Nothing But the Truth

“‘Your own protection’ is good,” said Bob, sending his ball twice around the table and complacently observing the result.

“I mean that if it became known that I had secreted you in my room and said nothing about it, it would, in a measure, place me in the light of being an accomplice,” returned the hammer-thrower, ignoring the point in Bob’s last words. “I don’t know whether anything will be discovered missing here or not, but if there should be – ?”

“Things will be discovered missing, all right,” returned Bob. “What was that you dropped out of the window in my room last night?”

The hammer-thrower stared at him. “I? – your room?” he said at length very slowly, with the most genuine amazement written all over his serious reliable features.

“You! My room!” repeated Bob. “You didn’t expect me to come back. I gave you quite a surprise, didn’t I? You are certainly some sprinter.”

Still the hammer-thrower continued to stare. “Mad!” he said at last. “I hardly credited it before, but now – That private sanatorium! – No doubt, it was best.”

Bob laughed. “That sanatorium fits in fine, doesn’t it? You’ll be trying the little abduction act next, yourself, I suppose.”

“I’m trying to make up my mind whether you aren’t really a dangerous person to be at large,” said the hammer-man heavily. “You might say something like that to some one else. You appear absolutely irresponsible.”

“I might,” observed Bob tentatively. Oh, if he only could!

“However, I hardly think you will,” remarked the other in his heaviest manner. “By the way, you play pretty good billiards.”

“Thanks awfully. Want to play?”

“Don’t mind.” And the hammer-thrower took down a cue.

“I should dearly like to beat you,” said Bob in wistful tones.

“And I should as dearly like not to be beaten by you, or any one else,” returned the other.

“I know,” conceded Bob, not without a touch of admiration, “you’re a great chap for winning prizes and things. You’ve taken no end of cups, haven’t you? I mean, legitimately.”

“Yes; I usually go in to win.” The other professed not to hear Bob’s last words.

“And you’ve been feted some, in consequence, too, haven’t you?” said Bob suddenly. “You were at the Duke of Somberland’s, I remember.” Meaningly. He remembered, too, that articles of great value had disappeared from the duke’s place at the same time.

“I believe I was. Met no end of interesting people!”

“And weren’t you at Lord Tumford’s?” Bob recalled reading how jewels had mysteriously vanished in the case of Lord Tumford’s guests, also.

“Yes, got asked over for the shooting. Believe I did very well for an American not accustomed to the British method of slaughter.”

“No doubt,” said Bob. The hammer-thrower was getting bigger in his way every moment. Now he had become an operator of international importance.

“Speaking about winning, you were on the losing team at college, weren’t you?” he observed significantly.

“Quite so!” answered Bob. “We worked awfully hard and ought to have won, but fate, I guess, was against us.”

“We,” said the hammer-man in his ponderous way, “are fate. Arbiters of our destinies! We succeed, or we don’t. And when we fail, it is we that fail. Fate hasn’t anything to do with it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” assented Bob. “I don’t know. Anyhow, it’s a test of true sportsmanship to know how to lose.”

“Not to whine, you mean? True. But it’s better not to lose. Now go ahead and try to beat me.”

Bob tried his best. He let the other name the game and the number of points, and for a time it was nip and tuck. Once Bob ran a string of seventy. Then the hammer-thrower made one hundred and one. His playing was brilliant. Some of the heaviness seemed to have departed from his big frame. His steps nearly matched Bob’s for litheness while his big fingers handled the cue almost daintily. All the inner force of the man seemed focused on the task of winning. He had made up his mind he couldn’t lose. Bob was equally determined, too, not to lose.

The game seemed symbolical of that bigger game they were playing as adversaries, and more and more Bob realized here was an opponent not to be despised. He was resourceful, delicate, subtle, as he permitted Bob now to gaze behind that shield of heaviness. He had never before exhibited his real self at the table, playing heretofore in ponderous fashion, but this time, perhaps, he experienced a secret delight in tantalizing an enemy. Those big fingers seemed capable of administering a pretty hard squeeze when the hour arrived; they might even not hesitate at a death-clutch. The game now was very close.

“Shall we make it a thousand for the winner?” suggested the hammer-thrower.

“Haven’t that much,” said Bob. “Only got about seven dollars and a half, or so.”

“I’ll bet you seven dollars and a half, then.”

Bob accepted, and immediately had a run of luck. He was within two points of being out. The hammer-thrower had about fifty to go.

“Get that seven dollars and a half ready,” he said easily as he began his play.

“Maybe I shan’t have to,” replied Bob.

“Yes, you will.” He spoke as one not capable of making mistakes about what he could do. And he didn’t make a mistake this time. He ran out. Bob paid with as good grace as he could. Then the hammer-thrower moved heavily away and left Bob alone.

The latter didn’t feel quite so jubilant now over his secret knowledge as he had a little earlier. The hammer-thrower had permitted him to test his mettle – indeed, he had deliberately put himself out to do so, and make Bob realize even more thoroughly that he might just about as well not know anything for all the good it would do him (Bob). His lips might as well be sealed, as far as his being able to prove anything; if he did speak, people would answer as the hammer-thrower had. “Mad!” Or worse! That sanatorium incident was certainly unfortunate.

Bob put his hand in his pocket to get his handkerchief to wipe a few drops of perspiration from his brow. He drew out his handkerchief, but he also drew out something else – something hard – that glittered-a ring – a beautiful one – with perfect blue white diamonds – a ring he remembered having seen on certain occasions adorning one of Miss Gerald’s fingers.

Bob stared at it. He stood like one frozen to the spot. That hammer-man had done more than beat him at billiards. While he (Bob) had extended a portion of his person over the table to execute difficult shots the other had found it an easy trick to slip Miss Gerald’s ring in the coat-tail pocket of Bob’s garment. Could you exceed that for diabolical intention? Now what on earth was Bob to do with Miss Gerald’s ring?

He couldn’t keep it and yet he didn’t want to throw away her property. It seemed as if he would be forced to, though. After an instant’s hesitation he made up his mind that he would toss it out of the window and then write her anonymously where it could be found. The hammer-man hadn’t calculated Bob would discover it on his person so soon, or perhaps he had told himself the odds were against Bob’s discovering it at all. He would, of course, have preferred that others should discover it on Bob. The latter now strode to the window; the glittering ring seemed fairly to burn his fingers. He raised the curtain as softly as he could – the window was already open – and then suddenly started back.

The light from within, shining on the garden, revealed to him with disconcerting abruptness a man’s face. The man sprang back with considerable celerity, but not before Bob had recognized in him that confounded maniac-medico. He had tracked Bob here, but not wishing to create a scene among Mrs. Ralston’s guests, was no doubt waiting outside with his assistants and the first time Bob stepped out of the house, he expected to nab him. All the while Bob had been playing billiards, that miserable maniac-medico had probably been spying upon him, peeping from under the curtain.

Bob moved from the window, the ring still in his fingers, and at this inopportune moment, the monocle-man walked in. He seemed to have timed his coming to a nicety. Perhaps he had noticed that little episode at the window. Bob, in a panic, thrust the ring hurriedly into his waistcoat pocket and tried to face the other without showing undue agitation, but he feared guilt was written all over his countenance.

“Hot,” muttered Bob. “Thought a breath of fresh air would do me good.”

“Quite so. We English believe in plenty of fresh air,” returned the monocle-man, just as if he swallowed the reason the other had given for going to the window.

But after that Bob couldn’t get rid of him. It was as if he knew something was wrong and that Bob needed watching. He began to fool with the balls, telling how hard it was for him to get accustomed to these small American tables. The British game was far better, he went on, all the while keeping his eyes pretty closely on Bob, until the latter got desperate and went back to where people were. But the monocle-man went, too. By this time Bob was convinced the other knew what was in his pocket. “Caught with the goods!” That’s the way the yellow press would describe his predicament.

“Aren’t you the regular hermit-crab?” It was the temperamental little thing’s reproachful voice that at this point broke in upon his sorrowful meditations, and Bob turned to her quickly. At the moment he was awfully glad she had come up. “What have you been doing?” she went on.

“Oh, just rolling the balls. Will you dance?” Eagerly.

“Can’t! Engaged. You should have asked me sooner and not run away.” Then perhaps she saw how disappointed Bob looked or caught that desperate expression in his eyes, for she added: “Yes, I will. Can say I was engaged to you first and forgot. Come on.”

Bob did. He was a little afraid the monocle-man might not let him, but the other permitted him to dance. Perhaps he wouldn’t have done so if he had known what was in Bob’s mind. That young man felt as if he had now truly reached his last ditch.

“Say, I’m in an awful hole,” he breathed to the temperamental little thing, as they glided over the floor.

“Are you?” She snuggled closer. “Anything worse than has been?”

“A heap worse! I’ve got something I simply must get rid of.”

“What is it?” she said in a thrilling whisper.

“A ring.” Hoarsely.

“No. Whose?”

“Miss Gerald’s.” More hoarsely still.

“How wildly exciting! Though I didn’t think you would rob her.” In an odd voice.

“I didn’t.”

“But you say you’ve got her ring?”

“Some one put it in my pocket.”

“Isn’t it the funny little hermit-crab, though!” she answered.

“Well, never mind whether you believe me or not. The point is, I’ve got to get rid of it and I can’t. That monocle-man is watching me. I need help.”

“Mine?” Snuggling once more.

“Yours. Will you do it?”

“Didn’t I tell you I’d go through fire and water for you? Am I not now your eternal and everlasting chum? Say it.”

“What?”

“That jolly-little-pal talk.”

“Jolly little pal!” he breathed in her ear.

She sighed happily. “Now what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to take this ring” – slipping it into her fingers – “and return it to Miss Gerald’s room. You can slip in without attracting any attention. Besides no one would think anything of your going in her room, even if you were seen doing so – you’re such friends.”

“But,” she said wonderingly, “I don’t see why you took it at all if – ” She broke off – “Unless that monocle-man knows you’ve got it on you?”

“That’s the point,” observed Bob hoarsely.

“All right,” she assented. “I’ll do it. When?”

“Now.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Not until our dance is over. I want every bit of it. That’s – that’s my salary. My! I feel awful wicked with that ring in my hand. You can take a firmer hold of me if you want – the way you did that first day! I need reassuring!”

Bob laughed in spite of himself, but he reassured “jolly little pal,” in the manner indicated.

“Now just fly around,” she said.

And Bob “flew” with a recklessness that satisfied even her. When it was over she turned to him with an odd look.

“I’ve got another condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you ask Miss Gerald to dance!”

“But – ” he began, disconcerted as well as surprised.

“That’s the condition.”

“She would only refuse.” Gloomily.

“Do you agree?” There was something almost wistful in the temperamental eyes of little pal at that moment.

“I – can’t.” Desperately.

“Very well. Take back the – ”

“All right. I will,” Bob half-groaned.

As he walked over toward Gwendoline Gerald, he saw the temperamental little thing moving toward the stairway. Half-way up, she stopped and looked back over the banister. Perhaps she wanted to see if Bob was fulfilling his part of the contract.

CHAPTER XIX – BOB FORGETS HIMSELF

“Miss Gerald,” said Bob as formally as if he were quoting from one of those deportment books, “may I have the pleasure of this dance?”

Her reply was at variance with what “How to Behave in the Best Society” taught young ladies to say. “Why do you ask?” said Gwendoline Gerald quietly.

“Got to,” said Bob.

“Why have you got to?”

“I promised I would.”

“Who made you promise?”

Bob told.

“Do you have to do what she tells you?”

“In this instance.”

“Of course you know what my reply will be?”

“I told her you would refuse.”

“You would hardly expect me to dance with you after all I know about you, would you?” There was still that deadly quietness in her tones.

“All you think you know about me,” Bob had the courage to correct her. “Of course not.”

“Some one has taken one of my rings,” observed Miss Gerald even more quietly.

“I haven’t got it,” exclaimed Bob. “Honest!” Wasn’t he glad he had got rid of it?

The violet eyes studied Bob as if he were something strange and inanimate – an odd kind of a pebble or a shell. “You are sure?” said Miss Gwendoline.

“Positive,” answered Bob in his most confident tones. He remembered now that during his dance with the jolly little pal he had observed the monocle-man talking with Miss Gerald. Perhaps he had told her he had seen the ring in Bob’s fingers when the latter had gone to the window. The monocle-man might have been spying all the while, on the other side. There might have been two Peeping Toms interested in Bob’s actions in the billiard room.

“Are you so positive you would be willing to submit to be searched?”

“I am that positive,” Bob answered. And then went on more eagerly: “Maybe you haven’t really lost it after all.” He could say that and still tell the truth. “Why, it may be in your room now. You may find it on your table or your dresser when you go upstairs to retire.”

Miss Gerald looked at him. “You seem to be rather certain?” she said tentatively.

“I am,” said Bob. “I’d almost swear – ” He stopped suddenly. It wouldn’t do to be too certain.

“Don’t you find your own words rather strange?” the girl asked.

“Everything’s funny about me, nowadays,” said Bob.

“Did you enjoy renewing your acquaintance with Miss – ?” She called Gee-gee by that other, more conventional name.

“I did not. I dislike her profoundly.”

“Are you sure?” The violet eyes were almost meditative. “Now I should have thought – ” She paused. Bob read the thought, however. A man like him was on a plane with Gee-gee; indeed, much lower. Miss Gerald would be finding in Gee-gee Bob’s affinity next.

“You haven’t refused me out-and-out, yet,” he suggested. “To dance, I mean.”

“You would rather, of course, I did refuse you?”

“Of course,” Bob stammered. The mere thought of dancing with her once again as of yore gave him a sensation of exquisite pain. But naturally she would never dream of dancing with one she considered a – ?

“Well, you may have the pleasure,” she said mockingly.

Bob could not credit his hearing. She would permit him to touch her. Incredible! A great awe fell over him. He could not believe.

“I said you might have the pleasure,” she repeated, accenting in the least the last word.

Bob caught that accent. Ah, she knew then, what exquisite pain it would be for him to dance with her! She was purposely punishing him; she wished to make him suffer. She would drive a gimlet in his heart and turn it around. Bob somehow got his arm about his divinity and found himself floating around the room, experiencing that dual sensation of being in heaven and in the other place at one and the same time.

It was a weird and wonderful dance. Through it all he kept looking down at her hair, though its brightness seemed to dazzle him. Miss Dolly had confided to Bob that he “guided divinely,” but he didn’t guide divinely now; he was too bewildered. Once he bumped his divinity into some one and this did not improve his mental condition. But she bore with him with deadly patience; she was bound to punish him thoroughly, it seemed.

Then that dual sensation in Bob’s breast began gradually to partake more of heaven than of the other place, and he yielded to the pure and unadulterated joy of the divinity’s propinquity. He forgot there was a big black blot on his escutcheon, or character. He ceased to remember he was a renegade and criminal. The nearness of the proud golden head set his heart singing until tempestuously and temerariously he flung three words at her, telepathically, from the throbbing depths of his soul.

The dance ending abruptly “brought him to.” He looked around rather dazed; then struggling to awake, gazed at her. Her face still wore that expression of deadly calm and pride. Bob didn’t understand. She was no statue, he would have sworn, yet now she looked one – for him. And a moment before she had seemed radiantly, gloriously alive – no Galatea before the awakening! It was as if she had felt all the vibrating joy of the dance. But that, of course, could not have been. Bob felt like rubbing his eyes when he regarded her. He did not understand unless —

She wished once more to “rub it in,” to make him realize again more poignantly all that he had lost. She let him have a fuller glimpse of heaven just to hurl him from it. She liked to see him go plunging down into the dark voids of despair. He yielded entirely to that descending feeling now; he couldn’t help it.

“I thank you,” said Bob, in his best deportment-book manner.

The enigmatic violet eyes lighted as they rested on him. Bob would have sworn it was a cruel light. “Oh,” she said, “as long as you are a guest – ? There are certain formalities – ”

“I understand,” he returned.

The light in the violet eyes deepened and sparkled. So a cruel Roman lady might have regarded a gladiator in the arena, answering his appeal with “Thumbs down.” Bob lifted his hand to his brow. The girl’s proud lips – lips to dream of – were curved as in cruel disdain. Then Bob forgot himself again.

“I won’t have you look at me like that,” he said masterfully. “I’m not a criminal. Confound it, it’s preposterous. I didn’t steal your ring and I want you to know it, too. I never stole a thing in my life.” They were standing somewhat apart, where they couldn’t be overheard. He spoke in a low tone but with force, gazing boldly and unafraid now into the violet eyes.

“I won’t let you think that of me,” he said, stepping nearer. “Steal from you?” he scoffed. “Do you know the only thing I’d like to steal from you?” His eyes challenged hers; the violet eyes didn’t shrink. “Yourself! I’d like to steal you, but hang your rings!” He didn’t say “hang”; he used the other word. He forgot himself completely.

A garden of wild roses blossomed on the girl’s fair cheek, but she held herself with rare composure. “I wonder, Mr. Bennett,” she observed quietly, “how I should answer such mad irresponsible talk?”

“It’s the truth. And if I were a thief – which I’m not – I wouldn’t steal your rings. Even a thief wouldn’t steal the rings of the girl he loves.”

More roses! Outraged flushing, no doubt! Yet still the girl managed to maintain her composure. “You dare go very far, do you not, Mr. Bennett?”

“Yes; and I’ll go further. I love every hair of your head. Even when you’re cruel,” he hurried on recklessly, “and heaven knows you can be cruel enough, I love you. I love your lips when they say the unkindest and most outrageous things to me. I love your eyes when they look scorn. I ought not to love you, but I do. Why, I loved you the first time I saw you. And do you think if I were all those things you think me, I’d dare stand up here and tell you that? I didn’t mean to tell you ever that I loved you. But that’s my answer when you imply I’m a rank criminal. A man’s got to have a clear conscience to love you as I do. Such love can only go with a clear conscience. Why, you’re so wonderful and beautiful to me I couldn’t – ” Bob paused. “Don’t you see the point?” he appealed to her. “A man couldn’t have you in his heart and not have the right to hold up his head among his fellow men.”

Miss Gerald did not at once answer; she had not moved. The sweeping dark lashes were lowered; she was looking down. “You plead your cause very ingeniously, Mr. Bennett,” she observed at length, her lashes suddenly uplifting. The lights were still there in the violet eyes; they seemed yet mocking him. “You invoke the sacred name of love as a proof of your innocence. The argument is unique if not logical,” she went on with pitiless accents and the red lips that uttered the “sacred name of love” smiled. “I have been rather interested, however, in following your somewhat fantastic defense of yourself. That it has incidentally involved me is also mildly interesting. Do you expect me to feel flattered?” The red lips still smiled. Bob was quite near but she didn’t move away. She seemed quite unafraid of him.

“You needn’t feel ashamed,” said Bob sturdily. And his eyes flashed. They seemed to say no woman ought to be ashamed of an honest man’s love. “I may be mad over you,” he went on, “but I’m not ashamed of it. There isn’t a thought I have of you that doesn’t make me want to be a better man, and a stronger and more useful one, too,” he added, squaring his shoulders.

Again the long lashes swept slightly downward, masking the violet, and the girl’s lips moved – a ripple of amusement, no doubt. She looked up, however, once more with that appearance of deadly calm. “Then you deny it, in toto, having seen my ring to-night?”

Bob swallowed. Again he dropped from the heights.

“You do not speak,” said Miss Gerald, studying him.

“I – wish you wouldn’t ask me that,” he managed to say.

“Why not?” lifting her brows. “Even if you saw it you could say you hadn’t.”

“That’s just the point,” Miserably. “I couldn’t.”

“Then you did see it?”

“I did.”

“You had it, perhaps?”

“I did.”

“You have it now?”

“No.”

“Ah, you have passed it on to an accomplice, perhaps.” Mockingly. Miss Gerald drew up her proud figure. “And this is the man,” she said, “who talks to me of love. Love!” With a low musical laugh. “The tenderest passion! The purest one! Dare you repeat now,” with crushing triumph in the violet eyes, “what you said a moment ago.”

“I love you,” said Bob, with burning glance. “I shall carry your image with me to the grave.”

This slightly staggered even one of her regal young bearing. His tone was that of the master once more. No criminal in his look when he said that! Miss Gerald’s slender figure swayed in the least; her breast stirred. Bob put his handsome reckless face nearer. That was the way he answered her challenge. He wore his fighting look.

“I love you,” he said. “And that,” he flung at her, “is still the answer I dare make.”

Miss Gerald did not reply to this bold defiance at once. How she would have answered, Bob never knew, for at that moment the hammer-thrower came up and the girl at once turned to him, looking slightly paler as she did so. Both then walked away, Bob’s somber gaze following them. But he was not long permitted even this mournful privilege.

“Phone, sir,” said a voice at his elbow. “Mr. Robert Bennett is urgently wanted on the phone.”

“All right.” And Bob followed the servant. “What now?” he asked himself wearily.

The voice at the other end was Dan’s. Fortunately the telephone was isolated and no one in the house could catch what Bob said. The good old commodore frantically wished to know all about Gee-gee and Gid-up. He had heard that Bob had got out of the sanatorium and gone back to Mrs. Ralston’s. Dan’s desire for information was greater even than his resentment toward Bob, as he had stooped to calling him up.