Room 13
“He doesn’t know what you are, Peter?” Emanuel asked the question
carelessly, and his host fixed him with a steely glance.
“No. What’s the idea? Do you think you’ll get forty thousand that
way?”
“I’ve got a boy. You’ve never sat in a damp cell with the mists of the
moor hanging on the walls and thought and thought till your heart
ached? You can get people through their children.” He paused. “I could
get you that way.”
In a second Peter Kane was towering above him, an ominous figure.
“The day my heart ached,” he said slowly, “yours would not beat!
You’re an old man, and you’re afraid of death! I can see it in your
eyes. I am afraid of nothing. I’d kill you!”
Before the ferocity of voice and mien, Legge shrank farther into his
chair.
“What’s all this talk about killing? I only want what’s fair. Fond of
her, ain’t you, Peter? I’ll bet you are. They say that you’re crazy
about her. Is she pretty? I don’t suppose she takes after you. Young
Johnny Gray was sweet on her too. Peter, I’ll get you through her----”
So far he got, and then a hand like a steel clamp fell on his neck,
and he was jerked from his chair.
Peter spoke no word but, dragging the squirming figure behind him, as
if it had neither weight nor resistance, he strode up the narrow
pathway by the side of the house, across the strip of garden, through
the gate and into the road. A jerk of his arm, and Emanuel Legge was
floundering in the dusty road.
“Don’t come back, Emanuel,” he said, and did not stop to listen to the
reply.
* * * * *
John Gray passed out of sight and hearing of the two men, being
neither curious to know Legge’s business nor anxious to renew a prison
acquaintance.
Below the box hedge were three broad terraces, blazing with colour,
blanketed with the subtle fragrance of flowers. Beyond that, a sloping
meadow leading to a little river. Peter had bought his property
wisely. A great cedar of Lebanon stood at the garden’s edge; to the
right, massed bushes were patched with purple and heliotrope blooms.
He sat down on a marble seat, glad of the solitude which he shared
only with a noisy thrush and a lark invisible in the blue above him.
Marney was married. That was the beginning and the end of him. But
happy. He recognised his very human vanity in the instant doubt that
she could be happy with anybody but him.
How dear she was! And then a voice came to him, a shrill, hateful
voice. It was Legge’s--he was threatening the girl, and Johnny’s blood
went cold. Here was the vulnerable point in Peter Kane’s armour; the
crevice through which he could be hurt.
He started to his feet and went up the broad steps of the terrace
three at a time. The garden was empty, save for Barney setting a
table. Kane and his guest had disappeared. He was crossing the lawn
when he saw something white shining in the gloom beyond the open
French windows of a room. Something that took glorious shape. A girl
in bridal white, and her hands were outstretched to him. So ethereal,
so unearthly was her beauty, that at first he did not recognise her.
“Johnny!”
A soldierly figure was at her side, Peter Kane was behind her, but he
had no eyes for any but Marney.
She came flying toward him, both his hands were clasped in her warm
palm.
“Oh, Johnny… Johnny!”
Then he looked up into the smiling face of the bridegroom, that fine,
straight man to whom Peter had entrusted his beloved girl. For a
second their eyes met, the debonair Major Floyd and his. Not by a
flicker of eyelash did Johnny Gray betray himself.
The husband of the woman he loved was Jeff Legge, forger and traitor,
the man sworn with his father to break the heart of Peter Kane.
CHAPTER IV
Had he betrayed himself, he wondered? All his will power was
exercised to prevent such a betrayal. Though a tornado of fury swept
through and through him, though he saw the face of the man distorted
and blurred, and brute instinct urged his limbs to savage action, he
remained outwardly unmoved. It was impossible for the beholder to be
sure whether he had paled, for the sun and wind of Dartmoor had tanned
his lean face the colour of mahogany. For a while so terrific was the
shock that he was incapable of speech or movement.
“Major Floyd” was Jeff Legge! In a flash he realised the horrible
plot. This was Emanuel’s revenge--to marry his crook son to the
daughter of Peter Kane.
Jeff was watching him narrowly, but by no sign did Johnny betray his
recognition. It was all over in a fraction of a second. He brought his
eyes back to the girl, smiling mechanically. She seemed oblivious to
her surroundings. That her new husband stood by, watching her with a
gleam of amusement in his eyes, that Peter was frowning anxiously, and
that even old Barney was staring open-mouthed, meant nothing.
“Johnny, poor Johnny! You aren’t hating me, are you?”
John smiled and patted the hand that lay in his.
“Are you happy?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes, oh yes, I’m happily married--that’s what you mean, isn’t it? I’m
very happy… Johnny, was it terrible? I haven’t stopped thinking about
you, I haven’t. Though I didn’t write… after… Don’t you think I was a
beast…? I know I was. Johnny, didn’t it hurt you, old boy?”
He shook his head.
“There’s one thing you mustn’t be in Dartmoor--sorry for yourself. Are
you happy?”
She did not meet his eyes.
“That is twice you’ve asked in a minute! Isn’t it disloyal to say that
I am? Don’t you want to meet Jeffrey?”
“Why, of course, I want to meet Jeffrey.”
He crossed to the man, and Jeff Legge watched him.
“I want you to meet Captain Gray, a very old friend of mine,” she said
with a catch in her voice.
Jeffrey Legge’s cold hand gripped his.
“I’m glad to meet you, Captain Gray.”
Had he been recognised? Apparently not, for the face turned to him was
puckered in an embarrassed smile.
“You’ve just come back from East Africa, haven’t you? Get any
shooting?”
“No, I didn’t do any shooting,” said Johnny.
“Lots of lions, aren’t there?” said Jeff.
The lips of the ex-convict twitched.
“In that part of the country where I was living, the lions are
singularly tame,” he said dryly.
“Marney, darling, you’re glad to see Gray on your wedding day, aren’t
you?--it was good of you to come, Gray. Mrs. Floyd has often spoken
about you.”
He put his arm about the girl, his eyes never leaving Johnny’s face.
He designed to hurt--to hurt them both. She stood rigidly, neither
yielding nor resisting, tense, breathless, pale. She knew! The
realisation came to John Gray like a blow. She knew that this man was
a liar and a villain. She knew the trick that had been played upon her
father!
“Happy, darling?”
“Very--oh, very.”
There was a flutter in her voice, and now Johnny was hurt, and the
fight to hold himself in became terrific. It was Peter who for the
moment saved the situation.
“Johnny, I want you to know this boy. The best in the world. And I
want you to think with me that he’s the best husband in the world for
Marney.”
Jeff Legge laughed softly.
“Mr. Kane, you embarrass me terribly. I’m not half good enough for
her--I’m just an awkward brute that doesn’t deserve my good luck.”
He bent and kissed the white-faced girl. Johnny did not take his eyes
from the man.
“Happy, eh? I’ll bet you’re happy, you rascal,” chuckled Kane.
Marney pulled herself away from the encircling arm.
“Daddy, I don’t think this is altogether amusing Johnny.” Her voice
shook. The man from Dartmoor knew that she was on the verge of tears.
“It takes a lot to bore me.” John Gray found his voice. “Indeed, the
happiness of young people--I feel very old just now--is a joy. You’re
a Canadian, Major Floyd?”
“Yes--a French Canadian, though you wouldn’t guess that from my name.
My people were _habitant_ and went west in the ’sixties--to Alberta
and Saskatchewan, long before the railway came. You ought to go to
Canada; you’d like it better than the place you’ve been to.”
“I’m sure I should.”
Peter had strolled away, the girl’s arm in his.
“No lions in Canada, tame or wild,” said Jeff, regarding him from
under his drooped eyelids.
Gray had lit a cigarette. He was steady now, steady of nerve and hand.
“I should feel lonely without lions,” he said coolly, and then: “If
you will forgive my impertinence, Major Floyd, you have married a very
nice girl.”
“The very, very best.”
“I would go a long way to serve her--a long way. Even back to the
lions.”
Their eyes met. In the bridegroom’s was a challenge; in Johnny Gray’s
cold murder. Jeff Legge’s eyes fell and he shivered.
“I suppose you like--hunting?” he said. “Oh, no, you said you didn’t.
I wonder why a man of your--er--character went abroad?”
“I was sent,” said Johnny, and he emphasised every word. “Somebody had
a reason for sending me abroad--they wanted me out of the way. I
should have gone, anyhow, but this man hurried the process.”
“Do you know who it was?”
The East African pretence had been tacitly dropped. Jeff might do so
safely, for he would know that the cause of John Gray’s retirement
from the world was no secret.
“I don’t know the man. He was a stranger to me. Very few people know
him personally. In his set--our set--not half a dozen people could
identify him. Only one man in the police knows him----”
“Who is that?” interrupted the other quickly.
“A man named Reeder. I heard that in prison--of course you knew I had
come from Dartmoor?”
Jeff nodded with a smile.
“That is the fellow who is called The Great Unknown,” he said,
striving to thin the contempt from his voice. “I’ve heard about him in
the club. He is a very stupid person of middle age, who lives in
Peckham. So he isn’t as much unknown as _your_ mystery man!”
“It is very likely,” said the other. “Convicts invest their heroes and
enemies with extraordinary gifts and qualities. I only know what I
have been told. At Dartmoor they say Reeder knows everything. The
Government gave him carte blanche to find the Big Printer----”
“And has he found him?” asked Jeff Legge innocently.
“He’ll find him,” said Johnny. “Sooner or later there will be a
squeak.”
“May I be there to hear it,” said Jeff Legge, and showed his white
teeth in a mirthless smile.
CHAPTER V
Johnny was alone in the lower garden, huddled up on a corner of the
marble bench, out of sight but not out of hearing of the guests who
were assembling on the lawn. He had to think, and think quickly.
Marney knew! But Marney had not told, and Johnny guessed why.
When had Jeff Legge told her? On the way back from the church,
perhaps. She would not let Peter know--Peter, who believed her future
assured, her happiness beyond question. What had Jeff said? Not much,
Johnny guessed. He had given her just a hint that the charming Major
Floyd she had known was not the Major Floyd with whom she was to live.
Johnny was cool now--icy cold was a better description. He must be
sure, absolutely sure, beyond any question of doubt. There might be
some resemblance between Jeff Legge and this Major Floyd. He had only
seen the crook once, and that at a distance.
He heard the rustle of skirts and looked round quickly. It was the
maid he had seen quarrelling with Barney.
“Mr. Kane says, would you care to be in the group that is being
photographed, Captain Gray?” she asked.
He did not immediately reply. His eyes were scanning her with a new
interest.
“Tell him I’d rather not, and come back.”
“Come back, sir?” she repeated in astonishment.
“Yes, I want to talk to you,” said Johnny with a smile. “Have mercy on
a disgruntled guest, who can find nobody to entertain him.”
She stood, hesitating. He could see the indecision in her face.
“I don’t know if Mr. Kane would like that,” she said, and a smile