The Vagrant Duke

When she went up to the second floor of the cottage a few minutes later she took the heliotrope letter with her and put it on her bureau, propped against the pincushion, while she went on with her work. And then, all her duties for the morning finished, she sat down in her rocking chair by the window, the envelope in her idle fingers, a victim of temptation. She looked out at the pine woods, her gaze afar, her guilty fingers slipping the letter out of its covering an inch, two inches. And then Beth opened Peter's heliotrope note and read it. At least, she read as much of it as she could understand, – the parts that were written in English – with growing amazement and incertitude. A good deal of the English part even was Greek to her, but she could understand enough to know that a mystery of some sort hung about the letter and about Peter, that he was apparently a person of some importance to the heliotrope lady who addressed him in affectionate terms and with the utmost freedom. Beth had learned in the French ballads which Peter had taught her that ami meant friend and that bel meant beautiful. And as the whole of the paragraph containing those words was written in English, Beth had little difficulty in understanding it. What had Peter to do with the cause of Holy Russia? And what was this danger to him from hidden enemies, which could make necessary this discretion and watchfulness in Black Rock? And the last sentence of all danced before Beth's eyes as though it had been written in letters of fire. "There is at least one heart in London that ever beats fondly in memory of the dear dead days at Galitzin and Zukovo."

What right had the heliotrope lady's heart to beat fondly in memory of dear dead days with Peter Nichols at Galitzin or Zukovo or anywhere else? Who was she? Was she young? Was she beautiful? And what right had Peter given her to address him in terms of such affection? Anastasie!

And now for the first time in her life, though to all outward appearance calm, Beth felt the pangs of jealousy. This letter, most of it in the queer-looking script (probably Russian) that she could not even read, in its strange references in English to things beyond her knowledge, seemed suddenly to erect a barrier between her and Peter that could never be passed, or even to indicate a barrier between them that had always existed without her knowledge. And if all of the parts of the letter that she could not understand contained sentiments like the English part that she could understand, it was a very terrible letter indeed and indicated that this heliotrope woman (she was no longer "lady" now) had claims upon Peter's heart which came long before Beth's. And if this Anastasie – other women too…

Beth read the letter again and then slipped it back into its envelope, while she gazed out of the window at the pines, a frown at her brows and two tiny lines curving downward at the corners of her lips. She was very unhappy. But she was angry too – angry at the heliotrope woman, angry at Peter and angrier still at herself. In that moment she forgot that she had taken Peter Nichols without reference to what he was or had been. She had told him that only the future mattered and now she knew that the past was beginning to matter very much indeed.

After a while she got up, and took the heliotrope letter to the bureau where she wrote upon the envelope rather viciously with a soft lead pencil, "You left this last night. You'd better go back to Anastasie." Then she slipped the letter into her waist and with an air of decision went down the stairs (the ominous parentheses still around her mouth), and made her way with rapid footsteps toward the path through the forest which led toward Peter's cabin.

Beth was primitive, highly honorable by instinct if not by precept, but a creature of impulse, very much in love, who read by intuition the intrusion of what seemed a very real danger to her happiness. If her conscience warned her that she was transgressing the rules of polite procedure, something stronger than a sense of propriety urged her on to read, something stronger than mere curiosity – the impulse of self-preservation, the impulse to preserve that which was stronger even than self – the love of Peter Nichols.

The scrawl that she had written upon the envelope was eloquent of her point of view, at once a taunt, a renunciation and a confession. "You left this last night. You'd better go back to Anastasie!"

It was the intention of carrying the letter to Peter's cabin and there leaving it in a conspicuous position that now led her rapidly down the path through the woods. Gone were the tender memories of the night before. If this woman had had claims upon Peter Nichols's heart at the two places with the Russian names, she had the same claims upon them now. Beth's love and her pride waged a battle within her as she approached the Cabin. She remembered that Peter had told her last night that he would have a long day at the lumber camp, but as she crossed the log-jam she found herself hoping that by some chance she would find Peter still at home, where, with a fine dignity (which she mentally rehearsed) she would demand explanation, and listening, grant forgiveness. Or else … she didn't like to think of the alternative.

But instead of Peter, at the Cabin door in the early morning sunlight she found a strange man, sitting in a chair in the portico, smoking one of Peter's cigarettes, and apparently much at home. The appearance of the stranger was for a moment disconcerting, but Beth approached the familiar doorway, her head high, the heliotrope letter burning her fingers. She had intended to walk in at the door of the Cabin, place the letter in a conspicuous position where Peter could not fail to see it, and then return to her home and haughtily await Peter's arrival. But the presence of this man, a stranger in Black Rock, making free of Peter's habitation, evidently with Peter's knowledge and consent, made her pause in a moment of uncertainty.

At her approach the man in the chair had risen and she saw that he was tall – almost as tall as Peter, that he had a hooked nose and displayed a set of irregular teeth when he smiled – which he did, not unpleasantly. There was something about him which repelled her yet fascinated at the same time.

"Mr. Nichols has gone out?" Beth asked, for something to say.

"Yes, Miss," said the stranger, blinking at her with his bleary eyes. "Mr. Nichols is down at the lumber camp – won't be back until night, I reckon. Anythin' I can do for ye?"

"No, I – ?" Beth hesitated. "I just wanted to see him – to leave somethin' for him."

"I guess he'll be right sorry to miss you. Who shall I say called?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Beth, turning away. But she was now aware of a strange curiosity as to this person who sat with such an air of well-being in Peter's chair and spoke with such an air of proprietorship. The insistence of her own personal affair with Peter had driven from her mind all thoughts of the other matters suggested in the letter, of the possible dangers to Peter even here in Black Rock and the mysterious references to Holy Russia. This man who stood in Peter's portico, whoever he was, was not a Russian, she could see that at a glance and read it in his accents, but she was equally certain from his general character that he could be no friend of Peter's and that his business here was not of Peter's choosing.

"If ye'd like to wait a while – "

He offered her the chair, but Beth did not accept it.

"Ye don't happen to be Miss Peggy McGuire, do ye?" asked the stranger curiously.

"No," replied the girl. "My name is Beth Cameron."

"Beth – ?"

"Cameron," she finished firmly.

"Oh – "

The stranger seemed to be examining her with a glowing interest, but his look was clouded.

Beth had decided that until Peter came explaining she had no further possible interest either in him or his affairs, but in spite of this she found her lips suddenly asking,

"Are you a friend of Mr. Nichols's?"

The man in the portico grinned somberly.

"Yes. I guess I am – an old friend – before he came to America."

"Oh!" said Beth quietly. "You've known him a long time then?"

"Ye might say so. We were buddies together."

"Then you knew him in – in London?"

The man grinned. "Can't say I did. Not in London. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I just wanted to know."

The gaze of the stranger upon her was disquieting. His eyes seemed to be smoldering like embers just ready to blaze. She knew that she ought to be returning and yet she didn't want to go leaving her object unaccomplished, the dignity of her plan having already been greatly disturbed. And so she hesitated, curiosity at war with discretion.

"Would you mind telling me your name?" she asked timidly.

The man shrugged a shoulder and glanced away from her. "I reckon my name wouldn't mean much to you."

"Oh – I'm sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have asked?"

The stranger put his hands into his coat pockets and stared down at Beth with a strange intrusive kind of smile.

"You and Pete seem kind of thick, don't ye?" he muttered.

"Pete!"

"Pete Nichols. That's his name, ain't it? Kind of thick, I'd say. I can't blame him though – "

"You're mistaken," said Beth with dignity, "there's nothin' between Peter Nichols and me." And turning heel, Beth took a step away.

"There! Put my foot in it, didn't I? I'm sorry. Don't go yet. I want to ask ye something."

Beth paused and found that the stranger had come out from the portico and still stood beside her. And as her look inquired fearlessly,

"It's about your name, Miss," he muttered, and then with an effort spoke the word savagely, as though it had been wrenched from him by an effort of will, "Cameron – ? Your name's Cameron?"

"Yes," said Beth, in some inquietude.

"Common name in some parts – Cameron – not so common in others – not in Jersey anyway – "

"I didn't know – "

"Is yer father livin'?" he snapped.

"No – dead. Many years ago. Out West."

"Tsch!" he breathed, the air whistling between his teeth, "Out West, ye say – out West?"

He stood in front of Beth now, his arms akimbo, his head bent forward under the stress of some excitement. Beth drew away from him, but he came forward after her, his gaze still seeking hers.

"Yes – out West," said Beth haltingly.

"Where?" he gasped.

"I don't know – "

"Was his name – was his name – Ben Cameron?" He shot the question at her with a strange fury, catching meanwhile at her arm.

"Let me go – ," she commanded. "You're hurtin' me."

"Was it – ?"

"Yes. Let me go."

The stranger's grip on her arm suddenly relaxed and while she watched his face in curiosity the glow in his eyes suddenly flickered out, his gaze shifting from side to side as he seemed to shrink away from her. From timidity at his roughness she found new courage in her curiosity at his strange behavior. What had this stranger to do with Ben Cameron?

"What did you want to know for?" she asked him.

But his bent brows were frowning at the path at his feet. He tried to laugh – and the sound of the dry cackle had little mirth in it.

"No matter. I – I thought it might be. I guess ye'd better go – I guess ye'd better." And with that he sank heavily in Peter's chair again.

But Beth still stood and stared at him, aware of the sudden change in his attitude toward her. What did it all mean? What were Peter's relations with this creature who behaved so strangely at the mention of her name? Why did he speak of Ben Cameron? Who was he? Who – ?

The feeling of which she had at first been conscious, at the man's evil leering smile which repelled her suddenly culminated in a pang of intuition. This man … It must be … Hawk Kennedy – the man who … She stared at him with a new horror in the growing pallor of her face and Hawk Kennedy saw the look. It was as though some devilish psychological contrivance had suddenly hooked their two consciousnesses to the same thought. Both saw the same picture – the sand, the rocks, the blazing sun and a dead man lying with a knife in his back… And Beth continued staring as though in a kind of horrible fascination. And when her lips moved she spoke as though impelled by a force beyond her own volition.

"You – you're Hawk Kennedy," she said tensely, "the man who killed my father."

"It's a lie," he gasped, springing to his feet. "Who told you that?"

"I – I guessed it – "

"Who told ye about Hawk Kennedy? Who told ye about him?"

"No one – "

"Ye didn't dream it. Ye can't dream a name," he said tensely. "Pete told ye – he lied to ye."

"He didn't."

But he had caught her by the wrist again and dragged her into the Cabin. She was thoroughly frightened now – too frightened even to cry out – too terrified at the sudden revelation of this man who for some days had been a kind of evil spirit in the background of her happiness. He was not like what she had thought he was, but he embodied an idea that was sinister and terrible. And while she wondered what he was going to do next, he pushed her into the armchair, locked the door and put the key into his pocket.

"Now we can talk," he muttered grimly. "No chance of bein' disturbed – Pete ain't due for hours yet. So he's been tellin' you lies about me. Has he? Sayin' I done it. By G – , I'm beginnin' to see…"

He leered at her horribly, and Beth seemed frozen into her chair. The courage that had been hers a moment ago when he had shrunk away from her had fled before the fury of his questions and the violence of his touch. She was intimidated for the first time in her life and yet she tried to meet his eyes, which burned wildly, shifting from side to side like those of a caged beast. In her terror she could not tell what dauntless instinct had urged her unless it was Ben Cameron's soul in agony that had cried out through her lips. And now she had not only betrayed Peter – but herself…

"I'm beginnin' to see. You and Pete – playin' both ends against the middle, with McGuire comin' down somethin' very handsome for a weddin' present and leavin' me out in the cold. Very pretty! But it ain't goin' to work out just that way – not that way at all."

All of this he muttered in a wildly casual kind of a way, at no one in particular, as his gaze flitted from one object in the room to another, always passing over Beth almost impersonally. But in a moment she saw his gaze concentrate upon her with sudden eagerness.

"He told ye I done it, did he? Well, I didn't," he cried in a strident voice. "I didn't do it. It was McGuire and I'll prove it, all right. McGuire. Pete can't fix that on me – even if he wanted to. But he told you or ye wouldn't of spoke like ye did. I guess maybe ye wouldn't of said so much if Pete had been here. But ye let the cat slip out of the bag all right. You and Pete – and maybe McGuire's with ye too – all against me. Is that so?.. Can't yer speak, girl? Must ye sit there just starin' at me with yer big eyes? What are ye lookin' at? Are ye dumb?"

"No, I'm not dumb," gasped Beth, struggling for her courage, aware all the while of the physical threat in the man's very presence.

"Speak then. Tell me the truth. Pete said it was your money McGuire took – your money McGuire's got to make good to ye? Ain't that the truth?"

"I won't answer."

"Oh, yes, ye will. You'll answer all right. I'm not goin' to trifle. What did ye come here to see Pete about? What's that letter ye came to give him? Give it to me!"

Beth clutched the heliotrope note to her bosom but Hawk Kennedy caught at her hands and tried to tear it away from her. It needed only this new act of physical violence to give Beth the courage of despair. She sprang to her feet eluding him but he caught her before she reached the window. She struck at him with her fists but he tore the letter away from her and hurled her toward the bed over which she fell breathless. There was no use trying to fight this man… There was a cruelty in his touch which spoke of nameless things… And so she lay motionless, nursing her injured wrists, trying desperately to think what she must do.

Meanwhile, watching her keenly from the tail of his eye, Hawk Kennedy was reading the heliotrope letter, spelling out the English word by word. Fascinated, Beth saw the frown of curiosity deepen to interest and then to puzzled absorption.

"Interestin' – very," she heard him mutter at last, as he glanced toward the bed. "Holy Russia. H – ! What's this mean, girl? Who is Peter Nichols? Answer me."

"I – I don't know," she said.

"Yes, ye do. Where did ye get this letter?"

"He left it at – at my house last night."

"Oh! Your house! Where?"

"In the village."

"I see. An' this scrawl on the envelope – you wrote it – "

Beth couldn't reply. He was dragging her through the very depths of humiliation.

At her silence his lips curved in ugly amusement.

"Anastasie!" he muttered. "Some queen that – with her purple paper an' all. And ye don't know who she is? Or who Pete is? Answer me!"

"I – I don't know," she whispered. "I – I don't, really."

"H-m! Well, he ain't what he's seemed to be, that's sure. He ain't what he's seemed to be to you and he ain't what he's seemed to be to me. But whoever he is he can't put anything over on me. We'll see about this."

Beth straightened and sat up, watching him pace the floor in deep thought. There might be a chance that she could escape by the window. But when she started up he ordered her back roughly and she soon saw that this was impossible.

At last he stopped walking up and down and stared at her, his eyes narrowed to mere slits, his brows drawn ominously together. It seemed that he had reached a decision.

"You behave yourself an' do what I tell ye an' ye won't be hurt," he growled.

"Wh-what are you goin' to do?" she gasped.

"Nothin' much. Ye're just goin' with me – that's all."

"W-where?"

"That's my business. Oh, ye needn't be scared of any love makin'. I'm not on that lay this trip."

He went to the drawer of Peter's bureau and took out some handkerchiefs.

"But ye'd better be scared if ye don't do what I tell ye. Here. Stand up!"

Beth shrank away from, him, but he caught her by the wrists and held her.

"Ye're not to make a noise, d'ye hear? I can't take the chance."

And while she still struggled desperately, he fastened her wrists together behind her. Then he thrust one of Peter's handkerchiefs in her mouth and securely gagged her. He wasn't any too gentle with her but even in her terror she found herself thanking God that it was only abduction that he planned.

Hawk Kennedy went to the window and peered out up the path, then he opened the door and looked around. After a moment he came in quickly.

"Come," he muttered, "it's time we were off."

He caught her by the arm and helped her to her feet, pushing her out of the door and into the underbrush at the corner of the cabin. Her feet lagged, her knees were weak, but the grasp on her shoulder warned her of cruelties she had not dreamed of and so she stumbled on – on into the depths of the forest, Hawk Kennedy's hard hand urging her on to greater speed.

CHAPTER XIX

YAKIMOV REVEALS HIMSELF

It was with some misgivings that Peter left his cabin, leaving Hawk Kennedy there to sleep off the effects of his potations, but the situation at the lumber camp was so hazardous that his presence was urgently required. Hawk had awakened early, very early, and very thirsty, but Peter had told him that there was no more whisky and threatened to throw over the whole affair if he didn't sober up and behave himself. And so, having exacted a promise from Hawk Kennedy to leave the Cabin when he had had his sleep out, Peter had gotten the "flivver" from McGuire's garage (as was his custom) and driven rapidly down toward the camp.

He had almost reached the conclusion that the copy of the partnership agreement which Hawk had held as a threat over McGuire had ceased to exist – that it had been lost, effaced or destroyed. But he wanted to be more certain of this before he came out into the open, showed his hand and McGuire's and defied the blackmailer to do his worst. He felt pretty sure now from his own knowledge of the man that, desperate though he was in his intention to gain a fortune by this expedient, he was absolutely powerless to do evil without the signature of McGuire. The question as to whether or not he would make a disagreeable publicity of the whole affair was important to McGuire and had to be avoided if possible, for Peter had given his promise to bring the affair to a quiet conclusion.

Until he could have a further talk with McGuire, he meant to lead Hawk Kennedy on to further confidences and with this end in view and with the further purpose of getting him away from the Cabin, had promised to meet him late that afternoon at a fork of the road to the lumber camp, the other prong of which led to a settlement of several shanties where Hawk had managed to get a lodging on the previous night and on several other occasions. In his talk with the ex-waiter he learned that on his previous visits the man had made a careful survey of the property and knew his way about almost as well as Peter did. It appeared that he also knew something of Peter's problems at the lumber camp and the difficulties the superintendent had already encountered in getting his sawed lumber to the railroad and in completing his fire-towers. Indeed, these difficulties seemed only to have begun again, and it was with great regret that Peter was obliged to forego the opportunity of seeing Beth that day, perhaps even that evening. But he had told her nothing of his troubles the night before, not wishing to cloud a day so fair for them both.

The facts were these: Flynn and Jacobi, the men he had dismissed, had appeared again at the camp in his absence, bent on fomenting trouble, and Shad Wells, already inflamed against the superintendent, had fallen an easy prey to their machinations. Accidents were always happening at the sawmills, accidents to machinery and implements culminating at last in the blowing out of a tube of one of the boilers. It was this misfortune that had held the work up for several days until a spare boiler could be installed. Peter tried to find out how these accidents had happened, but each line of investigation led up a blind alley. Jesse Brown, his foreman, seemed to be loyal, but he was easy-going and weak. With many of his own friends among the workers both at the camp and mills he tried to hold his job by carrying water on both shoulders and the consequences were inevitable. He moved along the line of least resistance and the trouble grew. Peter saw his weakness and would have picked another man to supersede him, but there was no other available. The truth was that though the men's wages were high for the kind of work that they were doing, the discontent that they had brought with them was in the air. The evening papers brought word of trouble in every direction, the threatened railroad and steel strikes and the prospect of a coalless winter when the miners went out as they threatened to do on the first of November.

At first Peter had thought that individually many of the men liked him. He had done what he could for their comfort and paid them the highest price justifiable, but gradually he found that his influence was being undermined and that the good-natured lagging which Peter had at first tried to tolerate had turned to loafing on the job, and finally to overt acts of rebellion. More men had been sent away and others with even less conscience had taken their places. Some of them had enunciated Bolshevist doctrines as wild as any of Flynn's or Jacobi's. Jonathan K. McGuire stood as a type which represented the hierarchy of wealth and was therefore their hereditary enemy. Peter in a quiet talk at the bunk-house one night had told them that once Jonathan K. McGuire had been as poor, if not poorer, than any one of them. But even as he spoke he had felt that his words had made no impression. It was what McGuire was now that mattered, they told him. All this land, all this lumber, was the people's, and they'd get it too in time. With great earnestness, born of a personal experience of which they could not dream, Peter pointed out to them what had happened and was now happening in Russia and painted a harrowing picture of helplessness and starvation, but they smoked their pipes in silence and answered him not at all. They were not to be reasoned with. If the Soviet came to America they were willing to try it. They would try anything once.