“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Nor I. But I can imagine. I can imagine that he had a scene with his father, that he tried to force him to make the will in his favor, and, failing, grabbed the money and the manuscript, stuffed them into his grip, and came down to you, not realizing then what had happened, not realizing that he was a parricide, that in the struggle he had throttled his father or otherwise done him to death. The realization of that came later. But, at the time, don’t you remember how evil and sinister he looked?”
“I remember nothing of the sort. But if you can imagine all that, why can’t you imagine that since he left here, he has lost his memory? People often do, don’t they, and turn up as milkmaids or shoemakers somewhere else? Or if that is too much for you, why can’t you imagine that it was Shri who did it, provided, that is, that anything was done at all. Personally I prefer to think so.”
“It’s very morbid of you, then.”
“I suppose you’ll say that stupidity is preferable. Mike never killed his father; he never took the money; and what would he do with the manuscript? But if you can cook up a cock-and-bull story of that order, you’d far better try your hand on Shri. Why, your uncle kept me in fits of laughter over him. He was as real to him as I was myself.”
“My uncle was a fit subject for Bedlam. He—”
“See here, Arthur,” Camille interrupted, “I won’t have you speak of him in that manner. And in my presence I’ll thank you never again to speak as you have of Mike. Your uncle was an angel to me, and as for Mike, I’d like to know when these amiable suspicions concerning him occurred to you?”
“From the start. The reporters all had them and practically said as much.”
“Then hereafter you—”
Camille paused and turned. Through parting portieres, Archibald, a tray in his hand, was emerging. On the tray was a card and a letter, which he brought her.
Camille, glancing at the writing on the envelope, cried:
“Why, it’s from Mike!”
In the old melodramas, when the villain was foiled, he showed it; it was part of the business. Glendenning showed no emotion whatever, but figuratively his heart sank. His uncle’s money had been so neighborly. Now, like Shri—and as suddenly—it had gone.
“What does the dear boy say?” he at last got out.
Camille, who meanwhile had read the letter, handed it to him and looked at Archibald.
“Is anyone waiting?”
“A gentleman, mem.”
“Show him in.”
Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco, .
Dear Camille: Some day or other, this will be brought to you by my friend, Victor Revell. Smile on him for my sake and for his own. He is worth it.
At a glance, Glendenning took it in and, for further examination, he pocketed it.
Camille did not notice. She was greeting a man whom from that instant Glendenning hated, hated instinctively, hated intensely, hated without knowing why; which is the surest reason anyone can have for hating anybody.
“Mr. Revell?” Camille, a hand outstretched, was saying.
She had got up. Glendenning, too, had risen.
Revell took the hand, released it, nodded at Glendenning, whom Camille then introduced, smiled into her eyes, and answered her.
“Yes, and I fervently hope that my name may not be one of ill omen.”
“He is too good looking,” thought Camille, taken at once with his appearance, which was radiant, virile, and noble.
Seating herself and indicating a chair, she asked:
“And are you just here from San Francisco?”
“Practically,” Revell, seating himself also, replied. “It was a little while, though, before I could get your address. Doctor Dix, to whom Mike also gave me a line, told it to me. Mike could not have known where you were.”
“Yes?” Glendenning, who had remained standing, got in. “How is the dear boy?”
Revell looked up at him and from him to Camille.
“I am sorry to bring you bad news.” He paused, half raised a hand, and added: “It was pneumonia.”
At that, Glendenning sat down, flopped, rather. If he had been alone, he would have danced and shouted. As it was, he closed his eyes. It was all too blissful. The estate was his.
With a look in which there was pain, amazement, and uncertainty, Camille exclaimed:
“He is dead?”
Sympathetically Revell considered the girl.
“That depends on how you look at it. From what he told me of his father’s views, it may be that there is no such thing as death. It may that death is but a garage at which you wait a while until, in exchange for your demolished motor, destiny supplies you with a fresh one.”
“What an ass!” thought Glendenning.
But he said:
“Were you with poor Mike when—er—”
“Yes, I and a physician who certified accordingly. Towers his name is. I gave his address to Doctor Dix and also some papers that Mike wanted to go to him.”
Glendenning twisted. Into the core of his being the reply cut like a knife. Before him the inhuman possibility surged that Mike had made a will. He blurted it.
“Papers? What were they?”
With entire civility, Revell answered:
“Papers concerning Doctor Dix, I suppose.”
He turned again to Camille, who in the interval had gone to the window and was looking from it, but not at the moon nor yet at the river. She could not see them; her eyes were too blurred. Revell got up and joined her.
Glendenning, considering them both, also got up, passed through the portieres, closed the door, and went to the vestibule, where presently he was talking to Dix over the wire.
“This is Glendenning. I’m speaking from Miss Marcy’s apartment. A Mr. Revell who is here has just told us about poor Mike. Camille and I are very much cut up over it. Now this Mr. Revell says he left some papers with you. In Camille’s behalf, will you tell me whether they concern her?”
Clearly the answer came:
“Not in the
