LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

was an older man than he, by ten years of time and thrice their equivalent in rough experience. The two had first met in Chicago during the strenuous period of a strike. Drayton, unwise enough to play peaceful bystander at a full-grown riot, had found himself involved in an embattled medley of muscular slaughter-house men and equally muscular and better-armed police. He had stood an excellent chance of being killed by one party or arrested by the other, and none at all of extricating himself, when Trenmore, overlooking the fight from the steps of a near-by building, and seeing a young, slender, well-dressed man in a struggle in which he obviously had no place, came to his aid and fought a way out for the two of them.

      Later they had joined forces on a long vacation in the Canadian woods. Drayton was then a rising young lawyer of considerable independent means, high-strung, nervous, and with a certain disposition toward melancholy. In the Irishman, with his tireless strength and humorous optimism, he found an ideal companion for that outdoor life, while Trenmore, well read, but self-educated, formed a well-nigh extravagant admiration for the young lawyer's intellect and character. And Terence Trenmore, his faith once given, resembled a large, loyal mastiff; he was thenceforth ready to give at need all that was his, goods, gains, or the strength of his great brain and body.

      Following those months in Canada, however, Drayton returned to Cincinnati, his home. The two had kept up for some time a desultory correspondence, but Trenmore's fortune, acquired in the Yukon, permitted him to live the roving life which suited his restless temperament. His address changed so frequently that Drayton found it difficult to keep track of him, and as the latter became more and more desperately absorbed in certain ruinous complications of his own affairs, he had allowed his correspondence with Trenmore to lapse to nothing.

      Their appetites pleasantly quelled at last, and cigars lighted, the two men adjourned to the library and settled themselves to talk things out.

      "You've been in Ireland, you say—" began Drayton, but the other interrupted with raised hand.

      "Let that wait. Do you not guess that I'm fair burning up with curiosity? There, there, when you look like that you make me want to cry, you do! Tell me the name of the scoundrel that's been driving you and I'll-I'll obliterate him. But don't act like the world was all black and you at your own wake. Sure, there's no trouble in life that's worth it! Now, what's wrong?"

      Drayton smiled in spite of himself. The big man's good humor was too infectious for resistance. His face, however, soon fell again into the tragic lines drawn there by recent events.

      "It can be told quickly," he began. "You know we had a very fair legal practice, Simon Warren and I. Up there in the woods I'm afraid I talked a lot about myself, so I don't need to tell you of the early struggles of a couple of cub lawyers. It was Warren, though, who made us what we were. Poor Warren! He had married just before the crash, and his young wife died three days after Simon was sentenced to a ten-year term in the penitentiary."

      "So? And what did your partner do to deserve all that?"

      "That is the story. We had built up a good clientele among the Cincinnati real-estate men and contractors. Simon specialized on contracts, and I on the real-estate end. We had a pretty fair reputation for success, too.

      "Then Warren found out a thing about Interstate General Merchandise which would have put at least five men behind the bars. Unluckily for us they were big men. Too big for us small fry to tackle, though we didn't quite realize that. They tried to settle it amicably by buying us over. We were just the pair they were looking for, they said. And both Warren and I could have cleared over twenty-five thousand a year at the work they offered.

      "Well, we'd have liked the money, of course—who wouldn't?—but not enough to take it as blackmail. Simon stuck to his guns and laid the affair before the district attorney. Before we could clinch the matter, Interstate Merchandise came down on us like a triphammer on a soft-boiled egg.

      "Oh, yes, they framed us. They got Simon with faked papers on a deal he wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pair of tongs. Of course we went down together. The disgrace killed his wife. Three weeks ago Simon died in prison of tuberculosis. That or a broken heart—

      "And I—well, you see me here. I got off without a jail term. But I'd been disbarred for illegal practice, and what money I had was all gone in the fight. After that—I don't know if it was for revenge or that they were still afraid of me, but Terry, those Interstate devils hounded me out of one job after another—broke me—drove me clean out of life as I knew it.

      "Yesterday I landed here in Philadelphia without a cent in my pockets, hungry and with no hope or faith left in anything. Last night I said, 'So be it! They have killed Simon, and they will not let me live as an honest man. But, by God, I'll live!' And that's the way criminals are created. I've learned it."

      Drayton ended with a catch in his voice. His clear, honest eyes were bright with the memory of that desperate resolve, so utterly alien to his nature, and his long, sensitive fingers opened and closed spasmodically.

      Then Trenmore did a strangely heartless thing. Having stared at his friend for a moment, he threw back his head and laughed—laughed in a great Olympian peal of merriment that rang through the silent house.

      Drayton sprang to his feet. "By heavens, Terry, I wish I could see the joke! But I'm damned if there's anything funny about what I've been through!"

      As abruptly as he had begun, his host stopped laughing and forced his face into solemnity. But his blue eyes still twinkled dangerously.

      "Sit down—sit down, man, and forgive me for a fool of an Irishman! Should you kill me right here for laughing, I'd not be blaming you and my heart aching this minute the way I can't wait to get at the crooks that have ruined you, and as soon as may be we'll go back to your home, you and I, and see what there is to be done.

      "But, sure you're the most original criminal that ever tried to rob a man! You get in, you locate the box—did you call it a box, Bobby?—all in good form. And, by the way, were you thinking of carrying the safe away in your pocket? Or had you a stick of dynamite handy? Well, some obliging professional comes along and works the combination for you and leaves the door open. You awaken from pleasant dreams to find all that was inside, or most of it, lying right at your feet. And what is it you do? You flee as if from the devil himself, and if I hadn't stopped you you'd be straying about the streets this minute as near starvation as you were before!"

      Drayton forced a smile for his friend's good-natured raillery. He could not be angry at ridicule so obviously meant to dissipate self-condemnation in laughter. "I could hardly begin on you, Terry," he said. "And speaking of that, I've already enjoyed more hospitality than I have any right to. I'm cured of crime, Terry; but if you have any idea that I am going to load myself down on you—"

      Springing up with his usual impetuosity, the big Irishman fairly hurled Drayton back into his chair.

      "Sit down! Sit down there where you belong! Is it load yourself you're talking of? It's to be loaded with me you are! Do you know that my very life's been threatened?"

      "Please don't joke any more, Terry," protested the other wearily.

      "I've not gone into details, but all the fun has been crushed out of me in the last year or so."

      "Take shame to yourself, then! But this is no joke. You'll well believe me it's not when you've heard it all. Stay here now a minute, for I've a thing to show you."

      In no little wonder, Drayton obeyed while Trenmore left the room and ascended the stairs to his bedchamber. A few minutes later he returned, and, drawing his chair close to Drayton, dropped into it and disclosed the thing he had brought. It seemed to be a glass vial. About six inches in length, it tapered to a point at one end, while the other was capped with silver, daintily carved to the shape of three dogs' heads. These heads, with savage, snarling jaws, all emerged from one collar, set with five small but brilliant rubies. The vial was filled to the top with some substance of the color of gray emery.

      "A pretty little thing," commented Drayton.

      "Aye, 'tis a pretty little thing," the other assented, staring down at the odd trifle with frowning brows. "Now what would you be

Скачать книгу