Part 67 (1/2)

A carnival of motor cars kept on whirling to all parts of the town where Madame Beattie was likely to speak. She spoke in strange places: at street corners, in a freight station, at the pa.s.senger station when the incoming train had brought a squad of workmen from the bridge repairing up the track. It was always to workmen, and always they knew, by some effective communication, where to a.s.semble. The leisure cla.s.s, too, old Addingtonians, followed her, as if it were all the best of jokes, and protested they sometimes understood what she said. But n.o.body did, except the foreigners and not one of them would own to knowing. Weedon Moore made little clipped bits of speeches, sliced off whenever her car appeared and his audience turned to her in a perfect obedience and glowing interest. Jeff, speaking for Alston, now got a lukewarm attention, the courtesy born out of affectionate regard. None of the roars and wild handclappings were for him. Madame Beattie was eating up all the enthusiasm in town. Once Jeff, walking along the street, came on her standing in her car, haranguing a group of workmen, all intent, eager, warm to her with a perfect sympathy and even a species of adoration.

He stepped up in the car beside her. He had an irritated sense that, if he got near enough, he might find himself inside the mystic ring. She turned to him with a gracious and dramatic courtesy. She even put a hand on his arm, and he realised, with more exasperation, that he was supporting her while she talked. The crowd cheered, and, it appeared, they were cheering him.

”What are you saying?” he asked her, in an irascible undertone. ”Talk English for ten minutes. Play fair.”

But she only smiled on him the more sympathetically, and the crowd cheered them both anew. Jeff stuck by, that night. He stayed with her until, earlier than usual because she had tired her voice, she told the man to drive home.

”I am taking you with me to see Esther,” she mentioned unconcernedly, as they went.

”No, you're not,” said Jeff. ”I'm not going into that house.”

”Very well,” said Madame Beattie. ”Then tell him to stop here a minute, while we talk.”

Jeff hesitated, having no desire to talk, and she herself gave the order.

”Poor Esther!” said Jeff, when the chauffeur had absented himself to a sufficient distance, and, according to Madame Beattie's direction, was walking up and down. ”Isn't it enough for you to pester her without bringing me into it? Why are you so hard on her?”

”I've been quite patient,” said Madame Beattie, ”with both of you. I've sat down and waited for you to make up your minds what is going to be done about my necklace. You're doing nothing. Esther's doing nothing.

The little imp that took it out of Esther's bag is doing nothing. I've got to be paid, among you. If I am not paid, the little dirty man is going to have the whole story to publish: how Esther took the necklace, years ago, how the little imp took it, and how you said you took it, to save her.”

”I have told Weedon Moore,” said Jeff succinctly, ”in one form or another that I'll break his neck if he touches the dirty job.”

”You have?” said Madame Beattie. She breathed a dramatic breath, whether of outraged pride or for calculated effect he could not tell.

”Jeff, I can a.s.sure you if the little man refuses to do it--and I doubt whether he will--I'll have it set up myself in leaflets, and I'll go through the town distributing them from this car. Jeff, I must have money. I must have it.”

He sat back immovable, arms folded, eyes on the distance, and frowningly thought. What use to blame her who acted after her kind and was no more to be stirred by appeals than a wild creature red-clawed upon its prey?

”Madame Beattie,” said he, ”if I had money you should have it. Right or wrong you should have it if it would buy you out of here. But I haven't got it.”

”It's there you are a fool,” she said, moved actually now by his numbness to his own endowment. ”I could beat my head and scream, when I think how you're throwing things away, your time, in that beastly night school, your power, your personal charm. Jeff, you've the devil's own luck. You were born with it. And you simply won't use it.”

He had said that himself in a moment of hope not long before: that he had the devil's own luck. But he wasn't going to accept it from her.

”You talk of luck,” he said, ”to a man just out of jail.”

”You needn't have been in jail,” she was hurling at him in an unpleasant intensity of tone, as if she would have liked to scream it and the quiet street denied her. ”If you hadn't pleaded guilty, if you hadn't handed over every sc.r.a.p of evidence, if you had been willing to take advantage of what that clerk was ready to swear--why, you might have got off and kept on in business and be a millionaire to-day.”

How she managed to know some of the things she did he never fathomed.

He had never seen anybody of the direct and shameless methods of Madame Beattie, willing to ask the most intimate questions, make the most unscrupulous demands. He remembered the young clerk who had wanted to perjure himself for his sake.

”That would have made a difference, I suppose,” he said, ”young Williams' testimony. I wonder how he happened to think of it.”

”He thought of it because I went to him,” said Madame Beattie. ”I said, 'Isn't there anything you could swear to that would help him?' He knew at once. He turned white as a sheet. 'Yes,' he said, 'and I'll swear to it.' I told him we'd make it worth his while.”

”You did?” said Jeff. ”Well, there's another illusion gone. I took a little comfort in young Williams. I thought he was willing to perjure himself because he had an affection for me. So you were to make it worth his while.”

She laughed a little, indifferently, with no bitterness, but in retrospect of a scene where she had been worsted.

”You needn't mourn that lost ideal,” she said. ”Young Williams showed me the door. It was in your office, and he actually did show me the door.