The Drums of Jeopardy Part 45

"It isn't a joke. I'm bally well twisted. I laugh now when I think of something tragic. I am sorry about last night. I was mad, I suppose."

"Tell me about it."

Cutty listened intently and smiled occasionally. Mad as hatters, both of them. He and Kitty couldn't have gone on a romp like this, but Kitty and Hawksley could. Thereupon his resentment boiled up again.

"Have you any idea why she took such a risk? Why she came here, knowing me to be absent?"

"She spoke of a problem. I fancy it related to your approaching marriage. She told me."

Cutty laid down his spoon. "I'd like to dump Your Highness into the middle of East River for putting that idea into my head. She has consented to it; and now, d.a.m.n it, I've got to back out of it!" Cutty rose and flung down his napkin.

"Why?" asked the bewildered Hawksley.

"Because there is in me the making of a first-rate scoundrel, and I never should have known it if you and your affairs hadn't turned up."

Cutty entered his study and slammed the door, leaving Hawksley prey to so many conflicting emotions that his head began to bother him. Back out of it! Why? Why should Kitty have a problem to solve over such a marriage of convenience, and why should the old thoroughbred want to back out?

Kitty would be free, then? A flash of fire, which subsided quickly under the smothering truth. What if she were free? He could not ask her to be his wife. Not because of last night's madness. That no longer troubled him. She was the sort who would understand, if he told her. She had a soul big with understanding. It was that he walked in the shadow of death, and would so long as Karlov was free; and he could not ask any woman to share that.

He pushed back his chair slowly. In the living room he took the Amati from its case and began improvising. What the chrysoprase did for Cutty the fiddle did for this derelict--solved problems.

He reviewed all the phases as he played. That dish of bacon and eggs, the resolute air of her, that popping fan! [Allegretto.] She had found him senseless on the floor. She had had the courage to come to his a.s.sistance. [Andante con espressione.] What had been in her mind that night she had taken flight from his bedroom, after having given him the wallet? Something like tears. What about? An American girl, natural, humorous, and fanciful. Somehow he felt a.s.sured that it had not been his kisses; she had looked into his eyes and seen the taint. Always there, the beast that old Stefani had chained and subdued. He knew now that this beast would never again lift its head. And he had let her go without a sign. [Dolorosomente.] To have gone through life with a woman who would have understood his nature. The test of her had been last night in the streets. His mood had been hers. [Allegretto con amore.]

"Love," he said, lowering the bow.

"Love," said Cutty, s.h.i.+fting his chrysoprase. There was no fool like an old fool. It did not serve to recall Molly in all her glory, to reach hither and yon for a handhold to pull him out of this mora.s.s. Molly had become an invisible ghost. He loved her daughter. Double sunset; the phenomenon of the Indian Ocean was now being enacted upon his own horizon. Double sunset.

But why should Kitty have any problem to solve? Why should she dodder over such a trifle as this prospective official marriage? It was only a joke which would legalize his generosity. She had sent that telegram after leaving this apartment. What had happened here to decide her? Had Hawksley fiddled? There was something the matter with the green stones to-night; they evoked nothing.

He leaned back in his chair, listening, the bowl of his pipe touching the lapel of his coat. Music. Queer, what you could do with a fiddle if you knew how.

After all there was no sense in venting his anger on Hawksley. He was hoist by his own petard. Why not admit the truth? He had had a crack on the head the same night as Hawksley; only, he had been struck by an idea, often more deadly than the b.u.t.t of a pistol. He would apologize for that roaring exit from the dining room. The poor friendless devil!

He bent toward the green stones again. In the living room Hawksley sat in a chair, the fiddle across his knees. He understood now. The old chap was in love with the girl, and was afraid of himself; couldn't risk having her and letting her go.... A curse on the drums of jeopardy!

Misfortune followed their wake always. The world would have been different this hour if he--The break in the trend of thought was caused by the entrance of Kuroki, who was followed by a man. This man dropped into a chair without apparently noticing that the room was already tenanted, for he never glanced toward Hawksley. A haggard face, dull of eye. Kuroki bobbed and vanished, but returned shortly, beckoning the stranger to follow him into the study.

"Coles?" cried Cutty delightedly. Here was the man he had sent to negotiate for the emeralds, free. "How did you escape? We've combed the town for you."

"They had me in a room on Fifteenth Street. Once in a while I got something to eat. But I haven't escaped. I'm still a prisoner."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I am here as an emissary. There was nothing for me to do but accept the job."

"Did he have the stones?" asked Cutty, without the least suspicion of what was coming.

"That I don't know. He pretended to have them in order to get me where he wanted me. I've been hungry a good deal because I wouldn't talk. I'm here as a negotiator. A rotten business. I agreed because I've hopes you'll be able to put one over on Karlov. It's the girl."

"Kitty?"

"Karlov has her. The girl wasn't to blame. Any one in the game would have done as she did. Karlov is bugs on politics; but he's shrewd enough at this sort of game. He trapped the girl because he'd studied her enough to learn what she would or would not do. Now they are not going to hurt her. They merely propose exchanging her for the man you've been hiding up here. There's a taxi downstairs. It will carry me back to Fifteenth; then it will return and wait. If the man is not at the appointed place by midnight--he must go in this taxi--the girl will be carried off elsewhere, and you'll never lay eyes on her again. Karlov and his gang are potential a.s.sa.s.sins; all they want is excuse. Until midnight they will not touch the girl; but after midnight, G.o.d knows!

What message am I to take back?"

"Do you know where she is?"

Cutty spoke without much outward emotion.

"Not the least idea. Whenever Karlov wanted to quiz me, he appeared late at night from some other part of the town. But he never got much."

"You saw him this evening?"

"Yes. It probably struck him as a fine joke to send me."

"And if you don't go back?"

"The girl will be taken away. I'm honestly afraid of the man. He's too quiet spoken. That kind of a man always goes the limit."

"I see. Wait here."

At Cutty's approach Hawksley looked up apathetically.

"Want me?"

"Perhaps."

"You are pale. Anything serious?"

"Yes. Karlov has got Kitty."

For a minute Hawksley did not stir. Then he got up, put away the Amati, and came back. He was pale, too.

"I understand," he said. "They will exchange her for me. Am I right?"

"Yes. But you are not obliged to do anything like that, you know."

"I am ready."

"You give yourself up?"

"Why not?"

"You're a man!" Cutty burst out.

"I was brought up by one. Honestly, now, could I ever look a white man in the face again if I didn't give myself up? I did begin to believe that I might get through. But Fate was only playing with me. May I use your desk to write a line?"

"Come with me," said Cutty, unsteadily. This was not the result of environment. Quiet courage of this order was race. No questions demanding if there wasn't some way round the inevitable. Cutty's heart glowed; the boy had walked into it, never to leave it. "I'm ready." It took a man to say that when the sequence was death.

"Coles," said Cutty upon reentering the study, "tell Karlov that His Highness will give himself up. He will be there before midnight."