The Fighting Chance

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> The Fighting Chance

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"I think Quarrier is indifferent concerning women," said Siward.

"You are wrong. He is a sensualist," insisted Plank.

"Oh, no, Plank--not that!"

"A sensualist. His sentimental vanity he lavishes upon himself--the
animal in him on women. His caution, born of self-consideration, is the
caution of a beast. Such men as he believe they live in the focus of a
million eyes. Part of his vanity is to deceive those eyes and be what he
is under the mask he wears; and to do that one must be the very master
of caution. That is Quarrier's vanity. To conceal, is his monomania."

"I cannot see how you draw that conclusion."

"Siward, he is a bad man, and crafty--every inch of him."

"Oh, come, now! Only characters in fiction have no saving qualities. You
never heard of anybody in real life being entirely bad."

"No, I didn't; and Quarrier isn't. For example, he is kind to valuable
animals--I mean, his own."

"Good to animals! The bad man's invariable characteristic!" laughed
Siward. "I'm kind to 'em, too. What else is he good to?"

"Everybody knows that he hasn't a poor relation left; not one. He is
loyal to them in a rare way; he filled one subsidiary company full of
them. It is known down town as the 'Home for Destitute Nephews.'"

"Seriously, Plank, the man must have something good in him."

"Because of your theory?"

"Yes. I believe that nobody is entirely bad. So do the great masters of
fiction."

Plank said gravely: "He is a good son to his father. That is perfectly
true--kind, considerate, dutiful, loyal. The financial world is perfectly
aware that Stanley Quarrier is to-day the most unscrupulous old
scoundrel who ever crushed a refinery or debauched a railroad! and his
son no more believes it than he credits the scandalous history of the
Red Woman of Wall Street. Why, when I was making arrangements for that
chapel Quarrier came to me, very much perturbed, because he understood
that all the memorial chapels for the cathedral had been arranged for,
and he had desired to build one to the memory of his father! His father!
Isn't it awful to think of!--a chapel to the memory of the briber of
judges and of legislatures, the cynical defier of law!--this hoary old
thief, who beggared the widow and stripped the orphan, and whose only
match, as a great unpunished criminal, was that sinister little
predecessor of his, who dreamed even of debauching the executive of
these United States!"

Siward had never before seen Plank aroused, and he said so, smiling.

"That is true," said Plank earnestly; "I waste little temper over my
likes and dislikes. But what I know, and what I legitimately infer
concerning the younger Quarrier is enough to rouse any man's anger. I
won't tell you what I know. I can't. It has nothing to do with his
financial methods, nothing to do with this business; but it is bad--bad
all through! The blow his father struck at the integrity of the bench
the son strikes at the very key-stone of all social safeguard. It isn't
my business; I cannot interfere; but Siward, I'm a damned restless
witness, and the old, primitive longing comes back on me to strike--to
take a stick and use it to splinters on that man whom I am going down
town to politely confer with! . And I must go now. Good-bye. . Take care
of that ankle. Any books I can send you--anything you want? No? All
right. And don't worry over Amalgamated Electric, for I really believe
we are beginning to frighten them badly."

"Good-bye," said Siward. "Don't forget that I'm always at home."

"You must get out," muttered Plank; "you must get well, and get out into
the sunshine." And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall,
where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him.

He had come in a big yellow and black touring-car; and now, with a brief
word to his mechanic, he climbed into the tonneau, and away they sped
down town--a glitter of bull's-eye, brass, and varnish, with the mellow,
horn notes floating far in their wake.

It was exactly four o'clock when he was ushered into Quarrier's private
suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper
stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire.

Quarrier was alone, gloved and hatted, as though on the point of
leaving. He showed a slight surprise at seeing Plank, as if he had not
been expecting him; and the manner of offering his hand subtly
emphasised it as he came forward with a trace of inquiry in his
greeting.

"You said four o'clock, I believe," observed Plank bluntly.

"Ah, yes. It was about that--ah--matter--ah--I beg your pardon; can you
recollect?"

"I don't know what it is you want. You requested this meeting," said
Plank, yawning.

"Certainly. I recollect it perfectly now. Will you sit here, Mr.
Plank--for a moment--"

"If it concerns Inter-County, it will take longer than a moment--unless
you cannot spare the time now," said Plank. "Shall we call it off?"

"As a matter of fact I am rather short of time just now."

"Then let us postpone it. I shall probably be at my office if you are
anxious to see me."

Quarrier looked at him, then laid aside his hat and sat down. There was
little to be done in diplomacy with an oaf like that.

"Mr. Plank," he said, without any emphasis at all, "there should be some
way for us to come together. Have you considered it?"

"No, I haven't," replied Plank.

"I mean, for you and me to try to understand each other."

"For us?" asked Plank, raising his blond eyebrows. "Do you mean
Amalgamated Electric and Inter-County, impersonally?"

"I mean for us, personally."

"There is no way," said Plank, with conviction.

"I think there is."

"You are wasting time thinking it, Mr. Quarrier."

Quarrier's velvet-fringed eyes began to narrow, but his calm voice
remained unchanged: "We are merely wasting energy in this duel," he
said.

"Oh, no; I don't feel wasted."

"We are also wasting opportunities," continued Quarrier slowly. "This
whole matter is involving us in a tangle of litigation requiring our
constant effort, constant attention."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Quarrier, but you take it too seriously. I have
found, in this affair, nothing except a rather agreeable mental
exhilaration."

"Mr. Plank, if you are not inclined to be serious--"

"I am," said Plank so savagely that Quarrier, startled, could not doubt
him. "I like this sort of thing, Mr. Quarrier. Anything that is hard to
overcome, I like to overcome. The pleasure in life, to me, is to win
out. I am fighting you with the greatest possible satisfaction to
myself."

"Perhaps you see victory ahead," said Quarrier calmly.

"I do, Mr. Quarrier, I do. But not in the manner you fear I may hope for
it."

"Do you mind saying in what manner you are already discounting your
victory, Mr Plank?"

"No, I don't mind telling you. I have no batteries to mask. I don't care
how much you know about my resources; so I'll tell you what I see, Mr.
Quarrier. I see a parody of the popular battle between razor-back and
rattler. The rattler only strives to strike and kill, not to swallow.
Mr. Quarrier, that old razor-back isn't going home hungry; but--he's
going home."

"I'm afraid I am not familiar enough with the natural history you quote
to follow you," said Quarrier with a sneer, his long fingers busy with
the silky point of his beard.

"No, you won't follow me home; you'll come with me, when it's all over.
Now is it very plain to you, Mr. Quarrier?"

Quarrier said, without emotion: "I repeat that it would be easy for you
and me to merge our differences on a basis absolutely satisfactory to
you and to me--and to Harrington."

"You are mistaken," said Plank, rising. "Good afternoon."

Quarrier rose, too. "You decline to discuss the matter?" he asked.

"It has been discussed sufficiently."

"Then why did you come here?"

"To see for myself how afraid of me you really are," said Plank. "Now I
know, and so do you."

"You desire to make it a personal matter?" inquired Quarrier, in a low
voice, his face dead white in the late sunlight which illuminated the
room.

"Personal? No--impersonal; because there could be absolutely nothing
personal between us, Mr. Quarrier; and the only thing in the world that
there ought to be between us are a few stout, steel bars. Beg pardon for
talking shop. I'm a shopkeeper, and I'm in the steel business, and I
lack opportunities for cultivation. Good day."

"Mr. Plank--"

"Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business
differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered
or modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my
policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly
aware of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this
attitude toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting
in arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful
interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby
is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my
chances, every one; and I take them--every one. For it is a good fight,
Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; not
because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because
such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours.
Your name, Harrington's, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long,
long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be
remembered."

He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier's
unwinking eyes.

"Take your fighting chance--it is the cleanest thing you ever touched;
and use it cleanly, or there'll be no mercy shown you when your time
comes. Let the courts alone--do you hear me? Let the legislature alone.
Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to shove
his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. They'll
be warmer than his feet by this time next year."

For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm
dropped heavily--the old stolid expression came back into his face,
leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving
slowly toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand.

Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered
Mortimer, and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks;
neither had Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at
his battered and bloodshot appearance.

"Oh," said Mortimer, "you down here?"

"Have you been out of town?" asked Plank cautiously.

Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the
elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his
pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps
of the rotunda.

"See here," he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily
even after the short chase across the lobby, "I meant to tell you
something. Come over here and sit down a moment."

Still grasping Plank's elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him
toward a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down,
while Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at
the heat under his breath.

"Look here," he said; "I promised you something once, didn't I?"

"Did you?" said Plank, with his bland, expressionless stare of an
overgrown baby.

"Oh, cut that out! You know damn well I did; and when I say a thing I
make good. D'ye see?"

"I don't see," said Plank, "what you are talking about."

"I'm talking about what I said I'd do for you. Haven't I made good?
Haven't I put you into everything I said I would? Don't you go
everywhere? Don't people ask you everywhere?"

"Yes--in a way," said Plank wearily. "I am very grateful; I always will
be. . Can I do anything for you, Leroy?"

Mortimer became indignant at the implied distrust of the purity of his
motives; and Plank, failing to stem the maudlin tirade, relapsed into
patient silence, speculating within himself as to what it could be that
Mortimer wanted.

It came out presently. Mortimer had attended a "killing" at Desmond's,
and, as usual, had provided the piece de resistance for his soft-voiced
host. All he wanted was a temporary deposit to tide over matters. He had
never approached Plank in vain, and he did not do so now, for Plank had
a pocket cheque-book and a stylograph.

"It's damn little to ask, isn't it?" he muttered resentfully. "That will
only square matters with Desmond; it doesn't leave me anything to go on
with," and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl.

Plank was discreetly silent.

"And that is not what I chased you for, either," continued Mortimer. "I
didn't intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in
another way!" He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the
elevators gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble
rotunda; then his protruding eyes sought Plank's again:

"Beverly, old boy, I've got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any
decent man would like to have him--by the scruff of his neck. He's fit
only to kick; and I'm going to kick him good and plenty; and in the
process he's going to let go of several things." Mortimer leered,
pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: "I mean, he's
going to drop several things that don't belong to him. Leave it to me to
shake him down; he'll drop them all right. . One of 'em's yours."

Plank looked at him.

"I told you once that I'd let you know when to step up and say 'Good
evening' didn't I?"

Plank continued to stare.

"Didn't I?" repeated Mortimer peevishly, beginning to lose countenance.

"I don't understand you," said Plank, "and I don't think I want to
understand you."

"What do you mean?" demanded Mortimer thickly; "don't you want to marry
that girl!" but he shrank dismayed under the slow blaze that lighted
Plank's blue eyes.

"All right," he stammered, struggling to his fat legs and instinctively
backing away; "I thought you meant business. I--what the devil do I care
who you marry! It's the last time I try to do anything for you, or for
anybody else! Mark that, my friend. I've plenty to worry over; I've a
lot to keep me busy without lying awake to figure out how to do
kindnesses to old friends. Damn this ingratitude, anyway!"

Plank gazed at him for a moment; the anger in his face had died out.

"I am not ungrateful," he said. "You may say almost anything except
that, Leroy. I am not disloyal, no matter what else I may be. But you
have made a bad mistake. You made it that day at Black Fells when you
offered to interfere. I supposed you understood then that I could never
tolerate from anybody anything of such a nature. It appears that you
didn't. However, you understand it now. So let us forget the matter."

But Mortimer, keenly appreciative of the pleasures of being
misunderstood, squeezed some moisture out of his distended eyes, and sat
down, a martyr to his emotions. "To think," he gulped, "that you, of all
men, should turn on me like this!"

"I didn't mean to. Can't you understand, Leroy, that you hurt me?"

"Hurt hell!" retorted Mortimer vindictively. "You've had sensation
battered out of you by this time. I guess society has landed you a few
while I was boosting you over the outworks. Don't play that old con game
on me! You tried to get her and you couldn't. Now I come along and offer
to put you next and you yell about your hurt feelings! Oh, splash!
There's another lady, that's all."

"Let it go at that, then," said Plank, reddening.

"But I tell you--"

"Drop it!" snapped Plank.

"Oh, very well! if you're going to take it that way again--"

"I am. Cut it! And now let me ask you a question: Where were you going
when I met you?"

"What do you want to know for?" asked Mortimer sullenly.

"Why, I'll tell you, Leroy. If you have any idea of identifying yourself
with Quarrier's people, of seeking him at this juncture with the
expectation of investing any money in his schemes, you had better not do
so."

"Investing!" sneered Mortimer. "Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to
invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated
Electric gang. Don't worry. If there's any shaking down to be done, I'll
do it, my friend," and he rose, and started toward the elevators.

"Wait," said Plank. "Why, man, you can't frighten Quarrier! What did you
sell your holdings for? Why didn't you come to us--to me? What's the use
of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can't scare a man like
that."

Mortimer fairly grinned in his face.

"Your big mistake," he sneered, "is in undervaluing others. You don't
think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I'm going to try to
take care of myself all the same." He laughed, showing his big teeth,
and the vanity in him began to drug him. "No, you think I don't know
much. But men like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you
to understand," he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution
which in saner moments he was only too certain that his present business
required--"I want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of
them is that I'm not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I'm not afraid
of you!"

"Leroy--"

"No, not afraid of you, either!" repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare.
"Don't try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me,
Beverly! I'm getting tired of it; I'm tired of it now, by God! You keep
a civil tongue in your head after this--do you understand?--and we'll get
on all right. If you don't, I've the means to make you!"

"Are you crazy?"

"Not a bit of it! Too damn sane for you and Leila to hoodwink!"

"You are crazy!" repeated Plank, aghast.

"Am I? You and Leila can take the matter into court, if you want
to--unless I do. And"--here he leaned forward, showing his teeth
again--"the next time you kiss her, close the door!"

Then he went away up the marble steps and entered an elevator; and
Plank, grave and pale, went out into the street and entered his big
touring-car. But the drive up town and through the sunlit park gave him
no pleasure, and he entered his great house with a heavy, lifeless step,
head bent, as though counting every crevice in the stones under his
lagging feet. For the first time in all his life he was afraid of a man.

The man he was afraid of had gone directly to Quarrier's office, missing
the gentleman he was seeking by such a small fraction of a minute that
he realised they must have passed each other in the elevators, he
ascending while Quarrier was descending.

Mortimer turned and hurried to the elevator, hoping to come up with
Quarrier in the rotunda, or possibly in the street outside; but he was
too late, and, furious to think of the time he had wasted with Plank, he
crawled into a hansom and bade the driver take him to a number he gave,
designating one of the new limestone basement houses on the upper west
side.

All the way up town, as he jolted about in his seat, he angrily
regretted the meeting with Plank, even in spite of the cheque. What
demon had possessed him to boast--to display his hand when there had been
no necessity? Plank was still ready to give him aid at a crisis--had
always been ready. Time enough when Plank turned stingy to use
persuasion; time enough when Plank attempted to dodge him to employ a
club. And now, for no earthly reason, intoxicated with his own vanity,
catering to his own long-smouldering resentment, he had used his club on
a willing horse--deliberately threatened a man whose gratitude had been
good for many a cheque yet.

"Ass that I am!" fumed Mortimer; "now when I'm stuck I'll have to go at
him with the club, if I want any money out of him. Confound him, he's
putting me in a false position! He's trying to make it look like
extortion! I won't do it! I'm no blackmailer! I'll starve, before I go
to him again! No blundering, clumsy Dutchman can make a blackmailer out
of me by holding hands with that scoundrelly wife of mine! That's the
reason he did it, too! Between them they are trying to make my loans
from Plank look like blackmail! It would serve them right if I took them
up--if I called their bluff, and stuck Plank up in earnest! But I won't,
to please them! I won't do any dirty thing like that, to humour them!
Not much!"

He lay back, rolling about in the jouncing cab, scowling at space.

"Not much!" he repeated. "I'll shake down Quarrier, though! I'll make
him pay for his treachery--scaring me out of Amalgamated! That will be
restitution, not extortion!"

He was the angrier because he had been for days screwing up his courage
to the point of seeking Quarrier face to face. He had not wished to do
it; the scene, and his own attitude in it, could only be repugnant to
him, although he continually explained to himself that it was
restitution, not extortion.

But whatever it was, he didn't like to figure in it, and he had hung
back as long as circumstances permitted. But his new lodgings and his
new friends were expensive; and Plank, he supposed, was off somewhere
fishing; so he hung on as long as it was possible; then, exasperated by
necessity, started for Quarrier's office, only to miss him by a few
seconds because he was fool enough to waste his temper and his
opportunity in making an enemy out of a friend!

"Oh," he groaned, "what an ass I am!" And he got out of his cab in front
of a very new limestone basement house with red geraniums blooming on
the window-sills, and let himself in with a latch-key.

The interior of the house was attractive in a rather bright, new, clean
fashion. There seemed to be a great deal of white wood-work about, a
wilderness of slender white spindles supporting the dark, rich mahogany
handrail of the stairway; elaborate white grilles between snowy,
Corinthian pillars separating the hall from the drawing-room, where a
pale gilt mirror over a white, colonial mantel reflected a glass
chandelier and panelled walls hung with pale blue silk.

All was new, very clean, very quiet; the maid, too, who appeared at the
sound of the closing door and took his hat and gloves was as newly
groomed as the floors and wood-work, and so noiseless as to be
conspicuous in her swift, silent movements.

Yet there was something about it all--about the bluish silvery half-
light, the spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid in
her flamboyant cap and apron--that arrested attention and fixed it. The
soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the contrast
between the maid's black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was
nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains
were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no half-
lights. The very stillness was gay with suspense, like a pretty woman's
suppressed laughter glimmering in her eyes.

And into this tinted light, framed in palest blue and white, waddled
Mortimer, appropriate as a June-bug scrambling in a Sevres teacup.

"Anybody here?" he growled, leering into the drawing-room at a tiny
grand piano cased in unvarnished Circassian walnut.

"There is nobody at home, sir," said the maid.

"Music lesson over?"

"Yes, sir, at three."

He began to ascend the stairway, breathing heavily, thud, thud over the
deep velvet strip, his fat hand grasping the banister rail.

Somewhere on the second floor a small dog barked, and Mortimer traversed
the ball and opened the door into a room hung with gold Spanish leather
and pale green curtains.

"Hello, Tinto!" he said affably as a tiny Japanese spaniel hurled
herself at him, barking furiously, then began writhing and weaving
herself about him, gurgling recognition and welcome.

He sat down heavily in a padded easy-chair. The spaniel sprang into his
lap, wheezing, sniffling, goggling its protruding eyes. Mortimer liked
the dog, but he didn't like what the owner of the dog said about the
resemblance between his own and Tinto's eyes.

"Get down!" he said; "you're shedding black and white hairs all over
me." But the dog didn't want to get down, and Mortimer's good nature
permitted her to curl up on his fat knees and sleep that nervous,
twitching sleep peculiar to overpampered toy canines.

The southern sun was warm in the room; the windows open, but not a
silken hanging stirred.

Presently another maid entered, with an apple cut into thin wafers and a
decanter of port; and Mortimer lay back in his chair, sopping his apple
in the thick, crimson wine, and feeding morsels of the combination to
himself and to Tinto at intervals until the apple was all gone and the
decanter three-fourths empty.

It was very still in the room--so still, that Mortimer, opening his eyes
at longer and longer intervals to peer at the door, finally opened them
no more.

The droning gurgle that he made kept Tinto awake. When his lower jaw
sagged, and he began to really show what snoring could be, Tinto, very
nervous, got up and hopped down.

It was still daylight when Mortimer awoke, conscious of people about
him. As he opened his eyes, a man laughed; several people seated by the
windows joined in. Then, straightening up with an effort, something
tumbled from his head to the floor and he started to rise.

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