Part 80 (1/2)

”You get drunk, don't you?” observed Duane. ”What a pitiful pup you are, anyway. Go to bed.”

Quest stood swaying slightly on his heels and considering Duane with the inquiring solemnity of one who is in process of grasping and digesting an abstruse proposition.

”B-bed?” he repeated; ”me?”

”Certainly. A member of this club disgracefully drunk in the afternoon will certainly hear from the governing board unless he keeps out of sight until he's sane again.”

”Thank you,” said Quest with owlish condescension; ”I'm indebted to you for calling 'tention to m-matters which 'volve honour of m' own club and----”

His voice rambled off into a mutter; he sat or rather fell into an armchair and lay there twitching and mumbling to himself and inspecting his automatic pistol with prominent watery eyes.

”You'd better leave that squirt-gun with me,” said Grandcourt.

Quest refused with an oath, and, leaning forward and hammering the padded chair-arm with his unhealthy looking fist, he broke out into a violent arraignment of Dysart:

”d.a.m.n him!” he yelled, ”I've written him, I've asked for an explanation, I've 'm-manded t' know why his name's coupled with my sister's----”

Duane leaned over, slammed the door, and turned short on Quest:

”Shut up!” he said sharply. ”Do you hear! Shut up!”

”No, I won't shut up! I'll say what I d.a.m.n please----”

”Haven't you any decency at all----”

”I've enough to fix Dysart good and plenty, and I'll do it! I'll--let go of me, Mallett!--let go, I tell you or----”

Duane jerked the pistol from his shaky fingers, and when Quest struggled to his feet with a baffled howl, jammed him back into the chair again and handed the pistol to Grandcourt, who locked it in a bureau drawer and pocketed the key.

”You belong in Matteawan,” said the latter, flinging Quest back into the chair again as the infuriated man still struggled to rise. ”You miserable drunken kid--do you think you would be enhancing your sister's reputation by dragging her name into a murder trial? What are you, anyway? By G.o.d, if I didn't know your sister as a thoroughbred, I'd have you posted here for a mongrel and sent packing. The pound is your proper place, not a club-house”; which was an astonis.h.i.+ng speech for Delancy Grandcourt.

Again, half contemptuously, but with something almost vicious in his violence, Grandcourt slammed young Quest back into the chair from which he had attempted to hurl himself: ”Keep quiet,” he said; ”you're a particularly vile little wretch, particularly pitiable; but your sister is a girl of gentle breeding--a sweet, charming, sincere young girl whom everybody admires and respects. If you are anything but a gutter-mut, you'll respect her, too, and the only way you can do it is by shutting that unsanitary whiskey-trap of yours--and keeping it shut--and by remaining as far away from her as you can, permanently.”

There were one or two more encounters, brief ones; then Quest collapsed and began to cry. He was shaking, too, all over, apparently on the verge of some alcoholic crisis.

Grandcourt went over to Duane:

”The man is sick, helplessly sick in mind and body. If you'll telephone Bailey at the Knickerbocker Hospital, he'll send an ambulance and I'll go up there with this fool boy. He's been like this before. Bailey knows what to do. Telephone from the station; I don't want the club servants to gossip any more than is necessary. Do you mind doing it?”

”Of course not,” said Duane. He glanced at the miserable, snivelling, twitching creature by the fire: ”Do you think he'll get over this, or will he buy another pistol the next time he gets the jumps?”

Grandcourt looked troubled:

”I don't know what this breed is likely to do. He's absolutely no good.

He's the only person in the world that is left of the family--except his sister. He's all she has had to look out for her--a fine legacy, a fine prop for her to lean on. That's the sort of protection she has had all her life; that's the example set her in her own home. I don't know what she's done; it's none of my business; but, Duane, I'm for her!”

”So am I.”

They stood together in silence for a moment; maudlin sniffles of self-pity arose from the corner by the fire, alternating with more hysterical and more ominous sounds presaging some spasmodic crisis.

Grandcourt said: ”Bunny Gray has helped me kennel this pup once or twice. He's in the club; I think I'll send for him.”