If the Shoe Fits—/Chapter 4
IV
JOHN RAND awoke as the little clock upon the mantel was striking nine. He reached out to the table and took a cigarette. Then he lay back among his pillows, smoked in genuine, relaxed comfort, and sought the solution of the puzzle which the most high gods of chance had set before him. And at last he thought that he had found it. He would dress, go downstairs and slip quietly out of the house. A little later he would be missed, but before they could worry long about him the real Jasper Ruud would have come home. For certainly the morning papers would have the whole story, and there would no longer be a reason for Jasper Ruud's remaining in hiding from the arm of the law.
He hummed a little to himself as he had his cold plunge and dressed. To be sure he was going to give up seeing Audrey Ruud for a little, but since he had determined already that he was coming back to see her again and to know her, even that did not break the morning song. Then he went to the door—and found it locked.
“I might have guessed it,” he muttered. “That poor little girl thinks I'm not just right yet, and she isn't taking any chances.”
So he sat down and had another cigarette, and was not exactly disappointed. For it would be pleasant to breakfast with her.
“What am I to call you this morning?” she asked from the doorway, as she stood smiling in at him, key in hand. “Are you going to be Cootsie again?”
He dropped his cigarette into the ash try and came forward to meet her, with a smile to match hers.
“I'm sorry, Miss Ruud—”
“My name hasn't changed over night. It's Audrey, if you please.”
“I'm sorry, Audrey, but I don't like Cootsie any more in the morning than in the evening. And,” gravely, “my name really is John Rand, you know.”
She sighed a little, quickly hid the sigh with a smile and held out her hand to him.
“Let's go down to breakfast. I'm starved, as usual. And Mama has already eaten and gone out somewhere. She left word for you that you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am.” But none the less he caught her fingers and holding them ran down the stairs with her and into the breakfast-room.
Her hair was piled high upon her head this morning, a big white rose set fragrantly in it. He noted the fact approvingly as he sat across the table from her. He noted, too, that she was dressed in a light gauzy morning gown that was very becoming to her saucy beauty, observed that the general color scheme was a light blue, realized that this was the first time in his life he had ever concerned himself with the matter of a young woman's costume, saw that her throat was unbelievably sweet to look upon and that her arms in their short sleeves were as round and plump and white as a baby's. And before he had made mental note of these things he had again fallen in love with the soft gray tenderness of her eyes.
And now they were breakfasting merrily. Making no reference to the thing which had brought its shadow yesterday she chatted about a score of little matters with which he was supposed to be conversant. And not to bring the look of pain again into her eyes he tried to comprehend, asking no questions, and did his best to talk sensibly of people whom he had never seen, of whom he had never heard. And then, as they were finishing, there came an interruption.
“Mr. Warrington,” announced a servant from the doorway. “To see Mr. Ruud.”
“Who's Warrington?” asked Rand quickly, turning to Audrey. “I'm not at home, am I?”
“Of course you are at home,” she told him with emphasis. “It's the Mr. Warrington from Warrington and Stoddard.”
“Oh,” said Rand. He remembered that he had learned last night that Warrington and Stoddard were Jasper Ruud's attorneys.
Mr. Warrington came in smiling and bowing and radiating good humor.
“Miss Ruud, good morning. Good morning, Ruud.” He put out his hand, grasping Rand's warmly. “My congratulations.”
“Thanks,” replied Rand drily, “You're just in time for a cup of coffee with us."
Mr. Warrington was duly grateful but altogether too taken up with the object of his morning call to think of such a thing. But he sat down and explained.
It was all right, everything was all right. The rubbing of his hands together told that as well as did his words. Lon Kelton was every bit as good as a new man this morning. And Mr. Warrington had made it his business to learn a great deal about Lon Kelton's business. The gambler had recently sustained heavy losses, the police had closed three houses belonging to him, and he needed money. He needed it immediately. That was the beauty of it. He was willing, he was eager, announced Mr. Warrington triumphantly, to forget the whole thing as soon as Mr. Ruud paid him a certain sum of money.
“And may I ask,” interrupted Rand, looking thoughtfully into his cup, “how much money the gentleman thinks is due him?”
“He asked twenty-five thousand,” chuckled Mr. Warrington, “But I laughed at him and told him we would fight it, that it was absurd. And in the end he agreed to take ten thousand and call it square.” Mr. Warrington's eyelid closed shrewdly over his left eye. “And I'd pay that ten thousand quick, Mr. Ruud. Before he gets to talking with a lawyer about it!”
“We'll see about it,” answered Rand after a moment. “In a day or so—”
“In a day or so!” Mr. Warrington banged the table with his fist and then asked Miss Ruud's pardon for it. “Now is the time to pay it, I tell you. Why, in a day or so when a pack of unprincipled pettifoggers gets hold of him he'll ask you for fifty thousand!”
“But if I haven't that much money?” demanded Rand irritably.
Mr. Warrington opened his eyes roundly and stared. And then he laughed.
“You will have your joke! But, seriously, Mr. Ruud—”
“Haven't I told you that my name is Rand?” snapped the young gentleman, whose temper now and then would get away from him.
Mr. Warrington took off his nose-glasses, puffed his breath at them, wiped them and stuck them back on his nose. And then he looked rather pleadingly at Audrey. She was biting her lips to keep back the tears.
“Oh, very well,” went on Rand more pacifically. “Let us suppose for the moment that I don't know what I am talking about, that I really am Jasper Ruud. Sooner or later you are going to make me think so myself. And let us suppose that for some reason best known to myself I cannot and will not pay anybody ten thousand dollars to-day. Then what?”
Again Mr. Warrington looked helplessly at Audrey. And it was Audrey who answered the question.
“In such a case,” she said quietly, “when it is a matter of so small a sum, I am sure that Mr. Warrington himself will advance the money. Won't you, Mr. Warrington—please—for my sake?”
“I don't understand,” began Mr. Warrington, hesitantly, And then catching the pleading glance which Audrey sent to him while Rand was again staring into his cup. “Certainly I'll be glad to pay the money to Kelton and take his receipt. It will perhaps—er—save trouble. And now,” upon his feet, his watch in his hand, his smile once more summoned back to hide his vague uneasiness, “I'll be hurrying on. There's no time like the present, you know. Good morning, Miss Ruud. Good morning, Ruud.”
And he was gone rather hastily.
“And, now—” began Audrey.
“And now,” Rand smiled at her anxious face, “I must be going downtown for a while. I have a little business and—”
She got up and came around the table, taking his lapels into her hands as she had done last night.
“You're not going a single step, I promise you,” she said very much as though she meant it, “unless you give me your solemn word of honor to come back. To come back soon, before luncheon.”
“You are afraid that I'll run away?” jestingly.
But she would not joke with him. “I want you to promise, to give me your word of honor. And then, whether you are Jasper Ruud or John Rand, I'll believe you.”
“I'll come back,” soberly. “And here's my hand on it. What's more, I don't mind telling you that I'm not going to run away now or later. I'm going to stay and see the thing out.”
She was satisfied then and he went down the walk to the street, stopping at the gate to wave his hat to the trim little form in the doorway. He swung on to a passing street car and the conductor touched his hat and said, “Good morning, Mr. Ruud.” He rode aimlessly downtown and got off when he saw a boy crying the morning papers. He glanced over the headlines upon the front page, gathered swiftly that it was all there, the capture of the millionaire fugitive, his denial of himself, the appearance in the night court, the news that Lon Kelton was declared out of danger.
He put the paper in his pocket and walked on to the little square a block ahead. Passing a florist's shop he turned in and ordered a great, big armful of violets sent to Audrey. And he called for a card and wrote his name, “John Rand” on it and put it with the flowers. And paying for them he remembered for the first time that day the roll of greenbacks which had been given to him last night in the freight yards and returned to him by McAdams.
“I'm making wages out of it, anyway,” he reflected, with a flicker of amusement.
In the little park he sat down for a cigarette and a quiet perusal of the account of the doings of last night. And he did not read them after all. For his wandering eye caught a short paragraph, put at the bottom of the page, and when he had read it he let the paper drop to the ground, confronted with a new dismay.
The body of a man, well-dressed, wearing a long overcoat, had been found in the freight yards near Yonkers in the early morning. The man would never be identified as he had been struck by a speeding engine, and his body terribly mutilated.
“My God!” muttered Rand hoarsely, staring out across the square and seeing nothing of it. “It's Ruud—and he's dead! What becomes of me?”