Joan's Enemies/Chapter 14

T his desk, Harold Lismore raised a troubled countenance from one of the letters he had received that morning.

“Heimberg refuses to renew the loan, even for a month.”

“Taken fright at the continued fall in copper, I suppose,” Stormont remarked easily. “No wonder! Still, he's a mean skunk; he gave us to understand that there would be no difficulty about a renewal three months, if we wanted it.”

“The note is due this day week. What am I to do about it?”

“Tell him to go to the devil, and look on the bright side. We are going to have fifteen thousand ounces of platinum apiece!”

“But when? You know, Stormont, sometimes I feel we shall never see that platinum. When?”

“Why, as soon as we can get into touch with Douglas Grant. From this afternoon our excellent sleuth Plyden is going to watch Elm House until he can pick up Grant's trail. By to-morrow, or next day, I trust you and I may have the pleasure of calling upon him and presenting our compliments and credentials in the shape of our own particular strips.”

“I—I'll never be able to face him. He might turn nasty and—and—”

“Lismore, I'm getting sick of your beastly cowardice! You must take the risk—which I don't, as I've said before, believe exists. Think, my friend, how easy and safe it will be compared with our former plan. Think of that cemented floor and the risks in kidnapping Miss March and her aunt, not to mention managing the servants. Why, the game has been played into our hands!”

Stormont rose, glanced at himself in the mirror over the mantel and flicked a speck of dust from the lapel of his coat. “Well, I'm going out,” he remarked. “Write to Heimberg that the note will be met on its due date. By-by!”

Shortly after this Lismore got up and opened his safe. He took out two papers; the strip given to him by Rufus Cran, and a clear copy in his own writing of the completed document with the figures as in the original. It was headed “Rufus Cran's Instructions.” He was about to carry those papers to his desk when a tap sounded on the door. He replaced them hastily, turning the key in the drawer.

The office-boy looked in. “The lady you were expecting, sir,” he said. And in walked Miss Griselda Gosling.

HEN the door had closed, she remarked: “Sorry I had to tell that boy a falsehood,” and walked over to the easy-chair, in which she deliberately settled herself.

It was beyond Lismore to make any sort of response. The man looked stupefied, helpless.

“You seem upset, Mr. Lismore,” she said at length. “If you will sit down, I will state my business.”

He seemed to grope his way to the chair at his desk, and sank upon it.

“You poor creature!” she murmured. “Have you no fight in you?”

Stung, he drew himself up. “I—I am not very well. Your sudden entrance gave me a shock. What is your business, Miss Gosling?”

“You shall have it in the fewest words possible. The first part is concerned with a matter of nearly twenty years ago. My mother, not long before her death, intrusted to you a large sum of money for investment. Neither to her nor to me have you ever accounted for it. Will you do so now?”

At her first words he had gasped and gone gray. Now, “I never—” he began.

“Don't take it that way,” she interrupted swiftly. “You never gave my mother a receipt, but you wrote your name on the back of her checks—”

“That proves nothing! Your outrageous assertion is—”

“My mother was alone when she gave you the check, but there were two people in the house who heard you say as you left the room: 'I will double your money for you within three years, Mrs. Gosling!' These two people are still alive. Finally, before she died—poor, by the way,—my mother made an affidavit which I hold...... Mr. Lismore, you will have to account for that money, and speedily.”

“All a delusion on your mother's part,” he stammered at last. “You come to me after nearly twenty years—”

“For nearly twenty years I have spared you; I have pinched on four hundred a year—for the sake of your wife, who was once my dear and generous friend. All that time I prayed for your success for her sake as well as my own. I fancied that success might make you desire to redeem—”

“So it will, so it will!” he cried, clutching at the straw.

“No, I know you better now, Harold Lismore. Once more I request you to account for the money, $37,500, with interest, a fortune to a poor old maid!”

“The money was—lost.”

“How?”

“The investments went—”

“Name them!”

“I—I'll make up a statement, but I must have time.”

“You are at your desk. I can wait five minutes.”

He turned to the desk, put out his hand as though for a pen, let it fall nervously. There was a dire silence until she said:

“I will give you a week—”

“God bless—”

“—on conditions! First, answer this question: why did you make your daughter take that letter from my niece's safe?”

His reply was slow in coming: “We—I had a certain right to the contents of the letter.”

“Documentary rights?” Miss Gosling had rehearsed that phrase in the watches of the night.

“Y-yes.”

“Part, or parts, of the letter, in fact?..... Answer please!”

“You seem to know—”

“Answer!”

“Yes,”

“You have your own parts here—in this office?”

“No.”

“Don't lie! I want to see them.”

“I have only one part—a third part—my own.”

“I want to see it.” Her bright eyes fastened on the safe.

E shook his head. “I daren't,” he said weakly.

“Listen!” Miss Gosling glanced at her old-fashioned little watch and proceeded to tell another falsehood. “I left two men downstairs—not pleasant men for a wrongdoer to meet. They too are watching the time.” In four minutes from now they will come up, unless—” She rose, leaving the sentence unfinished. “Is the document on your person?” she demanded.

Again he shook his head, past speech.

“I am going to look for it in your safe,” she said. “If you attempt to interfere—well, there are only three minutes now.”

She felt that she was beginning to tremble a little and prayed that the remainder of her task might be brief.

Without delay she opened the drawer with the keys in it—and nearly screamed with satisfaction. There was a strip similar to the one she already knew, and—

“Ah,” she said softly, “a copy, obviously, of the completed document!” She read rapidly, holding a hand to her head as if to steady her brain. And suddenly she stared violently.

Lismore, with his back to her, never moved.

At last she spoke: “I'm going now. You have till a week from to-day, at noon, to render an account of those investments, and to pay the money, with interest.”

He heard the door close, seemingly at a great distance. After a while he got feebly to his feet and crept to the safe.

Thank heaven, she had not taken away his precious strip, sole proof of his right to a share of the platinum. She had merely taken—

He reeled and clung to the steel door. For he remembered that he had made the copy before forgery had been done on two of the originals—Grant's and Stormont's own.

And just then Stormont himself ran in.

“Lismore, what has happened? What did that woman want? Speak out!”

Lismore was incapable of speaking at all then, but his quavering hand pointed to the drawer, and the other understood.

“You unutterable fool!” For a moment Stormont's expression was murderous. Then he darted to the door and called sharply. “Plyden, come here at once!” While the clerk obeyed, he ran back to Lismore and dragged him over to the window. “Answer quickly! Is that the woman, crossing the street? I only got a glimpse of her and must be sure before I act. Answer!”

Lismore nodded.

“Plyden, see that little woman in gray? Well, she has stolen a valuable paper from the safe—a large sheet of office-paper, with Mr. Lismore's writing. It may be in her bag now, but that's your affair. One hundred dollars if you bring it back to us before the other eyes have seen it.”

Plyden, a sickly color, hesitated only an instant, and ran out.