The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

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But these things passed unnoticed by the white-haired lawyer. He was
smiling into the radiant face under the low-pressed fur cap. It was the
wide, hazel eyes, so deeply fringed with a wealth of curling, dark
lashes, that inspired his smiling interest. It was the level brows, so
delicately pencilled, and dark as were the eyelashes. It was the perfect
nose, and lips, and chin, and the chiselled beauty of oval cheeks, all
in such classic harmony with the girl's wealth of vivid hair.

Nancy returned his gaze without the shadow of a smile. She had come at
this man's call from the coldly correct halls of Marypoint College,
which was also the soulless home she had been condemned to for the three
or four most impressionable years of her life. And she knew the purpose
of the summons.

There was a deep abiding resentment in her heart. It was not against
this man or his wife. From these two she had received only kindness and
affection. It was directed against the stepfather whom she believed to
be the cause of the banishment she had had to endure. Furthermore, she
could never forget that her banishment was only terminated that she
might gaze at last upon the dead features of her dearly loved mother
before the cold earth hid them from view forever.

The lawyer understood. He had understood from her reply to his letter
summoning her. There was no need for the confirmation he read now in her
unsmiling eyes.

"You sent for me?" she said.

Nancy's voice was deep and rich for all her youth. Then with a display
of some slight confusion, she suddenly realised the welcoming hand
outheld. She took it hurriedly, and the brief hand clasp completely
broke down the barrier she had deliberately set up.

"Oh, it's a shame, Uncle Charles," she cried, almost tearfully.
"It's--it's a shame. I know. I'm just a kid--a fool kid who hasn't a
notion, or a feeling, or--or anything. I'm to be treated that way. When
he says 'listen,' why, I've just got to listen. And when he says 'obey,'
I've got to obey, because the law says he's my stepfather. He's robbed
me of my mother. Oh, it's cruel. Now he's going to rob me of everything
else I s'pose. Who is he? What is he that he has the power to--to make
me a sort of slave to his wishes? I've never seen him. I hate him, and
he hates me, and yet--oh--I'm kind of sorry," she said, in swift
contrition at the sight of the old man's evident distress. "I--I--didn't
think. I--oh, I know it's not your fault, uncle. It's just nothing to do
with you. You've always been so kind and good to me--you and Aunt Sally.
You've got to send for me and tell me the things he says, because--"

"Because I'm his 'hired man.' But also because I'm his friend."

The lawyer spoke kindly, but very firmly. He knew the impulsive nature
of this passionate child. He knew her unusual mentality. He realised,
none better, that he was dealing with a strong woman's mind in a girl of
childhood's years. He knew that Nancy had inherited largely from her
father, that headstrong, headlong creature whose mentality had driven
him to every length in a wild endeavour to upset civilisation that he
might witness the birth of a millennium in the ashes of a world
saturated with the blood of countless, helpless creatures. So he checked
the impulsive flow of the child's protest. He held out his hands.

"You'd best let me take your coat, my dear," he said, with a smile the
girl found it impossible to resist. "Maybe you'd like to remove your
overshoes, too. There's a big talk to make, and I want to get things
fixed so you can come right along up home and take food with us before
you go back to Marypoint."

The child capitulated. But she needed no assistance. Her coat was
removed in a moment and flung across a chair, and she stood before him,
the slim, slightly angular schoolgirl she really was.

"Guess I'll keep my rubbers on," she said. Then she added with a laugh
which a moment before must have been impossible. "That way I'll feel I
can run away when I want to. What next?"

"Why, just sit right here."

The lawyer drew up a chair and set it beside his desk. His movements
were swift now. He had no desire to lose the girl's change of mood.

And Nancy submitted. She took the chair set for her while the man she
loved to call "Uncle Charlie" passed round to his. He gave her no time
for further reflection, but plunged into his talk at once.

"Now, my dear," he said earnestly, "you came here feeling pretty bad
about things, and maybe I don't blame you. But there isn't the sort of
thing waiting on you you're guessing. Before we get to the real business
I just want to tell you the things in my mind. Of course, as you say,
you're a 'kid' yet--a school-kid, eh? That's all right. But I know you
can get a grip of things that many much older girls could never hope to.
That's why I want to tell you the things I'm going to. Now you've worked
it out in your mind that your stepfather is just a heartless, selfish
creature who has no sort of use for you, and just wants to forget your
existence. He married your mother, but had no idea of taking on her
burdens--that's you. It isn't so. It wasn't so. I know, because this man
is my friend, and I know all there is to know about him. The whole thing
has been deplorable. You've been the victim of circumstances that I may
not explain even to you. But I promise you this, your stepfather is not
the man to have desired to cut you out of your mother's life."

"Who did then? Mother?"

The girl's beautiful face flushed under her stirring emotions. The man
shook his head.

"Circumstances. Yes, those circumstances I told you of. Those
circumstances I can't explain." Charles Nisson picked up a typescript
and held it out to the child.

"I want you to take this. It's not the deed, but a true copy. I want you
to read it over and think about it, and when you get back to Marypoint,
and feel like talking to those teachers you trust there, you can tell
them what it contains, and hear what they have to say about it, and see
if they won't think better of your stepfather than you do. You needn't
read it now," as the girl turned the pages and glanced down the
confusion of legal phraseology. "I'm going to tell you what it contains
in plain words. But I want you to have it, and read it, and think over
it, because I want you to try and get a real understanding of the man
whose signature is set to the original deed."

"Yes," he went on, meditatively, and in a tone of real regret. "I'd be
pretty glad to have you think better of him. I think just now he needs
the kind thought of anyone who belongs to him. He's in pretty bad
trouble--someways."

The girl looked up. A curious anxiety was shining in her eyes.

"Trouble?" she demanded. "You mean he's done wrong? What d'you mean?
What sort of--trouble?"

The man shook his head.

"No. It's not that. It's--your mother. You know, Nancy, he loved your
mother in a way that leaves a good man broken to pieces when he loses
the object of his love. Every good thought he ever had was bound up in
your mother. And your mother was his strong support, and literally his
guiding star. You've lost your mother. You know how you felt. Well, I
can't tell you, but think, try and think what it would be if you'd lost
just every hope in life, too--the same as he has."

"I'd--I'd want to die," the girl cried impulsively.

"Yes. So would anyone. So does he. Just as far as the world's concerned
he's dead now. You'll never see him, or hear from him. Nor will anyone
else--except me. He'll never come into your life after this. He'll never
claim his legal guardianship of you, beyond that document. To you he's
dead, leaving you heir to what is contained in that deed. He's just a
poor devil of a man hunted and haunted through the rest of his existence
by the memory of a love that was more than life to him. Try and think
better of him, Nancy, my dear. He's got enough to bear. I think he
deserves far better than he's ever likely to get handed to him. I tell
you solemnly, my dear, whatever sins he may have committed, and most of
us have committed plenty," he added, with a gentle smile, "he's done you
no real hurt. And now he's only doing that good by you I would expect
from him."

Nancy sighed deeply, and it needed no words of hers to tell the man of
law how well he had fought his friend's battle. A deep wave of childish
pity had swept away the last of a resentment which had seemed so bitter,
so implacable. It was the generous heart of the child, shorn, for the
moment, of its inheritance from her father. Her even brows had puckered,
and the man knew that tears, real tears of sympathy, were not far off.

"Tell me," she said, in a low voice. "Tell me some more."

But the man shook his head. "I can't tell you more," he said gently.
"Where your stepfather is, or where he will be to-morrow, I may not tell
you. Even when your mother was alive you were not permitted to know
these things. That was due to the 'circumstances' I told you of. It just
remains for me to tell you the contents of that document. They're as
generous as only your stepfather knows how to make them. He's appointed
me your trustee. And he's settled on you a life annuity of $10,000.
There are a few simple conditions. You will remain at college till your
education is complete, and, until you are twenty-one I shall have
control of your income. That is," he explained, "I shall see that you
don't handle it recklessly. During that time, subject to my approval,
you can make your home with whom you like. After you've passed your
twenty-first birthday you are as free as air to go or come, to live
where you choose, and how you choose. And your income will be
forthcoming from this office--every quarter. Do you understand all that,
my dear? It's so very simple. Your stepfather has gone to the limit to
show you how well he desires for you, and how free of his authority he
wants you to be. There is another generous act of his that will be made
clear to you when the time comes. But that is for the future--not now.
His last word to me," he went on, picking up a letter, "when he sent me
the deed duly signed, was: 'Tell this little girl when you hand her
these things, it isn't my wish to trouble her with an authority which
can have little enough appeal for her. Tell her that her mother was my
whole world, and it is my earnest desire that her daughter should have
all the good and comfort this world can bestow. If ever she needs
further help she can have it without question, and that she only has to
appeal to my friend and adviser, Charles Nisson, for anything she
requires.'"

The man laid the letter aside and looked up.

"That's the last paragraph of the last communication I had from him. And
they're not the words of a monstrous tyrant who is utterly heartless,
eh?"

The girl made no answer. Her emotion was too strong for her. Two great
tears rolled slowly down her beautiful cheeks.

The lawyer rose from his chair. He came round the desk and laid a gentle
hand on the heaving shoulder, while Nancy strove to wipe her tears away
with a wholly inadequate handkerchief.

"That's right, my dear," he said very gently. "Wipe them away. There's
no need to cry. Leslie's done all a man in his peculiar position can do
for you. You've got the whole wide world before you, and everything you
can need for comfort--thanks to him. Now let's forget about it all. Just
take that paper back to school with you. And maybe you'll write, or come
and let me know what you think about it. If you feel like making your
home with us, why, that way you'll just complete our happiness. If you
feel like going to your mother's sister, Anna Scholes, I shan't refuse
you. Anyway, think about it all. That's my big talk and it's finished.
Just get your overcoat on, and we'll get right along home to food."

CHAPTER VI

NATHANIEL HELLBEAM

The room was furnished with extreme modern luxury. The man standing over
against the window with his broad back turned, somehow looked to be in
perfect keeping with the setting his personal tastes had inspired. He
was broad, squat, fat. His head and neck were set low upon his
shoulders, and the hair oil was obvious on the longish dark hair which
seemed to grow low down under his shirt collar.

The other man, seated in one of the many easy chairs, was in strong
contrast. His was the familiar face of the agent, Idepski, dark, keen,
watchful. He was smoking the cigarette to which he had helped himself
from the gold box standing near him on the ornate desk.

"You seem to have made a bad mess of things."

Nathaniel Hellbeam turned from the window and came back to his desk with
quick, short, energetic strides.

He presented a picture of inflamed wrath. His fleshy, square face was
flushed and almost purple. His small eyes were hot with anger. They
snapped as he launched his harshly spoken verdict. His whole manner
bristled with merciless intolerance.

He was enormously fat, and breathed heavily through clean shaven lips
that protruded sensually. His age was doubtful, but suggested something
under middle life. It was the gross bulk of the man that made it almost
impossible to estimate closely. The only real youth about him was his
dark, well oiled hair which possessed not a sign of greying in it.

He flung himself into the wide chair which gaped to receive him, and
glared at the dark face of his visitor.

"What in the hell do I pay you for?" he cried brutally, lapsing, in his
anger, into that gutteral Teutonic accent which it was his life's object
to avoid. "A wild cat's scheme it was I tell you from the first. You go
to this Sachigo with your men. You think to get this 'sharp' asleep, or
what? You find him wide awake waiting for you to arrive. What then? He
jumps quick. So quick you can't think. You a prisoner are. You go where
he sends you. You live like a swine in the woods. You are made to work
for your food. And a year is gone. A year! Serve you darn right. Oh,
yes. Bah! You quit. You understand? I pay you no more. You are a fool, a
blundering fool. I wash my hands with you."

Idepski sat still, patient, as once before he had sat under the whip
lash of a man's tongue. And he continued smoking till the great banker's
last word was spoken.

Then he stirred, and removed his cigarette from his thin lips.

"That's all right, Mr. Hellbeam," he said coldly. "It seems like you've
a right to all you've said. It seems, I said. But the 'fool' talk." He
shook his head. "My best enemies don't reckon me that--generally. The
game I'm playing has room enough for things that look like blunders. I
allow that. It doesn't matter. You see, I know more of this feller
Martin maybe than you do. I guess he's a mighty big coward, except when
he's got the drop on a feller. I've given him the scare of a lifetime,
and I've unshipped him from his safe anchorage on that darn Labrador
coast. Do you know what's happened? I'll tell you. He's quit Sachigo.
From what I can learn he's sold out his mill to that uncouth hoodlum,
Harker, who was sort of his partner, and quit. Where? I don't know yet.
Why has he quit? Why, because he knows we've located his hiding, and
will get him if he remains. You reckon I've mussed things up." He shook
his head. "He was well-nigh safe up there on Labrador--and I knew it. We
had to get him out of it. Well, I've got him out. He's bolted like a
gopher, and it's up to me to locate him. I shall locate him. I'm glad
he's quit that hellish country. I've had a year of it, and it's put the
fear of God into me. You needn't worry. I'm quite ready to quit your
pay. But I'm going on with this thing, sure. You see, I owe him quite a
piece for myself--now. I've been through the hell he intended me to go
through when he sent me along up to be held prisoner by that skunk, Ole
Porson. I'm going to pay him for that--good. I don't want your pay--now.
One day I'll hand that feller over to you--and when you've doped him
plenty--you'll have paid me." He rose leisurely from his comfortable
chair. "May I take another of your good cigarettes?" he went on, with a
half smile in his cold eyes. "You see, I won't get another, seeing I'm
quitting you."

He deliberately helped himself without waiting for permission, while his
eyes dwelt on the gold box containing them.

But the financier's mood had changed. The keen mind was busy behind his
narrow eyes. Perhaps Idepski understood the man. Perhaps the coolness of
the agent appealed to the implacable nature of the Swede. Whatever it
was the hot eyes had cooled, and the fleshy cheeks had returned to
their normal pasty hue. He raised a hand pointing.

"Sit down and smoke all you need," he said, in the sharp, autocratic
fashion that was his habit. "We aren't through yet." Then, for a few
moments, he regarded the slim figure as it lay back once more in the
armchair. "Say," he began, abruptly, "you reckon to go on for--yourself?
Yes? You're a good hater."

He went on as the other inclined his head.

"I like a good hater. Yes. Well, just cut out all I said. We'll go on. I
guess you'll need to blunder some before we get this swine. You're bound
to. But I want him. I want him bad. If it's good for you to go on for
yourself, that's good for me. There's a lifetime ahead yet, and I don't
care so I see him down--right down where I need him. Maybe I won't get
the money, but we'll get him, and that'll do. Yes, cut out what I said,
and go ahead. Tell me about it."

Idepski displayed neither enthusiasm nor added interest. He accepted the
position with seeming indifference. Hellbeam to him was just an
employer. A means to those ends which he had in view. If Hellbeam turned
him down it would mean a setback, but not a disaster, and Idepski
appraised setbacks at their simple value, without exaggeration. Besides,
he knew that this Swede, powerful, wealthy as he was, could not afford
to do without him in this matter. His intolerant, hectic temper mattered
nothing at all. He paid for the privilege of its display, and he paid
well. So--

"There's nothing much to tell," the agent returned, with a shrug. "I'm
going to get him--that's all. See here, Mr. Hellbeam," he went on after
a pause, with a sudden change to keen energy, "you're a mighty big power
in the financial world, and to be that I guess you've had to be some
judge of the other feller. That's so. You most generally know when he's
beat before you begin. And when he squeals it don't come as a surprise.
Well, that's how it is with me, only it's a bigger thing to me because
it sometimes happens to mean the difference between life and death. Say,
when you put up your bluff at a feller, and watch him square in the
eyes, and you see 'em flicker and shift, do you reckon you've lit on the
'yellow streak,' that lies somewhere in most folk? I guess so. Well,
that's how I know my man. I've seen it in this bum, Leslie Standing as
he calls himself now. And when I saw it I knew he was beat, for all he'd
the drop on me. Since then my notion's proved itself. He's lit out. He's
cut from his gopher hole at Sachigo. An' when a gopher gets away from
his hole, the man with the gun has him dead set. But say, that muss up
you reckon I made doesn't look that way when you know the things it's
taught me. While I was way up at that penitentiary camp on the Beaver
River I kept all my ears and eyes wide, and I learned most of the things
a feller's liable to learn in this world when he acts that way. I
learned something of the notions lying back of this feller's work up
there. Say, he hadn't finished with you when he took that ten millions
out of you." An ironical smile lit the man's dark eyes as he thrust home
his retaliation for the financier's insults. "Not by a lot," he went on,
with a smiling display of teeth that conveyed nothing pleasant. "They've
a slogan up there that means a whole heap, and it comes from him, and
runs through the whole work going on, right down to the Chink camp
cooks. Guess that mill is only beginning. It's the ground work of a
mighty big notion. And the notion is to drive the Skandinavians out of
Canada's pulp trade, and very particularly the Swedes, as represented by
the interests of Nathaniel Hellbeam. Guess you sit right here in New
York, but up there they've got you measured up to the last pant's
button."

"They that think?"

The financier's bloated cheeks purpled as he put his clumsy
interrogation.

"Oh, yes. This feller Standing reckons he's made a big start, and there
are mighty big plans out. When he and that clownish partner of his,
Harker, are through, Sachigo'll be the biggest proposition in the way of
groundwood pulp in the world. They've forests such as you in Skandinavia
dream about when your digestion's feeling good. They've a water power
that leaves Niagara a summer trickle. They've got it all with a sea
journey of less than eighteen hundred miles to Europe. But there's more
than that. When Sachigo's complete it's to be the parent company of a
mighty combine that's going to take in all the mills of Canada outside
Nathaniel Hellbeam's group. And then--then, sir, the squeeze'll start
right in. And it isn't going to stop till the sponge--that's Nathaniel
Hellbeam--is wrung dry."

"You heard all this--when you were held prisoner and working like a
swine in Martin's forests?"

The smile in Hellbeam's eyes was no less ironical than the agent's.

"When I was working like a swine."

"These lumber-jacks. They knew all that in Standing's mind is?"

"No. But I learned it all."

"How?"

The demand was instant, and a surge of force lay behind it.

"Because some I saw. Some I picked up from general talk. And the rest I
pieced together because it's my job to think hard when the game's
against me. But it don't matter. You know that the things I've told you
are right. It's news to you, but you know it's right, because you're
thinking hard, and the game's against--you."

"Yes."

The financier's admission was the act of a man who has no hesitation in
looking facts in the face and acknowledging them. Idepski's deductions
were irrefutable, because the Swede was a shrewd business man with a
full appreciation of the man who had lightened his finances by ten
million dollars.

For some moments the fleshy face was turned towards the window which
yielded the hum of busy traffic many stories below them. His narrow eyes
were earnestly reflective, but there was no concern in them. To the
waiting man he was simply measuring the threat against him, and probing
its possibilities for mischief.

"Yet this fellow. He on the run is--Yes?"

The eyes were smiling as they came back again to Idepski's face. The
agent nodded, flinging his cigarette end into the porcelain cuspidore
beside the desk.

"Which makes me all the more sure of the game," he said confidently.
"He's rattled. He's so scared to death for himself, and for his purpose,
he's getting out. It's as clear as daylight to me. He feels he's plumb
against it if he stops around. He knows we've located him. He knows what
he's done to me. He knows all he wants to know of you. Well, he reckons
there's no sort of chance for him at Sachigo. And if he stops there's no
sort of chance for this purpose of his. He reckons to call off the
hounds on his own trail, while the feller Harker carries on the good
work of squeezing the Swedes. That's how I see it. And I guess I'm
right. Remember I had a year of hell up there to think in, and when I
finally got clear away I had two months' solitary chasing of those woods
to think in, and then, when I made the coast, I had the trip down with
the folks on the boat to listen to. He's scared for his life, and of
anything you hope to hand him. But he's more scared for the purpose that
made him set up that mill at Sachigo."

Hellbeam leant back in his chair. His great paunch protruded invitingly
and he clasped his hands over it.

"Maybe you're right," he said, with an air intended to conciliate.
"Anyway you've picked up some pieces and set them together so they make
a fancy shape. But--it isn't good. No. Here, I think, too. I see
another, way from you. Without this fellow Sachigo is--nothing. See? I
care nothing because of this Harker. No. The other--that's different.
Yes. He the brain has. All this piece you make. He is capable of it. But
he is on the run. Good. I still sleep well while he runs. Sachigo? Bah!
It is nothing without Leslie Martin. Now, go you. Hunt this man. Maybe
your year of the woods will help you," he said, with biting emphasis.
"You know the woods? Well, don't quit his trail. Get him. Get him
alive."

"Oh, I shall get him. Your urging ain't needed. I'll get him as you
say--alive. And he knows it."

Idepski's cold eyes hardened with a frigid hatred as he spoke. He had
only been paid for the work hitherto. Now he was implacable.

"But it's Sachigo I mean to watch," he went on, after a brief pause. "I
mean to play in that direction. It's the home burrow where you lay your
traps once your quarry's on the run."

Hellbeam nodded.

"That's good sense."

"Sure it is," retorted the agent. "I'm glad you see it that way," he
added with a smile under which the financier grew restive once more.

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