The Fortune Hunter

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Fortune Hunter

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"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if--was it this friend you
spoke about--that found you in the park--who set you on the road to
fortune?"

"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.

XII

DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE

Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.

On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
landlady.

Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
practically on Pete's heels.

Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)

Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
thunder.

"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."

"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.

"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"

"Yes, but----"

"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"

"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.

"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."

"But--but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."

"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"

"But, Pete--Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"

"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"

"To--to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
that he faced the sheriff.

The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.

"But--there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
can't be--Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't----"

"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
silence. "Law is Law, and----" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What----!" he began.

"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
deaf?"

"What----!"

Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
sir?"

But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.

"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
of that note."

Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."

There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
_"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."_

His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
room shook with his regained sense of prestige.

"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'--say, you look a-here!----"

Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, _be quiet!"_

Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
taming him so completely--and in so brief a time. He experienced a
sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced--with his right
hand--his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
and counted them with great deliberation.

"One ... two ... three ... four."
He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
side of the door?"

Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
his system a still, small voice:

"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."

"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"

Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
have the money?"

"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.

Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
it with grave admiration.

"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."

Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
breeze.

[Illustration: "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"]

There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
damned!"

With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
up from the station through the alley--thereby doing away with the
necessity of cluttering up the store with a debris of packing. His
primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.

"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
indoors before nightfall, you know----"

But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
that. He put himself in front of Duncan.

"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through--I
can't allow you----"

"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
anything more. It's over and done with."

"But you mustn't--I'll turn over the store to you, if----"

"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
Graham's gratitude. "No--don't! Please don't do that!"

"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness--
unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope--"you'll consider a
partnership----"

"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
"That's the way to do it--a partnership. No, please don't say any more
about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
everything's----"

"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
and held it between both his own. "If--if fate--or something hadn't
brought you here to-day--I don't know what would've happened to Betty
and me. ..."

"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
it."

Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much----"

"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."

"To me it's meant everything. I--I only hope I'll be able to repay
you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"

He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly--
perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.

Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
dollars."

Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
his pocket.

"Harry," he observed--"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
year!...

"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"

XIII

THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM

It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
his labours.

She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.

In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
area of wreckage and destruction.

"Pretty good work for a York dude--not?" he laughed.

There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
said evenly.

He shot her a curious glance. "_Ouch!_" he said thoughtfully.

"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
inside."

"Somebody wants to see _me?_" he demanded of her retreating back.

"Yes."

"But who--?"

"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
house.

"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
this! I, a business man!"

Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
on the way.

He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
controlled money, to some vague extent.

"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
meet Nat.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"

"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
meet you."

"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"

"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
Graham's?"

"Not exactly; the firm took it up."

Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"

"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."

"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
Sam's note."

"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
communication.

"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.

"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
earning something, too."

"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
man.... You always go to church, don't you?"

"No, sir--Sundays only."

"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"

"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
on Sundays I go to church."

The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
suspicion.

"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
to our fast young men."

"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.

Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
genial that all but sprained his temperament.

Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.

Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.

"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."

"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.

"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."

"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
under the circumstances.

"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"

"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"

"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.

His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be--?
This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?

"I beg pardon----?"

His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
explained carefully, "just--_plain_--sody."

"On the level?"

"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.

A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
"I'm a little new to the business."

Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
childlike smiles.

Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.

"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"

"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
hypocrisy.

Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.

"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.

"What for?"

"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
imitation of Blinky's blink.

Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.

"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
see us some evenin'."

"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
charming girl."

"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.

"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
word about it."

Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
Burnham.

Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."

"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."

"I--ah--come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.

"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
Come on back to the bank."

"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."

Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.

Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.

"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam----"

"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
to show me round town a bit."

"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.

"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
round."

"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.

The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah--yes--that's all,"
he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
it."

"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
like what you see. Good day."

"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.

Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."

"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
got to hurry."

"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
you----?"

"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."

"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
business.

So that was the explanation!...

After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
Blinky, and Burnham was alone.

"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.

"Only to see Mr. Graham."

"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."

"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
wait long, though," he amended.

"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me----?"

Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
your business," he said with supreme condescension.

And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.

"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way--like to take a gambling
chance on anything that strikes my fancy--like that burner of yours."

"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."

"It's a curious idea--quite different from the one I told you about;
but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
on it, if we could come to terms."

"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.

"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"

"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
if--"

"Well?"

"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."

"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
cash, right in his hand,' says I."

With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.

"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
munificence.

"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth--guess you don't
know it--I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"

He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
ease as to his answer.

"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir--very kind. Everybody's
been good to me recently--or else I'm dreamin'."

"Then it's a bargain?"

"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
"Making gas from crude oil ought to--"

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