The Breaking Point (39 page)

As the months went by she began to accept Fred's verdict that nothing
was going to happen. Bassett was back and at work. Either dead or a
fugitive somewhere was Judson Clark, but that thought she had to keep
out of her mind. Sometimes, as the play went on, and she was able to
make her solid investments out of it, she wondered if her ten years of
retirement had been all the price she was to pay for his ruin; but
she put that thought away too, although she never minimized her
responsibility when she faced it.

But her price had been heavy at that. She was childless and alone,
lavishing her aborted maternity on a brother who was living his
prosperous, cheerful and not too moral life at her expense. Fred was,
she knew, slightly drunk with success; he attended to his minimum of
labor with the least possible effort, had an expensive apartment on the
Drive, and neglected her except, when he needed money. She began to see,
as other women had seen before her, that her success had, by taking away
the necessity for initiative, been extremely bad for him.

That was the situation when, one night late in October, the trap of
Bassett's devising began to close in. It had been raining, but in spite
of that they had sold standing room to the fire limit. Having got the
treasurer's report on the night's business and sent it to Beverly's
dressing-room, Gregory wandered into his small, low-ceiled office
under the balcony staircase, and closing the door sat down. It was the
interval after the second act, and above the hum of voices outside the
sound of the orchestra penetrated faintly.

He was entirely serene. He had a supper engagement after the show,
he had a neat car waiting outside to take him to it, and the night's
business had been extraordinary. He consulted his watch and then picked
up an evening paper. A few moments later he found himself reading over
and over a small notice inserted among the personals.

"Personal: Jean Melis, who was in Norada, Wyoming, during the early fall
of 1911 please communicate with L 22, this office."

The orchestra was still playing outside; the silly, giggling crowds were
moving back to their seats, and somewhere Jean Melis, or the friends of
Jean Melis, who would tell him of it, were reading that message.

He got his hat and went out, forgetful of the neat car at the curb, of
the supper engagement, of the night's business, and wandered down the
street through the rain. But his first uneasiness passed quickly. He
saw Bassett in the affair, and probably Clark himself, still living
and tardily determined to clear his name. But if the worst came to the
worst, what could they do? They could go only so far, and then they
would have to quit.

It would be better, however, if they did not see Melis. Much better;
there was no use involving a simple situation. And Bev could be kept out
of it altogether, until it was over. Ashamed of his panic he went back
to the theater, got a railway schedule and looked up trains. He should
have done it long before, he recognized, have gone to Bassett in the
spring. But how could he have known then that Bassett was going to make
a life-work of the case?

He had only one uncertainty. Suppose that Bassett had learned about
Clifton Hines?

By the time the curtain rang down on the last act he was his dapper,
debonair self again, made his supper engagement, danced half the night,
and even dozed a little on the way home. But he slept badly and was up
early, struggling with the necessity for keeping Jean Melis out of the
way.

He wondered through what formalities L 22, for instance, would have
to go in order to secure a letter addressed to him? Whether he had to
present a card or whether he walked in demanded his mail and went away.
That thought brought another with it. Wasn't it probable that Bassett
was in New York, and would call for his mail himself?

He determined finally to take the chance, claim to be L 22, and if Melis
had seen the advertisement and replied, get the letter. It would be easy
to square it with the valet, by saying that he had recognized him in the
theater and that Miss Carlysle wished to send him a box.

He had small hope of a letter at his first call, unless the Frenchman
had himself seen the notice, but his anxiety drove him early to the
office. There was nothing there, but he learned one thing. He had to
go through with no formalities. The clerk merely looked in a box, said
"Nothing here," and went on about his business. At eleven o'clock he
went back again, and after a careful scrutiny of the crowd presented
himself once more.

"L 22? Here you are."

He had the letter in his hand. He had glanced at it and had thrust it
deep in his pocket, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He wheeled and
faced Bassett.

"I thought I recognized that back," said the reporter, cheerfully. "Come
over here, old man. I want to talk to you."

But he held to Gregory's shoulder. In a corner Bassett dropped the
friendliness he had assumed for the clerk's benefit, and faced him with
cold anger.

"I'll have that letter now, Gregory," he said. "And I've got a damned
good notion to lodge an information against you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Forget it. I was behind you when you asked for that letter. Give it
here. I want to show you something."

Suddenly, with the letter in his hand, Bassett laughed and then tore it
open. There was only a sheet of blank paper inside.

"I wasn't sure you'd see it, and I didn't think you'd fall for it if
you did," he observed. "But I was pretty sure you didn't want me to see
Melis. Now I know it."

"Well, I didn't," Gregory said sullenly.

"Just the same, I expect to see him. The day's early yet, and that's
not a common name. But I'll take darned good care you don't get any more
letters from here."

"What do you think Melis can tell you, that you don't know?"

"I'll explain that to you some day," Bassett said cheerfully. "Some day
when you are in a more receptive mood than you are now. The point at
this moment seems to me to be, what does Melis know that you don't want
me to know? I suppose you don't intend to tell me."

"Not here. You may believe it or not, Bassett, but I was going to your
town to-night to see you."

"Well," Bassett said sceptically, "I've got your word for it. And I've
got nothing to do all day but to listen to you."

To his proposition that they go to his hotel Gregory assented sullenly,
and they moved out to find a taxicab. On the pavement, however, he held
back.

"I've got a right to know something," he said, "considering what he's
done to me and mine. Clark's alive, I suppose?"

"He's alive all right."

"Then I'll trade you, Bassett. I'll come over with what I know, if
you'll tell me one thing. What sent him into hiding for ten years, and
makes him turn up now, yelling for help?"

Bassett reflected. The offer of a statement from Gregory was valuable,
but, on the other hand, he was anxious not to influence his narrative.
And Gregory saw his uncertainty. He planted himself firmly on the
pavement.

"How about it?" he demanded.

"I'll tell you this much, Gregory. He never meant to bring the thing up
again. In a way, it's me you're up against. Not Clark. And you can be
pretty sure I know what I'm doing. I've got Clark, and I've got the
report of the coroner's inquest, and I'll get Melis. I'm going to get to
the bottom of this if I have to dig a hole that buries me."

In a taxicab Gregory sat tense and erect, gnawing at his blond mustache.
After a time he said:

"What are you after, in all this? The story, I suppose. And the money. I
daresay you're not doing it for love."

Bassett surveyed him appraisingly.

"You wouldn't understand my motives if I told you. As a matter of fact,
he doesn't want the money."

Gregory sneered.

"Don't kid yourself," he said. "However, as a matter of fact I don't
think he'll take it. It might cost too much. Where is he? Shooting pills
again?"

"You'll see him in about five minutes."

If the news was a surprise Gregory gave no evidence of it, except to
comment:

"You're a capable person, aren't you? I'll bet you could tune a piano if
you were put to it."

He carried the situation well, the reporter had to admit; the only
evidence he gave of strain was that the hands with which he lighted a
cigarette were unsteady. He surveyed the obscure hotel at which the cab
stopped with a sneering smile, and settled his collar as he looked it
over.

"Not advertising to the world that you're in town, I see."

"We'll do that, just as soon as we're ready. Don't worry."

The laugh he gave at that struck unpleasantly on Bassett's ears. But
inside the building he lost some of his jauntiness. "Queer place to find
Judson Clark," he said once.

And again:

"You'd better watch him when I go in. He may bite me."

To which Bassett grimly returned: "He's probably rather particular what
he bites."

He was uneasily conscious that Gregory, while nervous and tense, was
carrying the situation with a certain assurance. If he was acting it was
very good acting. And that opinion was strengthened when he threw open
the door and Gregory advanced into the room.

"Well, Clark," he said, coolly. "I guess you didn't expect to see me,
did you?"

He made no offer to shake hands as Dick turned from the window, nor
did Dick make any overtures. But there was no enmity at first in either
face; Gregory was easy and assured, Dick grave, and, Bassett thought,
slightly impatient. From that night in his apartment the reporter had
realized that he was constantly fighting a sort of passive resistance in
Dick, a determination not at any cost to involve Beverly. Behind that,
too, he felt that still another battle was going on, one at which he
could only guess, but which made Dick somber at times and grimly quiet
always.

"I meant to look you up," was his reply to Gregory's nonchalant
greeting.

"Well, your friend here did that for you," Gregory said, and smiled
across at Bassett. "He has his own methods, and I'll say they're
effectual."

He took off his overcoat and flung it on the bed, and threw a swift,
appraising glance at Dick. It was on Dick that he was banking, not on
Bassett. He hated and feared Bassett. He hated Dick, but he was not
afraid of him. He lighted a cigarette and faced Dick with a malicious
smile.

"So here we are, again, Jud!" he said. "But with this change, that
now it's you who are the respectable member of the community, and I'm
the—well, we'll call it the butterfly."

There was unmistakable insult in his tone, and Dick caught it.

"Then I take it you're still living off your sister?"

The contempt in Dick's voice whipped the color to Gregory's face and
clenched his fist. But he relaxed in a moment and laughed.

"Don't worry, Bassett," he said, his eyes on Dick. "We haven't any
reason to like each other, but he's bigger than I am. I won't hit him."
Then he hardened his voice. "But I'll remind you, Clark, that personally
I don't give a God-damn whether you swing or not. Also that I can keep
my mouth shut, walk out of here, and have you in quod in the next hour,
if I decide to."

"But you won't," Bassett said smoothly. "You won't, any more than you
did it last spring, when you sent that little letter of yours to David
Livingstone."

"No. You're right. I won't. But if I tell you what I came here to say,
Bassett, get this straight. It's not because I'm afraid of you, or of
him. Donaldson's dead. What value would Melis's testimony have after ten
years, if you put him on the stand? It's not that. It's because you'll
put your blundering foot into it and ruin Bev's career, unless I tell
you the truth."

It was to Bassett then that he told his story, he and Bassett sitting,
Dick standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece, tall and weary and
almost detached.

"I've got to make my own position plain in this," he said. "I didn't
like Clark, and I kept her from marrying him. There was one time, before
she met Lucas, when she almost did it. I was away when she decided on
that fool trip to the Clark ranch. We couldn't get a New York theater
until November, and she had some time, so they went. I've got her story
of what happened there. You can check it up with what you know."

He turned to Dick for a moment.

"You were drinking pretty hard that night, but you may remember this:
She had quarreled with Lucas at dinner that night and with you. That's
true, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"She went to her room and began to pack her things. Then she thought
it over, and she decided to try to persuade Lucas to go too. Things had
begun all right, but they were getting strained and unpleasant. She went
down the stairs, and Melis saw her, the valet. The living-room was dark,
but there was a light coming through the billiard room door, and against
it she saw the figure of a man in the doorway. He had his back to her,
and he had a revolver in his hand. She ran across the room when he
heard her and when he turned she saw it was Lucas. Do you remember, Jud,
having a revolver and Lucas taking it from you?"

"No. Donaldson testified I'd had a revolver."

"Well, that's how we figure he'd got the gun. She thought at once that
Lucas and you had quarreled, and that he was going to shoot. She tried
to take it from him, but he was drunk and stubborn. It went off and
killed him."

Bassett leaned forward.

"That's straight, is it?"

"I'm telling you."

"Then why in God's name didn't she say that at the inquest?"

"She was afraid it wouldn't be believed. Look at the facts. She'd
quarreled with Lucas. There had been a notorious situation with regard
to Clark. And remember this. She had done it. I know her well enough,
however, to say that she would have confessed, eventually, but Clark
had beaten it. It was reasonably sure that he was lost in the blizzard.
You've got to allow for that."