CHAPTER X. MARKED MONEY.
Mary had scarcely received from Aggie an account of Cassidy'sthreatening invasion, when the maid announced that Mr. Irwin had called.
"Show him in, in just two minutes," Mary directed.
"Who's the gink?" Aggie demanded, with that slangy diction which was herhabit.
"You ought to know," Mary returned, smiling a little. "He's thelawyer retained by General Hastings in the matter of a certainbreach-of-promise suit."
"Oh, you mean yours truly," Aggie exclaimed, not in the least abashed byher forgetfulness in an affair that concerned herself so closely. "Hopehe's brought the money. What about it?"
"Leave the room now," Mary ordered, crisply. "When I call to you, comein, but be sure and leave everything to me. Merely follow my lead. And,Agnes--be very ingenue."
"Oh, I'm wise--I'm wise," Aggie nodded, as she hurried out toward herbedroom. "I'll be a squab--surest thing you know!"
Next moment, Mary gave a formal greeting to the lawyer who representedthe man she planned to mulct effectively, and invited him to a chairnear her, while she herself retained her place at the desk, within adrawer of which she had just locked the formidable-appearing documentreceived from Harris.
Irwin lost no time in coming to the point.
"I called in reference to this suit, which Miss Agnes Lynch threatens tobring against my client, General Hastings."
Mary regarded the attorney with a level glance, serenely expressionlessas far as could be achieved by eyes so clear and shining, and her voicewas cold as she replied with significant brusqueness.
"It's not a threat, Mr. Irwin. The suit will be brought."
The lawyer frowned, and there was a strident note in his voice when heanswered, meeting her glance with an uncompromising stare of hostility.
"You realize, of course," he said finally, "that this is merely plainblackmail."
There was not the change of a feature in the face of the woman wholistened to the accusation. Her eyes steadfastly retained their cleargaze into his; her voice was still coldly formal, as before.
"If it's blackmail, Mr. Irwin, why don't you consult the police?"she inquired, with manifest disdain. Mary turned to the maid, who nowentered in response to the bell she had sounded a minute before. "Fanny,will you ask Miss Lynch to come in, please?" Then she faced the lawyeragain, with an aloofness of manner that was contemptuous. "Really, Mr.Irwin," she drawled, "why don't you take this matter to the police?"
The reply was uttered with conspicuous exasperation.
"You know perfectly well," the lawyer said bitterly, "that GeneralHastings cannot afford such publicity. His position would bejeopardized."
"Oh, as for that," Mary suggested evenly, and now there was a trace offlippancy in her fashion of speaking, "I'm sure the police would keepyour complaint a secret. Really, you know, Mr. Irwin, I think you hadbetter take your troubles to the police, rather than to me. You will getmuch more sympathy from them."
The lawyer sprang up, with an air of sudden determination.
"Very well, I will then," he declared, sternly. "I will!"
Mary, from her vantage point at the desk across from him, smiled asmile that would have been very engaging to any man under more favorablecircumstances, and she pushed in his direction the telephone that stoodthere.
"3100, Spring," she remarked, encouragingly, "will bring an officeralmost immediately." She leaned back in her chair, and surveyed thebaffled man amusedly.
The lawyer was furious over the failure of his effort to intimidate thisextraordinarily self-possessed young woman, who made a mock of his everythrust. But he was by no means at the end of his resources.
"Nevertheless," he rejoined, "you know perfectly well that GeneralHastings never promised to marry this girl. You know----" He broke offas Aggie entered the drawing-room,
Now, the girl was demure in seeming almost beyond belief, a childishcreature, very fair and dainty, guileless surely, with those untroubledeyes of blue, those softly curving lips of warmest red and the moredelicate bloom in the rounded cheeks. There were the charms of innocenceand simplicity in the manner of her as she stopped just within thedoorway, whence she regarded Mary with a timid, pleading gaze, herslender little form poised lightly as if for flight
"Did you want me, dear?" she asked. There was something half-plaintivein the modulated cadences of the query.
"Agnes," Mary answered affectionately, "this is Mr. Irwin, who has cometo see you in behalf of General Hastings."
"Oh!" the girl murmured, her voice quivering a little, as the lawyer,after a short nod, dropped again into his seat; "oh, I'm so frightened!"She hurried, fluttering, to a low stool behind the desk, beside Mary'schair, and there she sank down, drooping slightly, and catching hold ofone of Mary's hands as if in mute pleading for protection against thefear that beset her chaste soul.
"Nonsense!" Mary exclaimed, soothingly. "There's really nothing at allto be frightened about, my dear child." Her voice was that with whichone seeks to cajole a terrified infant. "You mustn't be afraid, Agnes.Mr. Irwin says that General Hastings did not promise to marry you. Ofcourse, you understand, my dear, that under no circumstances must yousay anything that isn't strictly true, and that, if he did not promiseto marry you, you have no case--none at all. Now, Agnes, tell me: didGeneral Hastings promise to marry you?"
"Oh, yes--oh, yes, indeed!" Aggie cried, falteringly. "And I wish hewould. He's such a delightful old gentleman!" As she spoke, the girl letgo Mary's hand and clasped her own together ecstatically.
The legal representative of the delightful old gentleman scowleddisgustedly at this outburst. His voice was portentous, as he put aquestion.
"Was that promise made in writing?"
"No," Aggie answered, gushingly. "But all his letters were in writing,you know. Such wonderful letters!" She raised her blue eyes towardthe ceiling in a naive rapture. "So tender, and so--er--interesting!"Somehow, the inflection on the last word did not altogether suggest theingenuous.
"Yes, yes, I dare say," Irwin agreed, hastily, with some evidences ofchagrin. He had no intention of dwelling on that feature of the letters,concerning which he had no doubt whatsoever, since he knew the amorousGeneral very well indeed. They would be interesting, beyond shadow ofquestioning, horribly interesting. Such was the confessed opinion of theswain himself who had written them in his folly--horribly interestingto all the reading public of the country, since the General was aconspicuous figure.
Mary intervened with a suavity that infuriated the lawyer almost beyondendurance.
"But you're quite sure, Agnes," she questioned gently, "that GeneralHastings did promise to marry you?" The candor of her manner wasperfect.
And the answer of Aggie was given with a like convincing emphasis.
"Oh, yes!" she declared, tensely. "Why, I would swear to it." The limpideyes, so appealing in their soft lusters, went first to Mary, then gazedtrustingly into those of the routed attorney.
"You see, Mr. Irwin, she would swear to that," emphasized Mary.
"We're beaten," he confessed, dejectedly, turning his glance towardMary, whom, plainly, he regarded as his real adversary in the combat onhis client's behalf. "I'm going to be quite frank with you, MissTurner, quite frank," he stated with more geniality, though with a verycrestfallen air. Somehow, indeed, there was just a shade too much ofthe crestfallen in the fashion of his utterance, and the woman whom headdressed watched warily as he continued. "We can't afford any scandal,so we're going to settle at your own terms." He paused expectantly, butMary offered no comment; only maintained her alert scrutiny of theman. The lawyer, therefore, leaned forward with a semblance of frankeagerness. Instantly, Aggie had become agog with greedily blissfulanticipations, and she uttered a slight ejaculation of joy; but Irwinpaid no heed to her. He was occupied in taking from his pocket a thickbill-case, and from this presently a sheaf of banknotes, which he laidon the desk before Mary, with a little laugh of discomfiture over havingbeen beaten in the contest.
As he did so, Aggie thrust forth an avaricious hand, but it was caughtand held by Mary before it reached above the top of the desk, and theavaricious gesture passed unobserved by the attorney.
"We can't fight where ladies are concerned," he went on, assuming, asbest he might contrive, a chivalrous tone. "So, if you will just handover General Hastings' letters, why, here's your money."
Much to the speaker's surprise, there followed an interval of silence,and his puzzlement showed in the knitting of his brows. "You have theletters, haven't you?" he demanded, abruptly.
Aggie coyly took a thick bundle from its resting place on her roundedbosom.
"They never leave me," she murmured, with dulcet passion. There wasin her voice a suggestion of desolation--a desolation that was theblighting effect of letting the cherished missives go from her.
"Well, they can leave you now, all right," the lawyer remarkedunsympathetically, but with returning cheerfulness, since he saw the endof his quest in visible form before him. He reached quickly forward forthe packet, which Aggie extended willingly enough. But it was Mary who,with a swift movement, caught and held it.
"Not quite yet, Mr. Irwin, I'm afraid," she said, calmly.
The lawyer barely suppressed a violent ejaculation of annoyance.
"But there's the money waiting for you," he protested, indignantly.
The rejoinder from Mary was spoken with great deliberation, yet witha note of determination that caused a quick and acute anxiety to theGeneral's representative.
"I think," Mary explained tranquilly, "that you had better see ourlawyer, Mr. Harris, in reference to this. We women know nothing of suchdetails of business settlement."
"Oh, there's no need for all that formality," Irwin urged, with a greatappearance of bland friendliness.
"Just the same," Mary persisted, unimpressed, "I'm quite sure you wouldbetter see Mr. Harris first." There was a cadence of insistence in hervoice that assured the lawyer as to the futility of further pretense onhis part.
"Oh, I see," he said disagreeably, with a frown to indicate his completesagacity in the premises.
"I thought you would, Mr. Irwin," Mary returned, and now she smiled ina kindly manner, which, nevertheless, gave no pleasure to the chagrinedman before her. As he rose, she went on crisply: "If you'll take themoney to Mr. Harris, Miss Lynch will meet you in his office at fouro'clock this afternoon, and, when her suit for damages for breachof promise has been legally settled out of court, you will get theletters.... Good-afternoon, Mr. Irwin."
The lawyer made a hurried bow which took in both of the women, andwalked quickly toward the door. But he was arrested before he reachedit by the voice of Mary, speaking again, still in that imperturbableevenness which so rasped his nerves, for all its mellow resonance. Butthis time there was a sting, of the sharpest, in the words themselves.
"Oh, you forgot your marked money, Mr. Irwin," Mary said.
The lawyer wheeled, and stood staring at the speaker with a certainsheepishness of expression that bore witness to the completeness of hisdiscomfiture. Without a word, after a long moment in which he perceivedintently the delicate, yet subtly energetic, loveliness of this slenderwoman, he walked back to the desk, picked up the money, and restored itto the bill-case. This done, at last he spoke, with a new respect in hisvoice, a quizzical smile on his rather thin lips.
"Young woman," he said emphatically, "you ought to have been a lawyer."And with that laudatory confession of her skill, he finally tookhis departure, while Mary smiled in a triumph she was at no pains toconceal, and Aggie sat gaping astonishment over the surprising turn ofevents.
It was the latter volatile person who ended the silence that followed onthe lawyer's going.
"You've darn near broke my heart," she cried, bouncing up violently,"letting all that money go out of the house.... Say, how did you know itwas marked?"
"I didn't," Mary replied, blandly; "but it was a pretty good guess,wasn't it? Couldn't you see that all he wanted was to get the letters,and have us take the marked money? Then, my simple young friend, wewould have been arrested very neatly indeed--for blackmail."
Aggie's innocent eyes rounded in an amazed consternation, which was notat all assumed.
"Gee!" she cried. "That would have been fierce! And now?" shequestioned, apprehensively.
Mary's answer repudiated any possibility of fear.
"And now," she explained contentedly, "he really will go to our lawyer.There, he will pay over that same marked money. Then, he will get theletters he wants so much. And, just because it's a strictly businesstransaction between two lawyers, with everything done according to legalethics----"
"What's legal ethics?" Aggie demanded, impetuously. "They sound sometasty!" With the comment, she dropped weakly into a chair.
Mary laughed in care-free enjoyment, as well she might after winning thevictory in such a battle of wits.
"Oh," she said, happily, "you just get it legally, and you get twice asmuch!"
"And it's actually the same old game!" Aggie mused. She was doing herbest to get a clear understanding of the matter, though to her it wasall a mystery most esoteric.
Mary reviewed the case succinctly for the other's enlightenment.
"Yes, it's the same game precisely," she affirmed. "A shameless old rouemakes love to you, and he writes you a stack of silly letters."
The pouting lips of the listener took on a pathetic droop, and her voicequivered as she spoke with an effective semblance of virginal terror.
"He might have ruined my life!"
Mary continued without giving much attention to these histrionics.
"If you had asked him for all this money for the return of his letters,it would have been blackmail, and we'd have gone to jail in all humanprobability. But we did no such thing--no, indeed! What we did wasn'tanything like that in the eyes of the law. What we did was merely tohave your lawyer take steps toward a suit for damages for breach ofpromise of marriage for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Then, hislawyer appears in behalf of General Hastings, and there follow anumber of conferences between the legal representatives of the opposingparties. By means of these conferences, the two legal gentlemen run upvery respectable bills of expenses. In the end, we get our ten thousanddollars, and the flighty old General gets back his letters.... My dear,"Mary concluded vaingloriously, "we're inside the law, and so we'reperfectly safe. And there you are!"