If the Shoe Fits—/Chapter 7
VII
AND now, if there were somewhere a grain of human comedy in the thing, John Rand didn't see it. He sat in Jasper Ruud's private room again, again he stared moodily out of the open window at the Styx of a river, smoked expensive cigarettes and found fault with the main-springs of the universe. It was all very well for Audrey to laugh over his meeting with the young woman in the music-room. For Audrey's optimistic young nature told her that it was simply a joke on old Cootsie, and that there would be more fun to follow when old Cootsie called on a very irate fiancée. But Rand saw further than Audrey could possibly see, saw that since Jasper Ruud would never again in this life call—
Then he heard a step behind him and swung around to see who had entered so stealthily. And then he gasped and sank back into his chair and stared as a man might stare at meeting a ghost in full noonday at Broadway and Forty-second Street.
For there before him stood Jasper Ruud! The living, breathing, actual, real Jasper Ruud! He knew it the instant his eyes rested upon him. He would have known it if he had never looked upon this man's face before in his life! He knew it although the man of many millions was dressed in rags and tatters, although his face had a week's growth of beard upon it, although he was haggard and worn and—hungry looking! For, as it had been when Jasper Ruud had looked into John Rand's face that night in the Yonkers freight yards, so now was it as though one man were gazing into a mirror and seeing his own reflection there! And John Rand ran a nervous hand over a forehead grown suddenly damp and for the first time in his life knew what it was to feel a shiver of fear for his own sanity. For Jasper Ruud was dead! And yet—
Jasper Ruud put back a hand that was black with grime and that trembled visibly, and closed the door behind him. And then he dropped into a chair.
“I'm back,” he said weakly. “I've come home.”
“Thank God!' exclaimed John Rand in a devout ecstasy of thanksgiving.
“You're glad I have come back?” Ruud looked at him curiously. “You're glad?”
“Glad, man?” John Rand's voice boomed out in the mightiest, heartiest laugh that had echoed through the Ruud home for many a day. “I'm just the gladdest man you ever saw!” He took a great, deep breath of intoxicating air into his lungs and expelled it in a sigh of such relief as a man feels only when at last he has shaken from his shoulders his tenacious Old Man of the Sea. And then, “I thought that you were dead!”
“I have been.” Jasper Ruud's tired, haunted eyes looked up at him from a gaunt face which, Rand realized with a shudder, might have been the face of a dead man. “And I've been in hell, too.” His eyes went roving about the room and to the door of his bedroom. “There's brandy in there. But you know where. And quick! I'll die yet if you don't!”
“You won't!” Rand snapped out as he sped for the decanter. “You won't die until I'm out of this mess. Die now!” he flung back over his shoulder. “You just try it!”
The fingers that poured the brandy were little steadier than the fingers that reached out eagerly for it. A little color came back into Jasper Ruud's pinched face as with a long, shivering sigh he gave the empty glass back to Rand.
“Ring that bell there,” he said as he sank back in his chair, his fingers nervously running over his unshaven cheek. “And tell the servant I want—that is, you want—something to eat! Tell him anything that's cold and—”
But John Rand did not wait to listen further. It was clear to him that his one hope of happiness had come back in the form of a starving man, and he was not going to let that one hope get away from him. He rang with a persistent finger upon the button, and until the functionary loitering near the butler's pantry down-stairs wondered in quickened alarm if the house were afire, and came up the steps three at a time. He met the servant in the hallway and snapped out:
“I'm hungry. Bring me some of the cold chicken, some ham, a loaf of bread, some butter and a flask of 85. And be back here with it in three minutes or you can quit!”
He went back, slammed his door and stood over what was left of Jasper Ruud, looking down at him curiously.
“You do look as though you had been through hell,” he muttered musingly. “In at one end and out the other. No,” as Ruud opened his mouth to speak, “I'm not taking any chances with you. You wait to do your talking until you've had something to eat. Have a cigarette.”
He proffered one and lighted a match for it. And then the two men smoked in silence, each one's eyes busy with the other's features, two men measuring each other, until there came a tapping at the door. Rand went quickly to it and took the tray from the servant.
“That will do, Bob,” he told the concerned-looking fellow. “And,” very gravely, “you have just saved your job by nine seconds.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Bob—to the door, which shut in his wondering face.
Rand put the tray down upon a little table which he drew up to Ruud's elbow, poured out a glass of the mellow wine, and stood by the window while Jasper Ruud ate. And the river upon which he gazed was flashing with sunshine, as sparkling and beautiful a thing as some glorious stream flashing through a wonderful terrestrial paradise.
At last Jasper Ruud had eaten as much as he dared offer to an empty stomach, had sipped his wine and was smoking a cigar, looking again more like a man than a ghost.
“Now,” and John Rand came away from the window and drew his chair close up to Ruud's, facing him. “Tell me about it. How does it happen that you are not dead?”
“Simply because a man dies a good deal harder than one would suppose. Because he really can go forty-eight hours at a stretch without eating and can sleep in box cars without catching his death of cold.”
“But he can hardly have a locomotive run over him and tear him to pieces, and pull through!”
“So you saw that, too?” Ruud shuddered. “They were my clothes. These I have on were his. I changed with him just after I sent you to the station. And I think they were the death of the poor chap. The poor devil must have tripped in the long overcoat as he was trying to slip across the tracks in front of an engine and to get away from a railroad detective. And, Rand—you see I've got your name from the papers.”
“Well?”
“I was a damned coward and a cur and I'm heartily ashamed of myself. I wouldn't have sent you into my trouble that way, only I was half crazy, I think. And then when I saw your face, and it was my face in every feature—well, temptation and fear of the electric chair were too strong and—oh, hang it all, I deserve to be kicked. You can take that as an apology if—”
“There's nothing to apologize for,” Rand assured him, laughing. “I've had a great time, Ruud. And I'm actually grateful to you for it—since you didn't get yourself killed—and there's my hand on it.”
“Why you are not sorry that I have come back,” frowned Ruud, “gets me. Surely being in my boots—”
“Had its advantages, and its disadvantages. You'll understand later. But how did it happen that you didn't show up sooner?”
“Simply because I couldn't! In my fool frenzy when I sent you to be arrested in my place I gave you everything of value in my pockets. So that there could be no doubt of your being the man the police were after. I never thought of keeping any money, not a penny. I didn't want money, I just wanted to get away!” He drew thoughtfully at his cigar and looked long and affectionately at the familiar objects about him. “Lord, it's like a dream of heaven to be back here after the nightmare of these ten days!”
“But,” insisted Rand, “you could have walked back. You must have known the next morning?”
“The next morning I was walking—way up the river! Walking as fast as I knew how. And my bad luck was running at my elbow. There was a crime committed, a hold-up and robbery and a man beaten into unconsciousness, and I saw the whole thing! And I saw the two men run for it as a section-gang came by. And I knew that if I were found thereabouts I'd be suspected of having a hand in it. I wasn't looking for any further séances with the Law, Rand. I think in my soul I'm the most law-abiding man I ever saw, the most thoroughly chastened in spirit! I cut and ran for it. And naturally I ran plump into a railroad “bull.” Naturally, because from my personal experience I know that there is one of those fellows posted every fifty yards along the line from New York to Albany! And he saw me as plainly as you see me now, and heard the shouting of murder from the section-gang, and took a pot shot at me. His gun made a noise like a fleet of warships bombarding a city. I've been running most of the time since, I think. When I wasn't hiding or peeling potatoes at somebody's back door for a meal, or chopping wood,” he held up his blistered hands, “or washing dishes in a restaurant. It's only just now,” he ended with a wry face, “that I got myself kicked off a river boat and sneaked in the back way. I've learned a lot, Rand. And I'm going to establish a string of free lunch counters for hoboes all the way across the continent.”
Rand hadn't heard it all. He was very busy thinking about Audrey Ruud and planning out a future as bright as the river under the windows. He was recalled to the present by Ruud's voice inquiring:
“And you? What have you been doing?”
“I?” He laughed. He could laugh at anything. “Oh, I've been having a rather good time, thanks. I've spent several thousands of your surplus cash, besides the ten thousand which I gave Lon Kelton to pay him for the broken head you gave him.”
“You are welcome to it and no questions asked,” cried Ruud warmly. “It serves me right. And now I'm going to have a bath and get on some decent clothes, and, if you don't mind, we'll talk business.”
He saw Rand looking at his right hand, and remarked bluntly:
“Yes. That was another bit of luck, damn it!' He took off the soiled bandage and held the hand up. The first and second fingers had been taken off at the first joint. “I did that just before you came up the other night, when I lied to you about having been beaten. Got it jammed between two cars. They took 'em off for me at a county hospital, a poorhouse that is an infernally poor house. Wonder I didn't die.”
He had his bath, taking it luxuriously, shaved as well as he could, and came back to Rand dressed immaculately. He dropped back into his chair, selected a second cigar and smiled genially.
“I feel like a white man, again. And almost like Jasper Ruud once more. Gad, man,” his eyes frowning and the smile going as they rested upon Rand. “You look more like me than I do myself!”
“Naturally. I haven't been playing hide and seek, and studying the rôle of the genus hobo! It's been my business to look like you these last few days and it's been your affair to look like somebody else.”
“Well, that's over now, thank God. And we might as well come to business. I'm going to ask no questions about the money you've spent for me. I said already that you were heartily welcome to it. And you can call on me for any further reasonable sum you want.”
“Thanks,” drily. “And then?”
“And then, you just disappear! I'll give you enough for a year in Europe if you like. And there'll be no busybodies prying into the affair, and no explanations to make. Get me?”
Rand thought that he did. And he thought, too, that there would, in spite of all precautions, be one rather difficult explanation forthcoming when Jasper Ruud sent in his card to the young woman who had closed the door so gently behind her.
“That's all right,” was his answer. “The only thing is that I don't want to disappear just now, that I have every intention in the world of staying right here in New York!”
Ruud looked at him curiously.
“It's business that's keeping you?”
“In a way, yes. It's the business of my life!”
“But you can conduct it from abroad, by letter or by cable? If there's any loss to you I'll make it up.” He went over to the writing-table and took up a check book. “How much do you want?”
“I don't want anything, thanks. I've got five thousand dollars in my pocket right now. And,” with a grin, “I'm in the habit of using that same check book myself when I run out of funds.”
“But don't you see that your staying here will only complicate matters, make for unpleasantness and talk? Hang it,” irritably, “what has happened has happened, but I don't want people digging it up and throwing it in my face! And I'm willing to pay you anything you want just to get out of New York.”
“As to complications, I'm getting rather used to them. And the one thing I want to do is to stay in New York.”
“But why? When I tell you I'm ready to make it worth your while, worth any man's while. What is it, ten thousand, twenty, fifty thousand?”
“You'll understand why after a while. And a hundred thousand wouldn't take me away now. There are some things,” musingly, “that are a great deal more desirable than money.”
Jasper Ruud got to his feet and strode up and down the room, puffing great clouds of smoke from his cigar. And presently he came back to Rand and stood in front of him, his eyes very determined under drawn brows.
“Mr. Rand,” he said quietly, “you've got to go. Now don't misunderstand me. I know that I've acted like a cur, and a coward, and that you have a perfect right to consider me as such. But you've got to go just the same. We can't go on living this way in the same house, can we? There's Mother and Audrey and the servants; there'll be no end of a mess and no end of explanations to make. And I don't want to make those explanations. Yes, if you like, because I'm not proud of myself, and I don't fancy having people, from Audrey to the butler, laugh at me. And on the other hand you can't leave the house and stay in New York. There'll be dozens, hundreds of people seeing you in cafés, on the streets, everywhere, who will notice. And there'll be talk in two days of two Jasper Ruuds. Which will bring the whole thing up again, and—you've got to go.”
“And if I won't go?” demanded John Rand, quietly.
“I—I don't like to do it—I'll make you go.”
“And, may I ask, how?”
Jasper Ruud first went to the door and locked it.
“Now, listen to reason, Rand. It's impossible for you to stay. Why not tell me how much you want, why not let me pay you anything you like ... I've got more money than I need, and I'm not stingy, and...”
“Out of the question,” coolly. “I'm not to be bribed. You were going to tell me how you could force me to go?”
“If you won't listen to reason, yes!” He picked up the check book that he had flung back upon the table. “You have drawn heavily, you tell me? You have had to sign my name to do it? And that, Mr. Rand, is plain forgery! You force me to this. You leave New York on the first steamer bound for the other side of the Atlantic—or you stay to face a charge of forgery!”
John Rand chuckled.
“I've beat you to it, Ruud,” he retorted amiably. “I've thought that all out before you. Now you listen to me for a little. I'm not going to make trouble for you unless you drive me to it. But I'm not going away just yet. Forgery, you say? There have been, all told, about a dozen checks. Each time I drove to the bank, each time I saw the cashier, each time I showed him my bandaged hand, had him write the check, and made my cross for a signature. And that cashier will identify every one of those checks and he will go on the stand and swear that he wrote them at the personal request of Jasper Ruud, that he cashed them himself, and that he handed the money to you! And what happens to your forgery charge then? There are already whispers of a bit of mental aberration and—oh, well, there is no need to go further into that. Wait a minute. I haven't finished yet. I want to make this matter clear to you.
“You would say that if called upon I couldn't form your signature ... and I want to remind you that you couldn't do it, either! Do you realize that with two fingers gone from your right hand the signature you would make would look more like a forgery than the one I could learn to form? Wait, there's something else. Come here.”
He took Jasper Ruud by the arm and drew him to the long mirror in the bedroom.
“Look. Look at the two of us. Look carefully. Which one of us would you say was Jasper Ruud?”
Jasper Ruud's answer was a gasp. For he saw what change the ten days had worked in his own face, realized that he had spoken more truthfully than he knew when he had said lightly, “You look more like me than I do myself!”
“And that's not all,” grinned Rand, enjoying the play of Ruud's expression. “There's a young lady. She called this afternoon. I was kind to you, you know, and perhaps not kind to her. That is, she thought that I was not.”
“Bella!” cried Jasper Ruud excitedly.
“And,” went on Rand, smiling contentedly, “she had heard things about you and the Chatterton girl! Suppose that I went to see the Chatterton girl this evening, that I took her to the theater, that we sat in your box, that we went to Sherry's for supper, that... ”
“You wouldn't do that!” cried Jasper Ruud excitedly, his hand gripping Rand's arm. “I'd never be able to explain, I'd never be given a chance to explain.”
“Exactly. And you've got all that you will want to explain to Miss Bella now, about your reception of her this afternoon. You won't insist on my going to Europe so suddenly, will you? Now that you've had time to think about it? And that forgery charge?”
Jasper Ruud sank into a chair, put his face in his hands and groaned.