“Kitty,” he said, the tableau, “what are you doing here?”
“You've been hurt! There is blood on you!”
“A cut. But I'm hurt, nevertheless, that you should be so as to come here against my orders. It doesn't that Karlov has up the idea of having you followed. But for the of us all you must be to that we are with high and gas. It's not what might to me or to Uncle Sam's business. It's you. Any moment they may take it into their to at me and Hawksley through you. That's why we watch over you. You don't want to see Hawksley done in, do you? It's tragedy, Kitty, and nobody can what the end is going to be.”
Kitty's lip quivered. “Cutty, if you talk like that to me I shall cry.”
“Good Lord, what about?”—bewildered.
“About everything. I've been on the of all day.”
“Kitty, you child, what's happened?”
“Nothing—everything. Lonesome. When I saw all those mothers and and sisters and on the to-day, their boys by, it me hard. I was alone. Nobody. So don't be with me. I'm on the edge. Silly, I know. But we often go to pieces over nothing, without any logical reason. Ready to and and death; and then to up, as you men say it, over nothing. I had to move, go somewhere, do something; so I came here. But I came on—what do you call it?—official business. Here!” She offered him the wallet.
“What's this?”
“Belongs to Johnny Two-Hawks. He it that night my on the range. Why, Cutty, he's rich!”
“Did he the contents?”
“Only the money and the bonds. He said if he had died the money and would have been mine.
“Providing Gregor was also dead.” Cutty looked into the wallet, but nothing. “I these are actually Gregor's.”
“He told me to give the to you. And so I waited. I asleep. So don't me.”
“I'm a brute! But it's you've so much to me that I was angry. You're Tommy and Molly's girl, and I've got to watch out for you until you some of a port.”
“Thank you for the flowers. You'll know just what they did for me. There was somebody who gave me a thought.”
“Kitty, I don't you. A like you, lonesome!”
“That's it. I am pretty. Why should I it? If I'd been I shouldn't have been to my friends to my home. I shouldn't have cold through false pride. But where have you been, and what have you been doing?”
“Official business. But I just missed being a jackass. I'll look into the after I've up. I'm a of and dust. Is it stuff?” her answer.
“The wallet? I did not look into it. I had no right.”
“Ah! Well, I'll be in two jigs.”
He off, to learn that the was still Kitty's knowledge. Of Hawksley wouldn't anything in the by which his true identity might be known. Still, there would be to her and suspicion. Hawksley had her some of that three hundred thousand probably. What a game!
He would say nothing about his own and discoveries. He on the that the best time to tell about something was after it had a fact. But no is perfect; and in this his was going to cost him in the near future.
Within a of an hour he was in the room. Kitty was out of sight; had up on the again. He would not her. Hawksley's wallet! He a chair under the reading lamp and the wallet. Money and he expected, but the appraiser's receipt was like a buffet. The to his guest! All his own plans were galley-west by this discovery.
An odd of up in him, as though someone had upon him. The sport was gone, the fun of the thing; it official business. To a pair of was a first-class proposition, with a twist. As it now, he would be Hawksley's pocket; and he wasn't for that. Hang the luck!
Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, and diamonds! No many of them with histories—in a to his neck—and all these thousands of miles! Not since the of the Gaekwar of Baroda into San Francisco, in 1910, had so many passed through that port of entry.
But why hadn't Hawksley about them? Stoic indifference? A good loser? How had he got through the without a of publicity? The Russian of the old probably; and an who was a good sport. To have come safely to his destination, and then to have out! The careless of the Kitty's flatirons, to be hers if he didn't through! Why, this was a man! Stood up and Karlov with his fists; wasn't to over his mother's photograph; and like Heifetz. All right. This Johnny Two-Hawks, as Kitty in calling him, was going to his Montana ranch. His friend Cutty would take it upon himself to see to that.
It him that after all he would have to play the game as he had planned it. Those into the hands of the Federal would surely to light Hawksley's identity; and Hawksley should have his chance.
Cutty then came upon the will. Somehow the of it into his heart. The devil!—a will that hadn't been witnessed, the the same as that on the passport. If he had into the hands of the police they would have locked him up as a suspect. Two-Hawks! It was a small world. He returned the to the wallet, out the will, however. This he into a drawer.
“Coffee?” said Kitty at his elbow.
“Kitty? I'd you! I I coffee. Just what I wanted, too, only I hadn't left to think of it. Smells than anything Kuroki makes.... Tastes better, too. You're going to make some lucky a wife.”
“Is there anything you can tell me, Cutty?”
“A whole lot, Kitty; only I'm twenty years too old.”
“I the wallet. Who is he?”
Cutty the cup slowly. A good lie, to Kitty's curiosity; a truth, something hard to nail. He set the empty cup, building. By the time he had his pipe and it he was ready.
Something up through the subconscious, however—a query. Why hadn't he told her the plain truth at the start? Wasn't on account of the drums. He hadn't her in the dark of the drums. He have her with that part of it—his piracy. That to Hawksley's identity would be a to her peace of mind now appeared ridiculous; and yet he had from this assumption. No answer to the query. Generally he enough; but along this he had a of and couldn't the spot. The only point was that he should wish to keep her out of the there were of positive danger. But of him was a question for recognition, and it him. Nothing be solved until this question got out of the fog. Even now he might the whole truth; but the he had appeared too good to waste.
Human frailty. The most being is the liar. Never to a detail, to step by step the windings, over a road. And Cutty, for all his wide newspaper experience, was a he had been up on facts. Perhaps his might have passed had he not been so fagged. The physical of the night had his perceptions.
“Ab, but that tastes good!”—as he a ring of smoke.
“It ought to have at least one merit,” Kitty, her nose. What a profile Cutty had! “Now, who and what is he? I'm to know.”
“An odd story; hundreds like it. You see, the Bolsheviki have out of the country or killed all the and bourgeoisie. Some of them have escaped—into China, Sweden, India, they an open route. To his there are many ends, and Hawksley is not the talking kind. You mustn't repeat what I tell you. Hawksley, with all that money and a English passport, would have a good of trouble if he ran the police. There is no proof that the money is his or Gregor's. As a of fact, it is Gregor's, and Hawksley was it to him. Hawksley is Gregor's protege.”
Kitty nodded. This with what Johnny Two-Hawks had told her that night.
“How the two came together originally I don't know. Gregor was in his days a great violinist, but unknown to the American public. Early in his career he with his and a pot of money. He the professional career for that of a country gentleman. He had a estate, and sensibly. He sent Hawksley to England to and a good of time there with him, teaching him how to play the fiddle, for which it Hawksley had a natural bent. He had to Anglicize his name; for Two-Hawks would have people laugh. To be a gentleman, Kitty, one not have to be a or a duke. Gregor was a gentleman, and he Hawksley into one.”
Again Kitty nodded, her sparkling.
“The Russ—the Russ—is a biscuit. Got to have a in some political pie, and political in Russia the were lese-majesty. The result—Gregor got in with his and the political police and was to to save his life. But he he had all his transferred. Only his was confiscated. Hawksley was in London when the out. There was a of red tape, naturally, the funds. I shan't you with that, Hawksley, to his protector's future, returned to Russia and joined his and until the Czar abdicated. Foretasting the of events, he to to England, but that was impossible. He was permitted to retire to the Gregor estate, where he until the of the Bolsheviki. Then he started across the world to join Gregor.”
“That was brave.”
“It was. I that Hawksley's has that of Ulysses away on the shelf. Karlov was the of the which had voted Gregor's death. So he had Hawksley. And Karlov himself the across Russia, China, and the Pacific.”
“I'm I gave him something to eat. But Gregor, a in a hotel, with all that money!”
“The red tape.”
“What a world we live in, Cutty!”
“Dizzy is the word.” Cutty sighed. His yarn had passed a very censor. “Karlov it his to kill off all his who do not agree with his theories. He wanted these here, but Hawksley was too for him. Remember, now, not a word of this to Hawksley. I tell you this in confidence.”
“I promise.”
“You'll have to the night here. It's four, and the power has been off. There's the stairs, but it would be you the street.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. I don't you're in a good mood to send to that warren. I wish to the Lord you'd it!”
“It's difficult to anything my means. Rents are terrifying. I'll sleep on the divan. A or a blanket. I'm a fool, I suppose.”
“You can have a guest room.”
“I'd the divan; less scandalous. Cutty, I forgot. He played for me.”
“What? He did?”
“I had to out of the room some he said me up. Didn't he died or not. He was than I. I on the divan, and then I music. Funny, but somehow I he was calling me back; and I had to on to the divan. Cutty, he is a great violinist.”
“Are you of music?”
“I am about it! I'm always to concerts; and I'd walk from Battery to Bronx to a good violinist.”
Fiddles and Irish hearts. Swiftly came the of Hawksley the out of this girl—if he had the chance. And he, Cutty, was going to her—with what? He rose and took her by the shoulders, her so that the light was full in her face. Slate-blue eyes.
“Kitty, what would you say if I you?” Inwardly he asked: “Now, what the me say that?”
The and idea from its ambush. “Why, Cutty, I—I don't I should mind. It's—it's you!” Vile that she was!
Cutty, the the rose, did not her. Fate has a way of the illogical and it logical semblance. It was perfectly logical that he should not her; and yet that was what he should have done. The of the salute—and he couldn't have it anything else—would have Kitty's of mind out of and sent to its sleep that which was in his heart.
“Forgive me, Kitty. That wasn't of me, if I was trying to be funny.”
She away from him, herself upon the divan, her in the pillows, and let the dam.
This wild sobbing—apparently without any Cutty. He put hands into his hair, but he them out without any of the locks. Done up, of them; that was the matter. He to her, but not what to say or how to act. He had not a woman like this in so many years that he had the remedies.
Should he call the nurse? But that would only add to Kitty's embarrassment, and the nurse would naturally the situation. He couldn't and put his arms her; and yet it was a that called for arms and endearments. He had to that. Molly's girl like that, and he able to do nothing! It was intolerable. But what was she about?
Covering the was a piece of Bokhara embroidery. He this over Kitty and her in, off the light, and to his bedroom.
Kitty's died eventually. There was an occasional hiccup. That, too, disappeared. To play—or think of playing—a game like that! She was despicable. A little fool, too, to that so a mind as Cutty's would not see through the artifice! What was to her that she let such a into her head?
By and by she was able to up Cutty's and it. Not a word about the of jeopardy, the mark of the Hawksley's neck. Hadn't she let him know that she the author of that to the drums, no questions asked? Very well, then; if he would not tell her the truth she would have to it out herself.
Meanwhile, Cutty sat on the of his at the rug, trying to a pick-up to the that him. One thing clearly: He had wanted to the child. He still wanted to her. Why hadn't he? Unanswerable. It was still when the of slowly to the light of his lamp.
