II.—MY INTERVIEW WITH THE PIRATE
IT had been a misty morning, with slush in the streets. For hours the great fog-siren had been bellowing to the ships on the sound and breaking into every conversation. “Go slow and keep away!” it screeched, in a kind of mechanical hysterics.
I was sitting at my desk when Norris's pirate came in. I didn't like the look of him, for I saw at once that he was hard wood, and that he wouldn't whittle. He was a sleek, handsome, well-dressed man of middle age, with gray eyes, iron-gray hair and mustache, the latter close-cropped. Here, then, was Wilton—a man of catlike neatness from top to toe. He stepped softly like a cat. Then he began smoothing his fur—neatly folded his coat and carefully laid it over the back of a chair; blew a speck of dust from his hat, and tenderly flicked its brim with his handkerchief and placed it with gentle precision on the top of the coat. It's curious how the habit of taking care gets into the character of a gentleman thief. He almost purred when he said “Good morning.” Then he seemed to smell the dog, and stopped and took in his surroundings. His hands were small and bony; he felt his necktie, adjusted his cuffs with an outward thrust of both arms, and sat down. Without a word more he handed me the note from Norris, and I read it.
“Yes,” I said; “Mr. Norris has given me a brief history of your affectionate regard for him.”
He tried to take my measure with a keen glance. I looked serious, and he took me seriously.
“You see,” he began, in a low voice, “for years I have been trying to protect him from unscrupulous men.”
He gently touched the end of one forefinger with the point of the other as he spoke. His words were neatly said, and were like his clothing, neatly pressed and dusted, and calculated to present a respectable appearance.
“Tell me all about it,” I said. “Norris didn't go into details.”
“Understand,” he went on, gently moving his head as if to shake it down in his linen a little more comfortably, “I have never made a cent out of this. I have only kept enough to cover my expenses.”
It was the old story long familiar to me. The gentleman knave generally operates on a high moral plane. Sometimes he can even fool himself about it. He had climbed on a saint's pedestal and was looking down on me. It shows the respect they all have for honor.
“There are two men besides myself who know the facts, and I have succeeded so far in keeping them quiet,” he added.
“I don't know you, but you won't be offended if I assume that you're a man of honor,” I said.
In the half-moment of silence that followed the old fog-siren screeched a warning.
There was a quick, nervous movement of the visitor's body that brought his head a little nearer to me. The fur had begun to rise on the cat's back.
“There's nothing to prevent it,” said he, with a look of surprise.
“Save a possible element of professional pride,” was my answer.
“That vanishes in the presence of a lawyer,” said he.
It was a kind of swift and surprising cuff with the paw, after which I knew him better.
“But we're licensed, you know, and now, your reputation being established, I suggest that you are in honor bound to let us know the names of those men.”
“Excuse me! I'm above that kind of thing—way above it,” said he, with a smile of regret for my ignorance.
“Perhaps you wouldn't be above explaining.”
“Not at all. If I told you that, I would be as bad as they are. Why, sir, I would be the yellowest yellow dog in the country.”
“Frankness is not apt to have an effect so serious,” I said.
Again the points of his forefingers came together as he gently answered:
“You see, the first demand they made of me, after putting the story in my hands, was that I should never give out their names. I had to promise that.”
“Oh, I see. They've elected you to the office of Guardian Angel and Secretary of the Treasury. How did it happen?”
The query didn't annoy him. He was getting used to my sallies, and went on:
“It was easy and natural as drawing your breath. Those men knew that I had met Mr. Norris—that I was a man of his class, and could talk to him on even terms. They had got the story from a man now dead—paid him five hundred dollars for it. They wanted my help to make a profit, see? I had met Mr. Norris and liked him. He is one of Nature's noblemen. So I played a friendly part in the matter, and bought the story and turned it over to Mr. Norris for what it cost me, and he gave me two hundred dollars for my time. Unfortunately, they have turned out to be rascals, and we have had to keep them in spending money, and prosperity has made them extravagant. The whole thing has become a nuisance to me, and I wish I was out of it.”
“What do they want now?” I asked.
“Ten thousand dollars.”
That was all he said—just those three well-filled words—with a sad but firm look in his face and a neat little gesture of both hands. “When do they want it?”
“To-day; they're getting impatient.”
“Suppose you tell them that they'll have to practise economy for a week or so at least. I don't know but we shall decide to let them go ahead and do their worst. It isn't going to hurt Norris. He's been foolish about it; I'm trying to stiffen his backbone.” Wilton rose with a look of impatience in his face that betrayed him.
“Very well; but I shall not be responsible for the consequences.”
The cat had hissed for the first time, but he quickly recovered himself; the tender look returned to his eyes.
“I think you're foolish,” he began again, while his right forefinger caressed the point of his left. “These men are not going to last long. One of them has had delirium tremens twice, and the other is in the hospital with Bright's disease. They're both of them broke, and you know as well as I that they could get this money in an hour from some newspaper. It's almost dead sure that both of these men will be out of the way in a year or so. Norris wants to be protected, and it's up to you and me to do it.”
“Personally I do not see the object,” I insisted. “Protecting him from one assault only exposes him to another.”
“You see, the daughter isn't married yet, and we'd better protect the name until she's out of the way, anyhow. That girl can go to Europe and take her pick. She's good enough for any title. But if this came out it would hurt her chances.”
“Mr. Wilton, I congratulate you,” was my remark.
“I thought you would see the point,” he answered, with a smile.
“I am thinking not of the point, but of your philanthropy. It is beautiful. Do you sleep well nights?”
“Very,” he answered, with a quick glance into my eyes.
“I should think that the troubles of the world would keep you awake.”
His face flushed a little, and then he smiled. “You lawyers have no suspicion of the amount of goodness there is in the world—you're always looking for rascals,” he said.
“But we have wandered. Let us take the nearest road to Rome. You say they must have money to-day.”
“Before three o'clock.”
“We'll give them ten thousand dollars—not a cent more. You must tell them to use it gently, for it's the last they'll get from us. To whom shall I draw the check?”
“To me—Lysander Wilton,” he answered, with a look of relief.
I gave him the check. He put on his coat and began to purr again; he was glad to know me, and rightly thought that he could turn some business my way.
As he left my office I went to one of the front windows and took out my handkerchief. The fog-whistle blew a blast that swept sea and land with its echoes. In a moment I saw a certain clever, keen-eyed man who was studying current history under the direction of Prof. William J. Bums come out of a door opposite and walk at a leisurely pace down the main street of Pointview toward the station. He was now taking the first steps in a systematic effort to see what was in and behind the man Wilton.
III.—IN WHICH A MAN IS SEEN HOLDING DOWN THE BUSHEL THAT HIDES HIS LIGHT
THE first thing I desired was the history of Wilton. He knew more about us than we knew about him, and that didn't seem to be fair or even necessary. In fact, I felt sure that his little world would yield valuable knowledge if properly explored. I knew that there were lions and tigers in it.
I learned that Wilton had proceeded forthwith to a certain apartment house on the upper west side of New York, in which he remained until dinner-time, when he came out with a well-dressed woman and drove in a cab to Martin's. The two spent a careless night, which ended at four a.m. in a gambling-house, where Wilton had lost nine hundred dollars. Next day, about noon, his well-dressed woman friend came out of the house and was trailed to a bank, where she cashed a check for five hundred dollars. We learned there that this woman was an actress and that her balance was about eighty-five hundred dollars.
Three months passed, and I got no further news of the man, save that he had gone to Chicago and that our trailers had gone with him.
“Our Western office now has the matter in hand,” so the agency wrote me. “They are doing their work with extreme care. Fresh men took up the trail every day, until one of our ablest became a trusted confidant of Wilton.”
The whole matter rested in the files of my office, and I had not thought of it until one day Norris sent for me and, on my arrival at his house, showed me a telegram. It was from the President of the United States, whose career he had assisted in one way and another. It offered him the post of Minister to a European court. The place was one of the great prizes.
“Of course you will accept it?” I said.
“I should like to,” he answered, “but isn't it curious that fame is one of the things which fate denies me. I wouldn't dare take it.”
I understood him and said nothing.
“You see, I cannot be a big man. I must keep myself as little as possible.”
“The joys of littleness are very great, as the mouse remarked at the battle of Gettysburg; but they are not for you,” I said. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
“He that humbleth himself shall avoid trouble—that's the way it hits me,” he said. “I could have been Secretary of the Treasury a few years back if I had dared. I must let everything alone which is likely to stir up my history. Suppose the President should suddenly discover that he had an ex-convict in his Cabinet? Do you think he could stand that, great as he is? He would rightly say that I had tricked and deceived and disgraced him. What would the newspapers say, and what would people think of me? Potter, I've made a study of this thing we call civilization. It's a big thing—I do not underestimate it—but it isn't big enough to forgive a man who has served his term.”
“Yes, I know; some of us are always looking for a thief inside the honest man,” was my answer. “We ought to be looking for the honest man inside the thief, as Chesterton puts it.”
“That's a good idea!” he exclaimed. “Find me one. I'd like to use him to teach this world a lesson. I'd pay you a handsome salary as Diogenes. If you succeed once I'll astonish you with generosity.”
“I should like to help you to get rid of some of this money of yours,” I said.
“You can begin this morning,” he went on. “I'm going to give you some notes for a new will. Suppose you sit down at the table there.”
I spent the rest of that day taking notes, and was astonished at the amount of his property and the breadth of his spirit. He had got his start in the mining business, and with surprising insight had invested his earnings in real estate, oil-lands, railroad stocks, and steel-mills.
“I have always believed in America, and America has made me rich,” he said to me.
“Before the Spanish War and in every panic, when no man seemed to want her securities, I have bought them freely, and I own them today. With our growing trade and fruitful lands I wonder that all thinking men did not share my confidence. If America had gone to smash I should have gone with her. I shall stick to the old ship.”
One paragraph of the will has begun to make history. It has appeared in the newspapers, but no account of my friend should omit it, and therefore I present its wording here:
“There are many points of greatness in the Christian faith, but the greatest of all is charity. I conceive that the best argument for the heathen is that of wheat and com. I therefore direct that the sum of five million dollars be set aside and invested by the trustees of this will and that its proceeds be applied to the relief of the distressing poverty of unconverted peoples, wherever they may be, in the discretion of said trustees; and when said relief is applied it shall be done as the act of 'A Christian friend in America.' It is my wish that wherever practicable in the judgment of said trustees this relief shall be applied through the establishment of industries in which the needy shall be employed at fair wages.”
I had finished my notes for the will, and my friend and I were sitting comfortably by the open fire, when his wife entered the room and sat down with us.
“Have you told Mr. Potter about the bank offer?” she inquired of her husband.
“No, my dear,” he answered.
“May I tell him?”
“Certainly.”
“Mr. Potter, the presidency of a great bank has been offered to my husband, and I think that he ought to take it.”
“Oh, I have work enough here at home—all I can do,” he said.
“But you will not have much to do there—only a little consulting once a week or so, and they say that you can talk to them here if you wish.”
“It's too much responsibility,” he answered.
“But it's so respectable,” she urged. “My heart is set on it. They tell me that, next to Mr. Morgan, you would be the greatest power in American finance. We should all be so proud of you.”
“I couldn't wish you to be any more proud of me,” he answered, tenderly.
“But, naturally, we want you to be as great as you can, Whitfield,” she went on. “This would mean so much to me and to Gwendolyn.”
He rose wearily, with a glance into my eyes which I perfectly understood, and went to his wife and kissed her and said:
“My dear, I am sure that Mr. Potter will agree with me.”
“Unreservedly,” was my answer.
I knew then that this ambitious woman was as ignorant as the cattle in their farmyard of the greater honors which he had declined.
She rose and left the room with a look of disappointment. How far the urgency of his wife and other misguided friends may have gone I know not, but I have reason to believe that it put him to his wit's ends.
I am sure that it was the most singular situation in which a lawyer was ever consulted. My client's high character had commanded the love and confidence of all who knew him well, and this love and confidence were pushing him into danger. His own character was the wood of the cross on which he was being crucified.
That week I appeared for Norris in a case of some importance in New York. One day in court a letter was put in my hands from the editor of a great newspaper. It requested that I should call upon him that day or appoint an hour when he could see me at my hotel. I went to his office.
“Is it true that Norris is to be our new minister to—?” he asked.
“It is not true,” I said.
“Is it true that he served a term in an Illinois prison?”
“Why do you ask?”
“For the reason that a story to that effect is now in this office.”
It was a critical moment, and I did not know how to behave myself.
“I mean that a man has submitted the story—he wishes to sell it,” he added.
“Forgive me if I speak a piece to you,” I said. “It will be short and to the point.”
As nearly as I could remember them I repeated the noble lines of Whitman:
“And still goes one, saying,
'What will ye give me and I will deliver this man unto
you?'
And they make the covenant and pay the pieces of silver,
The old, old fee... paid for the Son of Mary.
“If there's any descendant of Judas Iscariot on this paper I shall see to it that his name and relationship are made known,” I added.
“We have not bought the article, and it is not likely that we shall,” said he. “If you wish to answer my question I shall make no use of your words.”
There are times when one has to act and act promptly on his own judgment, and when the fate of a friend is in the balance it is a hard thing to do. So I quickly chose my landing and jumped.
“I have only this to say,” I answered. “Mr. Norris served a term in prison when he was a boy, but the facts are of such a nature that it wouldn't be safe for you to publish any part of them.”
I saw a query in his eye as he looked at me, and I went on:
“They are loaded—that's the reason—loaded to the muzzle, and they'd come pretty near blowing up your establishment. You know my reputation possibly.”
“Oh, very well.”
“Then you know that I am not in the habit of going off at half-cock. I tell you the facts would put you squarely on the Judas roll, and it isn't a popular part to play. Briefly, the facts are: Norris suffered for a friend, and that puts him on a plane so high that it isn't safe to touch him.”
“On your word, Mr. Potter, I will do what I can to kill the story—now and hereafter,” said he. “The young man who wrote it is a decent fellow and will soon be in my employ. But of course Norris will decline to be put in high places.”
Even this enlightened editor saw that a man who had suffered prison blight was a kind of frost-bitten plum. I left him with a feeling of discouragement in the world and its progress.
Before a week had passed I was summoned to the home of Norris and found him ill in bed. He was in the midst of a nervous breakdown which had seemed to begin with a critical attack of indigestion. It wearied him even to sign and execute his will, and I saw him for only a few minutes, and not again for months.
He improved rapidly, and one day Gwendolyn Norris called at my office.
The family were sailing for Hamburg within a week to spend the rest of the winter at Carlsbad and Saint Moritz. She said:
“Father wishes me to begin my business career, and so I've been looking after the details, and you must tell me if there's anything that I have forgotten.”
I went over all the arrangements regarding cats and dogs and horses and tickets and hotel accommodations, and then asked, playfully:
“What provision have you made for the young men you are leaving?”
“There's only, one,” said she, with laughing eyes, “and he can take care of himself. He doesn't seem to need any of my help. But he's fine. I recommend him to you as a friend.”
“Yes, I understand. You want me to get his confidence and see that he goes to bed early and doesn't forget his friends.”
She blushed and laughed, and added:
“Or get into bad company!”
“You're a regular ward politician!” I said. “Don't worry. I'll keep my eye on him.”
“You don't even know his name,” she declared.
“Don't I? The name Richard is written all over your face.”
“How uncanny!” she exclaimed. “I'm going to leave you.” Then she added, with a playful look in her eyes, “You know it's a dangerous place for American girls who—who are unattached.”
“We don't want to frighten him.”
“It wouldn't be possible—he's awfully brave,” said she, with a merry laugh as she left me.
That was the last I saw of them before they sailed.
My friend had taken his doctor with him, and soon the latter wrote me from the mountain resort that Norris had improved, but that I must not appeal to him in any matter of business. All excitement would be bad for him, and if it came suddenly might lead to fatal results.