Room 13
keeping his eye upon the new-comer.
“How long have you bin here?” he asked at length.
“I arrived at the tail-end of your conversation,” said Johnny, amused.
“Barney, you haven’t reformed!”
Barney Ford screwed up his face into an expression of scorn.
“They think you’re a hook even if you ain’t one,” he said. “What does
she know about life? You ain’t seen Peter? He’s in the house; I’ll
tell him in a minute. _He’s_ all right. All beans and bacon about the
girl. That fellow adores the ground she walks on. It’s not natural,
being fond of your kids like that. I never was.” He shook his head
despairingly. “There’s too much lovey-dovey and not enough strap
nowadays. Spare the rod and spoil the child, as the good old poet
says.”
John Gray turned his head at the sound of a foot upon a stone step. It
was Peter, Peter radiant yet troubled. Straight as a ramrod, for all
his sixty years and white hair. He was wearing a morning coat and
pearl-grey waistcoat--an innovation. For a second he hesitated, the
smile struck from his face, frowning, and then he came quickly his
hand outstretched.
“Well, Johnny boy, had a rotten time?”
His hand fell on the young man’s shoulder, his voice had the old
measure of pride and affection.
“Fairly rotten,” said Johnny; “but any sympathy with me is wasted.
Personally, I prefer Dartmoor to Parkhurst--it is more robust, and
there are fewer imbeciles.”
Peter took his arm and led him to a chair beneath the big Japanese
umbrella planted on the lawn. There was something in his manner, a
certain awkwardness which the new-comer could not understand.
“Did you meet anybody… there… that I know, Johnny boy?”
“Legge,” said the other laconically, his eyes on Peter’s face.
“That’s the man I’m thinking of. How is he?”
The tone was careless, but Johnny was not deceived. Peter was
intensely interested.
“He’s been out six months--didn’t you know?”
The other’s face clouded.
“Out six months? Are you sure?”
Johnny nodded.
“I didn’t know.”
“I should have thought you would have heard from him,” said John
quietly. “He doesn’t love you!”
Peter’s slow smile broadened.
“I know he doesn’t; did you get a chance of talking with him?”
“Plenty of chances. He was in the laundry, and he straightened a
couple of screws so that he could do what he liked. He hates you,
Peter. He says you shopped him.”
“He’s a liar,” said Peter calmly. “I wouldn’t shop my worst enemy. He
shopped himself. Johnny, the police get a reputation for smartness,
but the truth, is every other criminal arrests himself. Criminals
aren’t clever. They wear gloves to hide their finger-prints, and then
write their names in the visitors’ book. Legge and I smashed the
strong-room of the _Orsonic_ and got away with a hundred and twenty
thousand pounds in American currency--it was the last job I did. It
was dead easy getting away, but Emanuel started boasting what a clever
fellow he was; and he drank a bit. An honest man can drink and wake up
in his own bed. But a crook who drinks says good morning to the
gaoler.”
He dropped the subject abruptly, and again his hand fell on the
younger man’s shoulder.
“Johnny, you’re not feeling sore, are you?”
Johnny did not answer.
“Are you?”
And now the fight was to begin. John Gray steeled himself for the
forlorn hope.
“About Marney? No, only----”
“Old boy, I had to do it.” Peter’s voice was urgent, pleading. “You
know what she is to me. I liked you well enough to take a chance, but
after they dragged you I did some hard thinking. It would have smashed
me, Johnny, if she’d been your wife then. I couldn’t bear to see her
cry even when she was quite a little baby. Think what it would have
meant to her. It was bad enough as it was. And then this fellow came
along--a good, straight, clean, cheery fellow--a gentleman. And well,
I’ll tell you the truth--I helped him. You’ll like him. He’s the sort
of man anybody would like. And she loves him, Johnny.”
There was a silence.
“I don’t bear him any ill-will. It would be absurd if I did. Only,
Peter, before she marries I want to say----”
“Before she marries?” Peter Kane’s voice shook. “John, didn’t Barney
tell you? She was married this morning.”
CHAPTER III
“Married?”
Johnny repeated the word dully.
Marney married…! It was incredible, impossible to comprehend. For a
moment the stays and supports of existence dissolved into dust, and
the fabric of life fell into chaos.
“Married this morning, Johnny. You’ll like him. He isn’t one of us,
old boy. He’s as straight as… well, you understand, Johnny boy? I’ve
worked for her and planned for her all these years; I’d have been
rotten if I took a chance with her future.”
Peter Kane was pleading, his big hand on the other’s shoulder, his
fine face clouded with anxiety and the fear that he had hurt this man
beyond remedy.
“I should have wired…”
“It would have made no difference,” said Peter Kane almost doggedly.
“Nothing could have been changed, Johnny, nothing. It had to be. If
you had been convicted innocently--I don’t say you weren’t--I couldn’t
have the memory of your imprisonment hanging over her; I couldn’t have
endured the uncertainty myself. Johnny, I’ve been crook all my
life--up to fifteen years ago. I take a broader view than most men
because I am what I am. But she doesn’t know that. Craig’s here
to-day----”
“Craig--the Scotland Yard man?”
Peter nodded, a look of faint amusement in his eyes.
“We’re good friends; we have been for years. And do you know what he
said this morning? He said, ‘Peter, you’ve done well to marry that
girl into the straight way,’ and I know he’s right.”
Johnny stretched back in the deep cane chair, his hand shading his
eyes, as though he found the light too strong for him.
“I’m not going to be sorry for myself,” he said with a smile, and
stretching out his hand, gripped Kane’s arm. “You’ll not have another
vendetta on your hands, Peter. I have an idea that Emanuel Legge will
keep you busy----”
He stopped suddenly. The ill-fitted butler had made a stealthy
appearance.
“Peter,” he began in his husky whisper, “he’s come. Do you want to see
him?”
“Who?”
“Emanuel Legge--uglier than ever.”
Peter Kane’s face set, mask-like.
“Where is Miss Marney--Mrs. Floyd?”
“She’s gettin’ into her weddin’ things and falderals for the
photogrypher,” said Barney. “She had ’em off once, but the
photogrypher’s just come, and he’s puttin’ up his things in the front
garden. I sez to Marney----”
“You’re a talkative old gentleman,” said Peter grimly. “Send Emanuel
through. Do you want to see him, Johnny?”
John Gray rose.
“No,” he said. “I’ll wander through your alleged rosary. I want
nothing to remind me of The Awful Place, thank you.”
Johnny had disappeared through an opening of the box hedge at the
lower end of the lawn when Barney returned with the visitor.
Mr. Emanuel Legge was a man below middle height, thin of body and
face, grey and a little bald. On his nose perched a pair of
horn-rimmed spectacles. He stood for a second or two surveying the
scene, his chin lifted, his thin lips drawn in between his teeth. His
attire was shabby, a steel chain served as a watch-guard, and, as if
to emphasise the rustiness of his wrinkled suit, he wore boots that
were patently new and vividly yellow. Hat in hand, he waited, his eyes
slowly sweeping the domain of his enemy, until at last they came to
rest upon his host.
It was Peter Kane who broke the deadly silence.
“Well, Emanuel? Come over and sit down.”
Legge moved slowly toward his host.
“Quite a swell place, Peter. Everything of the best, eh? Trust you!
Still got old Barney, I see. Has he reformed too? That’s the word,
ain’t it--‘reformed’?”
His voice was thin and complaining. His pale blue eyes blinked coldly
at the other.
“He doesn’t go thieving any more, if that is what you mean,” said
Peter shortly, and a look of pain distorted the visitor’s face.
“Don’t use that word; it’s low----”
“Let me take your hat.” Peter held out his hand, but the man drew his
away.
“No, thanks. I promised a young friend of mine that I wouldn’t lose
anything while I was here. How long have you been at this place,
Peter?”
“About fourteen years.”
Peter sat down, and the unwelcome guest followed his example, pulling
his chair round so that he faced the other squarely.
“Ah!” he said thoughtfully. “Living very comfortable, plenty to eat,
go out and come in when you like. Good way of spending fourteen years.
Better than having the key on you four o’clock in the afternoon.
Princetown’s the same old place--oh, I forgot you’d never been there.”
“I’ve motored through,” said Peter coolly, deliberately, and knew that
he had touched a raw place before the lips of the man curled back in a
snarl.
“Oh, you’ve motored through!” he sneered. “I wish I’d known; I’d have
hung my flags out! They ought to have decorated Princetown that day,
Peter. You drove through!” he almost spat the words.
“Have a cigar?”
Emanuel Legge waved aside the invitation.
“No, thanks. I’ve got out of the habit--you do in fifteen years. You
can get into some, too. Fifteen years is a long time out of a life.”
So Emanuel had come to make trouble, and had chosen his day well.
Peter took up the challenge.
“The man you shot would have been glad of a few--he died two years
after,” he said curtly, and all the pent fury of his sometime comrade
flamed in his eyes.
“I hope he’s in hell,” he hissed, “the dirty flattie!” With an effort
he mastered himself. “You’ve had a real good time, Peter? Nice house,
that wasn’t bought for nothing. Servants and what not _and_ motoring
through the moor! You’re clever!”
“I admit it.”
The little man’s hands were trembling, his thin lips twitched
convulsively.
“Leave your pal in the lurch and get away yourself, eh? Every man for
himself--well, that’s the law of nature, ain’t it? And if you think
he’s going to squeak, send a line to the busies in charge of the case
and drop a few hundred to ’em and there you are!” He paused, but no
reply came. “That’s how it’s done, ain’t it, Peter?”
Kane shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“I don’t know--I’m never too old to learn.”
“But that’s the way it’s done?” insisted the man, showing his teeth
again. “That’s the way you keep out of boob, ain’t it?”
Peter looked at his tormentor, outwardly untroubled.
“I won’t argue with you,” he said.
“You can’t,” said the other. “I’m logical.” He gazed around. “This
house cost a bit of money. What’s half of two hundred thousand? I’m a
bad counter!” Peter did not accept the opening. “It’s a hundred
thousand, ain’t it? I got sixty thousand--you owe me forty.”
“We got less than a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, if you’re
talking about the ship job. You got sixty thousand, which was more
than your share. I paid it into your bank the day you went down.”
Legge smiled sceptically.
“The newspapers said a million dollars,” he murmured.
“You don’t believe what you read in the newspapers, do you? Emanuel,
you’re getting childish.” Then suddenly: “Are you trying to put the
black on me?”
“Blackmail?” Emanuel was shocked. “There’s honour amongst--friends
surely, Peter. I only want what’s right and fair.”
Peter laughed softly, amusedly.
“Comic, is it? You can afford to laugh at a poor old fellow who’s been
in ‘stir’ for fifteen years.”
The master of Manor Hill snapped round on him.
“If you’d been in hell for fifty I should still laugh.”
Emanuel was sorry for himself. That was ever a weakness of his; he
said as much.
“You wouldn’t, would you? You’ve got a daughter, haven’t you? Young?
Married to-day, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Married money--a swell?”
“Yes. She married a good man.”