Substitute Guest (28 page)

“But we must not get caught!” said Demeter. “You said—!”

“What I said does not matter. That was then and this is now! We shall certainly be caught if that paper gets into the hands of someone who is interested to search this thing out. We must find that paper if we have to search heaven and hell for it! Where have you been keeping these papers?”

“In my safe as you told me to do.”

“And how many times have you taken them out?”

“Only once when I showed them to Mr. Monteith as you asked me to do. I don’t like your tone. I’m not a child!”

“No, you are not a child!” said the man sneeringly. “I sometimes wonder whether I should have trusted you as I did. You may be more cunning than I think. But unless you can produce this lost paper, which is most incriminating, you certainly will have plenty coming to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean!” said Demeter, turning white beneath her exquisite complexion. “I have certainly been absolutely true to you, and have done a lot of hard things to get you where you wanted to be. Who else do you think would have got you into the social set where you have been invited? How would you ever have met Mr. Bryerly if it hadn’t been for me? And the two old Catmann sisters who bought so much stock? And all that list of names. Wait! I wrote them down on one of those papers! The one that had your note on the back asking me not to show that paper to Mr. Monteith. Where is it? You must have put it in your pocket!”

“I have not put anything in my pocket, young woman! That is the missing paper! The one with the list!”

“Well, it was there! Among the rest. I’m sure it was. And besides, I don’t like the way you are talking to me. After I have done everything in the world for you.”

“You did it for yourself as well, didn’t you? You wanted money yourself, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but where is it? I not only haven’t seen a dime of all that you have collected, but I gave you everything I had in my checking account as well, expecting returns almost immediately. I am practically penniless, and it won’t be time for my next check for six weeks. I’m simply having to charge everything I buy, and it’s most inconvenient. If you are going away as you say, I shall have to ask you for some money at once. You promised that money would be forthcoming right away!”

“When we could open the mines, remember I said,
when
we got the mines, and get the oil wells to working.”

“But you said they were starting at once!”

“And so they were practically, if we could have laid our hands on the money to start them. You promised to get that fortune that was coming to you from your uncle, you know.”

“Well, I probably will yet,” said Demeter haughtily, “but I shall not let you have any of it if you act this way.”

“You can’t get that money, remember, young lady, unless you have papers for collateral, shares, you know. And I certainly shall not look after my part of this matter if you are going to be childish and demand money every few minutes.”

“But it was the money that I went into this for. You said it would be a great fortune.”

“Exactly so, and it would have been if there hadn’t been so many hitches. If you, for instance, had been able to hand over the hundreds of thousands that you led me to expect from that trust fund, if you had worked your young lawyer just right, we would have had it in plenty of time to start the work, and all would have been well. But now that man Bryerly has got wind of something somewhere, and he’s onto us. We’ve got to work fast if we would save ourselves. I didn’t anticipate that you would fall down on your job when I promised instant return. We’re lucky now if we get out of this jam and go free. Yes, I mean it. You needn’t look so incredulous. And if you don’t find that paper for me before another half hour we’re both in a tight fix. I have reason to believe that they are already on our trail. I’m waiting here till dark, and then I’m leaving. If you find that paper and hand it over before I go there may be some hope that I can pull things together, but if it’s gone it’s all up with you and me both! Isn’t there some hope that that fool lawyer took the paper with him?”

“I don’t think so! He’s not that kind of a man.”

“Oh, you don’t think so!” said the count contemptuously. “You and your smooth young lawyers! Look here, Demeter, are you in love with that man?”

“Of course not!” said Demeter, her eyes flashing haughtily, “But if I were what business of yours would that be?”

“I would certainly make it my business,” he said with a meaningful look. “I don’t trust you as I used to do. I know you were dancing with him the other night.”

“Yes, and what for? To do the work you had set me to do. And you spoiled it all by cutting in. I had the stage set for a final scene that would have won my point, and then you had to cut in! I’m just disgusted with you!”

Suddenly Demeter leaned forward and took a picture from the little pile of papers that lay on the top of the box on the table between them.

“Let that alone!” said the count surlily. “Do you want to lose more valuable papers for me?”

“This is mine!” she said with dignity. “It is my picture. I certainly don’t want it to get into any scene in court. I know how to protect myself.”

“Oh, you do, do you, Demeter? We’ll see whether you do or not, I have the film of that picture, remember, and it wouldn’t do you any good to destroy that picture because I could easily print another as I printed that. But you can put that picture back in the box with the rest. I don’t intend to have that in your possession. I don’t trust you anymore, you know too much. That has my picture in it, too, and if you should try to turn traitor and tell what you know, I don’t intend you shall have any ammunition. Put it down!”

“No!” said Demeter, firmly.

“Yes!” said the man savagely. “As long as you have that incriminating paper in your possession I’m keeping that picture against you. If I get into trouble you’ll go along with me.”

“Wait!” said Demeter as he came near to take the picture by force. She reached over and picked up the telephone from its stand by her side.

“What are you going to do?” he demanded, seizing hold of her wrist and grinding its diamond bracelet into her white arm.

“Stop!” she said furiously. “You’re hurting my arm! I’ll get your paper for you if it’s to be had. I’m telephoning Alan Monteith. If he took it, I can make him give it up!”

“Oh, so you think maybe he took it, do you?”

“I just remember he had some paper in his hand, when he left. He may have carried it with him without knowing it. You see, you had just arrived and I was rather upset. I didn’t expect you so soon. You said you wouldn’t get here till seven.”

“Oh, and so you think your paragon may have made some mistake, do you? Or was it you that made the mistake on purpose? Look here, what are you two trying to put over on me, anyhow? You think you can make me believe that he took a paper by mistake, do you, as important a paper as that? Well, I’m not so dumb as you seem to think I am, and you’ll have some time getting by me, you’ll find out!”

Just then Alan answered the telephone.

“No! Don’t tell him I’ll be there! You little fool, you!” growled the man standing over Demeter. “Tell him I’m not here! Tell him I’m out of the city! You little fool, you!”

But Demeter had hung up.

“I couldn’t!” she said. “He hung up himself. He had a dinner party. They had just arrived. Come, we’ll have to go at once!”

“And you think I am going there? I? To a cunning lawyer’s house? The very most dangerous place in the world for me to go! Go yourself if you like, but I shall be far away by the time you arrive there! You little fool! You’ve done for me now. And yourself, too, incidentally. Give me that picture! I’ll have that anyway!”

“I won’t!” said Demeter, holding it tightly in both hands. “I’ll tear it in pieces if you try to get it away from me!”

“Oh, you will, will you?”

Demeter looked up defiantly and found she was looking into the eye of a sinister little automatic.

“Hand over that picture, and don’t open your mouth to scream. I’d just as soon shoot us both as not, anyway.”

Demeter saw the insane look in the man’s ugly eyes and handed over the picture, and just then the doorbell sounded clearly through the room! But the little gun remained pointed straight at her as the man spoke in a low warning voice.

“If that’s anyone after me, I haven’t been here in a week. Understand? Go out there to the door and tell them so, and don’t turn around and look back. Remember this gun can reach out to the hall door! Remember I shall be hearing every word you say! And dead women tell no tales!”

Demeter, with every bit of natural color drained from under the rouge in her cheeks, sat staring at that gun, and at a sign and further whisper from the man, rose and went to meet the maid who had answered the bell, conscious of the greatest fear that had ever come into her life.

It did not help matters that when she reached the hall of her apartment she came face-to-face with a great burly policeman. He was looking at her as if he did not care in the least that she was Demeter Cass, descendant of an old and respected family, possessed of a fine inheritance, dashing member of the smartest set of the city. He looked at her like primitive justice out to search her very heart and soul, and pierce asunder the joints and marrow of her being.

“I wantta see that count you have here,” he said, pinning her with his glance.

She heard herself repeating the words the count had just told her, but they were like water poured on the ground so far as any effect they had on the policeman was concerned. He just leered into her face.

“Now, look a here, lady, we know he’s here. We saw him come in. No use lying about it. We gotta find him!”

“He hasn’t been here for a week!” repeated Demeter like a robot. Feeling herself trembling from head to foot, wondering if she were going to fall, reeling and leaning against the wall.

The policeman strode past her, pushing her aside roughly, and she turned with all her senses whirling about dizzily and looked into the room she had just left, expecting to hear the report to that sinister little revolver, and to see a dead policeman lying on her lovely white velvet carpet with his head on the head of her great white bear rug.

But the room was empty!

The imposing figure of the count holding his little automatic had melted away. Even the box with its papers and photographs, nuggets of silver and sample of oil in a small tall bottle, were gone. There wasn’t a trace of the count or any of his belongings. And when they searched the place for him they found nothing. Not even a servant had seen him leave, not one would own he had been there. Demeter, too, though frightened almost to the breaking point, stuck sweetly to her story that she hadn’t seen the count for over a week. She went early to bed, knowing that the place was being watched, and lay awake planning how to escape from the net that seemed to have enclosed her.

So that was the reason that Demeter and her count did not appear at the door of Alan Monteith’s apartment shortly after his guests arrived to plant a thorn in Daryl Devereaux’s breast and spoil the beautiful evening for them all.

A
lan as he hung up the receiver and sprang to meet his guests had only time for a hurried committing of the whole matter to the new Master of his life by just a lifted heart and an upward look, and then he completely forgot about it and did not think of it again until they were well on their way to the meeting. Then he gave a passing thought to the wonder of having perplexities solved and difficulties avoided that had loomed so large. How marvelous it was that God, the great God, had time and thought for such little difficulties in the lives of His own! Whatever had been the reason, God had taken that trouble out of the way for the evening. Would all life be like that if he kept within the will of God? If he had the Presence constantly with him then it wasn’t far to the throne. One had only to call. It was wonderful!

The conference was a great experience. Somehow it had never entered Alan’s head that there were large groups of people like this who put God first, and loved His Word and His Work above all else. The Christians he had known before had been ordinary formal Christians, who went to church, sometimes twice on Sundays, gave to good causes, were respected in the community, and upheld all kinds of good works. That was all. He had never heard one of them mention the name of the Lord except in a most formal way. Their Christianity hadn’t been a very vital thing with them.

But these people radiated Christianity, and one knew from the very look on their happy faces that “they had been with Jesus.” And some of them didn’t look as if they had much else in this world to be happy about either, if one might judge by the plainness of their apparel.

Alan sat at the end of the pew and looked down the line of happy faces. Mother Devereaux next to Daryl, then Father, then Ruth, and Lance at the far end, and his heart suddenly swelled with happiness. Wistfully he watched them all. If they all could only be his family! Was there any hope? Or was this only a little bright spot that would soon pass and leave his lonely world drab again?

But no, that could never be. His life couldn’t be drab again with that Presence constantly near. He would never be alone again, even if these dear new friends had to go another way than his. They had at least introduced him to his Lord, and that was the greatest thing they could have done.

But it was a very happy evening, with Daryl by his side. The dearness of her grew in his heart. The nearness of her was precious. Her beautiful eyes looked up to his as she smiled in enjoyment over the meeting! Just to be holding one side of the hymnal with her seemed heavenly sweet to him. This one evening at least he was granted to enjoy her company. If never again through life at least he would have had this.

So they banished the thought of the Harolds and Demeters and just enjoyed the evening together. They would have enjoyed the meeting of course even if they hadn’t had each other. Equally perhaps they would have enjoyed each other without the meeting. To be enjoying it together seemed like a little heaven below.