Demeter entered the room a moment later, just giving him time to take in the beauty of the setting, and her entrance was like the rising of a curtain in a play.
She was attired in a lovely dressing gown of clinging white transparent velvet with glimpses of pastel chiffon that matched the roses and looked like a delicate cloud at sunset. It gave her a frail, almost unearthly beauty, with her gold hair and strange eyes. A single jewel sparkled on her white neck from a threadlike chain, and her stockingless feet were shod in silver sandals through which peeped shamelessly her little pink toes with their polished nails stained to match her fingertips. These details did not enter Alan’s consciousness at once, but the effect was of an exceedingly intimate outfit, and he was startled at the picture she had made of herself. Something suddenly steeled and warned him in his heart. Was this then what God had to protect him against? Or was he mistaken? Could anything as lovely as this not have a soul as beautiful?
She drifted in almost wearily like an invalid and dropped upon the velvet couch, its depth of black bringing out still more startlingly her exquisite little self. She had certainly gone to a great deal of trouble to charm him, but of course Alan didn’t realize that. It only seemed that he was being let into her inner circle, the intimacy of a more-than-friend, and he wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to be there. In fact, he was pretty certain that he did not. But whether he wanted to or not, he was there, and must get through with it as best he could.
God! Are you there?
He greeted her gravely but did not take the seat beside her on the couch that she indicated.
“I’ll just sit here where I can see you,” he said easily, dropping into a big armchair across the hearth from the couch.
She did not urge him, but he saw that she did not like it that he had refused.
“So sorry I had to demand your presence,” she said coolly, “but my doctor positively refused to let me go out, and my affairs could not wait another day!” There was the tiniest bit of reproach in the words.
“Well, I’m sorry you’ve been ill,” he said, and thought as he looked at her that in spite of her subdued manner she did not look sick at all. “I’m sorry, too, that I must hurry. But this was the only way I could have come. I shall have to work nearly all night tonight to be ready for court tomorrow morning. I’m sure you understand.”
“No, I wouldn’t understand,” said Demeter a little haughtily, “but it doesn’t matter. You are here, and I’ll do my best to tell you the business in the time you give me.” She sighed gently as if she had been treated inconsiderately but was willing to forgive.
“We’ll just have our tea while we talk,” she said.
She touched a bell and a servant appeared with a tray of good things. Alan was grateful for the food, and it was of course delectable. When he was served and the servant had departed he said pleasantly, “Now, what is it?”
“Well, Alan,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes, holding his gaze in spite of his desire to get away from that disturbing glance, “I need a great deal of money at once, and I want you to get it for me! That’s the story.”
And then she watched him. He looked at her blankly.
“Money?” he said in dismay. “You surely know I have no money, at least so little that it would scarcely count with you as any.”
“Yes, but you have the means of procuring it,” said the girl, still pinning him with her glance and watching his reaction to her words.
“The means?” he repeated blankly. “I don’t understand you. I have no means of procuring money!”
“Think!” said Demeter. “Haven’t you trust funds in your charge?”
Alan laughed.
“Yes, but they are trust funds, and I have no desire to spend the rest of my life in the penitentiary for embezzling them!” He tried to speak jocosely, but she did not smile.
“Don’t be childish!” she said impatiently. “I’m in earnest.”
He watched her, wondering just where this strange conversation was going to lead. Then he answered gravely.
“Suppose you explain. I’m sure you are not so ignorant of business matters as to think that I could hand over trust funds to you because you happen to want some money.”
“No, but you have to invest them, don’t you?”
“Yes, certainly, but how would that help you?”
“Couldn’t I borrow them?”
“You! Borrow them!” He looked at her with undisguised amusement. “Just how would you go about doing that? Have you collateral for large sums of money?”
“Certainly!” she said, and her eyes were glittering now, and strangely they reminded him of a serpent’s eyes just before it was about to strike its victim.
“Well, that’s extraordinary! Are you going to explain?”
“Yes, presently, when I’ve told you the rest.”
“Oh, there is more?”
“Of course,” she said, annoyed. “I have worked this thing out very carefully. You have a trust fund in the name of Bronson MacMartin, I believe, haven’t you?”
He gave her a startled look.
“I believe we have, but how should you know?”
“He happens to be my uncle, and a part of that fortune, perhaps the whole of it, will be mine someday. Do you wonder now that I should know about it? And are you surprised that I should have thought of it now in my need, since it is practically mine now?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, Uncle Bronson will never come out of the sanitarium. As far as his money is concerned he is practically dead now. And the only other heir is a distant cousin who has not been heard of for years. He went off to the Orient to live years ago, and no one knows what has become of him. So I’m practically talking about my own money, you see.”
“Demeter, what in the world are you driving at, and where could I possibly come into the affair?”
Demeter suddenly melted into smiles and looked wistfully at him.
“Alan, I want that money, and where you come in, darling, is to get it for me. I want you to release it for me, now, within a few days. I know you can do it if you will, and I’ll see that you are not the loser thereby.”
He gave her a quick troubled look.
“You are talking nonsense, Demeter! The Bronson MacMartin funds are well invested and cannot be touched!”
“Not if you can get a better investment? One that pays a high rate of interest?”
“That wouldn’t be possible, not in these times, not safe investments. The place where it is now is as safe as the Rock of Gibraltar, and the terms of the arrangement are very definite. Even if I thought it wise I would be powerless to change it.”
Demeter narrowed her eyes.
“I think you can change it!” she said confidently. “I am sure you will do so when you hear everything.”
“There is more?” he asked cautiously, giving a furtive glance at his watch. This was going to be more complicated than he had feared, and the time was going fast. He had already been here three-quarters of an hour. Oh God! Are you near?
“Yes, there is more, and that’s where the count comes in.”
“The count?” Alan looked around sharply. Was there a count to be reckoned with yet tonight?
“Oh, he isn’t here yet, my dear,” said Demeter coolly. “I told him I’d keep you till seven o’clock. He couldn’t get here any sooner. But you’ll stay! After I’ve told you the rest, you’ll stay to hear what he as to say.”
Alan’s face settled into grim lines of sternness.
“Demeter, look here! If you have more to tell, tell it quickly. I’ll give you five minutes, and then I’m going. I’m late already for what I have to do.”
Demeter smiled serenely.
“Well, listen then, but I’m sure you’ll stay after you have heard me. I have come on a marvelous fortune, if I can only get funds to develop it at once, before someone else snaps it up.”
She watched her victim, but his face was a mask now an
d told her nothing. His unbelieving eyes watched her narrowly.
“It is simply marvelous!” she went on. “It is in oil and silver, both. And I have bought several large areas of land containing these oil wells and silver mines!”
“You have bought them? What with, may I ask?” Demeter smiled confidently.
“With the money that you are going to get from Uncle Bronson’s estate for me!”
Alan gasped at her superb audacity.
“You see,” said Demeter, “I have it all thought out, every detail. I’ve even been to see the wells, saw them spouting great streams of oil up into the air, and I have looked down into some of the silver mines. See, here is some of the silver that I brought away with me. I went last fall when you thought I was in California for a month.”
She suddenly pulled out a little drawer in the table beside her and brought out nuggets of silver in various stages of refinement, also some photographs and a few papers.
“Here are the proofs,” she said sweetly, handing out a bright nugget and then calling his attention to a photograph. “There is my photograph,” she said, pointing to a figure which was unmistakably herself standing in a surrounding of mountains and plains, watching a stream of something shooting high in the air.
Alan took the whole collection in his hand and studied them. There were no marks of real identification anywhere on the pictures, just landscapes with spouting geysers of some kind. They might have been taken of course in almost any oil field. What did it all mean?
“Have these oil wells been examined by experts?” he asked suddenly.
“Oh yes. The count looks after all that, of course. There are the papers. They vouch for everything.”
“But what has the count got to do with it?”
“Why, didn’t I tell you? He discovered this land, in both cases, and got the refusal of it before anyone knew there was either silver or oil there, and he is letting a few of his friends in on it, just to get the things started, but we mean to keep most of the stock in our own hands!”
Alan was silent for several minutes while he examined the photographs and papers in the minutest details. Suddenly he looked up and studied the girl before him.
“Demeter,” he said, “you’ve asked my advice and said you would take it. Well then, I advise you to have nothing more to do with this. I’m convinced just on the face of it, that it is a gigantic swindle. Of course you’re not aware of it, and I don’t know who is at the bottom of it, probably that count, whoever he is, but you had better drop it at once. As for getting hold of your uncle’s property, that’s absurd. It couldn’t be done, and I certainly never would attempt it, even if I could. It would be criminal!”
Suddenly Demeter in all the beauty of her clinging garments rose and glided over to where he sat, perching lightly on the arm of his chair like a bird, and flinging one warm pink arm across his shoulders, bent down until her lovely cheek was close to his, and her perfumed hair brushed his face.
“Darling,” she said in a most alluring voice, “don’t be difficult! There is one more paper you must read and then I’ll tell you everything!” And she thrust a legal-looking paper into his unwilling hands.
He glanced down at the paper, almost too angry to take in what it said, and Demeter raised her lovely arm and ran her fingers lightly through his hair, playing with the short, crisp wave above his forehead in little gentle, intimate touches. Then suddenly, with a sinuous motion like a serpent, her other hand came up and lifted his face until it was beside her own, and her voice dripping with tenderness whispered, “Darling, you’ll do this for me, won’t you?” And then her lips stooped to kiss his, with a long, lingering caress.
Alan was taken off his guard for the instant, set around by habits of courtesy. But before her object was accomplished his strong hand came up swiftly, captured the little caressing hands in a grip like a vise and thrust her from him with the kiss fairly trembling in the air between them.
“Demeter!” he said sternly, on his feet at once, her hands held at arm’s length. “What are you trying to do?” His eyes were scintillating with righteous wrath. “Was I summoned here to a petting party, or is this business? Please sit down and act like a decent woman. I’d like to continue to respect you, if I could.”
He led her to her couch and left her, going to the far end of the room and standing up beside a lamp to read the paper he still held.
Demeter was very angry. Little points of fire played back and forth in her eyes, and her mouth was set in a thin, vengeful line, but she sat perfectly still and watched him.
When he had finished reading the paper he turned toward her, his face still set in its stern lines. He spoke to her as if she were a very naughty child.
“This paper,” he said, “is absolutely worthless. It is utterly illegal as it stands and would never get by anywhere. The whole thing looks to me like a fraud!”
With swift subtlety Demeter’s expressions changed to one of quiet triumph.
“But that, my dear, is where you come in! Don’t you understand? You are to put those papers into forms so that they shall be legal, and then”—she paused an instant with bated breath as if she were listening for someone who was at hand—“and then,” she went on, “you are to share with us equally in the enormous profits!”
Alan stood still in the middle of the room and looked at her astounded, his face white, a new kind of rage beginning to look out from his eyes.
“Do I understand that you are offering me a bribe?” he said, and contempt grew in his voice as he spoke. “Absolutely nothing doing, either now or at any other time! I will wish you good evening!” And he turned and walked out of the room.
Pausing in the hallway to pick up his hat and coat he was at the front door in time to meet a man whom the servant was admitting. A dark man with handsome, glittering, shifty eyes, and a look of knowing his way around the earth pretty well. He eyed Alan sharply as they passed, and Alan gave him a long look, sure that he would not forget that face. For that must be the count!
When Alan reached his apartment he found that he was still holding Demeter’s last paper crumpled in his hand.
He smoothed it out and read it over again, his wrath rising anew at the whole slippery scheme. Then as he went to fold it he happened to glance on the back and saw a penciled note scribbled in a strange hand.
Dearest:
Don’t show this to your lawyer friend just yet, not till I’ve got in my work, and don’t say anything about the fish already landed. Keep this absolutely on the q.t.
Yours,
There followed a list of names in Demeter’s dainty little script. Alan sat staring at it for some time, wondering if there was anything he ought or could do about it all.
Then suddenly he dropped on his knees beside his desk and began, unaccustomedly, to pray.
“Oh, God! I thank You that You stood by me! Show me what to do next!” And added, “Thank You for being always here!”
Then he rose and went at his work for court the next morning.
Chapter 16
As Alan went through the busy days that followed there were two things he was trying to forget. One was the revolting thought of Demeter trying to lure him by the force of her physical beauty into something she must have known was criminal. He could not quite bring himself even yet to believe she had known fully what it meant to do what she had asked. He tried to put the matter in abeyance, because he did not have time just now to think it through, to catalogue it in his mind and write a finish to the matter. He wanted to be able to at least think the best of her possible. She was too lovely to associate with women who would stoop to use their physical charms to bend a man to their will.
The other thing to be forgotten was the lovely thought of Daryl Devereaux as she had lain in his arms that moment in the cellar and he had felt that she was the dearest thing on earth. He had to get away from the memory of that. He couldn’t hope to have her for his own, and he must not go through life stricken because of one mo
ment that was not really his.
Sometimes he wished he had time to take a run back there for a day just to see how things were, and whether that Harold person was still on the horizon. But of course he was, and why make it any harder for himself by knowing about it? Sometime soon he would try to get hold of Lance, make him come down and spend a few days with him, and then perhaps he would get a clearer idea about things. But he wouldn’t have time just now to go around with him, and he simply must not think about it. So he put Daryl’s letter thanking him for the New Year roses away under lock and key as very precious, and would not let himself take it out and read it over as he longed to do. He must not let his thoughts dwell on her.
There had been several social engagements, made in the early fall, which he had put down on his calendar and quickly forgotten until the day came in sight. Several of these he could cancel, and did, for he had neither time nor inclination for social life. But there were two or three ahead that he could not very well avoid because the invitations had come from clients, and in such a way as to make the acceptance a personal favor. Especially was this true of the debutante party that was to be given for the young granddaughter of Mrs. Martin Bennington. She had paused after a business interview in the office one afternoon and said, “By the way, Mr. Monteith, I am just sending out the invitations to my granddaughter’s coming-out party. One will come to you, and I do hope you will make time in your busy life to accept. I like you, and I would like Theodora to have at least a background of fine men among her wild young crowd of modern youth. I hope you will please me in this.”
Alan had smiled and said he would be delighted and had really felt flattered after she left to think of the gracious way in which she had put the invitation, making it really an honor worth going after, as social honors went, and one that could not fail to help him in his business connections.