As she spoke, she was conscious of someone entering the room and, turning, she saw Glendenning. The intrusion annoyed her, but of that she gave no sign.
Glendenning was less circumspect. Angrily he considered her.
“So you’ve been having that man to luncheon, have you?”
She stood up.
“Really, Arthur, when you address me, I’ll thank you to adopt another tone.”
“But, my dear Camille, when Archibald told me, I could hardly believe my ears. This morning I showed the feller up to you for the confidence man that he is, and my back is hardly turned before you are wining and dining him.”
“It seems to me that it is you who are doing the whining. And, anyway, you are entirely mistaken. Mr. Revell is a very rich man.”
“What?”
“And you can attack Mike’s will all you like. But it will be me, not Mr. Revell, whom you are attacking.”
Glendenning stood on one foot, then on the other.
“How? Why? What?”
“Yes. Mr. Revell proposes to turn the money over to me.”
At that, Glendenning threw up his arms and dropped into a chair.
Camille nodded at him.
“Anyone would think I had shot you. But don’t die just yet. I need not say that I can’t accept it.”
“But—”
“There you are.”
In the surprise of it, Glendenning felt as if a blanket had been thrown over him; not a wet blanket or even an ordinary one, but the Oriental variety, silken, soft, smothersome. He struggled free.
“Yes, you’re right. I am there. It’s a plant. I’ll wager that he’s not a rich man at all. Though, to be sure, he looks like a lead in a movie. But no one would suppose that he could pull it over you like that. Can’t you see that, in offering to give you the estate, his only object is to hoodwink us into standing aside, while he laughs and pockets it? No, none of that! I’ll have a deed drawn conveying all his interest under Mike’s will to you. Then you ask him to sign it. Then you’ll see.”
Camille shrugged a shoulder.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I told him, as I told you, that I could not and would not accept it.”
“And you’ll never get the chance—unless it comes to you through me. What are you laughing at?”
“At you. What else? Mr. Revell said he was sure Mike must have misjudged you.”
Like a beast of prey, the exasperated Glendenning snarled:
“Yes, confound him! He’s one of the devils who speak well of everybody. The Judas!”
Camille bubbled.
“That, I suppose, is a jeu d’esprit. I might like some more, but I haven’t the time.”
Raveningly Glendenning jumped up.
“And that, I suppose, is a hint. Very good, I’ll go—but I will return.”
“Not as you did just now,” thought Camille, who, when he had gone, rang for the servant.
“Archibald,” she told him, “I shall be sorry to lose you. But I don’t wish to have Mr. Glendenning or anyone else marching in here before you inquire whether or not I am at home. And I don’t wish Mr. Glendenning or anyone else to be told who has or has not been here.”
“Beg pardon, mem, but Mr. Glendenning, he asked—”
“That will do, Archibald. You heard what I said.”
Camille went back to the piano. There, like a vision in a photo play, mentally, before her, stood Revell.
VI
Tatum, a fortnight later, looked up at Glendenning and in his mayonnaise voice inquired:
“Do you play golf?”
Glendenning, who had just entered the office, sat down.
“No, I loathe the stupid game.”
Tatum caressed his aggressive jaw.
“It’s fortunate that stupidity does not hurt. If it did, yelling would be continuous and New York is noisy enough already.”
Glendenning twisted.
“I thought you wanted to see me.”
“Yes,” Tatum replied, “and it’s just for that reason that I asked if you play golf. We seem to have run into a bunker.”
As the ogre purred, he took up a letter, glanced at it, put it down, and purred anew.
“My San Francisco correspondents write that your cousin registered at the Hotel St. Francis the evening of the , which is just five days after he left his father’s house. My correspondents say that the next morning he asked for a reputable attorney and was directed to the firm that attend to the hotel’s law business. According to my correspondents, he applied to this firm to have his will drawn, stating that he was in a hurry and wanted it at once. The will was then drawn for him; after which, he copied it out in his own hand, had his signature witnessed, settled with the firm, returned to the St. Francis, paid his bill, took his grip, and—goodbye.”
Tatum looked again at the letter, refreshed his memory with it, and lit a cigar.
“Months later, or, to be exact, on the , at four o’clock in the morning, he turned up at the Morrow House, where, on the following day, he died.”
Tatum wreathed himself in smoke and added:
“And that is the bunker that we are up to.”
Glendenning swore.
“Your correspondents say nothing else?”
“Plenty,” Tatum trilled. “They enter into all manner of irrelevant details. It appears that when Mike turned up at the Morrow House, he was accompanied by a man who paid his lodging in advance, saw him up to the room assigned, came down, and went away, but not until he had summoned a physician for your cousin, who badly needed one. The physician, Doctor Towers, diagnosed the case as pneumonia, to which alcoholism, complicated with exposure, had been contributory. Your cousin then was dying. What is it, Freddie?”
A clerk entered. Apparently young, he was quite bald.
“It’s Jerolomon about the St. Chrysostom Church matter—”
Tatum puffed and murmured:
“Ask him to come again. Say that I am closeted with the cardinal now.”
When the clerk had gone, Tatum, in his prima-donna voice, asked:
“Where was I? Oh, yes! At noon, a man appeared who presumably was the man of the night before. In any event, he represented himself as a friend of your cousin’s, agreed to pay, and did pay, all
