquor and his fever had sustained him only to bring him to the door; now the collapse had come; the doctor, even if he arrived very soon, could do no more than perhaps delay the end. Alan went up-stairs and brought down blankets and put them over Luke; he cut the knotted laces of the soaked shoes and pulled them off; he also took off the mackinaw and the undercoat. The fellow, appreciating that care was being given him, relaxed; he slept deeply for short periods, stirred and started up, then slept again. Alan stood watching, a strange, sinking tremor shaking him. This man had come there to make a claim--a claim which many times before, apparently, Benjamin Corvet had admitted. Luke came to Ben Corvet for money which he always got--all he wanted--the alternative to giving which was that Luke would "talk." Blackmail, that meant, of course; blackmail which not only Luke had told of, but which Wa.s.saquam too had admitted, as Alan now realized. Money for blackmail--that was the reason for that thousand dollars in cash which Benjamin Corvet always kept at the house.
Alan turned, with a sudden shiver of revulsion, toward his father"s chair in place before the hearth; there for hours each day his father had sat with a book or staring into the fire, always with what this man knew hanging over him, always arming against it with the thousand dollars ready for this man, whenever he came. Meeting blackmail, paying blackmail for as long as Wa.s.saquam had been in the house, for as long as it took to make the once muscular, powerful figure of the sailor who threatened to "talk" into the swollen, whiskey-soaked hulk of the man dying now on the lounge.
For his state that day, the man blamed Benjamin Corvet. Alan, forcing himself to touch the swollen face, shuddered at thought of the truth underlying that accusation. Benjamin Corvet"s act--whatever it might be that this man knew--undoubtedly had destroyed not only him who paid the blackmail but him who received it; the effect of that act was still going on, destroying, blighting. Its threat of shame was not only against Benjamin Corvet; it threatened also all whose names must be connected with Corvet"s. Alan had refused to accept any stigma in his relationship with Corvet; but now he could not refuse to accept it.
This shame threatened Alan; it threatened also the Sherrills. Was it not because of this that Benjamin Corvet had objected to Sherrill"s name appearing with his own in the t.i.tle of the ship-owning firm? And was it not because of this that Corvet"s intimacy with Sherrill and his comradeship with Constance had been alternated by times in which he had frankly avoided them both? What Sherrill had told Alan and even Corvet"s gifts to him had not been able to make Alan feel that without question Corvet was his father, but now shame and horror were making him feel it; in horror at Corvet"s act--whatever it might be--and in shame at Corvet"s cowardice, Alan was thinking of Benjamin Corvet as his father. This shame, this horror, were his inheritance.
He left Luke and went to the window to see if the doctor was coming.
He had called the doctor because in his first sight of Luke he had not recognized that Luke was beyond the aid of doctors and because to summon a doctor under such circ.u.mstances was the right thing to do; but he had thought of the doctor also as a witness to anything Luke might say. But now--did he want a witness? He had no thought of concealing anything for his own sake or for his father"s; but he would, at least, want the chance to determine the circ.u.mstances under which it was to be made public.
He hurried back to Luke. "What is it, Luke?" he cried to him. "What can you tell? Listen! Luke--Luke, is it about the _Miwaka_--the _Miwaka_? Luke!"
Luke had sunk into a stupor; Alan shook him and shouted in his ear without awakening response. As Alan straightened and stood hopelessly looking down at him, the telephone bell rang sharply. Thinking it might be something about the doctor, he went to it and answered it.
Constance Sherrill"s voice came to him; her first words made it clear that she was at home and had just come in.
"The servants tell me some one was making a disturbance beside your house a while ago," she said, "and shouting something about Mr. Corvet.
Is there something wrong there? Have you discovered something?"
He shook excitedly while, holding his hand over the transmitter lest Luke should break out again and she should hear it, he wondered what he should say to her. He could think of nothing, in his excitement, which would rea.s.sure her and merely put her off; he was not capable of controlling his voice so as to do that.
"Please don"t ask me just now, Miss Sherrill," he managed. "I"ll tell you what I can--later."
His reply, he recognized, only made her more certain that there was something the matter, but he could not add anything to it. He found Luke, when he went back to him, still in coma; the blood-shot veins stood out against the ghastly grayness of his face, and his stertorous breathing sounded through the rooms.
Constance Sherrill had come in a few moments before from an afternoon reception; the servants told her at once that something was happening at Mr. Corvet"s. They had heard shouts and had seen a man pounding upon the door there, but they had not taken it upon themselves to go over there. She had told the chauffeur to wait with the motor and had run at once to the telephone and called Alan; his attempt to put her off made her certain that what had happened was not finished but was still going on. Her anxiety and the sense of their responsibility for Alan overrode at once all other thought. She told the servants to call her father at the office and tell him something was wrong at Mr.
Corvet"s; then she called her maid and hurried out to the motor.
"To Mr. Corvet"s--quickly!" she directed.
Looking through the front doors of her car as it turned into Astor Street, she saw a young man, carrying a doctor"s case, run up the steps of Corvet"s house. This, quite unreasonably since she had just talked with Alan, added to her alarm; she put her hand on the catch of the door and opened it a little so as to be ready to leave the car as soon as it stopped. As the car drew to the curb, she sprang out, and stopped only long enough to tell the chauffeur to be attentive and to wait ready to come into the house, if he was called.
The man with the bag--Constance recognized him as a young doctor who was starting in practice in the neighborhood--was just being admitted as she and her maid reached the steps. Alan stood holding the door open and yet blocking entrance when she came up. The sight of him told her that it was not physical hurt that happened to him, but his face showed her there had been basis for her fright.
"You must not come in!" he denied her; but she followed the doctor so that Alan could not close the door upon her. He yielded then, and she and her maid went on into the hall.
She started as she saw the figure upon the couch in the library, and as the sound of its heavy breathing reached her; and the wild fancy which had come to her when the servants had told her of what was going on--a fancy that Uncle Benny had come back--was banished instantly.
Alan led her into the room across from the library.
"You shouldn"t have come in," he said. "I shouldn"t have let you in; but--you saw him."
"Yes."
"Do you know him?"
"Know him?" She shook her head.
"I mean, you"ve never seen him before?"
"No."
"His name is Luke--he speaks of himself by that name. Did you ever hear my father mention a man named Luke?"
"No; never."
Luke"s voice cut suddenly their conversation; the doctor probably had given him some stimulant.
"Where"sh Ben Corvet?" Luke demanded arrogantly of the doctor. "You go get Ben Corvet! Tell Ben Corvet I want drink right away. Tell Ben Corvet I want my thousan" dollar...!"
Constance turned swiftly to her maid. "Go out to the car and wait for me," she commanded.
Luke"s m.u.f.fled, heavy voice went on; moments while he fought for breath interrupted it.
"You hear me, you d.a.m.n Injin! ... You go tell Ben Corvet I want my thousan" dollars, or I make it two nex" time! You hear me; you go tell Ben Corvet.... You let me go, you d.a.m.n Injin!"...
Through the doorway to the library they could see the doctor force Luke back upon the couch; Luke fought him furiously; then, suddenly as he had stirred to strength and fury, Luke collapsed again. His voice went on a moment more, rapidly growing weaker:
"You tell Ben Corvet I want my money, or I"ll tell. He knows what I"ll tell.... You don"t know, you Injin devil.... Ben Corvet knows, and I know.... Tell him I"ll tell ... I"ll tell ... I"ll tell!" The threatening voice stopped suddenly.
Constance, very pale, again faced Alan. "Of course, I understand," she said. "Uncle Benny has been paying blackmail to this man. For years, perhaps...." She repeated the word after an instant, in a frightened voice, "Blackmail!"
"Won"t you please go, Miss Sherrill?" Alan urged her. "It was good of you to come; but you mustn"t stay now. He"s--he"s dying, of course."
She seated herself upon a chair. "I"m going to stay with you," she said simply. It was not, she knew, to share the waiting for the man in the next room to die; in that, of itself, there could be nothing for him to feel. It was to be with him while realization which had come to her was settling upon him too--realization of what this meant to him.
He was realizing that, she thought; he had realized it; it made him, at moments, forget her while, listening for sounds from the other room, he paced back and forth beside the table or stood staring away, clinging to the portieres. He left her presently, and went across the hall to the doctor. The man on the couch had stirred as though to start up again; the voice began once more, but now its words were wholly indistinguishable, meaningless, incoherent. They stopped, and Luke lay still; the doctor--Alan was helping him now--arranged a quite inert form upon the couch. The doctor bent over him.
"Is he dead?" Constance heard Alan ask.
"Not yet," the doctor answered; "but it won"t be long, now."
"There"s nothing you can do for him?"
The doctor shook his head.
"There"s nothing you can do to make him talk--bring him to himself enough so that he will tell what he keeps threatening to tell?"
The doctor shrugged. "How many times, do you suppose, he"s been drunk and still not told? Concealment is his established habit now. It"s an inhibition; even in wandering, he stops short of actually telling anything."
"He came here--" Alan told briefly to the doctor the circ.u.mstances of the man"s coming. The doctor moved back from the couch to a chair and sat down.
"I"ll wait, of course," he said, "until it"s over." He seemed to want to say something else, and after a moment he came out with it. "You needn"t be afraid of my talking outside ... professional secrecy, of course."