Part 27 (1/2)
Willa rose.
”If you find Tia Juana, Mr. Thode, don't build your hopes too high.
Should she prove to be indeed the owner of the Pool of the Lost Souls, I am confident that you can never gain possession of it.”
”I can try.” He took the hand she held out to him. ”You seem very sure, Miss Murdaugh.”
”I cannot imagine Tia Juana relinquis.h.i.+ng anything which she could claim, especially if, as you surmise, the property may once have belonged to her ancestors. Cousin Irene is signaling me. I must go!”
she added. ”You will come to-morrow?”
Thode promised, but he watched her slender figure disappear with a frown of troubled thought. How much did she know? Could it be that she, too, was interested in the Pool of the Lost Souls? Instead of a mere contest between himself and Wiley had it become a three-corner affair, with Willa the apex of the triangle?
Had he but known it, he was destined not to keep his promise of the morrow, and once more it was Starr Wiley who intervened.
It happened that Thode stopped in at the club after taking leave of the Erskines, and arrived at a most opportune moment. He was emerging from the coat-room when a familiar voice came to his ears through the half-open door of one of the smaller card-rooms, and the words arrested him like a command.
”The little Murdaugh? Very nave, very charming, but I knew her in the Never-Never Land, you know, and I can a.s.sure you she's not as unsophisticated as she seems.”
”Oh, come, Starr! You're tight!” a strange voice intervened. ”Ladies'
names, you know----it's not done here.”
”'Lady'?” Wiley hiccoughed derisively. ”Who mentioned a lady? I'm speakin' of Willa Murdaugh. Gentleman Geoff's Billie they used to call her; pet of an old card-sharp, and mascot of a gambling-h.e.l.l----”
He got no farther. Someone had seized him by the shoulders and spun him around like a top and he found himself confronting Kearn Thode's blazing eyes. His half-fuddled companions shrank back in consternation.
”Take that back, you miserable cur!” Thode's voice was scarcely recognizable. ”Take back your d.a.m.nable lies or I'll ram them down your throat!”
But an alcoholic courage possessed Wiley and he leered: ”The knight-errant, by Jove! You know whether it's true or not! You ought to know better than anyone else----”
A cras.h.i.+ng blow straight on his maudlin mouth sent him reeling back against the table. His wildly groping hand found a tall gla.s.s and with an oath he hurled it full in the face of the man advancing upon him. A moment later, he was lifted clear of the table by an impact that flung him against the wall a sodden, inert heap with the last ray of dazed consciousness gone.
CHAPTER XV
GONE
A metamorphosis had taken place in Vernon Halstead. He was distrait and mooned about the house, getting in people's way and apologizing with an air of such profound abstraction that the family were moved to comment.
”I think Vernon must be ill.” This from his mother. ”The poor dear boy seems very pale and hollow-eyed. Haven't you noticed it, Ripley?”
”I've noticed that he looks as if someone had given him a jolt that he hadn't yet recovered from,” her husband retorted. ”Maybe he's waking up and getting on to himself at last. It's high time! It would give anyone a shock to find they'd been wasting the best years of their lives----”
”You were never sympathetic with his sensitive highly-strung temperament----”
”'Temperament,' Irene? He's about as temperamental as an army tank!”
Ripley added more mildly: ”I don't say there's no good in the boy, but it needs waking up. He asked me last night about a course in petroleum engineering, like young Thode, and that's a promising sign. I wish I felt as easy in my mind about Willa.”
”I wash my hands of her.” Mrs. Halstead shrugged coldly. ”It was to be supposed that she would be quite impossible, coming from such an environment, but I fancied at least that she would want to advance herself. She cares nothing for making acquaintances or getting in with the right people and hasn't the slightest conception of the importance of establis.h.i.+ng herself. If I had the proper authority over her it would be vastly different, but you and Mason----”