The Just and the Unjust Part 33

"What do you mean by these threats?" cried Langham.

The gambler laughed in his face.

"You've paid me all you owe me, but I want to ask you just one question.

Where did you get the money?"

"That," said Langham, steadying himself by a mighty effort, "is none of your business!"

"Think not?" and again Gilmore laughed, but before his eyes, fierce, compelling, Langham's glance wavered and fell.

"I got the money from my father," he muttered huskily.

"You're a liar!" said the gambler. "I know where you got that money, and you know I know." There was a long pause, and then Gilmore jerked out:

"But don't you worry about that. In your own fas.h.i.+on you have been my friend, and it's dead against my creed to go back on a friend unless he tries to throw me down; so don't you make the mistake of doing that, or I'll spoil your luck! You think you got North where you want him; don't you be too sure of that! There's one person, just one, who can clear him, at least there's only one who is likely to try, and I'll tell you who it is--it's your wife--" For an instant Langham thought Gilmore had taken leave of his senses, but the gambler's next question filled him with vague terror.

"Where was she late that afternoon, do you know?"

"What afternoon?" asked Langham.

Gilmore gave him a contemptuous glance.

"Thanksgiving afternoon, the afternoon of the murder," he snapped.

"She was at my father's, she dined there," said Langham slowly.

"That may be true enough, but she didn't get there until after six o'clock--I'll bet you what you like on that, and I'll bet you, too, that I know where she was from five to six. Do you take me up? No? Of course you don't! Well, I'll tell you all the same. She was in North's rooms--"

"You lie, d.a.m.n you!" cried Langham, springing to his feet. He made an ineffectual effort to seize Gilmore by the throat, but the gambler thrust him aside with apparent ease.

"Don't try that or you'll get the worst of it, Marsh; you've been soaking up too much whisky to be any good at that game with me!" said Gilmore.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She was in North's rooms--"]

His manner was cool and determined. He took Langham roughly by the shoulders and threw him back in his chair. The lawyer's face was ghastly in the gray light that streamed in through the windows, but he had lost his sense of personal fear in another and deeper and less selfish emotion. Yet he realized the gambler's power over him, the power of a perfect and absolute knowledge of his most secret and hidden concerns.

Gilmore surveyed him with a glance of quiet scorn.

"It was about half past five when she turned up at North's rooms. He had just come up the stairs ahead of her; I imagine he knew she was coming.

I guess I could tell you a few things you don't know! All during the summer and fall they've been meeting on the quiet--" he laughed insolently. "Oh, you have been all kinds of a fool, Marsh; I guess you've got on to the fact at last. And I don't wonder you are anxious to see North hang, and that you won't go near him; I'd kill him if I stood in your place. But maybe we can fix it so the law will do that job for you. It seems to have the whip-hand with him just now. Well, he was the whole thing with your wife when she went away this fall and then he began to take up with the general's girl--sort of to keep his hand in, I suppose--the d.a.m.n fool! For she ain't a patch on your wife. I guess Mrs.

Langham had been tipped off to this new deal--that's what brought her back to Mount Hope in such a hurry, and she went to his rooms to have it out with him and learn just where she stood. I was in my bedroom and I could hear them talking through the part.i.tion. It wasn't peaches and cream, for she was rowing all right!"

"It's a lie!" cried Langham, and he strove to rise to his feet, but Gilmore's strong hand kept him in his chair.

"No, I don't lie, Marsh, you ought to know that by this time; but there's just one point you want to get through your head; with your wife's help North can prove an alibi. He won't want to compromise her, or himself with the Herbert girl, for that matter; but how long do you think he's going to keep his mouth shut with the gallows staring him in the face? I'm willing to go as far in this matter as the next, but you got to do your part and pay the price, or I'll throw you down so hard you'll never get over the jar!" His heavy jaws protruded. "Now, I've a notion I want to know your wife. I like her style. I guess you can trust her with me--you ain't afraid of that, are you?"

"Take your hands off me!" cried Langham, struggling fiercely.

He tore at the gambler's wrists, but Gilmore only laughed his tantalizing laugh.

"Oh, come, Marsh, let's get back to the main point. If North's indicted and your wife's summoned as a witness, she's got to chip in with us, she's got to deny that she was in his room that day--you got to see to that, I can't do everything--"

"On your word--"

"Well, you needn't quote me to her--it wouldn't help my standing with her--but ask her where she was between half past five and six the day of the murder; and mind this, you must make her understand she's got to keep still no matter what happens! Put aside the notion that North won't summon her; wait until he is really in danger and then see how quick he squeals!"

"She may have gone to his rooms," said Langham chokingly, "but that doesn't prove anything wrong--"

"Oh, come, Marsh, you ain't fool enough to feel that way about it--"

"Let me up, Gilmore!"

"No, I won't; I'm trying to make you see things straight for your own good. What's the matter, anyhow; don't you and your wife get on?"

Langham's face was purple with rage and shame, while his eyes burned with a murderous hate. Rude hands had uncovered his hidden sore; yet ruder speech was making mock of the disgraceful secret. It was of his wife that this coa.r.s.e bully was speaking! That what he said was probably true--Evelyn herself had admitted much--did not in the least ease the blow that had crushed his pride and self-respect. He lay back in his chair, limp and panting under Gilmore's strong hands. Where was his own strength of heart and arm that he should be left powerless in this moment of unspeakable degradation?

"It behooves you to do something more than soak up whisky," said the gambler. "You must find out what took your wife to North's rooms, and you must make her keep quiet no matter what happens. If you go about it right it ought to be easy, for they had some sort of a row and he's mixed up with the Herbert girl; you got that to go on. Now, the question is, is she mad enough to see him go to the penitentiary or hang without opening her mouth to save him? Come, you should know something about her by this time; I would, if I had been married to her as long as you have."

Suddenly he released Langham and fell back a step. The lawyer staggered to his feet, adjusting his collar and cravat which Gilmore's grasp on his throat had disarranged. He glanced about him with a vague notion of obtaining some weapon that would put him on an equality with his more powerful antagonist, but nothing offered, and he took a step toward the door.

"Don't be a fool, Marsh," said the gambler coldly. "I'm going to change my tactics with you. I'm not going to wear myself out keeping your nose pointed in the right direction; you must do something for yourself, you drunken fool!"

Langham took another step toward the door, but his eyes--the starting bloodshot eyes of a hunted animal--still searched the room for some weapon. Except for the heavy iron poker by the grate, there was nothing that would serve his purpose, and he must pa.s.s the gambler to reach that. Still fumbling with his collar he paused irresolutely, midway of the room. Pride and self-respect would have taken him from the place but hate and fear kept him there.

Gilmore threw himself down in a chair before the fire and lit a cigar.

In spite of himself Langham watched him, fascinated. There was such conscious power and mastery in everything the gambler did, that he felt the various purposes that were influencing him collapse with miserable futility. What was the use of struggling?

"You can do as you blame please in this matter, Marsh," said the gambler at length. "I haven't meant to offend you or insult you, but if you want to see it that way--all right, it suits me. You needn't look about you, for you won't find any sledges here; you ought to know that."

"What do you mean--" asked Langham in a whisper.

"Draw up a chair and sit down, Marsh, and we'll thrash this thing out if it takes all night. Here, have a cigar!" for Langham had drawn forward a chair. With trembling fingers he took the cigar the gambler handed him.

"Now light up," said Gilmore. He watched Langham strike a match, watched his shaking hands as he brought its flame to the cigar's end. "That's better," he said as the first puff of smoke left Langham's colorless lips. "So you think you want to know what I mean, eh? Well, I'm going to take you into my confidence, Marsh, and just remember you can't possibly reach the poker without having me on top of you before you get to it! You were pretty sober for you the afternoon of the murder, not more than half shot, we'll say, but later on when you hunted me up at the McBride house, you were as drunk as you will ever be, and s...o...b..ring all sorts of foolishness!"

He puffed his cigar in silence for a moment. Langham's had gone out and he was nervously chewing the end of it.

"What did I say?" he asked at length.

"Oh, all sorts of d.a.m.n nonsense. You're smart enough sober, but get you drunk and you ain't fit to be at large!"

"What did I say?" repeated Langham.

"Better let me forget that," rejoined Gilmore significantly. "And look here, Marsh, I was sweating blood Sat.u.r.day when they had Nelson on the stand, but it's clear he had no suspicion that my rooms were occupied on the night of the murder. You were blue about the gills while Moxlow was questioning him, and I don't wonder; as I tell you, I wasn't comfortable myself, for I knew well enough how that bit of burnt bond got into the ash barrel--"

"Hus.h.!.+ For G.o.d's sake--" whispered Langham in uncontrollable terror.

Gilmore laughed.

"My lord, man, you got to keep your nerve! Look here, Mount Hope ain't going to talk of anything but the McBride murder; you are going to hear it from morning to night, and that's one of the reasons you got to keep sober. You've done your best so far to queer yourself, and unless you listen to reason you may do it yet."