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The Big-Town Round-Up, a fiction by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 30. Bee Makes A Morning Call |
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_ CHAPTER XXX. BEE MAKES A MORNING CALL Their chauffeur broke the speed laws getting them to the apartment house for bachelors where Bromfield lived. His valet for once was caught off guard when he opened the door to them. Beatrice was inside before he could quite make up his mind how best to meet this frontal attack. "We came to see Mr. Bromfield," she said. "Sorry, Miss. He's really quite ill. The doctor says--" "I'm Miss Whitford. We're engaged to be married. It's very important that I see him." "Yes, Miss, I know." The man was perfectly well aware that his master wanted of all things to avoid a meeting with her. For some reason or other, Bromfield was in a state of collapse this morning the valet could not understand. The man's business was to protect him until he had recovered. But he could not flatly turn his master's fiancee out of the apartment. His eye turned to Whitford and found no help there. He fell back on the usual device of servants. "I don't really think he can see you, Miss. The doctor has specially told me to guard against any excitement. But I'll ask Mr. Bromfield if--if he feels up to it." The valet passed into what was evidently a bedroom and closed the door behind him. There was a faint murmur of voices. "I'm going in now," Beatrice announced abruptly to her father. She moved forward quickly, before Whitford could stop her, whipped open the door, and stepped into the room. Her father followed her reluctantly. Clarendon, in a frogged dressing-gown, lay propped up by pillows. Beside the bed was a tray, upon which was a decanter of whiskey and a siphon of soda. His figure seemed to have fallen together and his seamed face was that of an old man. But it was the eyes that held her. They were full of stark terror. The look in them took the girl's breath. They told her that he had undergone some great shock. He shivered at sight of her. "What is it, Clary?" she cried, moving toward him. "Tell me--tell me all about it." "I--I'm ill." He quaked it from a burning throat. "You were all right, yesterday. Why are you ill now?" He groaned unhappily. "You're going to tell me everything--everything." His fascinated, frightened eyes clung to this straight, slim girl whose look stabbed into him and shook his soul. Why had she come to trouble him this morning while he was cowering in fear of the men who would break in to drag him away to prison? "Nothing to tell," he got out with a gulp. "Oh, yes, you have. Are you ill because of what happened at Maddock's?" He tried to pull himself together, to stop the chattering of his teeth. "N-nonsense, my dear. I'm done up completely. Delighted to see you and all that, but--Won't you go home?" His appealing eyes passed to Whitford. "Can't you take her away?" "No, I won't go home--and he can't take me away." Her resolution was hard as steel. It seemed to crowd inexorably upon the shivering wretch in the frogged gown. "What is it you're so afraid to tell me, Clarendon?" He quailed at her thrust. "What--what do you mean?" She knew now, beyond any question or doubt, that he had been present when "Slim" Jim Collins had been killed. He had seen a man's life snuffed out, was still trembling for fear he might be called in as a party to the crime. "You'd better tell me before it's too late. How did you and Clay Lindsay come to go to that den?" "We went out to--to see the town." "But why to that place? Are you in the habit of going there?" He shuddered. "Never was there before. I had a card. Some one gave it to me. So we went in for a few minutes--to see what it was like. The police raided the place." He dropped his sentences reluctantly, as though they were being forced from him in pain. "Well?" "Everybody tried to escape. The lights went out. I found a back door and got away. Then I came home." "What about Clay?" Bromfield told the truth. "I didn't see him after the lights went out, except for a moment. He was running at the man with the gun." "You saw the gun?" He nodded, moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. "And the--the shooting? Did you see that?" Twice the words he tried to say faded on his lips. At last he managed a "No." "Why not?" "I--found a door and escaped." "You must have heard shooting." "I heard shots as I ran down the stairs. This morning I read that--that a man was--" He swallowed down a lump and left the sentence unfinished. "Then you know that Clay is accused of killing this man, and that the police are looking for you because you were with him." "Yes." His answer was a dry whisper. "Did you see this man Collins in the room?" "No. I shouldn't know him if I saw him." "But you heard shots. You're sure of that!" cried Beatrice. "Y-yes." The girl turned triumphantly to her father. "He saw the gun and he heard shots. That proves self-defense at the worst. They were shooting at Clay when he struck with the chair--if he did. Clarendon's testimony will show that." "My testimony!" screamed Bromfield. "My God, do you think I'm going to--to--go into court? They would claim I--I was--" She waited, but he did not finish. "Clay's life may depend upon it, and of course you'll tell the truth," she said quietly. "Maybe I didn't hear shots," he hedged. "Maybe it was furniture falling. There was a lot of noise of people stamping and fighting." "You--heard--shots." The eyes of the girl were deadly weapons. They glittered like unscabbarded steel. In them was a contained fire that awed him. He threw out his hand in a weak, impotent gesture of despair. "My God, how did I ever come to get into such a mix-up? It will ruin me." "How did you come to go?" she asked. "He wanted to see New York. I suppose I had some notion of taking him slumming." Beatrice went up to him and looked straight into his eyes. "Then testify to that in court. It won't hurt you any. Go down to the police and say you have read in the paper that they want you. Tell the whole truth. And Clary--don't weaken. Stick to your story about the shots." Her voice shook a little. "Clay's life is at stake. Remember that." "Do you think it would be safe to go to the police?" he asked doubtfully. Whitford spoke up. "That's the only square and safe thing to do, Bromfield. They'll find out who you are, of course. If you go straight to them you draw the sting from their charge that you were an accomplice of Clay. Don't lose your nerve. You'll go through with flying colors. When a man has done nothing wrong he needn't be afraid." "I dare say you're right," agreed Bromfield miserably. The trouble was that Whitford was arguing from false premises. He was assuming that Clarendon was an innocent man, whereas the clubman knew just how guilty he was. Back of the killing lay a conspiracy which might come to light during the investigation. He dared not face the police. His conscience was not clean enough. "Of course Dad's right. It's the only way to save your reputation," Beatrice cried. "I'm not going to leave you till you promise to go straight down there to headquarters. If you don't you'll be smirched for life--and you'd be doing something absolutely dishonorable." He came to time with a heart of heavy dread. "All right, Bee. I'll go," he promised. "It's an awful mess, but I've got to go through with it, I suppose." "Of course you have," she said with complete conviction. "You're not a quitter, and you can't hide here like a criminal." "We'll have to be moving, Bee," her father reminded her. "You know we have an appointment to meet the district attorney." Beatrice nodded. With a queer feeling of repulsion she patted her fiance's cheek with her soft hand and whispered a word of comfort to him. "Buck up, old boy. It won't be half as bad as you think. Nobody is going to blame you." They were shown out by the valet. "You don't want to be hard on Bromfield, honey," Whitford told his daughter after they had reentered their car. "He's a parlor man. That's the way he's been brought up. Never did a hard day's work in his life. Everything made easy for him. If he'd ever ridden out a blizzard like Clay or stuck it out in a mine for a week without food after a cave-in, he wouldn't balk on the job before him. But he's soft. And he's afraid of his reputation. That's natural, I suppose." Beatrice knew he was talking to save her feelings. "You don't need to make excuses for him, Dad," she answered gently, with a wry smile. "I've got to give up. I don't think I can go through with it." "You mean--marry him?" "Yes." She added, with a flare of passionate scorn of herself: "I deserve what I've got. I knew all the time I didn't love him. It was sheer selfishness in me to accept him. I wanted what he had to give me." Her father drew a deep breath of relief. "I'm glad you see that, Bee. I don't think he's good enough for you. But I don't know anybody that is, come to that." "That's just your partiality. I'm a mean little bounder or I never should have led him on," the girl answered in frank disgust. Both of them felt smirched. The behavior of Bromfield had been a reflection on them. They had picked him for a thoroughbred, and he had failed them at the first test. "Well, I haven't been proud of you in that affair," conceded Colin. "It didn't seem like my girl to--" He broke off in characteristic fashion to berate her environment. "It's this crazy town. The spirit of it gets into a person and he accepts its standards. Let's get away from here for a while, sweetheart." "After Clay is out of trouble, Dad, I'll go with you back to Denver or to Europe or anywhere you say." "That's a deal," he told her promptly. "We'll stay till after the annual election of the company and then go off on a honeymoon together, Bee." _ |
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