The Fortune Hunter

L >> Louis Joseph Vance >> The Fortune Hunter

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"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
house at me, I think."

"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.

The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.

"Oh, don't say that...."

Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
live with her, anyway."

"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
drinking again, hadn't you?"

"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."

"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.

"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
I hope y' won't never have."

"But I'm going to be married, Pete."

The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
argue the matter.

"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
Take warnin' from me."

"But I'm engaged, Pete."

"Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care
what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"

"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"

"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."

"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_."

Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."

"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."

"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
straighten up."

"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
with the horse."

"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.

"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
wife."

He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.

Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion--excitement,
anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
aggressor.

"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"

Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
of Nat. "I want to see you."

"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
sweetly.

"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."

Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.

Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."

The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he
screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.

"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."

"Now, say! Do you think----"

At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
just in time.

"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."

"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.

"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."

"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
m' wife. G'night, everybody."

He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
door and into the deepening dusk.

"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.

His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
apt to have trouble," he concluded.

"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"

"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
leave Josie Lockwood alone."

"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.

"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."

A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.

"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
stepping nearer.

"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."

"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"

"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."

So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
files in the Citizen office!

"Indeed?"

"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."

"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"

"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
can't fool me!"

A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his
fingers were itching.

"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"

"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"

Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.

"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
thanks."

"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"

"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."

"You better agree----"

[Illustration: "Betty!"]

Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
his feet and held it out.

"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.

Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
it out here," he replied prudently.

Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
afterthought.

He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.

"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....

The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
Now--ready?"

He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."

Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
little timidly.

Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
hooked up the receiver.

"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.

XXI

AS OTHERS SAW HIM

If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....

It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming--the more so for her
slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....

"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"

He was speechless.

She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
both her hands. He took them, stammering.

"It's such a surprise, Betty----!"

"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
and see--what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
thought that you or father----" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
withdrawing her hands.

By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."

"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.

"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."

"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
half wistful.

"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"

"Did I seem so very awful, then?"

"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."

"Then you think father will be pleased?"

"If he isn't, I'm blind!"

She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"

"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.

"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
you----"

"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
in you before it could come out. You know that."

She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."

"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.

"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
and try to treat people the way you do--kindly, Nat, and considerately,
and bravely and tenderly and honestly----"

He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"

But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I--I never
was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
whole world!"

"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"

"Oh, I know, Nat--I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
and..."

But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
hard laugh.

"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."

"Nat, what do you mean?"

He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you--feel that way toward me?"

She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."

"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."

He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
them was utterly intolerable.

"You never guessed that, did you?"

"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I--"

"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
tell you just now--not now...."

"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
see father--I mustn't forget--" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
of the happiness before her eyes.

"No--wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
must."

Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.

"To-night, Betty--this evening, just a little while ago, I became
engaged to Josie Lockwood."

She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
found her hand in his.

"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."

The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
while she walked quietly from the store.

After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.

"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"

Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
the stuff any more.... But"--his gaze fell upon the cigar case--"I can
have a smoke. That'll help some!"

With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.

"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be--I'll be damned!"

He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"

To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
hit by a club.

"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"

By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
his existence.

"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"

"No--rotten!"

"What's the matter?"

"_Nothing_!" Nat shouted ferociously.

"Anything I kin----"

"_No_!"

At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
I came down to bring you home to supper."

"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
confounded systems have got me into all this----"

He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
door.

"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
on! Where are you going?"

"To the only place I can get any consolation--church!"

XXII

ROLAND'S TRIUMPH

But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
and Josie and Roland and...

"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....

"Besides, I've no right there--an impostor--a contemptible low-lived
pup like me!...

"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
here? Why was I ever such a fool?...

"How _could_ I be such a fool?..."

He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
everybody--even himself for a time--played the cad and the bounder with
consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
self-respect, to his greed for money.

But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
deception and--ruining the life of one woman--perhaps two: Josie
Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
loved him...

But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
might--and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
level...

To-morrow--no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....

So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
hour and a half, back--all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
course for home.

It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.

He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.

"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
the store."

He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
last few hours.

"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
to get off. Angle's waiting."

"Angle----?"

"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."

"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you--I
was thinking."

"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."

"About what?"

"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
congratulate you, don't we, Angie."

"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."

"O Lord!" groaned Nat.

"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
the spunk to--to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
Didn't it, Angie?"

"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"

"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
smiling feebly upon them.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"

Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....

Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
to betray a mind far from complacent.

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