The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn

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"It was very clever. And yet, somehow, it doesn't sound right--" she
puzzled, "Are you sure it's honest?"

"Honest?" he snorted, halted in mid-career, "Of course it's honest! Why
isn't it honest?"

Confronted with the direct question, she really did not know. She groped,
proffering tentatively some of the arguments half remembered from Rowlee's
editorial columns. But she confronted now a lawyer, sure of himself. Keith
explosively, and contemptuously demolished her contentions. Everything was
absolutely legal, every step of it. If a man hadn't a right to buy in
property at any sale and sell it again where he wanted, where in thunder
was our boasted liberty? Just the kind of fool notion women get! Keith in
his honest pride and triumph had come for sympathy and admiration. Turned
back on himself, he became vaguely resentful, and shortly left the house.

Hardly had the front door closed after him when Nan burst into tears. She
had not meant it to come out that way at all. Of course she had had no real
thought that Milton would do anything dishonest; how absurd of him to take
it that way! She had simply expressed a queer instinctive thought that had
flashed across her mind; and now she could not for the life of her guess
how she had come to do so. Miserably and passionately she realized that she
had bungled it.

XXVI

But if Keith missed the appreciation of his triumph at home, he received
full meed of it downtown. In a corner of the Empire a dozen of the biggest
men in town were gathered. They were Sam Brannan; Palmer, of Palmer, Cook &
Co.; Colonel E. D. Baker, the original "silver-tongued orator"; Dick
Blatchford, the contractor; Judge Terry, of the Supreme Court; oily, coarse
Ned McGowan; Nugent and Rowlee, editors, and some others. They were doing
an exceedingly important part of their daily business: sipping their late
afternoon cocktails. Calhoun Bennett joined them.

"Little item of news to interest you-all," drawled the Southerner. "I've
just come down from the recorder's office. The deeds for the water lots
have just been recorded." He paused.

"Have a drink, Cal," urged Dick Blatchford, "and sit down. What of it?"

"They were recorded in the names of Malcolm Neil and young Keith. I'll have
a cocktail."

"That so? Pretty shaky title. Which sale did they record under?"

"Both!" said Bennett.

He stood until he saw that the significance of this had soaked in; then he
drew out a chair and sat down. Ned McGowan chuckled hoarsely.

"Pretty slick!" said he. "Wonder some of us didn't think of that! I suppose
they went around and scared the purchasers until they got them, pretty
cheap. Trust old Neil to drive a bargain!"

But Palmer, the banker, who had been thinking, here spoke up:

"The purchasers were undoubtedly their agents," he surmised quietly.

"By God, you're right!" cried Terry. "Old Malcolm is certainly the devil
without a tail!"

"Speak of him and you get him," remarked Colonel Baker, pointing out Neil,
who had just entered.

They raised a shout at him, until finally the old man, reluctantly and
crabbedly, sidled over to join them.

"You're discovered, old fox!" cried Terry; "and the outraged dignity of the
law demands a drink."

They plied him with half-facetious, half-envious congratulations. But Neil
would have none of them.

"Not my scheme," he growled. "Entirely Keith's. I'm a sleeping partner
only. He engineered it all, thought of it all, dragged me in."

"You must have made a good thing out of it, Mr. Neil," suggested Palmer
respectfully.

The formidable old man eyed the speaker grumpily for a moment.

"About a quarter million, cool, between us," he vouchsafed finally. He was,
for some reason, willing to brag a bit.

This statement was received in admiring silence by all but Terry. Everybody
but that devil-may-care and lawless pillar of the law was afraid of Neil.
But Terry would joke with anybody.

"I hope you're going to let him have a little of it, Neil," he laughed.

The old man shifted his eyes from Palmer to Terry with much the air of
restraining heavy guns. Terry met the impact untroubled.

"Judge," grunted the financier at last, "that young man will get his due
share. He has tied me up in a contract that even your honoured court would
find difficulty in breaking."

With this parting shot he arose and stumped out.

"If Malcolm Neil acknowledges he is tied up," observed Terry, who had not
been in the slightest degree disturbed, "he is certainly tied up!"

"Consider the man who tied him," begged Colonel Baker. "He must, in the
language of the poets, be a lallapaloozer."

"He's worth getting hold of," said Dick Blatchford.

Therefore, when, a little later, Keith appeared, he was hailed jovially,
and invited to drink. Everybody was very cordial. Within five minutes he
was hail fellow with them all, joking with the most august of them on terms
of equality. Judge Terry, in whose court he had stood abashed, plied him
with cocktails; Colonel Baker told several stories, one of which was new;
Sam Brannan, with the mixture of coarseness, overbearing manners, and
fascination that made him personally attractive to men and some women,
called him "my boy"; and the rest of the party had whole-heartedly taken
him in and were treating him as one of themselves. Keith had known all
these men, of course, but they had been several cuts above him in
importance, and his relations with most of them had been formal. His whole
being glowed and expanded. After the first cocktail or two, and after a
little of this grateful petting, he had some difficulty in keeping himself
from getting too expansive, in holding himself down to becoming modesty, in
not talking too much. He quite realized the meaning of this sudden
cordiality; but he welcomed it as another endorsement, from the highest,
most unimpeachable sources, of his cleverness and legal acumen.

They drank and talked until twilight. Then Keith began to make his excuses.
They shouted him down.

"You're going to dinner with us, my son," stated Brannan. "They've opened
an oyster palace down the street, and we're going to sample it."

"But my wife--" began Keith.

"Permit me," interrupted Terry, bending his tall form in courtesy. "I am
about to dispatch a messenger to Mrs. Terry, and shall be pleased to
instruct him to call at your mansion also."

It was so arranged. Immediately they adjourned to the new "Oyster Palace,"
a very gaudy white and gilt monstrosity with mirrors and negro minstrels.
There were small private rooms, it seemed, and one of these was bespoken
from the smiling manager, flattered at the patronage of these substantial
men.

San Francisco lived high in those days. It could pay, and for pay the best
will go anywhere. The dinner was quite perfect. There were more cocktails
and champagne. Under the influence of good fellowship and drinks, Keith was
finally prevailed upon to give the details of the whole transaction.
Perhaps this was a little indiscreet, but he was carried away by the
occasion. The noisy crowd suddenly became quiet, and listened with the
deepest attention. When Keith had finished, there ensued a short silence.
Then Judge Terry delivered his opinion.

"Sound as a dollar," he pronounced at last. "Not a hole in it. Is that your
opinion, Colonel Baker?"

"Clever piece of work," nodded the orator gravely. After this interim of
sobriety the dinner proceeded more and more noisily. The drink affected the
different men in different ways. A flush appeared high on the cheek bones
of Terry's lean face and an added dignity in his courtly manner. Brannan
became louder and more positive. On Blatchford his potations had no
appreciable effect except that his round face grew redder. Ned McGowan
dropped even his veneer of good breeding, became foul mouthed and profane,
full of unpublishable reminiscence to which nobody paid any particular
attention. Calhoun Bennett's speech became softer, more deliberate, more
consciously Southern. Keith, who was really most unaccustomed to the heavy
drinking then in vogue, was filled with a warm and friendly feeling toward
everybody. His thoughts were a bit vague, and he had difficulty in
focussing his mind sharply. The lights were very bright, and the room warm.

Suddenly they were all in the open air under the stars. There seemed to
have been an unexplained interim. Everybody was smoking cigars. Keith was
tugging at his pocket and expostulating something about payment--something
to do with the dinner. Evidently some part of him had gone on talking and
thinking. The fresh air brought him back to the command. Various
suggestions were being proffered. Blatchford was for hiring rigs and
driving out to the Mission; Calhoun Bennett suggested the El Dorado; but
Sam Brannan's bull voice decided them.

"I'm going to Belle's!" he roared, and at once started off up the street.
The idea was received with acclamation. They straggled up the street toward
the residential portion of town.

Keith followed. The delayed action of the drink had thrown him into a
delicious whirling haze. He felt that he could be completely master of
himself at any moment merely by making the effort; only it did not at
present seem worth while. He knew where Belle's was: it was the ornate
house diagonally across the street from his own, the one concerning which
the clerk had been so evasive when they were house hunting.

Belle's was a three-story frame building, differing in no outward essential
from the fashionable residences around it. On warm evenings there sometimes
came through the opened windows the sound of a piano, the clink of glasses,
loud laughter or singing. The chance bystander might have heard identically
the same from any other house in the neighbourhood. Only Belle's
occasionally--rarely occasionally--contributed a crash or an oath. Such
things were, however, quickly hushed. Belle's was run on respectable lines.
Men went in and out quite openly, with the tolerance of most, but to the
scandal of a few. Those curious, consulting the yellowed files of the
newspapers, can read little protests--signed with _nom de plumes_--from
young women, complaining that young men of their acquaintance, after
calling decorously on them, would cross quite openly to the house over the
way. Yet they were powerless, for a year or so at least, to break up the
custom.

For Belle's was a carry-over from the 49-51 days when of social life there
was none at all. It differed from the merely disreputable house. Belle
prided herself on quiet conduct and many friends. In person she was a
middle-aged, still attractive Frenchwoman. She had furnished her parlours
very elaborately, and she insisted that both her employees and clients
should behave in the public rooms with the greatest circumspection.

Indeed, a casual visitor, unacquainted with the character of the place,
might well have been deceived. The women sitting about were made up and
very decollete, to be sure, but their conduct, while not always of the
highest tone, was nevertheless quite devoid of freedom. Belle permitted no
overt word or action; nor was any visitor subjected to another expectation
than the occasional opening of a bottle of wine "for the good of the
house."

But outside of the one fundamental rule of decency, the caller could make
himself comfortable in his own way. He could lounge, pound the piano, joke,
play games, smoke where he pleased, and enjoy what was then a rarity--the
company and conversation of nimble-witted, well-dressed, beautiful women
whose ideas were not narrow. Ultimate possibilities were always kept very
much in the background, but that there were possibilities made for present
relaxation or freedom.

Twice a year Belle was in the habit of giving a grand party. The
invitations were engraved. Entertainment was on a sumptuous scale. There
were dancing, all sorts of card games, an elaborate supper, the best of
music, often professional entertainers of great merit. Everything was free
except wine. Nearly the whole masculine population turned out for Belle's
big party--judges, legislators, bankers, merchants, as well as the
professional politicians and the gamblers. The most prominent men of the
city frequented Belle's at other times openly, without fear of public
opinion--many of them merely for the sense of freedom and relaxation they
there enjoyed. Everybody was welcome.

Keith, however, knowing the character of the place, had never been inside
its doors. Now, enveloped in his rosy haze, exceedingly contented with his
company, he followed where they led. At the door a neat coloured maid
relieved him of his hat and coat, and smiled a welcome. His dazzled vision
took in a long drawing-room, soft red carpets, red brocade curtains of
heavy material, with edges of gold fringe and with gold cords, chandeliers
of many dangling prisms, a white marble mantel, a grand piano, a few
pictures of the nude, and many chairs. Ravishingly beautiful, wonderfully
dressed women sat about in indolent attitudes.

The hilarious party at once scattered through the room, Calhoun Bennett
went to the piano and began to play sentimental airs. Ned McGowan, his face
very red, enthroned himself in an easy chair, clasping girls who perched on
either arm. He talked to them in a low voice. They leaned over to hear, and
every moment or so they burst into shrieks of laughter. Judge Terry was
listening intently to some serious communication Belle herself was making
to him. Sam Brannan was roaring for champagne. The others were circulating
here and there, talking, playing practical jokes. Altogether, to Keith's
rosy vision, a colourful and delightful scene. Nobody paid him the least
attention.

How long he stood there he did not know. The groups before him shifted and
changed confusedly. The lights seemed to blaze and to dim, and then to
blaze again. After a long interval he became aware of a touch on his arm.
He looked down. A piquant, dark-eyed, tilt-nosed girl was smiling up at
him.

"Wat you do?" she was begging. "You come wiz me?"

He focussed his attention on the room. It was almost empty. He saw the back
of Judge Terry disappearing into the street. He passed his hand across his
eyes.

"Where are the others?" he asked confusedly.

She laughed with significance. He looked down at her again. Her complexion
was a sort of dead white, her lips were red and glistening, her eyes were
darkened. He turned suddenly and left the house. The coloured maid,
disappointed in a tip, stood in the doorway, his hat and coat in her hands,
staring after him. The cool air a little cleared his brain. He stopped
short in the middle of the street, trying to collect himself.

"I'm drunk," he solved finally, and proceeded very carefully toward his own
house. After each dozen steps he paused to collect his thoughts before
proceeding. In one of these pauses he distinctly heard a window slam shut;
there were plenty of louder things, he heard only the window. He hadn't the
least idea of the time of night, except that it must be very late. As a
matter of fact, it was not more than half-past ten. Near his own gate he
nearly ran into a woman strolling. With some instinct of apology, he turned
in her direction. As his bare head was revealed in the dim light, the woman
uttered a low laugh.

"And was Belle as charming as ever?" demanded Mrs. Morrell sweetly but
icily. "Go in carefully now, so dear little wifey won't know."

She laughed again and moved past him. He stared after her with a vague
sense of injustice, somehow; then went on.

XXVII

Keith was sorry next morning, but he was not repentant, in the sense of
feeling that he had done anything fatally wrong. He was disgusted with
himself. He wasted no regrets, but did register a very definite intention
not to let _that_ happen again! It was all harmless enough, once in a way,
but it was not his sort of thing. Nan would not understand it a bit--why
should she? His head ached, and he was feeling a little conscience-stricken
about Nan, anyway. He must take her around more, see more of her. Business
had been very absorbing lately, but now that this deal had been brought off
successfully, it was only due her and himself that he take a little time
off. In his present mood he convinced himself, as do most American business
or professional men, that he was being driven in his work, and that he
wanted nothing better than a let-up from the grind. As a matter of fact,
he--and they--love their work.

In this frame of mind he started downtown, rather late. On the street he
met a number of his friends. A good many of them chaffed him good-naturedly
about the night before. By the time he reached his office he was feeling
much better. Things were assuming more of an everyday comfortable aspect.
He had not been seated ten minutes before Dick Blatchford drifted in,
smoking a black cigar that gave Keith a slight qualmish feeling. Dick
seemed quite unaffected by the evening before.

"Hullo, Milt!" he boomed, rolling his heavy form into a chair, his round,
red face beaming. "How's the wild Injin this morning? Say, you're a wonder
when you get started! You needn't deny it; wasn't I there?" He shook his
head, chuckling fatly. "Look here," he went on, "I'm busy this morning--got
to get down to North Beach to see Harry Meigs--and I guess you are." He
tossed over a package of papers that he produced from an inside pocket.
"Look those over at your leisure. I think we better sue the sons of guns.
Let me know what you think." He fished about in a tight-drawn waistcoat
pocket with a chubby thumb and forefinger, pulled out a strip of paper, and
flipped it to Keith as casually as though it were a cigarette paper.
"There's a little something as a retainer," said he. "Well, be good!"

After he had lumbered out, Keith examined the check. It was for one
thousand dollars. If anything were needed to restore his entire confidence
in himself, this retainer would have sufficed. The little spree was
regrettable, of course, but it had brought him a client--and a good one!

Two days later Keith, who now had reason to spend more time in his office,
received another and less welcome visitor: this was Morrell. The young
Englishman, his clean-cut face composed to wooden immobility, his too-
close-set eyes squinting watchfully, came in as though on a social call.

"Just dropped around to look at your diggin's," he told the surprised
Keith. "Not badly fixed here; good light and all.".

He accepted a cigar, and sat for some moments, his hat and stick carefully
disposed on his knees.

"Look here, Keith," he broke into a desultory chat after a few minutes.
"Deucedly awkward, and all that, of course; but I've been wondering whether
you would, be willing to tide me over--remittances late, and all that sort
of thing. Stony for the moment. Everything lovely when the mails arrive.
Neighbours, see a lot of each other, and that sort, you know."

Keith was totally unprepared for this, and floundered. Morrell, watching
him calmly, went on:

"Of course I wouldn't think of coming to you, old chap--plenty of people
glad to bank for me temporarily--but I wanted you to know just how we
stand--Mrs. Morrell and I--that we feel friendly to you, and all that sort
of thing, you know! You can rely on us--no uneasiness, you know."

"Why, that's very kind of you," returned Keith, puzzled.

"Not a bit! The way I looked at it was that a chap wouldn't borrow from a
man he wasn't friendly with, it isn't done." He laughed his high, cackling
laugh, "So I said to Mimi, 'the dear man must be worryin' his head off.' It
was lucky for you, old top, that a woman of the world with some sense saw
you the other night instead of some feather-headed gossipin' fool. But
Mimi's not that."

Keith was slowly beginning to suspect, but as yet he considered his
suspicion unjust.

"How much do you need?" he asked,

"Five hundred dollars," replied Morrell coolly.

"I doubt I have that sum free in ready cash."

Morrell looked him in the eye.

"I fancy you will be able to raise it," he said very deliberately.

The men looked at each other.

"This is blackmail, then," said Keith without excitement.

Morrell became very stiff and English in manner.

"Words do not frighten me, sir. This is a personal loan. It is an action
between friends, just as my silence on the subject of your peccadillo is a
friendly action. I mention that silence, not as a threat, but as an
evidence of my own friendly feeling. I see I have made a mistake."

He arose, his bearing very frigid. Keith was naturally not in the least
deceived by this assumption of injured innocence, but he had been thinking.

"Hold on!" he said. "You must forgive my being startled; and you must admit
you were a little unfortunate in your presentation. For this loan, what
security?"

"My personal note," replied Morrell calmly.

"I must look into my resources. I will let you know to-morrow."

"Not later than to-morrow. I'll call at this hour," said Morrell with
meaning.

After the Englishman had gone Keith considered the matter at leisure.
Although of a sanguine and excitable temperament When only little things
were involved, he was clear headed and uninfluenced by personal feeling in
real emergencies.

First, would the Morrells carry out the implied threat? His instinct
supplied that answer. Of Morrell himself he had never had any trust. Now he
remembered what had never really struck him before: that Morrell, even in
this fast and loose society, had never been more than tolerated, and that,
apparently, only because of the liveliness of his wife. He had the
indefinable air of a bad 'un. And Keith's knowledge of women was broad
enough to tell him that Mrs. Morrell would be relentless.

Second, would a denial avail against their story? His commonsense told him
that if the Morrells started this thing they would carry it through to a
finish. There was no sense in it otherwise, for such an attack would mean
the burning of most of their social bridges. Morrell could get witnesses
from Belle's--say, the coloured maid whom he had not tipped--and there were
his hat and coat.

Third, could he afford to let them tell the tale? As far as his position in
the city, either professionally or socially, most decidedly yes. But at
home, as decidedly no. In her calmest, most judicial, trusting, loving
mood, Nan could never understand. Her breeding and upbringing were against
it. She could never comprehend the difference between such a place as
Belle's and any disreputable house--if there was a difference. This point
needed little argument.

Then he must pay.

Having definitely decided this, he repressed his natural inclinations
toward anger, drew the money, laid it aside in his drawer, and went on with
his work. When Morrell came, in next morning, very easy and debonair, he
handed out the gold pieces and took in return the man's note, without
relaxing the extreme gravity and formality of his manner.

"Thanks, old chap!" cried Morrell. "You've saved my life. I won't forget."
He paused; then cackled harshly: "Good joke that! No, _I won't_ forget!"

Keith bowed coldly, waiting. Morrell, with, a final cackle, made leisurely
for the door. As he laid his hand on the knob, Keith spoke:

"By the way, Morrell."

Morrell turned.

"Take care you don't overdo this," advised Keith, very deliberately.

Morrell examined him. Keith's face was grim. He smiled enigmatically.

"Tact is a blessed gift, old top," said he, and went out.

XXVIII

This whole episode proved to be a turning-point in Keith's career. His
revulsion against the feminine--hence society--side of life brought about
by the affair of Mrs. Morrell, might soon have passed, and he might soon
have returned to the old round of picnics, excursions, dinners, and
parties, were it not that coincidentally a new and absorbing occupation was
thrust upon him. Dick Blatchford's case was only one of many that came to
him. He became completely immersed in the fascinating intricacies of the
law.

As has been previously pointed out, nowhere before nor since has pure
legality been made such a fetish. It was a game played by lawyers, not an
attempt to get justice done. Since, in all criminal cases at least, the
prosecution was carried on by one man and his associates, poorly paid and
hence of mediocre ability, and the defence conducted by the keenest brains
in the profession, it followed that convictions were rare. Homicide in
various forms was little frowned upon. Duels were of frequent occurrence,
and, in several instances, regular excursions, with tickets, were organized
to see them. Street shootings of a more informal nature were too numerous
to count. Invariably an attempt, generally successful, was made to arrest
the homicide. If he had money, he hired the best lawyers, and rested
secure. If he had no money, he disappeared for a time. Almost everybody had
enough money, or enough friends with money, to adopt the former course. Of
1,200 murders--or "killings"--committed in the San Francisco of those days,
there was just _one_ legal conviction!

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