The Just and the Unjust by Vaughan Kester

V >> Vaughan Kester >> The Just and the Unjust

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

"Well, he had a blame curious way of showing it; no one would ever have
suspected it of him!" said Mr. Shrimplin.

"I guess this wouldn't have happened if his own folks had had more faith
in Joe, that's what wore on him,--I seen it wear on him!" declared Mrs.
Montgomery, in a tone of melancholy conviction.

"In the main I'm a truthful man, Nellie,--I wish to be anyhow; and I'll
tell you honest I was never able to see much in Joe aside from his good
looks, which I know he had, now that you call them to mind. No,--I think
a coat of tar and feathers would be about the thing for Joe; he's the
sort of bird to wear that kind of plumage. My opinion is that you've
seen the last of him; no sense in your thinking otherwise, because
you're just leaving yourself open to disappointment!"

Yet Mr. Shrimplin remained to reinstate Mrs. Montgomery in her home. It
was his expert hands that set up the cracked and rusted kitchen stove,
and arranged the scanty and battered furniture in the several rooms. Nor
was he satisfied to do merely this, for he presently despatched Arthur
into town after an excellent assortment of groceries. All the while,
however, he neglected no opportunity to elaborate for Nellie's benefit
his opinions concerning the handy-man's utter worthlessness. At length
this good Samaritan paused from his labors, and regaling himself with a
fresh chew of tobacco and a parting gibe at Joe, set briskly off for his
own home.

The street lamps demanded his immediate attention, and it was not until
his day's work was finished that he found opportunity to tell Mrs.
Shrimplin of these straits to which Nellie had been reduced. He
concluded by reiterating his opinion that her sister had seen the last
of Joe.

"I don't know why you say that!" was Mrs. Shrimplin's unexpected
rejoinder.

"Ain't I got mighty good reason to say it?" asked her husband. "Don't
you know, and ain't every one always said Joe was just too low to live?
I'd like to know if it wasn't you said he should never set his foot
inside your door?"

"I might say it again, and then I mightn't," rejoined Mrs. Shrimplin,
with aggravating composure.

Two days later when the Shrimplins were at breakfast Mrs. Montgomery
walked in on them. Her face was streaked with the traces of recent
tears, but there was the light of happy vindication in her eyes, and a
soiled and crumpled letter in her hand.

"Mercy, Nellie!" exclaimed her sister. "What's the matter now?"

"Matter? Why, I'm so happy I just don't know what to do! I've heard from
my Joe!"

Mrs. Shrimplin rested her hands on her hips and surveyed Nellie with
eyes that seemed to hold pity and contempt in about equal proportion.

"You've heard from Joe! Well, if he was my husband he'd have heard from
me long ago!" she said.

And it occurred to Mr. Shrimplin that his wife was wonderfully
consistent in her inconsistencies.

"Well, and what have _you_ got against Joe?" demanded Mrs. Montgomery
with ready anger.

"She ain't got nothing new, Nellie!" said Mr. Shrimplin, desirous of
preserving the peace.

"Well, she's mighty quick to misjudge him! Look!" and she drew from the
envelope she held in her hand a dirty greenback. "He's sent me twenty
dollars--my man has! Does that look like he'd forgotten me or his
children?" protested Nellie, in a voice of happy triumph.

"I'll bet it's counterfeit; I'd go slow on trying to pass it," said Mr.
Shrimplin when he had somewhat recovered from the shock of the sudden
announcement.

It was plain that Nellie had never thought of any such possibility as
this, for the light died out of her eyes.

"How can I find out whether it's good or not?" she faltered.

"Let me look at it!" said Mr. Shrimplin.

Mrs. Montgomery placed the bill in his hands. Her face was keen and
pinched with anxiety as she awaited the little man's verdict.

"It's genu-ine all right," he at length admitted grudgingly.

"I knew it was!" cried Nellie, her miserable suspicions put at rest.

"Well, you'd better spend it quick and get some good of it before old
Joe comes back and wants the change!" advised Mr. Shrimplin.

"What does he say?" questioned Mrs. Shrimplin.

"He don't say a word, there was nothing but the bill."

"Well, maybe it wasn't Joe sent it after all!" said the little
lamplighter.

"The writing on the envelope's his, I'd know it anywhere. I guess he
couldn't trust himself to write; but he'll come back, my man will! Maybe
he's on his way now!" exclaimed Nellie.

"Ain't there no postmark?" asked Mrs. Shrimplin.

"Why, I never thought to look!"

But Nellie's face fell when she did look.

"It was mailed at Denver!" she said, in an awe-struck voice.

Her man seemed at the very ends of the earth, and his return became a
doubtful thing.

"Well, I wouldn't talk about this to the police or anybody; they ain't
been able to find Joe, and I wouldn't be the one to tell them where he's
at!" advised Mr. Shrimplin.

"They've stopped coming to the house," said Nellie.

But she looked inquiringly at Mr. Shrimplin. Where the police were
concerned she had faith in his masculine understanding; Joe had always
seemed to know a great deal about the police, she remembered.

"I reckon old Joe had his own reasons for skipping out, and they must
have looked good to him. No, I can't see that you are bound to help the
police; the police ain't helped you." And Mr. Shrimplin returned to the
scrutiny of the bill in his hand.

That was the profound mystery. No one knew better than he that Joe was
not given to such prodigal generosity; neither were twenty-dollar bills
frequent with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE

Mr. Gilmore, having yielded once again to temptation, found himself at
Marshall Langham's door. He asked for the lawyer, but was informed he
was not at home, a fact of which Mr. Gilmore was perfectly well aware,
since he had parted from him not twenty minutes before at the
court-house steps. Mrs. Langham was at home, however, and at this
welcome information the gambler, smiling, strode into the hall.

From the parlor, Evelyn heard his voice. She had found him amusing in
the first days of their acquaintance, and possibly she might again find
him diverting, but this afternoon he had chosen ill for his call. She
was quite sure she detested him. For the first time she measured him by
standards of which he could know nothing, and found no good thing in
him. What had Marsh meant when he forced this most undesirable
acquaintance on her!

"You wanted to see Marsh?" she asked, as she gave him her hand.

"That will keep," said Gilmore cheerfully. "May I stay?" he added.

"If you wish," she answered indifferently.

She felt a sense of shame at his presence there. Everything about her
seemed to sink to his level, which was a very low level, she was sure.
These afternoon calls were a recent feature of their intimacy. Before
Gilmore came, she had been thinking for the hundredth time of John
North--the man she had once loved and now hated, but in whose honor she
had such confidence that she knew he would face death rather than
compromise her. In spite of the fact that he had scorned her, had thrown
her aside for another, she had had on his account many a soul-rending
struggle with her conscience, with her better self. She knew that a word
from her, and his prison doors would open to a free world. Time and
again this word had trembled on her lips unuttered. She knew also that
it was not hate of North that kept her silent. It was an intangible,
unformed, unthoughtout fear of what might follow after. North, she knew,
was innocent; who then was guilty? She closed her eyes and shut her
lips. That North would ultimately clear himself she never seriously
doubted, and yet the burden of her secret was intolerable. In her
present mood, she was accessible to every passing influence, and to-day
it was Gilmore's fate to find her both penitent and rebellious, but he
could not know this, he only knew that she was quieter than usual.

He seated himself at her side, and his eyes, eager and animated, fed on
her beauty. He had come to the belief that only the lightest barriers
stood between himself and Evelyn Langham, and it was a question in his
mind of just how much he would be willing to sacrifice for her sake. He
boasted nothing in the way of position or reputation, and no act of his
could possibly add to the disfavor in which he was already held; but to
leave Mount Hope meant certain definite financial losses; this had
served as a check on his ardor, for where money was concerned Gilmore
was cautious. But his passion was coming to be the supreme thing in his
life; a fortunate chance had placed him where he now stood in relation
to her, and chance again, as unkind as it had been kind, might separate
them. The set of Gilmore's heavy jaws became tense with this thought and
with the ruthless strength of his purpose. He would shake down one
sensation for Mount Hope before he got away,--and he would not go alone.

"I suppose you were at the trial to-day?" Evelyn said.

"Yes, I was there for a little while this afternoon," he answered. "It's
rather tame yet, they're still fussing over the jury."

"How is Jack bearing it?" she asked.

Her question seemed to depress Gilmore.

"Why do you care about how he takes it? I don't suppose he sees any fun
in it,--he didn't look to me as if he did," he said slowly.

"But how did he _seem_ to you?"

"Oh, he's got nerve enough, if that's what you mean!"

"Poor Jack!" she murmured softly.

"If you're curious, why don't you go take a look at poor Jack? He'll be
there all right for the next few weeks," said the gambler, watching her
narrowly.

"I'm afraid Marsh might object."

At this Gilmore threw back his head and laughed.

"Excuse _me_!" he said; and in explanation of his sudden mirth, he
added: "The idea of your trotting out Marsh to me!"

"I'm not trotting him out to you,--as you call it," Evelyn said quietly,
but her small foot tapped the floor. She intended presently to rid
herself of Gilmore for all time.

"Yes, but I was afraid you were going to."

"You mustn't speak to me as you do; I have done nothing to give you the
privilege."

Gilmore did not seem at all abashed at this reproof.

"If you want to go to the trial I'll take you, and I'll agree to make it
all right with Marsh afterward; what do you say?" he asked.

Evelyn smiled brightly, but she did not explain to him the utter
impossibility of their appearing in public together either at the North
trial or anywhere else for the matter of that; there were bounds set
even to her reckless disregard of what Mount Hope held to be right and
proper.

"Oh, no, you're very kind, but I don't think I should care to see poor
Jack now."

She gave a little shiver of horror as if at the mere idea. This was for
the gambler, but her real feeling was far deeper than he, suspicious as
he was, could possibly know.

"Why do you 'poor Jack' him to me?" said Gilmore sullenly.

Evelyn opened her fine eyes in apparent astonishment.

"He is one of my oldest friends. I have known him all my life!" she
said.

"Well, one's friends should keep out of the sort of trouble he's made
for himself," observed Gilmore in surly tones.

"Yes,--perhaps--" answered Evelyn absently.

"Look here, I don't want to talk to you about North anyhow; can't we hit
on some other topic?" asked Gilmore.

It maddened him even to think of the part the accused man had played in
her life.

"Why have you and Marsh turned against him?" she asked.

The gambler considered for an instant.

"Do you really want to know? Well, you see he wasn't square; that does a
man up quicker than anything else."

"I don't believe it!" she cried.

"It's so,--ask Marsh; we found him to be an all-right crook; then's when
we quit him," he said, nodding and smiling grimly.

There was something in his manner which warned her that his real meaning
was intentionally obscured. She remembered that Marsh had once boasted
of having proof that she was in North's rooms the afternoon of the
murder and it flashed across her mind that if any one really knew of her
presence there it was Gilmore himself. She studied him furtively, and
she observed that his black waxed mustache shaded a pair of lips that
wore a mirthless smile, and what had at first been no more than an
undefined suspicion grew into a certainty. Gilmore shifted uneasily in
his chair. He felt that since their last meeting he had lost ground with
her.

"What's the matter,--why do you keep me at arm's length; what have I
done, anyhow?" he asked impatiently.

"Do I keep you at arm's length? Well, perhaps you need to be kept
there," she said.

"You should know what brings me here,--why it is I can't keep away--"

"How should I know, unless you tell me?" she said softly.

Gilmore bent toward her, his eyes lustrous with suppressed feeling.

"Isn't that another of your little jokes, Evelyn? Do you really want me
to tell you?"

"I am dying with curiosity!"

Voice and manner seemed to encourage, and the gambler felt his heart
leap within him.

"Well, I guess it's principally to see you!" he muttered, but his lips
quivered with emotion.

She laughed.

"Just see how mistaken one may be, Andy; I thought all along it was
Marsh!"

At her use of his Christian name his heavy face became radiant. His
purposes were usually allied to an admirable directness of speech that
never left one long in doubt as to his full meaning.

"Look here, aren't you about sick of Marsh?" he asked. "How long are you
going to stand for this sort of thing? You have a right to expect
something better than he has to offer you!"

She met the glance of his burning black eyes with undisturbed serenity,
but a cruel smile had come again to the corners of her mouth. She was
preparing to settle her score with Gilmore in a fashion he would not
soon forget. One of her hands rested on the arm of her chair, and the
gambler's ringed fingers closed about it; but apparently she was unaware
of this; at least she did not seek to withdraw it.

"By God, you're pretty!" he cried.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

"Mean,--don't you know that I love you? Have I got to make it plain that
I care for you,--that you are everything to me?" he asked, bending
toward her.

"So you care a great deal about me, do you, Andy?" she asked slowly.

"I like to hear you call me that!" he said with a deep breath.

"What is it, Andy--what do you want?" she continued.

"You--you!" he said hoarsely; his face was white, he had come to the end
of long days of hope and doubt; he had battered down every obstacle that
stood in his path and he was telling her of his love, nor did she seem
unwilling to hear him. "You are the whole thing to me! I have loved you
always--ever since I first saw you! Tell me you'll quit this place with
me--I swear I'll make you happy--"

His face was very close to hers, and guessing his purpose she snatched
away her hand. Then she laughed.

As the sound of her merriment fell on Gilmore's startled ears, there
swiftly came to him the consciousness that something was wrong.

"You and your love-making are very funny, Mr. Gilmore; but there is one
thing you don't seem to understand. There is such a thing as taste in
selection even when it has ceased to be a matter of morals. I don't like
you, Mr. Gilmore. You amused me, but you are merely tiresome now."

She spoke with deliberate contempt, and his face turned white and then
scarlet, as if under the sting of a lash.

"If you were a man--" he began, infuriated by the insolence of her
speech.

"If I were a man I should be quite able to take care of myself.
Understand, I am seeing you for the last time--"

"Yes, by God, you are!" he cried.

His face was ashen. He had come to his feet, shaken and uncertain. It
was as if each word of hers had been a stab.

"I am glad we can agree so perfectly on that point. Will you kindly
close the hail door as you go out?"

She turned from him and took up a book from the table at her elbow.
Gilmore moved toward the door, but paused irresolutely. His first
feeling of furious rage was now tempered by a sense of coming loss. This
was to be the end; he was never to see her again! He swung about on his
heel. She was already turning the leaves of her book, apparently
oblivious of his presence.

"Am I to believe you--" he faltered.

She looked up and her eyes met his. There was nothing in her glance to
indicate that she comprehended the depth of his suffering.

"Yes," she said, with a drawing in of her full lips.

"When I leave you--if you really mean that--it will be to leave Mount
Hope!" said he appealingly.

The savage vigor that was normally his had deserted him, his very pride
was gone; a sudden mistrust of himself was humbling him; he felt
wretchedly out of place; he was even dimly conscious of his own baseness
while he was for the moment blinded to the cruelty of her conduct. Under
his breath he cursed himself. By his too great haste, by a too great
frankness he had fooled away his chances with her.

"That is more than I dared hope," Evelyn rejoined composedly.

"If I've offended you--" began Gilmore.

"Your presence offends me," she interrupted and looked past him to the
door.

"You don't mean what you say--Evelyn--" he said earnestly.

"My cook might have been flattered by your proposal; but why you should
have thought I would be, is utterly incomprehensible."

Gilmore's face became livid on the instant. A storm of abuse rushed to
his lips but he held himself in check. Then without a word or a glance
he passed from the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE HOUSE OF CARDS

The long day had been devoted to the choosing of the twelve men who
should say whether John North was innocent or guilty, but at last court
adjourned and Marshall Langham, pushing through the crowd that was
emptying itself into the street, turned away in the direction of his
home.

For no single instant during the day had he been able to take his eyes
from his father's face. He had heard almost nothing of what was said, it
was only when the coldly impersonal tones of the judge's voice reached
him out of, what was to him silence, that he was stung to a full
comprehension of what was going on about him. The faces of the crowd had
blended until they were as indistinguishable as the face of humanity
itself. For him there had been but the one tragic presence in that dingy
room; and now--as the dull gray winter twilight enveloped him,--wherever
he turned his eyes, on the snow-covered pavement, in the bare branches
of the trees,--there he saw, endlessly repeated, the white drawn face of
his father.

His capacity for endurance seemed to measure itself against the slow
days. A week--two weeks--and the trial would end, but how? If the
verdict was guilty, North's friends would still continue their fight for
his life. He must sustain himself beyond what he felt to be the utmost
limit of his powers; and always, day after day, there would be that face
with its sunken eyes and bloodless lips, to summon him into its
presence.

He found himself at his own door, and paused uncertainly. He passed a
tremulous hand before his eyes. Was he sure of Gilmore,--was he sure of
Evelyn, who must know that North was innocent? The thought of her roused
in him all his bitter sense of hurt and injury. North had trampled on
his confidence and friendship! The lines of his face grew hard. This was
to be his revenge,--his by every right, and his fears should rob him of
no part of it!

He pushed open the door and entered the unlighted hail, then with a
grumbled oath because of the darkness, passed on into the sitting-room.
Except for such light as a bed of soft coal in the grate gave out, the
room was clothed in uncertainty. He stumbled against a chair and swore
again savagely. He was answered by a soft laugh, and then he saw Evelyn
seated in the big arm-chair at one side of the fireplace.

"Did you hurt yourself, Marsh?" she asked.

Langham growled an unintelligible reply and dropped heavily into a
chair. He brought with him the fumes of whisky and stale tobacco, and as
these reached her across the intervening space Evelyn made a little
grimace in the half light.

"I declare, Marsh, you are hardly fit to enter a respectable house!" she
said.

In spite of his doubt of her, they were not on the worst of terms, there
were still times when he resumed his old role of the lover, when he held
her drifting fancy in something of the potent spell he had once been
able to weave about her. Whatever their life together, it was far from
commonplace, with its poverty and extravagance, its quarrelings and its
reconciliations, while back of it all, deep-rooted in the very dregs of
existence, was his passionate love. Even his brutal indifference was but
one of the many phases of his love; it was a manifestation of his revolt
against his sense of dependence, a dependence which made it possible for
him to love where his faith was destroyed and his trust gone absolutely.
Evelyn was vaguely conscious of this and she was not sure but that she
required just such a life as theirs had become, but that she would have
been infinitely bored with a man far more worth while than Marshall
Langham. From his seat by the fire Langham scowled across at her, but
the scowl was lost in the darkness.

"Your father was here last evening, Marsh," Evelyn said at length,
remembering she had not seen him the night before, and that he had
breakfasted and gone before she was up that morning.

"What did he come for?" her husband asked.

"I think to see you. Poor man, he doesn't seem able to get the run of
the hours you keep; I told him he could always find you here between
four and eight in the morning. I must say this little insight into your
domestic habits appeared to distress him, but I tried to comfort him,--I
told him you would probably outlive us all." She laughed softly. "Andy
was here this afternoon, Marsh," she went on.

"What the devil did he want?"

"I don't know."

"Is he coming back?"

"He didn't mention it, if he is." And again she laughed.

Langham moved impatiently; her low full-throated mirth jarred on his
somber mood.

"Were you in court to-day, Marsh?" she inquired, after a short silence.

"Yes," he answered briefly.

"Were there many there?"

"Yes."

"Any ladies, Marsh?" she questioned, with sudden eagerness.

"If you can call them that," he growled.

"Do you know, Marsh, I had a strong impulse to go, too. Would you have
been astonished to see me there?" she asked tentatively.

"We won't have any of that,--do you understand?" he said with fierce
authority.

"Why not? It's as right for me as it is for any one else, isn't it?"

"I won't _have_ it!" he said, lifting his voice slightly.

She had risen and now stood leaning against the arm of his chair.

"Marsh, he didn't kill McBride; he couldn't,--he wouldn't harm a mouse!"

Her words set him raging.

"Keep quiet, will you,--what do you know about it, anyhow?" he cried
with sullen ferocity.

"Don't be rude, Marsh! So you don't want me to come to the trial,--you
tell me I can't?"

"Did my father say anything about this matter,--the trial, I mean?"
asked Langham haltingly.

"Yes, I think he spoke of it, but I really wasn't interested because you
see I am so sure John North is innocent!"

He caught one of her hands in his and drew her down on the arm of his
chair where he could look into her eyes.

"There is just one question I want to ask you, Evelyn, but I expect
you'll answer it as you choose," he said, with his face close to hers.

"Then why ask it?" she said.

"Why,--because I want to know. Where were you on the day of the
murder,--between five and six o'clock?"

"I _wish_ you'd let me go, Marsh; you're hurting me--" she complained.

She struggled for a moment to release herself from his grasp, then
realizing that her effort was of no avail, she quietly resumed her
former position on the arm of his chair.

"You must answer my question, come--where were you?" Langham commanded.

He brought his face close to hers and she saw that his eyes burnt with
an unhealthy light.

"How silly of you, Marsh, you know it was Thanksgiving day,--that we
dined with your father."

"I am not asking you about that,--that was later!"

"I suppose I was on my way there at the hour you mention."

"No, you weren't; you were in North's rooms!"

"If you were not drunk, I should be angry with you, Marsh,--you are
insulting--"

He quitted his hold on her and staggered to his feet.

"You were with North--" he roared.

"Do you want the servants to hear you?" she asked in an angry whisper.

"Hell!"

He made a step toward her, his hand raised.

"Don't do that, Marsh. I should never forgive you!"

Evelyn faced him, meeting his wild glance with unshaken composure. The
clenched hand fell at his side.

"My God, I ought to kill you!" he muttered.

She made him no answer, but kept her eyes fixed steadily on his face.

"You _were_ with North!" Langham repeated.

"Well, since you wish me to say it, I was with John North, but what of
that?"

"In his rooms--" he jerked out.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20