Number Six and the Borgia/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE.
It is related of great criminals, and no biographer would miss recording this aspect of their lives, that there come to them moments of remorse and memory, when the shades of their victims crowd in upon them and bring them to the borders of madness.
The full extent of Cæsar Valentine's wrongdoing has never been, and probably never will be known; but it is certain that, were he given to sentimental reminiscences, and did he allow his mind to dwell upon the past, there would be memories enough and to spare to trouble his nights.
But the truth about him is that he had no regrets, and to those who knew him best, showed no sign of remorse. Tray-Bong Smith, calling at Portland Place, discovered that Cæsar, too, had his hobby. When Smith was shown into the library he found Cæsar sitting at his table polishing something vigorously. There were two little marble molds before him, and in one of these was a circular brown object, to which from time to time Cæsar applied a coat of amber-colored varnish.
“What on earth is that?” asked Smith.
“What does it look like?” said Cæsar without looking up.
“It looks for all the world like a button.”
“And that's just what it is,” said Cæsar Valentine cheerfully. “You never suspected me of being a button maker?”
Smith looked closer, and found that the other had spoken the truth. It was a button, a very commonplace, bone-looking button, and when Cæsar had pried it out of the mold and turned it over and over on his hand admiringly, he placed it on a sheet of paper and put the paper on the mantelshelf.
“A new process,” said Cæsar carelessly. “There might be a lot of money in this.”
“You're a weird devil,” said Smith. “I hardly know what to make of you.”
Cæsar smiled as he collected the molds and the other implements he had been employing, and put them in a drawer of his desk. “I know somebody who doesn't know what to make of you,” he said.
“Who's that?” asked Smith quickly.
“A hard-faced gentleman named Steele. I believe he is a detective sergeant at Scotland Yard. He has been watching you—I suppose you know that?”
“I was not aware of it,” said Smith, and Cæsar laughed at his discomfiture.
“If you walk into the drawing-room and look through the window, you will see him standing on the opposite side of the road,” he said.
Smith went out of the room and returned presently. “You're right,” said he. “I suppose that's Steele. I don't know the gentleman.”
“Make yourself comfortable, Smith,” said Cæsar, dismissing the detective with a characteristic gesture. “I'm going to put a proposal up to you.”
“That's interesting. Is there money in it?”
Cæsar nodded. “A great deal of money in it,” he said, “for you and for me. I want you to marry Stephanie.”
Smith half rose from his chair in astonishment. “Marry Stephanie?” he cried incredulously. “Your daughter?”
Cæsar nodded again. “I want you to marry Stephanie,” he said. “That is why I attached you to my entourage. You don't suppose I wanted to hire an assassin to settle my feuds, do you?”
Smith was silent.
“I watched you for a long time in Paris,” said Cæsar. “You were the kind of man that I'd been looking for for a year. You're educated, you were once a gentleman, you have a manner, and to my surprise I found Stephanie speaking quite approvingly of you.”
“As a possible husband?” asked Smith dryly.
The other shook his head. “I didn't discuss you in that aspect,” he said.
Smith's heart was beating rapidly. He had to exercise all his powers to keep his face expressionless. Stephanie! It was incredible and in some respects terrible.
“I suppose you're not married already?” asked Cæsar, and Smith shook his head.
“That, of course, would have complicated matters,” nodded Cæsar. “As things stand now, the matter is easy.”
He pulled open a drawer and took out a paper, handing it to the other.
“This is an agreement, you will observe, as between you and me, that in the event of your wife inheriting a fortune, you will deliver to me one-half of your share.”
It required all Smith's self-control to keep his voice steady.
“Suppose my—wife does not agree?” he asked.
“That will be settled before your marriage,” said Cæsar. “She will sign a document undertaking to place three-quarters of her inheritance in your hands.”
Smith laughed, an irritating laugh.
“You're taking a lot for granted,” he said.
“Stephanie will agree,” replied Cæsar, and pushed a bell on his table. A servant came in. “Ask Miss Valentine to come to the library,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” demanded the agitated Smith when the man had left. “You're not going to ask her now?”
“Wait,” said Cæsar.
“But”
“Wait!” said Cæsar sharply.
The girl came in and nodded to Tray-Bong Smith, and looked inquiringly at her father.
“Stephanie, I have just designed your future,” said Valentine.
She did not reply, but her eyes never left his face.
“I have decided,” said Cæsar, leaning back in his chair and putting his finger tips together, “that you shall marry my friend Mr. Smith.”
The girl's mouth opened in an “oh!” of astonishment as she looked from Cæsar to the awkward young man who stood, crumpling his soft hat in his hand. Smith expected an outburst and a refusal; he might have expected tears; he certainly did not anticipate the course of the conversation which followed. The girl had gone white. She was surprised but not horrified.
“Yes, father,” she said meekly.
“I wish the wedding to take place next week,” Cæsar went on. “I can give you a generous allowance, and at my death you will inherit a considerable amount of property.”
“Yes, father,” she said again.
“I shall require of you that you will sign an agreement with your future—husband”—Smith stood on one foot in his embarrassment—“that three-quarters of the money which you may inherit from me or from anybody else will be assigned to him.”
The girl looked at Smith, a long, scrutinizing glance, which he could not meet. “Is Mr. Smith willing?” she asked quietly.
“Quite willing,” replied her father. “You understand, Stephanie?”
“Is that all?” she asked.
“That is all,” said Cæsar, and with a gracious smile dismissed her.
Smith sat there spellbound, incapable of speech, and Cæsar looked at him curiously with a cynical little smile on his handsome face. “Well, Smith,” he said, “you seem to be somewhat overcome.”
Smith licked his dry lips. “Do you know what you have done?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Cæsar coolly. “I have given you a very charming wife.”
“You have engaged your daughter to a man—like me.”
There was something in his tone which led Cæsar to scrutinize him more keenly.
“What is the matter?” he asked. “Are you suffering from a conscience?”
“My conscience has never troubled me very much,” replied Smith, shaking his head, “and to ease your mind I can tell you that I do not intend turning over a new leaf. No, what puzzles me is your condition of mind.”
“I assure you it is normal,” replied Cæsar. There was a faint click and he looked round. Near the fireplace was a small, polished wooden box with two apertures. Behind one of these a little red disk had fallen.
“What is that?” asked Smith.
“That is my detector,” smiled Cæsar. “There are three telephone extensions in this house, and I had that fixed so that I might know if any of my conversations were being overheard. That shows that one of the telephones is in use and, that the receiver is off.” He pulled his own instrument toward him and gently released the hook, covering the transmitter with his hand.
“It is sometimes useful to know what one's servants are talking about,” he said, and put the receiver to his ear. Smith, watching him, saw his face harden. He did not utter a sound, but sat motionless until the little red disk disappeared. Then he restored his receiver to the hook and stood up. What he had heard must have been more than ordinarily unnerving. For the second time Smith saw his employer really troubled.
“Come with me,” he said suddenly, and walked from the room, Smith at his heels. He passed up the stairs to the second floor, and, pausing before a door, he beckoned Smith with a gesture and walked in. It was evidently Stephanie's own room. Smith recognized this by the furnishing and decoration, long before he saw the girl, who had risen at Cæsar's entrance as though she had some premonition of its import.
Cæsar's face was set and ugly.
“Do you want me, father?” said the girl.
“To whom were you telephoning?” he asked harshly.
“Telephoning?” The other man surprised a look of alarm. “To a friend—to a girl friend.”
“That's a lie,” said Cæsar harshly. “You were telephoning to Ross. When did you meet Ross?”
The girl was silent.
“You were telling him of my plan to make you marry Smith, and you were arranging to meet him this afternoon.”
The girl said nothing.
“When did you meet Ross? Under what circumstances? Answer me.” He strode across the room and caught her by her shoulders, and Smith followed him. “Answer me!” shouted Cæsar, and shook her. Then Smith caught his arm and pulled him gently backward.
“Damn you! Don't interfere!” snapped Cæsar. “I am going to get the truth out of this girl. What have you told Ross? By Heaven! I'll kill you if you don't answer me!”
The girl's pleading eyes looked past her father to Tray-Bong Smith, and that unworthy man tightened his grip on Cæsar's arm. “You're not going to do any good by bullying her,” he said.
“Let me go!” cried Cæsar savagely, but the grip on his arm was surprisingly firm, and he released the girl. But he was not done with her. “Come this way,” he said. “Upstairs!”
She obeyed, and the two men followed. On the top floor was a room looking out from the back of the house, and into this the big man thrust the girl. “You'll stay there until you learn to speak,” he said, and he slammed the door upon her, and, turning the key in the lock, put it into his pocket.
“Smith, you'll wait here until I come back. I'm going to settle with this young lady.”
“I'm no warder,” said Smith sulkily, and the other stormed at him.
“You fool! You madman! Don't you realize that you're placing your life in this girl's hands? If she is in communication with Ross, if she has told him things such as she might have told him—if she knows—my God! I wonder if she knows!”
He stood biting his fingers and scowling at the closed door. “Wait here on the landing,” he said. “I will be back in half an hour.”
He was gone less than that time, and came back white with rage, coming up the stairs of the house two at a time. Smith was waiting on the landing, a lank cigarette drooping from his mouth, his hands thrust into his pockets.
“I told you so. This girl has betrayed me to Ross. She knows—damn her! She knows!” said Cæsar breathlessly.
“Knows what?” asked Smith.
“She knows that she is Welland's daughter. You fool, didn't you—guess that all along?”
Smith said nothing.
“Welland's daughter! The heiress to Ross' millions. It isn't essential that this girl should live—not essential to me, you understand, Smith? If the little fool had kept her mouth shut! How she discovered the fact that she was Welland's daughter is a mystery to me—we could have been rich men, and we may be rich men still. You're in the swim as deeply as I am. It's our lives that are at stake.”
The two men exchanged glances. “Well?” said Smith with a return to his drawl. “What is the commission? Do I cut her throat? Because if you tell me to do that, I reply 'Nothing doing.'”
Cæsar swallowed his rage. “You need do nothing,” he said in a quieter tone, “but you've got to help me—after.” He took a key from his pocket and pushed it in the lock, then took a little silver box from his waistcoat pocket. “Wait here,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” asked Smith, and a slow smile dawned on Cæsar's face. He opened the door and stepped in, and there was a momentary silence. Then a curse came from the room.
“She's gone!”
“Gone?” said Smith in a tone of amazement. “Gone?” He walked into the room, but it was empty. The windows were closed; there was no other door, but the girl had vanished.
“Look, look, look!”
Smith could have sworn he heard Cæsar's teeth chatter as he pointed with shaking fingers to one of the walls. There was an envelope suspended by its gummed edge. In pencil were the five words: “Cæsar, you are but mortal,” and in the corner, the cipher “Six.”
The next day Cæsar had disappeared from London, leaving a hurried note for his confederate. It contained peremptory instructions for Smith that he should take up his quarters in Portland Place pending Cæsar's return; and this was an invitation which Mr. Smith accepted without hesitation; for his consuming vice was curiosity. So to Portland Place he came, occupying Cæsar's own room.
It somewhat interfered with his comfort that, before leaving, Cæsar had summarily dismissed the modest staff of servants that ran the house. Mr. Smith sympathized with an indignant butler, and left a protesting footman with the impression that in Smith he had a friend for life.
“It was only the young lady that kept me in this job,” said the butler. “Mr. Valentine is not the kind of gentleman that I like to be in service with. He's here to-day and gone to-morrow, so to speak, and for months there's nobody in this house except all sorts of queer people—begging your pardon”
“Go ahead,” said Smith, “I admit I'm queer.”
“The young lady was a perfect hangel,” said the butler solemnly. “A real lady if ever there was one. And a wonderful maker of himages.”
“Oh, yes,” nodded Smith.
“She worked in wax. She made a model of me, sir, that was so lifelike that my wife said she wouldn't know me and the statue apart,” said the butler impressively. “She had only to look at a person once or twice, and she could make a sort of statue of him—what do you call it, head and shoulders a”
“Bust?” suggested Smith.
“That's the word. I never knew whether it was bust or burst—bust seems a bit vulgar to me.”
Smith got rid of the loquacious old gentleman, for he was impatient to explore the conservatory workroom and, particularly, to examine the contents of the mystery cupboard. He had formed his own ideas as to what he would discover; and when, with his skeleton key, he turned the lock and flung back the doer, he sat down and admired the artistry of this girl.
Facing him was a most lifelike Mr. Ross. It was not Mr. Ross really, but a hard wax mask that hung on a peg; and next to Mr. Ross was Cæsar himself—unmistakably Cæsar, with the fine nose, the full lips, and the womanly chin. Next to these exhibits—and Smith went red and hot—was a life-size mask of Smith himself. He took it down, fixed it to his face, and looked at himself in a small round mirror that hung on the wall. The eye spaces had been so cut and thinned that it was almost impossible to detect where the real man and the counterfeit began and ended.
The mask did not fit him well. It was made for a smaller face—the face of Miss Stephanie Welland. He passed his delicate fingers over the interior with a loving touch, and laid the thing upon the bench. Then he sat down to consider the situation.
It was Stephanie who had impersonated old Mr. Ross at the hotel, Stephanie who had come in to search his room, believing he was away and Stephanie who had made her escape by the kitchen entrance of the hotel. He had guessed all that, but he had not believed it possible that her disguise could be so perfect.
So old Mr. Ross knew that she was his granddaughter, and had gone away—where? He had been absent two days while Stephanie was impersonating him in his rooms—Smith remembered that Cæsar had told him that-she had gone to Scotland. There would be little difficulty in imposing upon the servants of the hotel. Mr. Ross was a tetchy man and the servants never went to his rooms unless they were sent for. That was one part of the mystery cleared up, at any rate.
The box which Stephanie had received from the American lawyers, and which she had opened, had obviously contained particulars of her own birth. When Cæsar said that Mrs. Welland's girl had died, he had lied as surely as when he had spoken of the unfortunate wife of John Welland as being dead; for that she was the woman of the manacles, the tragic figure that crossed the midnight lawn at Maisons Lafitte, Smith was certain.
He sat for an hour regarding these examples of Stephanie Welland's artistic training, then he gathered the masks together, wrapped them in paper, and carried them to his rooms. Somehow he knew instinctively that the days of Cæsar Valentine were numbered, and incidentally the days of Tray-Bong Smith. He shrugged his shoulders at the thought.