V
Next morning, when Andy Wattles drove by the farm with Will Bissell’s truck on his way to East Harbor, Jeff saw that Andy had a passenger. Will Belter was riding to town with Andy. They hailed him as they passed the barn, and Andy waved a hand in greeting as they disappeared. Jeff’s perceptions were quick; it was no more than half a dozen seconds before he understood that there was menace in this move on Belter’s part. His first thought was to stop the man and bring him back, but the truck was already far away along the townward road. He shook his head; there was nothing he could do. If Belter meant harm the harm was done.
But the incident put Jeff on his guard, so that he made it his business to stay about the house that day; and when, in the early afternoon, an automobile stopped in the road before the farm he saw it and was ready. He had given the woman no warning, but she heard the machine, and came to his side in the dining room and looked out through the window. Themselves hidden, they could see the car. Three men were in it—the chauffeur, Will Belter and another. Jeff knew this other man; it needed not the woman’s exclamation to inform him. Her husband had found her hiding place.
When Lucia saw him she sank weakly in a chair beside the table, said in a voice like a moan, “He’s found me! He’s found me!”
But for this crisis of his adventure Jeff was ready; he rose to meet the moment, gripped her shoulder.
“Just mind this,” he told her swiftly. “Keep your head, ma’am, and mind what I say. You don’t have to go back with him unless you want. He can’t make you, ha’n’t no legal way to make you; and if you don’t want to go you don’t have to go. I’ll see he don’t take you unless you say the word.”
She looked up at him in swift gratitude; and he smiled at her and asked, “Now can’t you take a little heart from that, ma’am?”
“He’s coming,” she whispered.
And Jeff looked through the window again and saw that Viles had left Belter and the chauffeur in the car he had hired in East Harbor. He himself came steadily toward the kitchen door, while the two other men watched him from the road. Jeff and the woman heard his loud knock upon the door.
At this summons Jeff left her where she sat, her strength returning. He opened the kitchen door and faced the man he had learned to hate so blindingly that the passion intoxicated him. Yet his countenance was calm, his features all composed.
Viles was a large man without being fat; one of those men who have about them the apparent solidity of flesh which is the attribute of such dogs as Boston terriers. He may have been six feet tall, but he was inches broader across the shoulders than most men of his height. His countenance was peculiarly pink, as though rich blood coursed too near the surface of his skin. Jeff marked that he was subject to a certain shortness of breath, that his eyes were too small, and that even now a little pulse was beating in the man’s throat.
Yet Viles spoke in a smooth and pleasant voice, said a jovial good afternoon and asked if this was Jeff Ranney’s farm. Jeff said it was.
Viles asked, “Are you Ranney?”
“I’m Ranney,” Jeff assented. He had not asked the other to come in; the screen door still separated them.
“Ah,” said Viles. “I am told your niece from California is visiting you. I have a rather important bit of business to transact with her.”
Jeff shook his head. “She ain’t my niece,” he answered frankly. “She’s your wife, that had to run away from you.”
His voice was stony; but at his words Viles moved backward a step, as though under the impact of a blow, and Jeff saw the swift rage mount his cheeks in a purple flood. Then the rich man laid his hand upon the screen door, opened it.
Jeff did not move to one side, and Viles said hoarsely, “Get out of my way, you impudent fool!”
Jeff shook his head. “Listen, mister,” he said softly. “This is my house. You can’t come in here on your own say-so. I’m not fooling with you either. If you want to come in, you ask.”
Viles lifted one clenched hand as though to sweep the other aside; and Jeff added, “I’ve heard enough about you so I’d like right well to mix it up with you a little bit—if you want to try anything like that. Do you?”
“I want to come in,” said Viles hoarsely.
Jeff considered this for a moment, then he spoke to the woman, over his shoulder. “Do you want to see him?” he asked her.
“I suppose so,” she told him wearily.
Jeff nodded. “All right, mister,” he said to Viles. “Come in and take a chair.”
Viles had somewhat recovered himself. He followed Jeff’s indifferent back into the dining room. The woman did not rise. Jeff set a chair across the table from her, and Viles sat down in it while Jeff himself crossed to shut the door that led into the parlor, then came back and leaned against the kitchen door, watching this husband and wife, waiting for what they would say.
Viles had drawn a velvet glove over the iron hand. He asked the woman gently, “Are you all right, my dear?” She nodded. “You are well?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, I am well.”
He looked toward Jeff. “Mrs. Viles is unfortunately subject to moments of great depression,” he explained courteously. “In these moments—” He stopped, arched his eyebrows meaningly, as though Jeff must understand.
“You mean she has crazy spells?” Jeff asked bluntly. Viles protested wordlessly. “She don’t act crazy to me,” Jeff commented. “But you may be right. She married you.”
He was seeking quite deliberately to goad the other man into violence, but Viles controlled himself, said across the table to his wife, “We have been greatly concerned, my dear.”
“I’m sorry,” she said unconvincingly.
“It is a relief to know that you have not suffered. That scratch across your temple—”
Lucia touched with her fingers the slight wound. “It is nothing.”
“You must have a good rest in bed when we get back to the yacht,” he told her. There was an elephantine sportiveness in the man’s demeanor. “I’m going to enjoy taking care of you.”
She was silent for a moment, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll go back,” she told him. “I don’t think I’ll go back at all.”
He tried to laugh easily. “You’re fancying things, Lucia. It is your home. You belong there.”
She faced him with a moment of decision. “If you withdraw the charge against Frank I’ll go back with you, Leander.”
“Withdraw it?” he asked in pretended astonishment.
“I can’t bear to have him go to jail,” she cried softly.
“But, my dear, the man’s a thief; has betrayed the trust I reposed in him.”
“I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I don’t want him to go to jail.”
Viles dropped his eyes to the oilcloth that covered the table and drummed upon it with his fingers for a moment, then turned to Jeff.
“I’d be obliged for a few moments’ talk with my wife alone,” he said, a sardonic note in his tone.
Jeff held his eyes for a minute, then looked toward the woman. “What shall I do, ma’am?” he asked, as though it were a matter of course that he should defer to her.
She made a weary gesture. “He has a right to that,” she said.
Jeff nodded. “I’ll come back in fifteen minutes, mister,” he told Viles menacingly.
But Viles smiled in affable assent. “That will do finely,” he agreed.
Jeff went out through the kitchen into the shed. When he was gone Viles rose and crossed to listen at the door, and heard Jeff go on into the barn. He returned to the dining room and stood above his wife, and when she did not move he gripped her chin harshly and turned her face up to his. No velvet glove upon the iron hand now. She winced a little with the pain, but made no sound. There was triumph and malice in his grin.
“Thought you could get away with it, did you, Lucia?” he asked. She said nothing. “Thought I wouldn’t find you?” Still she made no sound. “Where’d you pick up this rural squire of yours?”
His tone was insult, and her continued silence seemed to anger him; he loosed her chin with a gesture as though he flung her aside; rounded the table again and sat down facing her and lighted a cigar, watching his wife through the smoke. For a long minute neither of them moved or spoke; then she lifted her head, very slowly, and met his eyes.
After an instant he laughed at her mockingly and leaned forward, gesturing with the cigar, dropping flecks of ash upon the oilcloth.
“Lucia, my dear,” he said, “you haven’t played fair with me. You and that tame cat of yours. And now I’m going to even the score. If you loved him you shouldn’t have married me. Or having married me you should have ceased to love him. Isn’t that a fair statement of the ethics of the case?”
“I didn’t know, Leander,” she said pitifully. “He had been so long away.”
“I sent him away,” the man admitted harshly. “I wanted a clear field, and got it and got you. Thought I was getting the whole of you. But when he came back I saw within six months’ time that it was only the husk of you I had won.”
“You’re unfair!” she cried. “Frank never spoke to me—there was never anything—”
“What do I care?” Viles demanded. “Don’t you suppose I know that? Don’t you suppose I’ve seen to it that you were both pretty closely looked after? But you loved him, and he loved you. A blind man could see that whenever you were together.”
“I played fair with you,” his wife pleaded. “And he did too.”
“That’s because you were afraid to do anything else,” he assured her scornfully. “That’s because you’re weaklings. I’m not a weakling, my dear. In his place I’d have you. In my place I’ve evened the score—against both of you.”
She began to sense that there was something more, something she did not know. “What?” she asked faintly. “What have you done to him?”
He puffed at his cigar, relishing it, relishing the situation. “You two blind fools! Did you think I was also blind?”
She shook her head helplessly. “What are you trying to say?”
The man swung around for a moment to look toward the road and make sure the two men who had come with him were still in the car, then leaned across the table toward her, speaking softly.
“I gave Frank the combination of your safe,” he told her, grinning with delight in this moment of his triumph. “I told him to get the necklace, and take it to Boston. To have it restrung; a surprise for you. Told him not to let you see him, not to let you know. The poor fool believed me.”
She was staring at him, half understanding. “He didn’t steal it? He didn’t steal it, then?”
“And the pretty part of it was the way I rang you in,” her husband assured her mockingly. “Sending you down to the cabin at a moment when I knew he would be there. So that you might catch him in the very doing of it. So that your own testimony, my dear, might send this sweetheart of yours to jail.” Her eyes widened, she was white as snow; and he threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Ah, you see it now?”
Lucia came swiftly to her feet. “He didn’t steal it? He didn’t steal it?” she cried. “Oh, he won’t have to go to jail!”
Her husband chuckled, watching her narrowly. “Not so quick on the trigger, Lucia. Not so fast. He’ll go to jail, right enough. Don’t worry about that. And you’ll send him there.”
“But he didn’t do it, Leander?” she urged pleadingly. “He’s not a thief at all!”
“Of course he isn’t,” Viles assented. “That’s the beauty of the little trap I laid.”
Flames were burning in her cheeks now; her head was high. “I won’t testify against him,” she said swiftly. “You can’t do it without me, and I won’t—”
“That was why you ran away?” he asked casually. “To avoid testifying? I thought as much.”
“I won’t go back!” she cried. “I’ll go away again!”
He smiled. “There were others who saw,” he told her mildly. “Do you suppose I would be content with so loose a plan? They saw him, as well as you. Saw you also.” He leaned toward her ferociously. “You’ll testify, and you’ll tell the truth, or I’ll convict you of perjury on your own lie, my dear. He’ll go to jail certainly; and you also if you choose.”
The woman was very intent, her thoughts racing. And suddenly she laughed in his face. “And I’ll tell what you’ve just told me,” she reminded him. “How long will your scheme stand then?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no, you won’t, my dear.”
“I will.”
“There is,” he said equably, “a little provision in the law of evidence which will prevent you. A wife cannot testify to any private conversation between herself and her husband. Did you suppose I would be so mad as to let you slip out of this trap so easily? The judge himself will forbid your saying one word as to what I have told you here.”
She was trembling with despair. “I won’t obey him!” she cried. “I’ll tell anyway. The jurymen will believe me.”
“If you blurt out such a thing against the order of the court you will be jailed for contempt, and the jury will be forbidden to believe you, will be told to forget what you have said.” He shook his head mockingly. “No, Lucia, my dear, there’s no way out. I have told you this simply in order that you might appreciate the pains I have taken.” He laughed a little. “What a thoughtful husband you have!”
He was still sitting, watching her with a cruel satisfaction; but she was trembling, broken, her knees yielding beneath her. By littles she sank into her chair, and put her head down upon her arms and wept bitterly.
Her husband watched her from across the table and puffed at his cigar.
Then Jeff Ranney opened the parlor door and came into the room. Viles, at the sound of the opening door, looked up in surprise, looked toward the kitchen through which Jeff had disappeared, looked at Jeff again.
“What were you doing there?” he demanded, coming to his feet in sudden anger.
“Listening to you talk,” said Jeff equably.
“Listening? How long?”
“Oh, I came right around the house and in the front door, soon as I went out the back. Heard all you said, I guess.”
Lucia had stopped crying; she lifted her head and dried her eyes and looked at Jeff. He looked down at her and smiled, a reassuring smile that gave her somehow comfort.
Viles swung toward him, cried aloud, “You dog! I’ll teach you manners!”
“Yes, sir,” said Jeff slowly. “I’d like right well to mix it up with you.”
Viles stopped in his tracks; the man was convulsed and shaking with his own ferocious rage. “But it ain’t fair to pick on you,” Jeff decided; “you’re such a fool.”
Lucia came to her feet, turned to Jeff appealingly. “You heard what he said?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is it true? Can he do this? Is the law that way?”
Viles reached toward his wife, would have taken her arm. “Lucia!” he cried. “Come away from here. Come away from here with me.”
But Jeff put an arm between them, swept the big man back against the table. For an instant no one of them moved. Then Jeff said slowly, “I had a lawsuit once, so I happen to know. What he says is all right. On private conversations. But you see, this wa’n’t private. I heard.”
“You heard?” she whispered, not understanding.
Jeff nodded. “Sure. And I can tell anything I heard; and I guess—not sure, but it don’t matter much, anyhow—I guess you can tell it, too, if I heard what he said.”
He was looking down at her, had for the moment forgotten her husband. But Lucia had not forgotten, and it was Lucia’s cry that warned Jeff. Viles was tugging a pistol from his pocket.
Jeff swung his right leg upward, kicked cunningly at the big man’s hand. The pistol flew across the room; and Viles, roaring with pain, swung in at Jeff to grapple him. They came breast to breast, stood thus for an instant, each straining terribly, exerting utmost strength.
Then Viles’ big head drooped with a little snapping jerk as all his body let go; and he slid limply through Jeff’s arms to the floor. Jeff’s one great hour was done.
An hour later Jeff drove Lucia back to town. He would send a man who made such matters his profession, to care for what was left of Leander Viles.