The Avalanche: A Mystery Story Part 15

"Well--you say you had a talk with Madame Delano to-day. Surely you can tell me some of the things you have discovered."

"A whole lot. I've been waiting for the chance. Not that I got anything out of her. She's one grand bluffer and no mistake. I take off my hat to her. When I told her that I could lay hands on the proof that she was Marie Garnett--although Jim had married her in his home town under his own name--and that she'd gone home to France with the kid when it was five, taking the cue from her friend, Mrs. Lawton, and sending word back she was dead--"

"You were equally sure a few days ago that she was Mrs. Lawton--"

"That was just my constructive imagination on the loose. It was a lovely theory, and I sort of hung on to it. But I had no real data to go on. Now I've got the evidence that Jim Garnett died two months before the fire burnt up pretty nearly all the records, and that his body was s.h.i.+pped back to Holbrook Centre to be buried in the family plot. You see, he was sick for some time out on Pacific Avenue, and his death was registered where the fire didn't go--"

"But what put you on?" asked Ruyler impatiently. "I should almost rather it had been any one else. He seems to have been about as bad a lot as even this town ever turned out."

"He was, all right, and his father before him, although they came from mighty fine folks back east. His father came out in '49 with the gold rush crowd, panned out a good pile, and then, liking the life--San Francisco was a gay little burg those days--opened one of the crack gambling houses down on the Old Plaza. Plate gla.s.s windows you could look through from outside if you thought it best to stay out, and see hundreds of men playing at tables where the gold pieces--often slugs--were piled as high as their noses, and hundreds more walking up and down the aisles either waiting for a chance to sit, or hoping to appease their hunger with the sight of so much gold. They didn't try any funny business, for every gambler had a six-shooter in his hip pocket, and sometimes on the table beside him.

"Sometimes men would walk out and shoot themselves on the sidewalk in front of the windows, and not a soul inside would so much as look up.

Well, Delano the first had a short life but a merry one. He couldn't keep away from the tables himself, and first thing he knew he was broke, sold up. He went back to the mines, but his luck had gone, and his wife--she had followed him out here--persuaded him to go back home and live in the old house, on a little income she had; and he bored all the neighbors to death for a few years about 'early days in California' until he dropped off. Her name was Mary Garnett.

"That's what put me on--the G. in the middle of the name of the man Madame Delano married. I telegraphed to Holbrook Centre to find out what his middle name was, and after that it was easy. I also found out that he was born in California, and I guess that old wild life was in his blood.

He stood Holbrook Centre until he was sixteen, and then homed back and took up the trade he just naturally had inherited.

"I figger out that he didn't tell his wife the truth when he married her back there, not until he was on the train pretty close to S.F., and then he told her because he couldn't help himself. She couldn't help herself, either, and besides she was in love with him. He was a handsome, distinguished lookin' chap, and he kept right on bein' a fascinator as long as he lived.

"I guess that's the reason she left him in the end. She stood for the gambling joint, and, although she had a cool sarcastic way with her that kept the men who fell for her at a distance, she was a good decoy, and she looked a regular queen at the head of the green table. She was chummy with Jim's intimates, two of whom were D.V. Bimmer and 'Gene Bisbee, but even 'Gene didn't dare take any liberties with her.

"It was natural that a woman brought up as she had been should have kept her child out of it, and I figger that she got disgusted with Jim and came to the full sense of her duty to the poor kid about the same time.

But she didn't go until Jim settled so much a month on her through old Lawton--who used to amuse himself at Garnett's a good deal in those days, and who was one of her best friends.

"Well, she also got Garnett to make a curious sort of a will, leaving his money to James Lawton, to 'dispose of as agreed upon.' She had a thrifty business head, had that French dame, and she had made him buy property when he was flush, and put it in her name, although she gave a written agreement never to sell out as long as he lived.

"He agreed to let her go because he was dippy about another skirt at the time, and, besides, she played on his family pride--lineal descendant of the Delanos, Garnetts, and so forth. He'd never seen the kid after it was taken to the convent, but I guess he liked the idea, all right, of its being brought up wearing the old name, and gettin' rid of Marie at the same time.

"She was too canny to leave him a loophole for divorce, even in California; but I guess that didn't worry him much.

"If the earthquake and fire hadn't come so soon after the will was probated there might have been a lot of speculation about it, among men, at least. Those old gossips in the Club windows would soon have been putting two and two together; but the calamity that burnt up all the Club windows, just swept it clean out of their heads.

"I figger out that old Lawton continued to pay Madame Delano the income she'd been havin' both from Jim and her properties, out of his own pocket, until the city was rebuilt and he could settle the estate. He had to borrow the money to rebuild the houses Jim had put up on his wife's property, and when things got to a certain pa.s.s he wrote Madame D. to come along and take over her property. She'll be good and rich one of these days, when all the mortgages are paid off and Lawton paid back, but it was wise for her to stay on the job. Lawton is dead straight, but his partner is sowing wild oats in his old age--good old S.F. style, and I guess it ain't wise to tempt him too far. Get me?"

"It's atrocious!"

"Oh, not nearly so bad as it might be. Just think, if it had been Gabrielle, or Pauline-Marie, or even Mrs. Lawton. That's the worst kind of bad blood for a woman to inherit. Marie Garnett hung on like grim death to what the grand society you move in pretends to value most, and the Lord knows she'll never lose it now.

"Nor need there be any scandal to drive your family to suicide. The thing to do is to hustle Madame Delano out of San Francisco. She'll go, all right, with you to look after her interests. She don't fancy being recognized and blackmailed, or I miss my guess. You may have to pay Bisbee something, but D. V.'s not that sort, and I don't think anybody else is on. If they've suspected they'll soon forget it when the old lady disappears from the Palace Hotel. Gee, but she has a nerve."

"She is an old cynic. If she had any sn.o.bbery in her she'd be here to-night, rubbing elbows with the women who never knew of her existence twenty years ago, although their husbands did. It has satisfied her ironic French soul to sit in the court of the Palace Hotel day after day and defy San Francisco to recognize Marie Garnett in the obese Madame Delano, whose daughter is one of the great ladies of the city to whose underworld she once belonged, and from whose filthy profits she derives her income. Good G.o.d!"

He sat forward and clutched his head, but Spaulding, who had drawn out his watch, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Come on," he said. "Time's gettin' short. The stunt is to be pulled off just before supper."

CHAPTER XII

I

They walked rapidly up the close avenue--planted far back in the Fifties by Ford Thornton's grandfather--the blaze of light at the end of the long perspective growing wider and wider. As they emerged they paused for a moment, dazzled by the scene.

The original home of the Thorntons had been of ordinary American architecture and covered with ivy; it might have been transplanted from some old aristocratic village in the East. Flora Thornton had maintained that only one style of architecture was appropriate in a state settled by the Spaniards, and famous for its missions of Moorish architecture. Fordy loved the old house, but as he denied his wife nothing he had given her a million, three years before the fire which so sadly diminished fortunes, and told her to build any sort of house she pleased; if she would only promise to live in it and not desert him twice a year for Europe.

The immense structure, standing on a knoll, bore a certain resemblance to the Alhambra, with its heavy square towers; its arched gateways leading into courtyards with fountains or sunken pools, the red brown of the stucco which looked like stone and was not. To-night it was blazing with lights of every color.

So were the ancient oaks, which were old when the Alhambra was built, the shrubberies, the vast rose garden. The surface of the pool in the sunken garden reflected the green or red ma.s.ses of light that shot up every few moments from the four corners of the terrace surrounding it.

On the lawn just above and to the right of the house, a platform had been built for dancing; it was enclosed on three sides with an arbor of many alcoves, lined with flowers, soft lights concealed in depending cl.u.s.ters of oranges.

And everywhere there were people dressed in costumes, gorgeous, picturesque, impressive, historic, or recklessly invented, but suggesting every era when dress counted at all. They danced on the great platform to the strains of the invisible band, strolled along the terraces above the sunken garden, wandered through the groves and "grounds," or sat in the windows of the great house or in its courts. All wore the little black satin mask prescribed by Mrs. Thornton, and created an illusion that transported the imagination far from California. Ruyler had a whimsical sense of being on another star where the favored of the different periods of Earth had foregathered for the night.

But there was nothing ghostly in the shrill chatter as incessant as the twitter of the agitated birds, who found their night s.n.a.t.c.hed from them and hardly knew whether to scold or join in the chorus.

Ruyler had always protested against the high-pitched din made by even six American women when gathered together, and to the infernal racket at any large entertainment; but to-night he sighed, forgetting his apprehensions for the moment.

He had exquisite memories of these lovely grounds; he and Helene had spent several days with Mrs. Thornton during their engagement, and she had lent them the house for their honeymoon; he would have liked to wander through the pleasant s.p.a.ces with his wife to-night and make love to her, instead of spying on her in the company of a detective.

For that, he was forced to conclude, was what he had been brought for.

Spaulding had mentioned her name casually, when telling him that he must be on hand to nab the "party" who was at the bottom of the whole trouble; but Spaulding hardly could have watched the person who was blackmailing without including her in his surveillance. He wished now that he had left that part of the mystery to take care of itself, trusting to his mother-in-law's departure to relieve the situation. No doubt she would have told him the truth herself rather than leave her daughter to the mercy of the men who knew her secret.

But he was still far from suspecting the worst of the truth.

There were a number of men in fancy dominoes; he and Spaulding crossed the lawn in front of the house unchallenged and, pa.s.sing under the frowning archway, entered the first of the courts.

The oblong sunken pool was banked with myrtle, and above, as well as in the great inner court with the fountain, there were narrow arcaded windows with fluttering silken curtains. Mrs. Thornton had too satiric a sense of humor to have had the famous arabesques of the Alhambra reproduced any more than the ma.s.sive coats-of-arms above the arches, but the walls were delicately colored, the delicate columns looked like old ivory, and the greatest of the local architects had been entirely successful in combining the ma.s.siveness of the warrior stronghold with the airy lightness and s.p.a.ciousness of the pleasure house.

The bedrooms, Ruyler told Spaulding, were all as modern as they were luxurious, and the library, living-rooms, and dining-room, were in the best American style. Fordy had rebelled at too much "Spanish atmosphere,"

his blood being straight Anglo-Saxon, and Mrs. Thornton always knew when to yield. Nevertheless, Flora Thornton had built the proper setting for her barbaric beauty, and, possibly, spirit.

People were sitting about the courts on piles of colored silken cus.h.i.+ons, those that had got themselves up in Eastern costumes having drifted naturally to the suitable surroundings; for, after all, the Moors had been Mohammedans.

"Don't let's hang round here," said the detective, "and don't stand holding yourself like a ramrod--like that gent out there with the ruff that must be taking the skin off his chin. I kinder thought I'd like to see the whole show, but we'd best go now and wait for our little turn."

He led the way round the building to the rear of the southwest tower.

There was a little grove of jasmine trees just beneath it, that made the air overpoweringly sweet, but there were no lights on this side, as the garages, stables, vegetable gardens, and servants' quarters would have destroyed the picture.

Spaulding glanced about sharply, but there was not even a strolling couple, and even the moon was s.h.i.+ning on the other side of the heavy ma.s.s of buildings.

"Now, listen," he said. "You see this window?"--he indicated one directly over their heads. "At exactly one o'clock, when everybody is flocking to the supper tables on the terraces, I expect some one to lean out of that window and talk to some one who will be waiting just below. There may be no talk, but I think there will be, and I want you to listen to every word of it without so much as drawing a long breath, no matter what is said, until I grab your elbow--like this--then I want you to put up your hand in a hurry while I'm also attendin' to business.

"That's all I'll say now. But by the time a few words have been said, later, I guess you'll be on.

"Now, we must resign ourselves to a long wait without a smoke and to keeping perfectly still. I dared not risk comin' any later for fear the others might be beforehand, too."

Ruyler ground his teeth. He felt ridiculous and humiliated. It was no compensation that he was holding up the wall of a stucco Moorish palace and that some three hundred masked people in fancy dress were within earshot... or did the way he was togged out make him feel all the more absurd? The whole thing was beastly un-American....