The Vagrant Duke Part 38

"Right you are," sneered the other.

"It's dirty money, I tell you--b.l.o.o.d.y money. I know it. And I know who you are, Jim Coast."

Coast started up and thrust the roll deep into his trousers pocket.

"You don't know anything," he growled.

Peter got up too. His mind had followed Coast's extraordinary story, and so far as it had gone, believed it to be true. Peter wanted to know what had happened out there at the mine in the desert, but more than that he wanted to know how the destinies of this man affected Beth. And so the thought that had been growing in his mind now found quick utterance.

"I know this--that you've come back to frighten McGuire, but you've also come back to bring misery and shame to others who've lived long in peace and happiness without you----"

"What----?" said Coast incredulously.

"I know who you are. You're Ben Cameron," said Peter distinctly.

The effect of this statement upon Jim Coast was extraordinary. He started back abruptly, overturning a chair, and fell rather than leaned against the bedpost--his eyes staring from a ghastly face.

"What--what did--you say?" he gasped chokingly.

"You're Ben Cameron," said Peter again.

Coast put the fingers of one hand to his throat and straightened slowly, still staring at Peter. Then uneasily, haltingly, he made a sound in his throat that grew into a dry laugh----

"Me--B-Ben Cameron! That's d.a.m.n good. Me--Ben Cameron! Say, Pete, whatever put _that_ into your head?"

"The way you frightened the old woman at the kitchen door."

"Oh!" Coast straightened in relief. "I get you. You've been talkin' to _her_."

"Yes. What did you say to her?"

"I--I just gave her a message for McGuire. I reckon she gave it to him."

"A message?"

"Oh, you needn't say you don't know, Pete. It didn't fetch him. So I put up the placard."

Peter was now more bewildered than Coast. "Do you deny that you're Ben Cameron?" he asked.

Coast pulled himself together and took up his coat.

"Deny it? Sure! I'm not--not him--not Ben Cameron--not Ben Cameron.

Don't I know who I am?" he shouted. Then he broke off with a violent gesture and took up his cap. "Enough of your d.a.m.n questions, I say. I've told you what I've told you. You can believe it or not, as you choose.

I'm Jim Coast to you or Hawk Kennedy, if you like, but don't you go throwin' any more of your dirty jokes my way. Understand?"

Peter couldn't understand but he had had enough of the man. So he pointed toward the door.

"Go," he ordered. "I've had enough of you--get out!"

Coast walked a few paces toward the door, then paused and turned and held out his hand.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, Pete. Don't let's you and me quarrel. You gave me a start back there. I'm sorry. Of course, you knew. You been good to me to-night. I'm obliged. I need you in my business. More'n ever."

"No," said Peter.

"Oh, very well. Suit yourself," said Coast with a shrug. "There's plenty of time. I'll be back in a month or six weeks. Think it over. I've made you a nice offer--real money--to help me a bit. Take it or leave it, as you please. I'll get along without you, but I'd rather have you with me than against me."

"I'm neither," said Peter. "I want nothing to do with it."

Coast shrugged. "I'm sorry. Well, so long. I've got a horse back in the dunes. I'll take the milk train from Hammonton to Philadelphia. You won't tell, Pete?"

"No."

"Good-night."

Peter didn't even reply. And when the man had gone he opened the door and windows to let in the night air. The room had been defiled by the man's very presence. Ben Cameron? Beth's father? The thing seemed impossible, but every fact in Peter's knowledge pointed toward it. And yet what the meaning of Jim Coast's strange actions at the mention of his name? And what were the facts that Jim Coast _didn't_ tell? What had happened at the mine that was too terrible even to speak about? What was the bond between these two men, which held the successful one in terror, and the other in silence? Something unspeakably vile. A hideous pact----

The telephone bell jangled again. Peter rose and went to it. But he was in no humor to talk to McGuire.

"h.e.l.lo," he growled. "Yes--he's gone. I let him go. You told me to....

Yes, he talked--a long while.... No. He won't be back for a month....

We'll talk that over later.... No. Not to-night. I'm going to bed....

No. Not until to-morrow. I've had about enough of this.... All right.

Good-night."

And Peter hung up the receiver, undressed and went to bed.

It had been rather a full day for Peter.

CHAPTER XII

CONFESSION

In spite of his perplexities, Peter slept soundly and was only awakened by the jangling of the telephone bell. But Peter wanted to do a little thinking before he saw McGuire, and he wanted to ask the housekeeper a few questions, so he told McGuire that he would see him before ten o'clock. The curious part of the telephone conversation was that McGuire made no mention of the shooting. "H-m," said Peter to himself as he hung up, "going to ignore that trifling incident altogether, is he? Well, we'll see about that. It doesn't pay to be too clever, old c.o.c.k." His pity for McGuire was no more. At the present moment Peter felt nothing for him except an abiding contempt which could hardly be modified by any subsequent revelations.

Peter ran down to the creek in his bath robe and took a quick plunge, then returned, shaved and dressed while his coffee boiled, thinking with a fresh mind over the events and problems of the night before. Curiously enough, he found that he considered them more and more in their relation to Beth. Perhaps it was his fear for her happiness that laid stress on the probability that Jim Coast was Ben Cameron, Beth's father. How otherwise could Mrs. Bergen's terror be accounted for? And yet why had Coast been so perturbed at the mere mention of Ben Cameron's name? That was really strange. For a moment the man had stared at Peter as though he were seeing a ghost. If he _were_ Ben Cameron, why shouldn't he have acknowledged the fact? Here was the weak point in the armor of mystery.

Peter had to admit that even while Coast was telling his story and the conviction was growing in Peter's mind that this was Beth's father, the very thought of Beth herself seemed to make the relations.h.i.+p grotesque.

This Jim Coast, this picturesque blackguard who had told tales on the _Bermudian_ that had brought a flush of shame even to Peter's cheeks--this degenerate, this scheming blackmailer--thief, perhaps murderer, too, the father of Beth! Incredible! The merest contact with such a man must defile, defame her. And yet if this were the fact, Coast would have a father's right to claim her, to drag her down, a prey to his vile tongue and drunken humors as she had once been when a child.

Her Aunt Tillie feared this. And Aunt Tillie did not know as Peter now did of the existence of the vile secret that sealed Coast's lips and held McGuire's soul in bondage.

Instead of going directly up the lawn to the house Peter went along the edge of the woods to the garage and then up the path, as Coast must have done a few nights before. The housekeeper was in the pantry and there Peter sought her out. He noted the startled look in her eyes at the moment he entered the room and then the line of resolution into which her mouth was immediately drawn. So Peter chose a roundabout way of coming to his subject.

"I wanted to talk to you about Beth, Mrs. Bergen," he began cheerfully.

She offered him a chair but Peter leaned against the windowsill looking out into the gray morning. He told her what he had discovered about her niece's voice, that he himself had been educated in music and that he thought every opportunity should be given Beth to have her voice trained.