Jason Part 30

Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.

But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, and then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring across the tangled splendor of the roses.

XXII

A SETTLEMENT REFUSED

Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the rose-gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete nervous breakdown.

It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side, perils both seen and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed until his strength is gone, and he can flee no farther. He imagined himself to be that man s.h.i.+vering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape.

He imagined the morning light to come, very slow and cold and gray, and in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the chase was over and he near done for.

Crouching alone in the garden, with the scent of roses in his nostrils, he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous debts which had hounded him day and night, to his fear to speak of them with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He remembered as if it were yesterday the afternoon upon which he learned of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will, in which he learned that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St.

Honore begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come to him.

What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet for a time how easy of execution! For a time. Now.... He gave another quick s.h.i.+ver, for his mind came back to what beset him and compa.s.sed him round about--perils seen and hidden.

The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the figure of Ste. Marie _who knew_. His reason told him that if due care were used this danger need not be too formidable, and, indeed, in his heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's nerve was broken, and in these days fear swept wavelike over reason and had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness, and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent presence there.

But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected.

As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other, but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once, stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said:

"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard Hartley and I."

It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What invisible nets for his feet?

And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he had become convinced that his movements were being watched--and that would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself. Faces vaguely familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafes.

Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he came out from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at Issy and entered the little rue Barbes which led to La Lierre. Of course, he promptly did the only possible thing under the circ.u.mstances.

He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue beyond, and continued through Clamart to the Meudon wood, as if he were going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.

There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had been, but he pa.s.sed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?

It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to his servant in the rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under the false name by which he had hired the place.

He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen tree-trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of roses. And after a while his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned to Ste. Marie--that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected, until a voice spoke his name.

He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He turned a little on the tree-trunk to see more easily, and the image of his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the daylight.

Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry and he began to tremble very violently, so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet and began to stumble away backward, but a projecting limb of the fallen tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat-pocket, and in his white and contorted face there was murder plain and unmistakable.

Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the poison a week before.

Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty, and Ste. Marie laughed.

"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.

First the cat drinks the poison, and then you leave your pistol at home.

Dear, dear, I'm afraid you're careless."

Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was gray and he was still s.h.i.+vering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had been, after all, only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.

"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out-of-doors."

As a matter of fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.

"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since I was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems to have become a habit of mine--doesn't it?--being your guest." He laughed cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling.

"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit."

But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree-trunk and shook his head.

"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that I know all about the whole affair. Why, bless you, I know it all--even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I remained by accident."

He glanced over his shoulder toward the one-eyed Michel, who stood near-by, regarding the two with some alarm.

Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he sat down upon the tree-trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together, when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments, but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said:

"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you expect to do about it?"

Ste. Marie laughed again.

"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the advantage, though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your side--I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you don't know mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment.

That's where we have the better of you."

"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart, wearily, "that since you are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great accuracy what you will do--and what you will not."

"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie, "it would seem so. It certainly would seem so. But you never can tell, can you?"

And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He said:

"Stewart, listen a moment!"

And the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.

"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there are others, too. I'm a prisoner, yes. I'm helpless here for the present--perhaps, perhaps--but they are not, _and they know, Stewart.

They know_."

Captain Stewart's face remained gray and still, but his hands twisted and shook upon his knees until he hid them.

"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.

"You're waiting--you've got to wait--for Arthur Benham to come of age, or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.

"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We shall have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse to-night--or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of information would be given him that would make another change in that will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would happen."