Bowman, a big fur piece pulled up around her throat, shivered. I met half a dozen Santa Ysobel people whose names I"ve forgotten. I could see that Bronson Vandeman socially took the lead here, that everybody looked to him. The room was a babel of talk, when a few minutes later the doorbell rang in orthodox fashion, and Chung ushered c.u.mmings in upon the general confusion. Some of the bunch knew and spoke to him; others didn"t and had to be presented; it took the first of his time and attention. He only got a chance for one swipe at me, a low-toned, sarcastic,
"Made a mistake to duck me, Boyne."
I didn"t think it worth while to answer that. Presently I saw him standing with Barbara. He was evidently effecting a switch of his theater engagement to the ball, for I heard Skeet"s,
"Mr. c.u.mmings wants a ticket! He"ll need two! Ten dollars, Mr.
c.u.mmings--five apiece."
"No, no--Skeet," Barbara laughed embarra.s.sedly. "Mr. c.u.mmings was just joking. He"ll not be here Sat.u.r.day night."
"I"ll come back for it," hand in pocket.
"It"s a masquerade--" Barbara hesitated.
"Bring my costume with me from San Francisco."
"I"m not sure--" again Barbara hesitated; Skeet cut in on her,
"Why, Barbie Wallace! It"s what you came to Santa Ysobel for--the Bloss.
Fes. ball. And to think of your getting a perfectly good man, right at the last minute this way, and not having to tag on to Bronse and Ina or something like that! I think you"re the lucky girl," and she clutched c.u.mmings" offered payment to stow it with other funds she had collected.
At last they got themselves out of the room and left us alone with c.u.mmings. He had carried through his little deal with Barbara as though it meant considerable to him, but I knew that his errand with Worth was serious, and put in quickly,
"I intended to write or phone you to-morrow, c.u.mmings."
"Well," the lawyer worked his mouth a bit under that bristly mustache and looked at Worth, "it might have saved you some embarra.s.sment if you"d been warned of my errand here to-night--earlier, that is. I suppose Captain Gilbert has told you that I phoned him, when I failed to connect with you, that I was coming here--and what I was coming for?"
"I didn"t tell Jerry," Worth picked up a cigarette. "Couldn"t very well tell him what you were coming for. Don"t know myself."
The words were blunt; really I think there was no intention to offend, only the simple statement of a fact; but I could see c.u.mmings beginning to simmer, as he inquired,
"Does that mean you didn"t understand my words on the phone, or that you understood them and couldn"t make out what I meant by them?"
"Little of both," allowed Worth. c.u.mmings stepped close to him and let him have it direct:
"I"m here to-night, Captain Gilbert, as executor of your father"s estate. I have filed the will to-day. I might have done so earlier, but when I inventoried this place (you remember, the day before the funeral--you were here at the time) I failed to locate a considerable portion of your father"s estate."
"You failed to locate? All the estate"s here; this house, the down-town properties. What do you mean, failed to locate?"
"I was not alluding to realty," said c.u.mmings. "It"s my duty to locate and report to the court the present whereabouts of seventy-five thousand dollars worth of stock in the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank. Can you declare to me as executor, where it is? And, if any other person than your father placed it in its present whereabouts, are you ready to declare to me how and when it came into that person"s possession?"
"Quite a lot of words, c.u.mmings; but it doesn"t mean anything," Worth said casually. "You know where that bank stock is and who put it there."
"Officially, I do not know. Officially, I demand to be told."
"Unofficially, answer it for yourself." Worth turned his back on the lawyer to get a match from the mantel.
"Very well. My answer is that I intend to find out how and when that bank stock which formed a part of your payment to the Van Ness Avenue bank disappeared from this house."
I admit I was scared. Here was the first gun of the coming battle; and I was sure this enemy, who stood now looking through half closed eyes at the lad"s back, would have poisoned gas among his weapons. He had emphasized the "_when_." He believed that the stories of Worth"s night visit to his father were true; that the implied denial by Barbara and myself in my office, was false; that Worth had either received the stock from his father that Sat.u.r.day night or taken it unlawfully. I was sure that it was the stock certificates which I had seen Worth take from the safe-compartment of the sideboard in the small hours of Monday morning; a breach of legal form which it would be possible for a friendly executor to pa.s.s over.
"c.u.mmings, Worth inherits everything under his father"s will; what"s the difference about a small irregularity in taking possession? He--"
"Never explain, Jerry," Worth shut me up. "Your friends don"t need it, and your enemies won"t believe it."
c.u.mmings had stood where he was since the first of the interview. His face went strangely livid. There was more in this than a legal fight.
"Yes, Boyne"s a fool to try to help your case with explanations, Gilbert," he choked out. "I"ll see that both of you get a chance to answer questions elsewhere--under oath. Good evening." He turned and left.
He had the best of it all around. I endeavored for some time to get before Worth the dangers of his high-handed defiance of law, order, probate judges, and the court"s officers, in the person of Allen G.
c.u.mmings, attorney and his father"s executor. He listened, yawned--and suggested that it must be nearly bedtime. I gave it up, and we went--I, at least, with a sense of danger ahead upon me--to our rooms.
Along in the middle of the night I waked to the knowledge that a cas.e.m.e.nt window was pounding somewhere in the house. For a while I lay and listened in that helpless, exaggerated resentment one feels at such a time. I"d drop off, get nearly to sleep, only to be jerked broad awake again by the thudding. Listening carefully I decided that the bothersome window was in Worth"s room, and finally I got up sense and s.p.u.n.k enough to roll out of bed, stick my feet into slippers, and sneak over with the intention of locking it.
The room was dimly lighted from the street lamps, far away as they were; I made my way across it. Worth"s deep, regular breathing was quite undisturbed. I had trouble with the catch, went and felt over the bureau and found his flashlight, fixed the window by its help, and returning it, remembering how near I came to knocking it off the bureau top, thought to put it in a drawer which stood half open.
As I aimed it downward, its circle of illumination showed something projecting a corner from beneath the swirl of ties and sheaf of collars--a book--a red morocco-bound book. Mechanically I nudged the stuff away with the torch itself. What lay there turned me cold. It was the 1920 diary!
My fingers relaxed; the flashlight fell with a thump, as I let out an exclamation of dismay. A sleepy voice inquired from the bed,
"Hi, you Jerry! What you up to in here?"
For answer, I dragged out the book, went over to the bed, and switched on the reading lamp there. Worth scowled in the glare, and flung his arms up back of his head for a pillow to raise it a bit.
"Yeah," blinking amiably at the volume. "Meant to tell you. Found it to-day when I was down in the repair pit at the garage. It had been stuck in the drainpipe there."
"And I suppose," I said savagely, "that if I hadn"t come onto it now, you"d have burned this, too."
"Don"t get sore, Jerry," he said. "I saved it," and he yawned.
I had an uncontrollable impulse to have a look at that last entry, which would record the bitter final quarrel between this boy and his father.
No difficulty about finding the spot; as I raised the book in my hands it fell open of itself at the place. I looked and what I saw choked me--got cross-wise in my throat for a moment so no words could come out.
I stuck the book under his nose, and held it there till I could whisper.
"Worth, did you do this?"
The last written page was numbered 49; on it was recorded the date, March sixth; the weather, cloudy, clearing late in the afternoon; the fact that the sun had set red in a cloudless sky; and it ended abruptly in the middle of a phrase. The leaf that carried page 50 had been torn out; not cut away carefully as were those leaves in the earlier book, but ripped loose, grabbed with clutching fingers that scarred and twisted the leaf below!
He shoved my hand away and stared at me. For a moment I thought everything was over. Certainly I could not be a very appealing sight, standing there sweating with fear, my hair all stuck up on my head where I"d clawed it, shivering in my nightclothes more from miserable nervousness than from cold; but somehow those eyes of his softened; he gave me one of the looks that people who care for Worth will go far to get, and said quietly,
"You see what you"re doing? I told you I didn"t steal the book, so that clears me in your mind of being the murderer. Now you"re after me about this torn-out page. If I"d torn it out and stolen it--you and I would know what it would mean."
"But, boy--," I began, when he suffered a change of heart.
"Get out of here! Take that d.a.m.n book and leave."
He heaved himself over in the bed, hunching the covers about his ears, turning his back on me. As I crept away, I heard him finish in a sort of mutter--as though to himself--
"I"m sorry for you, Jerry Boyne."