CHAPTER IV
BEGINNING THE GAME
WHEN he left Weems, it was too late to start a round of golf so Trenttook his homeward way intent on starting another story. Crosbeigh wasalways urging him to turn out more of them.
His boarding house room seemed shabbier than ever. The rug, which hadnever been a good one, showed its age. The steel engravings on the wallwere offensive. "And Weems," he thought, "owns a Constable!"
His upright piano sounded thinner to his touch. "And Weems," he sighed,"has been able to buy a grand."
Up from the kitchen the triumphant smell of a "boiled New Englanddinner" sought out every corner of the house. High above all the variedodors, cabbage was king. The prospect of the dinner table was appalling,with Mr. Lund, distant and ready to quarrel over any infringement of hisrights or curtailment of his portion. Mrs. Clarke ready to resent anyjest as to her lord's habits. The landlady eager to give battle to suchas sniffed at what her kitchen had to offer. Wearisome banter betweenbrainless boarders tending mainly to criticism of moving pictureproductions and speculations as to the salaries of the stars. Not a soulthere who had ever heard of William Blake or Ravel! Overdressed girlswho were permanently annoyed with Anthony Trent because he would nevertake them to ice-cream parlors. Each new boarder as she came set her capfor him and he remained courteous but disinterested.
One of the epics of Mrs. Sauer's boarding house was that night when MissMargaret Rafferty, incensed at the coldness with which her advances werereceived and the jeers of her girl friends, brought as a dinner guest aformer sweetheart, now enthusiastically patrolling city sidewalks as aguardian of the peace. It was not difficult to inflame McGuire. Hedisliked Anthony Trent on sight and exercised an untrammeled wit duringthe dinner at his expense. It was afterwards in the little garden wherethe men went to smoke an after dinner cigar that the unforgivable phrasewas passed.
McGuire was just able to walk home. He had met an antagonist who was alightning hitter, whose footwork was quick and who boxed admirably andkept his head.
After this a greater meed of courtesy was accorded the writer ofstories. But the bibulous Clarke alone amused him, Clarke who had beencity editor of a great daily when Trent was a police reporter on it, andwas now a Park Row derelict supported by the generosity of his oldfriends and acquaintances. Only Mrs. Clarke knew that Anthony Trent onnumerous occasions gave her a little money each week until that day inthe Greek kalends when her husband would find another position.
Anthony Trent settled himself at his typewriter and began looking overthe carbon copy of the story he had just sold to Crosbeigh. He wishedto assure himself of certain details in it. Among the pages was anenvelope with the name of a celebrated Fifth Avenue club embossed uponit. Written on it in pencil was Crosbeigh's name. Unquestionably he hadswept it from the editorial desk when he had taken up the carbon copy ofhis story.
Opening it he found a note written in a rather cramped and angular hand.The stationery was of the Fifth Avenue club. The signature wasunmistakable, "Conington Warren." Trent read:
"My dear Crosbeigh:
"I am sending this note by Togoyama because I want to be sure that you will lunch with me at Voisin's to-morrow at one o'clock. I wish affairs permitted me to see more of my old Yale comrades but I am enormously busy. By the way, a little friend of mine thinks she can write. I don't suppose she can, but I promised to show her efforts to you. I'm no judge but it seems to me her work is very much the kind you publish in your magazine. We will talk it over to-morrow. Of course she cares nothing about what you would pay her. She wants to see her name in print.
"Yours ever,
"CONINGTON WARREN."
Trent picked up an eraser and passed it over the name on the envelope.It had been written with a soft pencil and was easily swept away.
Over the body of the letter he spent a long time. He copied it exactly.A stranger would have sworn that the copy had been written by the samehand which indited the original. And when this copy had been made toTrent's satisfaction, he carefully erased everything in the original butthe signature. Then remembering Weems' description of the ConingtonWarren camp in the Adirondacks, he wrote a little note to one Togoyama.
It was five when he had finished. There was no indecision about him.Twenty minutes later he was at the Public Library consulting a largevolume in which were a hundred of the best known residences in New York.So conscientious was the writer that there were plans of every floor andin many instances descriptions of their interior decoration. AnthonyTrent chuckled to think of the difficulties with which the unletteredcrook has to contend. "Chicago Ed. Binner," for example, had marriedhalf a hundred servant maids to obtain information as to the dispositionof rooms that he could have obtained by the mere consultation of such abook as this.
It was while Mrs. Sauer's wards were finishing their boiled dinner thatsome of them had a glimpse of Anthony Trent in evening dress descendingthe stairs.
"Dinner not good enough for his nibs," commented one boarder seeking tocurry the Sauer favor.
"I'd rather have my boarders pay and not eat than eat and not pay," saidMrs. Sauer grimly. It was three weeks since she had received a dollarfrom the speaker.
"Drink," exclaimed Mr. Clarke, suddenly roused from meditation of a daynow dead when a highball could be purchased for fifteen cents. "Thisfood shortage now. That could be settled easily. Take the tax offliquor and people wouldn't want to eat so much. It's the high cost ofdrinking that's the trouble. What's the use of calling ourselves a freepeople? I tell you it was keeping vodka from the Russians that causedthe whole trouble. Don't argue with me. I know."
Mr. Clarke went from the dinner table to his bed and awoke aroundmidnight possessed with the seven demons of unsatiated thirst. Hedetermined to go down and call upon Anthony Trent. He would plead forenough money to go to the druggist and get his wife's prescriptionfilled. Trent, good lad that he was, always fell for it. And, he argued,it was a friendly act to do, this midnight call on a hard working youngwriter who had once been at his command.
For the first time Anthony Trent's door was locked. And the voice thatsnapped out an interrogation was different from the leisurely andamiable invitation to enter which was usual. The door was suddenly flungopen, so sudden that poor Clarke was startled. And facing him, his fistsclenched and a certain tensity of attitude that was a strange one to thevisitor, was Anthony Trent still in evening dress. Clarke construed itinto an expression of resentment at his intrusion. He could notunderstand the sudden affability that took possession of his formerreporter.
"Come in, Mr. Clarke," said Trent cordially. "I am sorry your wife'sheart is troubling her but I agree with you that you should rush withall haste to the nearby druggist and have that prescription filled. Andas the man who owes you money did not pay you to-day as he promised, butwill without fail to-morrow at midday, take this five dollar bill withmy blessing."
"How did you know?" gasped Clarke.
"I am a mind reader," Trent retorted. "It saves time." He led Mr. Clarkegently to the door. "Now I'm tired and want to go to sleep so don't callin on your way back with the change. Just trot up to bed as quietly asyou can."
When the door was locked and a chair-back wedged against the handle,Trent lowered the shades. Then he cleared his table of the litter ofpaper. A half dozen pages of the first draft of his new story held hisattention for a few seconds. Then he deliberately tore the pages intolittle fragments, threw them into the waste paper basket. And to thiscenotaph he added the contents of the table drawer, made up of notes forfuture stories, the results of weeks of labor.
"Dust to dust," he murmured, "ashes to ashes!"
It was the end of the career of Anthony Trent, writer.
And on the table which had formerly held only writing paper a quaintmiscellany was placed. Eight scarf pins, each holding in golden clawsstones of price. Apparently Conington Warren had about him only what wasgood. And there was a heavy platinum ring with
a ruby of not less thanfour carats, a lady's ring. It would not be difficult for a man soclever with his hands and apt mechanically to remove these jewels fromtheir setting. Nor was there any difficulty in melting the preciousmetals.
It seemed to Trent that he had gloated over these glistening stones forhours before he put them away.
Then he took out a roll of bills and counted them. Conington Warren, itseemed, must have had considerable faith in the excellent Togoyama nowhurrying to the Adirondack camp, for he had left three thousand dollarsin the upper left hand drawer of a Sheraton desk.
Morning was coming down the skies when Trent, now in dressing gown,lighted his pipe and sat down by the window.
"Well," he muttered softly, "I've done it and there's no going back.Yesterday I was what people call an honest man. Now----?"
He shrugged his shoulders and puffed quickly. Out of the window greyclouds of smoke rose as fragrant incense.
He had never meant to take up a career of crime. Looking back he couldsee how little things coming together had provoked in him an insatiabledesire for an easier life. In all his personal dealings heretofore, hehad been scrupulously honest, and there had never been any reflection onhis honor as a sportsman. He had played games for their own sake. He hadwon without bragging and lost with excuses. Up in Hanover there werestill left those who chanted his praise. What would people think of himif he were placed in the dock as a criminal?
His own people were dead. There were distant cousins in Cleveland, whomhe hardly remembered. There was no family honor to trail in the dust, nomother or sweetheart to blame him for a broken heart.
He stirred uneasily as he thought of the possibility of capture. Evennow those might be on his trail who would arrest him. It would beironical if, before he tasted the fruits of leisure, he were taken toprison--perhaps by Officer McGuire! It had all been so absurdly easy.Within a few minutes of receiving the forged note the Japanese was onhis way to the mountains.
The bishop-like butler who adored his master according to Crosbeigh, hadseemed utterly without suspicion when he passed Trent engaged inanimated converse with his supposed employer. The bad moment was whenthe man had come into the library where the intruder was hiding himselfand stood there waiting for an answer to his question. Trent had seen toit that the light was low. It was a moment of inspiration when he calledto mind Conington Warren's imperious gesture as he waved away Voisin'shead waiter, and another which had made him put on the velvet smokingjacket. And it had all come out without a hitch. But he was playing agame now when he could never be certain he was not outguessed. It mightbe the suave butler was outside in the shadows guiding police to thecapture.
He looked out of the window and down the silent street. There was indeeda man outside and looking up at him. But it was only poor Clarke whoseown prescription had been too well filled. He had captured, so hefancied, an errant lamppost wantonly disporting itself.
Anthony Trent looked at him with a relief in which disgust had its part.He swore, by all the high gods, never to sink to that level. A curiousturn of mind, perhaps, for a burglar to take. But so far the sportingsimile presented itself to him. It was a game, a big game in which hetook bigger risks than any one else. He was going to pit his wit,strength and knowledge against society as it was organized.
"I don't see why I can't play it decently," he said to himself as heclimbed into bed.