Quin Part 14

The entrance of Mr. Martel put an end to the discussion of the Bartletts.

Bitter as was his animosity toward the old lady, he would permit no disrespect to be shown her or hers in his presence. In the garish light of day he looked a trifle less imposing than he had on New Year's eve in the firelight. His long white hair hung straight and dry about his face; baggy wrinkles sagged under his eyes and under his chin. The shoulders that once proudly carried Mark Antony's s.h.i.+ning armor now supported a faded velvet breakfast jacket that showed its original color only in patches. But even in the intimacy of the breakfast hour Papa Claude preserved his air of distinction, the gracious condescension of a temporary sojourner in an environment from which he expected at any moment to take flight.

When Ca.s.s had gone to work and the girls were busy cleaning up the breakfast dishes, he linked his arm in Quin's and drew him into the living-room.

"I have never allowed myself to submit to the tyranny of time!" he said.

"The wine of living should be tasted slowly. Pull up a chair, my boy; I want to talk to you. You don't happen to have a cigar about you, do you?"

"Yes, sir. Here are two. Take 'em both. I got to cut out smoking; it makes me cough."

Mr. Martel, protesting and accepting at the same time, sank into his large chair and bade Quin pull up a rocker. In the Martels' living-room all the chairs were rockers; so, in fact, were the table and the sofa, owing to missing castors.

"I am going to talk to you quite confidentially," began Mr. Martel, giving himself up to the enjoyment of the hour. "I am going to tell you of a new and fascinating adventure upon which I am about to embark. You have doubtless heard me speak of a very wealthy and talented young friend of mine--Mr. Harold Phipps?"

Quin admitted without enthusiasm that he had, and that he also knew him.

"Well, Mr. Phipps,--or Captain, as you probably know him,--after a short medical career has found it so totally distasteful that he is wisely returning to an earlier love. As soon as he gets out of the army he and I are going to collaborate on a play. Of course I have technic at my finger-tips. Construction, dramatic suspense, climax are second nature to me. But I confess I have a fatal handicap, one that has doubtless cost me my place at the head of American dramatists to-day. I have never been able to achieve colloquial dialogue! My style is too finished, you understand, my diction too perfect. Manager after manager has been on the verge of accepting a play, and been deterred solely on account of this too literary quality. I suffer from the excess of my virtue; you see?"

Quin did not see. Mr. Martel's words conveyed but the vaguest meaning to him. But it flattered his vanity to be the recipient of such a great man's confidence.

"Well, here's my point," continued his host impressively. "Mr. Phipps knows nothing of technic, of construction; but he has a sense for character and dialogue that amounts to genius. Now, suppose I construct a great plot, and he supplies great dialogue? What will be the inevitable result? A masterpiece, a little modern masterpiece!"

Mr. Martel, soaring on the wings of his imagination, failed to observe that his listener was not following.

"Does--does Miss Eleanor know about all this?" Quin asked.

"Alas, no. I had no opportunity to tell her. Ah, Mr. Graham, I must confess, it hurts me, it hurts me here,"--he indicated a grease-spot just below his vest pocket,--"to be separated from that dear child just when she needs me most. She should be already embarked in her great career.

Ellen Terry, Bernhardt, Rachel, all began their training very early. If she had been left to me she would be behind the footlights by now."

"They'll never stand for her going on the stage," said Quin authoritatively. It was astonis.h.i.+ng how intimate he felt with the Bartletts since he had put two of them to bed.

"Ah, my friend," said Mr. Martel, shaking his head and smiling, "what can be avoided whose end is purposed by the mighty G.o.ds? Eleanor will follow her destiny. She has the temperament, the voice, the figure--a trifle small, I grant you, but lithe, graceful, pliant as a reed."

"Yes, I know what you mean," Quin agreed ardently; "you can tell that in her dancing."

"But more than all, she has the great ambition, the consuming desire for self-expression, for----"

Quin's face clouded slightly and he again lost the thread of the discourse.

"Lots of girls are stage-struck," he said presently, breaking in on Mr.

Martel's rhapsody. "Miss Eleanor's young yet. Don't you believe she will get over it?"

"Young! Why, Mary Anderson was playing _Meg Merrilies_ when she was two years younger than Eleanor. I tell you, Quinby--you'll forgive my addressing you thus--I tell you, the girl will never get over it. She has inherited the histrionic gift from her mother--from me. The Bartletts have given her money, education, social position; but it remained for me--the despised Claude Martel--to give her the soul of an artist. And mark me,"--he paused effectively with a lifted forefinger,--"it will be Claude Martel who gives her her heart's desire. For years I have fostered in her a love for the drama. I have taken her to see great plays. I have taught her to read great lines, and above all I have fed her ambition.

The time was limited--a night here, a day there; but I planted a seed they cannot kill. It has grown, it will flower; no one can stop it now."

The subject was one upon which Quin would fain have discoursed indefinitely, but a glance at his watch reminded him that the business of the day did not admit of further delay. He not only had an important errand to perform, but he must look for work. His exchequer, as usual, was very low and the need for replenis.h.i.+ng it was imperative.

When he reached Bartlett & Bangs' on the outskirts of the city, the big manufacturing plant was ominously still. The only sign of life about the place was at the wide entrance doors at the end of the yards, where a group of men were talking and gesticulating excitedly.

"What's the s.h.i.+ndy?" Quin asked a bystander.

"Union men trying to keep scabs from going to work," answered his informant. "Somebody's fixin' to get hurt there in about two minutes."

Quin, to whom a sc.r.a.p was always a pleasant diversion, ran forward and craned his neck to see what was happening. Speeches were being made, hot impa.s.sioned speeches, now in favor of the union, now against it, and every moment the excitement increased. Quin listened with absorbed attention, trying to get the straight of the matter.

Just now a sickly-looking man, with a piece of red flannel tied around his throat, was standing on the steps, making a futile effort against the noise to explain his return to work.

"I can't let 'em _starve_," he kept repeating in a hoa.r.s.e, apologetic voice. "When a man's got a sick wife and eight children, he ain't able to do as he likes. I don't want to give in no more 'n you-all do. Neither does Jim here, nor Tom Dawes. But what can we do?"

"Do like the rest of us!" shouted some one in the crowd, "Stick it out!

Learn 'em a lesson. They can't run their bloomin' old plant without us.

Pull him down off them steps, boys!"

"Naw, you don't!" cried another man, seizing a stick and jumping at the steps. "We got a right to do as we like, same as you! Come on up, Tom Dawes! We ain't going to let our families in for the Charity Organization."

Quick cries of "Traitor!" "Scab!" "Pull 'em down!" were succeeded by a lively scrimmage in which there was a rush for the steps.

Quin, from his place at the edge of the crowd, saw a dozen men surround three. He saw the man with the red rag about his throat put up a feeble defense against two a.s.sailants. Then he ceased to see and began only to feel. Whatever the row was about, they weren't fighting fairly, and his blood began to rise. He stood it as long as he could; then, with a cry of protest, he plunged through the crowd. In his sternest top-sergeant voice he issued orders, and enforced them with a brawny fist that was used to handling men. A moment later he dragged a limp victim from under the struggling group.

This unexpected interruption by an unknown man in uniform, together with the appearance of a stern-faced man in spectacles at an upper window, had an instant effect on the crowd. The strikers began to slink out of the yards, while the three a.s.saulted men dusted their clothes and entered the factory.

Quin followed them in, and upon inquiring for the office was directed to the second floor, where he followed devious ways until he reached the door of a large room filled with desks in rows, at each of which sat a clerk.

"Mr. Bangs?" repeated a red-nosed girl, in answer to his inquiry. "Got an appointment?"

"No," said Quin; "but I've got a parcel that's to be delivered in person."

The red-nosed one thereupon consulted the man at the next desk, and, after some colloquy, conducted Quin to one of the small rooms at the rear of the large one.

The next moment Quin found himself face to face with the stern-looking personage whose mere appearance at the window a few minutes before had had such a subduing effect on the crowd below.

As he listened to Quin's message he looked at him narrowly and suspiciously with piercing black eyes that seemed intent on seeking out the weakest spot of whatever they rested upon.

"When did Mr. Bartlett give you these letters?" he asked in a tone as cold as the tinkle of ice against gla.s.s.

"I got 'em last night, sir."

"Where?"

"At his house, when I went to carry word about his mother's accident."

"Close that door back of you," said Mr. Bangs, with a jerk of his head; then he went on, "So Mr. Bartlett was at home when you reached there last night?"

"Oh, _yes_, sir!" Quin a.s.sured him with an emphasis that implied Mr.

Randolph Bartlett's unfailing presence at his own fireside on every Sabbath evening.

"That is strange," Mr. Bangs commented dryly. "Miss Enid Bartlett telephoned an hour ago that her brother and his wife were out of the city."

Quin was visibly embarra.s.sed. He was not used to treading the quicksands of duplicity, and he felt himself sinking.