A GAME OF CARDS
It was ten o'clock when I had finished my cigar and coffee in the library—where I had gone after dining—and I left the club and started for White's. It was a rainy, sloppy night, such as New York often provides in winter, and I hurried over the few blocks that separated me from my destination.
As I approached the house, I saw the light shining beneath the shade—which was not quite down—at the front window, and it held out promise of cheerful warmth within.
As I have said, White's rooms were on Nineteenth Street; they were on the ground floor of a house about midway of the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and on the north side of the street.
He had the entire first floor, which consisted of two rooms connected by a short passageway. The front room was the sitting-room, and the back his bedroom. With the latter I was not familiar at that time, but the sitting-room was a thoroughly delightful apartment. The floor was carpeted with Eastern rugs, and the walls, papered a Pompeiian red, were hung with old prints and weapons. To the right of the door, as you entered, was a well selected library; to the left a piano.
The rear of the room was largely taken up by two doors—one leading to the bedroom through a short passageway, and the other to the bathroom, which again opened into the bedroom. Between these doors stood a handsome desk with the usual paraphernalia.
Opposite the entrance was a large fireplace adorned with brass andirons and fender, and over the mantel a mirror. To the left of the fireplace was a divan, reaching from the wedge of the chimney almost to the passage door, and on the other side, an antique mahogany sideboard, laden with silver and glass.
In front of the window was a small table holding a lamp, and in the centre of the room another and larger one, designed to be used for cards when required, but generally strewn with books and papers. A number of armchairs, each of its own old pattern, but all adapted for comfort, completed the furniture. Everything betokened a man of luxury but also a man of taste.
Reaching the house, I mounted the two or three steps that led to the entrance, and stepping into the vestibule, rang the bell. The door was promptly opened by White's servant, Benton,—for it was but a step from his sitting-room door to the front door,—and I entered the hall and room.
As I expected, my four friends were engaged at their game around the centre table, White and Littell playing against Van Bult and Davis. White rose and greeted me, while the others nodded informally; my presence was too usual an event to call for any special demonstration, and after White had directed Benton to look after my wants, the game was promptly resumed.
I lighted a fresh cigar, took a brandy and soda, and selecting a comfortable chair, pulled it up between my host—who was to my left—and Van Bult to my right, and settled myself back to look on. The score-card stood at my elbow, and a glance at it showed that the host and Littell were winning. The game proceeded in comparative silence, now and then some one interrupting to ask for a cigar or drink. I noticed that White's orders were rather more frequent than the others, and that the man himself was not looking well. In fact he had not been looking well for some time, as his friends had remarked, but it was passed by with the suggestion that he was "going pretty fast."
After, perhaps, an hour of play, at the conclusion of one of the "rubs," White pushed back his chair and declined to play longer. As it still wanted some time of twelve o'clock, the others suggested that the play be continued, and Davis, who, with Van Bult, had lost considerably, rather insisted that they be afforded some opportunity to recoup; but White, without regarding him, got up from the table and directed the man to serve supper, and Van Bult thereupon counted out four crisp new fifty-dollar bills, and left them on the table in settlement of his losses. Neither Littell nor White took them up, and Davis in rather an embarrassed way told Littell he would settle with him next day, that he had not the money with him. I felt sorry for Davis, as I knew the loss, comparatively trifling to Van Bult, must mean some inconvenience to him, but he accepted it gracefully. By this time Benton was ready with supper and the game was apparently forgotten.
I do not know why it was, but the usual good spirits that prevailed at our little gatherings seemed lacking this night. Perhaps it was due to the mood of our host, who was evidently out of humor over something. Littell ventured one or two remarks to which we responded perfunctorily, but White was moodily silent. I noticed he was watching me rather closely, and was not surprised when after a while he addressed me, but for his question I was unprepared.
"Dallas," he said, "you are in a public prosecutor's office and know something of the evil doings of men; do you think the consciousness of a wrong done a fellow-man clings to the wrong-doer all his life, or that in time he may forget it?"
I answered as I believed, that it depended entirely upon the temperament of the man, but suggested that a reparation of the injury, where that was possible, should help matters.
"Yes," he said, "but that is not always possible."
I had nothing more to suggest on a subject so totally foreign to the occasion and so offered no further opinion. But evidently White was in a psychological mood, for he next directed his questions to Littell.
"Do you agree with Dallas," he asked him, "that a man's temperament determines the matter, and that where one may find forgetfulness in security, another cannot rid himself of the recollection of a wrong he has done?"
Littell, indulging White's mood, replied that he had never been a public prosecutor and was therefore denied my opportunities of speaking from actual observation of criminals, but that if he might draw conclusions from his own experience of men, he thought there were very few of them whose consciences, after they had lived long enough to enjoy the opportunity, were not freighted with some evil act or other, and yet his acquaintanceships led him to conclude that few of them were troubled much with their past misdeeds.
"Indeed," he continued, "I find little entertainment in minutely reviewing my own history and therefore seldom indulge myself in the luxury. As to my fellow-men, if they don't brand themselves criminals or malefactors, I am willing to take them as they seem, as I think is the rest of the world."
Van Bult, who had been listening with evident amusement to the rather lugubrious conversation, here suggested in a whimsical tone that he was glad to learn that such was the disposition of the world, and of New Yorkers in particular, as it assured him immunity from undue curiosity.
"That's so, Van," said White; "if we insisted upon knowing our friends' credentials even, you might prove a difficult subject."
This was rather a daring speech to make to Van Bult, who had never encouraged any disposition to familiarity or confidence, and I felt some little concern as to how he might take it, but my fears were groundless, for he responded very pleasantly, that any investigator in his case would be poorly repaid for his trouble, and then more heartily, that the unquestioning regard of his friends was a source of much gratification to him. White could not continue his ill-humored tone with Van Bult after this answer, and I was about to tell Van that it was best to like a man for himself as we did him, or something to that effect, when White demanded that we all fill our glasses and drink to what we didn't know of each other, adding that while it might not be a great deal, he knew it would be interesting.
"If that be so," said Littell, "it will be because evil is more interesting than good."
"Then," said Van Bult, "we will abbreviate White's toast, and drink to evil."
White hesitated a moment, and then drained his glass, and threw it into the fireplace with a crash. We all looked a little surprised, I think, but no one offered any comment. Van Bult and Littell laughed and drank the toast. I did not altogether fancy the spirit of the thing, and quietly replaced my glass on the table, but Davis openly declared that he did not like the toast and would not drink it. This seemed to incense White, who by this time was very plainly showing the effects of the liquor he had taken, and he told Davis not to be a fool; that it ill became him to pose as a paragon of virtue.
Davis made no answer, and Littell, after a moment's awkward silence, suggested our going. We said good-night to White, who seemed to recover himself for the moment and murmured some apologies, mainly addressed to Davis, for his ill-humor. He also asked the latter, who lived in the same house, to remain with him for a while.
As we were going out, he called after me that he wanted to come to my office the next day to talk to me about something, to which I acceded. Littell delayed a moment for a last word with him, and then joined Van Bult and myself on the sidewalk and we walked together toward Fifth Avenue.
Van Bult was the first to speak:
"What is the matter with White?" he said; "he does not seem like himself."
"He has probably some trifling matter on his mind," I suggested, "the seriousness of which he morbidly exaggerates. He is a nervous fellow anyhow, and has several times hinted to me that he wanted to make a confidant of me about something. I am inclined to believe," I continued, expressing a thought I had entertained before, "that he feels he has been guilty of an injustice to his cousin, Winters, in taking the bulk of his uncle's fortune, and suffers some remorse when he sees the poor fellow going to the bad. For that matter, however," I concluded, "he would have gone there anyhow, and all the faster for a little money."
"It may be there is a woman in the case," said Littell; "it seems to me I have heard of an entanglement of some sort."
"So they say," I answered, "but I don't see why an affair of that sort should give him cause for much worry."
"Well, whatever it is," said Van Bult, "he had better pull himself together and go away for a change. One of you fellows suggest it to him, you know him better than I do. He may give you an opportunity to-morrow, Dallas," he continued, "if he goes to see you as he said he would."
By this time we had reached Fifth Avenue, where our ways separated, Van Bult living on Washington Square, Littell at the Terrace Hotel, at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, and I, as I have said, at the Crescent Club, on Madison Square. We stood, however, talking for a few minutes, and while doing so Benton passed us, going east toward Broadway. Van Bult stopped him to ask how his master was. The man said he had dismissed him soon after we left, and had thrown himself down on the sofa without undressing, and had apparently gone to sleep.
Littell asked if Davis was still with him, and the man replied, "No"; that "Mr. Davis had been leaving at the same time." He then bade us good-night, and went on.
Van Bult here left us, and Littell and I walked as far as Madison Square together, where I crossed over and Littell continued on.
As I entered the club and went up to my room, it was still a little before one o'clock.
Contrary to the usual experiences as claimed of my fellow-men under similar circumstances, I do not recall that I had any misgivings that night or premonition of any sort of the terrible work that was to be done before day. Indeed, as well as I remember, I retired in an entirely placid frame of mind, and slept well.
I doubt if I should ever have thought again of the occurrences of the evening, which after all were commonplace enough, were it not for the sequel that made every word and moment seem fraught with meaning. So, always, it is not the sayings and doings of men that are important but the sequence and sequel of events for which they are but the signs and tools.