CLEANSING FIRES
Wednesday I into a different Santa Ysobel: across the buildings, and of everywhere, alive with people around, and high with material, with the decorators. The of was only three days ahead.
At Bill Capehart's they told me Barbara was out with the crowd; and a minutes later on Main Street, I met her in a Ford truck. Skeet Thornhill was at the wheel, adding to the of life and on Santa Ysobel streets, a a dozen or more other away behind. Both girls at me; they were going for something and would see me later.
Getting toward the Gilbert place, just the corner, I from the of the pepper trees a bird I to be one of Dykeman's operatives. Watching his careless progress on past the Gilbert lawn, then the Vandeman grounds, my was to a pair who approached across the green from the direction of the bungalow. No the woman; at this distance, and the clean of her walk, told me that this was the bride, Ina Vandeman. And the man her—had he come with her from the house, or joined her on the cross-cut path?—could that be Worth Gilbert?
I sat in the and gaped. The light—behind them, and at best—made their indistinguishable. At the in the hedge, they paused, and Mrs. Vandeman out, off a flower to in his buttonhole, looking up into his face, talking quickly. Old stuff—but always good old stuff. Then Worth saw me and hailed, "Hello, Jerry!" But he did not come to me, and I out of the machine to the sidewalk.
I the of the Ford truck; it by, missing my by an inch, stopped at Vandeman's gate and Skeet her of to across the and up toward the bungalow. I saw Barbara, in the of the moving figures, stop, she had the two over there, and to her, with a cheerful,
"He's here all right."
"Oh, yes," not looking toward the in the hedge, or at me. "He came on the same train with—with them."
Then some one from the for her to those pronto, and with a little of breath, she ran on up the walk.
I back. Worth and Ina had moved on. Bronson Vandeman, well groomed, as though he had just come in off the links, his English shoes and loud patterned him from the man of the Coast, had joined them on the Gilbert lawn; his to me let his by with a bow, at once to her house by the walk. But to my annoyance, Vandeman came up the steps after us. I Worth must have him.
Chung my upstairs, and a minute in my room. I'll it wasn't to the for which he thanked me, but with the idea of me in some recondite, Oriental fashion that he was I'd come. This me. The people who were to have me in Santa Ysobel at this time on the clean of my ledger. Then I to Vandeman still in the room, at the window, looking with a of his teeth, a hand to in the chair Worth set for me.
"Well, Jerry," that man prompted, by a careless the smokers' on the table me, "there is time dinner for the of your exploits. How's my friend Steve?"
I to select a cigar, and said shortly,
"It's all in reports waiting for you at my office."
"Yes." Worth my irritation. "Tell it. What'd you do south?"
"Just from the south yourself, aren't you?" I countered.
"Sure," airily. "But I wasn't there to in on your game. Did you that Skeels was Clayte?"
I looked over the of my match at that small-town man, at me with a of interest.
"Go on," Worth interpreted. "Vandeman all about it. I to sell him a of stock in the suitcase, so he'll take an in the game; but he's too much the tight-wad to buy."
"Oh, no," Vandeman. "Just no gambler; to take a chance." He ran his through his hair, it up with a I had noticed when he came from the at Tait's.
"All right—apology accepted," Worth nodded. "Anyway, you didn't. Well, Jerry?"
Vandeman waited a moment with natural curiosity, then, as I still said nothing, my attention to my smoke, moved to rise, saying,
"That means I'd along and let you two talk business."
"No. Sit tight," from Worth.
I was clear through, and and apprehensive, too. I managed a brief, of the outcome in the south. Worth it with,
"Skeels in the jungle! Life still a of interest."
"Why the couldn't you keep me of your movements?" I demanded.
"Dykeman's hounds," he grinned. "Had them guessing. They'd have me up if I'd gone to your office."
"You have or wired. They've you up anyway," I grunted. "One's on the job now. Saw him as I came in."
"Eh? What's that?" Vandeman, a man in the more attention from him than one three hundred miles away. "What do you mean, hounds?" and when he had the of Dykeman's trailers, "I call that intolerable!"
"Oh, I don't know." Worth over my for a cigarette. "Lose 'em I like."
I wasn't so certain. There were men in my he couldn't shake. Perhaps those reports in Dykeman's might have offered some to this cock-sure lad. My at Worth as I to Vandeman talking.
"Those bank people should do one thing or another," he gave his opinion. "Just you got with them and them their payment in the it left in, they've no right to have you like a criminal. In a small town like this, such a thing will a man's standing."
"If he has any standing," Worth laughed.
"See here," Vandeman's was persuasive. "Don't let what I said out in you."
"I'll try not to."
"Mr. Boyne"—Vandeman missed the sarcasm—"when I got to this town to-day, what do you I found? The going around that a with Worth, over money, his father to take his own life."
"That's my here," I nodded. And when he looked his surprise, "To stop such stories."
He at me, puzzled for a moment, then said,
"Well, of you know, and I know, that they're lies; but just how will you stop them?"
I had my to as it was; but Worth in the pause after Vandeman's question with,
"Jerry's here to the truth of my father's murder, Bronse."
"Murder?" The word to Vandeman. His and everything—even their speech. "I didn't know any one the idea your father was murdered. He couldn't have been—not the way it happened."
"Nevertheless we think he was."
"Oh, but Boyne—start a thing like that, and think of the talk it'll make! They'll at once saying that there was nobody but Worth to profit by his father's death."
"Don't worry, Mr. Vandeman." He me hot. "We know where to up the for the crime."
"You the diaries?" Worth's voice from me. "Nothing doing there, Jerry. I've them."
I sat and the swears. Yet, looking on it, I saw that Jerry Boyne was the man who kicking. I ought to have left them with him.
"You read them and them?" said Vandeman.
"Burned them without reading," Worth's corrected.
"Without reading!" the other echoed, startled. Then, after a long pause, "Oh—I say—pardon me, but—but ought that to have been done? Surely not. Worth—if you'd read your father's for the past years—I don't you'd have a that he suicide—not a doubt."
Worth sat there mute. Myself, I was as to what Vandeman would say; I had read much in those diaries. But when it came, it was the same old line of talk one when there's a suicide: Gilbert was a man; his life hadn't been happy; he cut himself off from people too much. Vandeman said that of late he he was nearly the only the man had. This last gave him an in my eyes. I in on his to ask him why he was so the death was suicide.
"Mr. Gilbert was up; had been for two years or more. Worth's been away; he's not it; but I can tell you, Boyne, his father's mind was affected."
Worth let that pass, though I see he wasn't by Vandeman's sentimentalities, any more than I was. After the man had gone, I on Worth sharply, with,
"Why the did you tell that pink-tea about your with the Van Ness Avenue bank?"
"Safety valve, I guess. I up too a of steam, and it's easy to it off to Vandeman. Told him most of it in the smoker, up. You'll talk about anything in a smoker."
"Oh, will you?" I said in exasperation. "And you'll anything, I suppose, that a match'll set fire to?"
"Go easy, Jerry Boyne." His to his chest, he sat out through the window. "Cleansing for that of garbage," he said finally. "I them on the day of his funeral."
