Champion of Lost Causes E-Book

Max Brand

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Frederick Schiller Faust (May 29, 1892 – May 12, 1944) was an American author known primarily for his thoughtful and literary Westerns under the pen name Max Brand. This is one of his novels. Our adventuring hero has just partaken of a poker game where he has seen a man lose heavily. Intrigued, and possessing an adventurous nature, our hero, Loring, is compelled to follow the man. This leads him to a rich family and, of course, a beautiful daughter. Loring barely has time to get his bearings when the man he followed is murdered in the house! And all evidence points to the father of Loring’s new object of affection as the killer. Midnight searches, police arrests, the looming trial and Loring is in possession of the key piece of evidence.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. THE MAN WITH THE OPAL

II. CONCERNING MERCY

III. THE FUGITIVE

IV. THE HOLLOW WALL

V. FENCING

VI. BEATRICE

VII. THE SHOT

VIII. NARRATIVE OF MR. CHARLES

IX. NARRATIVE OF MR. CHARLES (CONTINUED)

X. THE ARREST

XI. LORING WALKS BY NIGHT

XII. ENTER KING ALCOHOL

XIII. THE INTRUDER

XIV. LORING TRIES LAUGHTER

XV. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

XVI. LORING SEES A FORTUNE

XVII. THE DANGER LINE

XVIII. THE TRIAL

XIX. LORING TAKES THE STAND

XX. RECESS

XXI. THE COUP D'ÉTAT

XXII. THE LOST CAUSE

XXIII. GEOFFREY CHARLES: GENTLEMAN

XXIV. THE MAN WITH THE OPAL PHILOSOPHIZES

XXV. "MURDER"

XXVI. THE GREATER POWER

XXVII. THE LIVING CLUE

XXVIII. THE FIRST ATTEMPT

XXIX. THE SECOND TRIAL

XXX. Geoffrey Talks Turkey

XXXI. LORING LOOKS FOR HELP

XXXII. PRIDE

XXXIII. THE TRAIl

XXXIV. THE TRAIL'S END

XXXV. THE COMPANY STRETCHES ITS ARM

XXXVI. THE WHISTLE

XXXVII. A NEW SIDE TO PETER CHARLES

XXXVIII. LORING CONFESSES

XXXIX. GEOFFREY CHARLES: FRIEND

XL. "YOU ARE THE MAN"

XLI. THE ATTACK

XLII. THE TURNING POINT

XLIII. THE NARRATIVE OF GEOFFREY CHARLES

XLIV. THE NARRATIVE OF GEOFFREY CHARLES (CONTINUED)

XLV. THE NARRATIVE OF GEOFFREY CHARLES (CONCLUDED)

EPILOGUE

I. THE MAN WITH THE OPAL

THE nervous man muttered something about a breath of fresh air and left the table. When he was gone the other three exchanged glances, but only the man with the opal smiled. His long white fingers began to mix the cards for the new deal and the great stone in his ring flashed red and blue and green and yellow, or as he packed the cards together the jewel quivered with all colors at once.

It was characteristic of this fellow that he smiled down at his hands; instead of sharing his amusement with his companions, he seemed to be mocking them as well as the nervous man who had just left them. One might have called him a type of the gambler, but even in the gambling house he was unusual; a man to be looked at, perhaps, because he was such a perfect type. As for the other two, they spent a moment relaxing, recovering from the strain which the nervous player had imposed on them.

Then the fat little man spoke. He was a matter-of-fact person who took his winnings and his losses with the same puckered brow of thought; his baldness gave him a tonsured effect. He thrust out his clenched fist; between the thumb and forefinger the flesh bulged.

“What I want to know is this: Is our fidgety friend coming back?”

The ugly remark made Loring’s lip curl a little, but he readily forced an expression of nonchalance. The man with the opal had been addressed; indeed, it seemed natural to appeal to him for judgment in all matters at a gaming table. He did not answer until he had smoothed the edges of the deck so that it was a solid flash of gilt. Then he dismissed it with a farewell touch and raised to the fat man, eyes as cold and gray as water under moonlight.

“Why do you ask?”

“He’s taken the big money out of this game, and I’m not going to stand by and see him welch. He’s taken out twelve thousand if he’s taken a cent. I’ve watched, even if you haven’t!”

Loring smiled. It was ridiculous to conceive the man with the opal not watching. Now he was smoothing his short mustache with the white, calm fingers. He answered: “I haven’t seen him take your money.”

The fat man for the first time felt that his grumbling might be out of place. He flushed a little, but he continued to growl: “I don’t like it. A fellow I’ve never seen before. Don’t know his name, even. Do you?”

“Nobody asks about names at Buttrick’s,” said the man with the opal, deftly turning the point of the question. “But you can be sure he’ll come back; everyone comes back to Buttrick’s–comes back sooner or later.”

“Sooner or later! That may mean a year from now.”

“Patience! What is a year?” He spoke with a voice as low as if he were explaining to a child, yet there was not a shade of gentleness. Loring had been covertly examining him all evening and his interest had grown.

The fellow was perfect in type and yet he was full of contrasts; imagine a gambler wearing an opal, the jewel of ill luck! Loring was a fighter; he fought the cards just as he boxed with a man, cool, keen-eyed, attacking eagerly always, and yet ever poised to take advantage of the first opening and shoot home the finishing punch. Because he was a fighter he recognized power of all kinds at once and admired it; all evening he had been admiring the man with the opal.

“Patience!” the latter was repeating. “A minute is eternity; a year is a minute. It depends on the point of view.”

“I’m not a star gazer,” snarled the little man, passing a hand over his tonsured head.

The man with the opal smiled at this implication and then with a shocking suddenness looked at Loring. His delicate finger tips continued to pass over his mustache, but his eyes held, for a second, as many lights as his great opal. “You’ve lost quite a bit,” he remarked almost gently.

“Rot!” burst out Loring. He was glad of a chance to turn the talk from the nervous man and the possibility that he might have definitely withdrawn from the game taking his winnings with him. To even sit patiently and listen to such suspicions made him feel tainted. “I’ve lost a little,” he went on, smiling, “but I still have a little left to throw after the rest. Not much, to be sure!”

As he spoke he took a wisp of bills out of his pocket and flicked the corners of them; there was a little over a thousand dollars there.

“Not much,” nodded the man with the opal. “The price of a man’s life, I’d say.”

Loring looked down at the money with a new interest and then his hand brushed the bills with a shudder of distaste. “The price of a life, did you say?”

“A cheap one. Men are like greenbacks–they have different denominations, eh? A million would hardly buy the death of one man; a hundred dollars would get another. All tagged with different prices.”

“Not in the eyes of the law!” cried the little fat man.

The glance of the man with the opal departed from Loring for the split part of a second and flicked across the bald head.

“Ah, no,” he said. “Not in the eyes of the law.”

Loring found himself staring at the pale man with the black mustache as he had stared at a cobra behind plate glass when he was a child. What he had said about the purchase of human life had been shocking enough, but it did not seem out of keeping. He had to wrest his mind away from that handsome, implacable face.

“Here we are again!”

He nodded across the room. The nervous man had just brushed through the curtains and stood with one hand gripping the stiff folds. He scowled at them from beneath his brows and now that he was in view seemed to have regretted his return. He was terribly in earnest; he had been terribly in earnest ever since the game began.

At length he made up his mind, crossed the room hurriedly, and took his place. Beneath the table Loring saw him lock his hands together while he looked fixedly into the faces of his companions, one by one, as if he suspected that they had “framed” the game during his absence.

“Begin,” he said dictatorially. “I’m ready!”

The little fat man rubbed his chin with his knuckles and glanced at the nervous man across his shoulder in apprehension; plainly he was as nervous as the winner. Loring felt that the old air of constraint was settling back upon the table and he loathed it. He hated this businesslike atmosphere. He could not to save his soul “work” with the cards. No matter what the stakes, it remained a game to him.

All life had been a game to Loring. He had played it with all the strength of his powerful body; he had rioted through every emotion. He had gone through scenes that would have damned other men and he had come out clean. He was one of those men who are always making new starts. His hair, as a result, was decidedly gray over the temples, and in repose his face aged by ten years; but his smile was all boy. He smiled now, shook his wide, thick-muscled shoulders, and raised his head.

“I warn you, my friends,” he said joyously, “that I’m tired of this dull game. I want action, action, action! Out with the cards, sir. By the Lord, I have a tingle in my finger tips that tells me I’m going to win!”

“Damnation!” exploded the nervous man; he avoided the volley of glances by adding hurriedly: “Why the devil do we have nothing to drink? I need a nip. Nothing to eat since–where is that waiter? Is the fool deaf and dumb!”

Buttrick, in furnishing his gaming house, had retained many mid-Victorian features, and among others he had left the bell cords instead of installing electric buttons. Now the nervous man whirled in his chair and wrenched at the silken rope until it came taut with a hum and they heard the silver tinkle far off and faint.

The outburst brought a sneer from the fat man; the man with the opal presented his usual blank face; but Loring overflowed with pity. He felt that this game was beginning to make him unclean. He determined on the spot to be rid of it even at the price of the rest of his money, though where he would go for more was a mystery. Such mysteries, however, were too old to greatly disturb him. When the round of drinks had been brought and passed, he began wagering heavily on the first hand that was dealt him.

Starting with a miserable pair of deuces before the draw, he held up three cards, and then bumped up the bidding in lumps of two hundred. The man with the opal stayed to the second raise; at the last raise of which Loring’s thousand dollars was capable, the nervous man bit his lip and laid down his hand. Pure bluff; but Loring raked in the chips without joy. He wanted this thing to end.

He kept on playing like a madman; and he kept on winning. He could not lose, it seemed. When he bluffed, the others stayed with the betting only long enough to fatten the stakes. When he held a full house someone was sure to call him when the bet had reached a dizzy height. Usually it was the nervous man. Finally the fat man slapped down his cards with the violence of an oath and withdrew from the game, his pudgy back daring them to ask questions.

Loring had won again. He cashed in piles of chips to clear the table and flung himself into the game again, joylessly. For the face of the nervous man was becoming a horror. Obviously he was meeting each loss with his life blood, but how could Loring stop while he was winning?

The crash came. Loring had opened a jackpot with queens and filled miraculously with three nines. The betting swept up; the nervous man “called” with a straight, and as Loring drew in the chips the beaten player rose slowly. He propped himself on stiff arms above the table, his shoulders thrust back into ridiculous points.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’m done. Good-night!”

And turning, he crossed the room with a slow step, as though he feared that if he hurried his legs might crumble beneath him.

II. CONCERNING MERCY

BOTH men turned to follow him; Loring, with a sick look, faced the man with the opal again in time to see him raise his hand until it was level with his forehead and make a significant small gesture with his forefinger.

“No, no!” groaned Loring. “Not that! I feel like a murderer!”

He started up, but the voice of his companion cut in on him, stopped him, as though with a hand.

“Would you pity a jackal that was poisoned by dead meat?” he asked. And when Loring turned the man with the opal added: “Carrion, sir; nothing but carrion, mind and body.”

Loring blinked.

“I forget. The game has to go on?”

“Not at all. For this evening I have had enough.” He admitted defeat with a calm that made Loring respect him more than ever–a respect with a touch of fear in it. “But I wish,” continued the man with the opal, “to know you. My name is Nicholas Zanten; but that does not in any way imply that you must tell me yours.” He went on gracefully, giving Loring time to think it over and drop the subject.

“In Buttrick’s, of course you’ve observed that names don’t matter. Men lose their personality and become merely bags of money with hands to spend it as soon as they come within those soft closing doors downstairs. For all I know, it may spoil your pleasure to identify yourself; spoil the game, eh?”

But Loring was flattered in spite of himself. He felt at once that he was receiving an attention which the man with the opal paid to very few, indeed.

“I’m Samuel Loring,” he answered readily. “Very glad to know your name, Mr. Zanten.” He thought the foreign twang of that name fitted perfectly with the fellow’s exterior. “As for the game–I think it’s been a rotten mess! Won’t get the face of that chap off my mind for months of nights.”

“Give me your ear for one moment and then forget what I’ve said,” returned Nicholas Zanten. “The name of that man is Joseph Wilbur. Does that mean anything to you? I see it does not. Very well, then. Take my word for it that Wilbur is lost. He was lost before this game began. And I give you my word of honor that he is not and never has been worth saving.”

They crossed the room together as they spoke. Zanten stepped out to the curtains first and drew the heavy tapestry well aside for Loring. In spite of himself the big man slipped through hastily. He did not relish having those moon cold eyes behind his back, unwatched. On the farther side of the curtains he was sharply ashamed of himself and glanced at his companion. Zanten was smiling at the floor and Loring knew that he had understood. The thread of their friendship was cut even before the spinning had well begun.

“Roulette, by Jove!” exclaimed Loring, for in the depth of the long apartment he made out a group of players and heard the hum of the spinning wheel. “All this under the very nose of the law.”

“The law is not omniscient,” returned Zanten, “and sometimes it is even discreetly blind. I remember–”

“Look! Look!” broke in Loring, and he pointed out the lofty, meager figure of Joseph Wilbur playing the wheel. It was a form as somber as a skeleton playing dice. Out of the very back of the man appeared his ghoulish eagerness to win, his desperate determination.

Once more the gesture of Zanten recurred to him. He saw Wilbur at the end of the evening’s play retiring to his room–perhaps to a brightly lighted mansion–and drawing a revolver from a secret drawer. The shocking part of it was that Wilbur was no hungry, common gambler. In every respect he suggested the man who had handled large destinies. It was as horrible to see him wince under the loss of a few thousands as it would be to see a stalwart white man cringe before a Negro. The horror repelled and fascinated Loring.

“Very well,” he heard Zanten saying, “I thought you would be stronger minded. But if you are determined, go ahead.”

He turned in surprise to his companion. There was always something freshly interesting in the white and somber face and in the remarkable eyes. He was touching his mustache with the hand that bore the opal and the jewel flashed with redoubled brilliance across the colorless face. He seemed to Loring distinctly the skeleton at the feast, the warning at the gaming table.

“What did you mean?”

“That you are going to help Wilbur lose his own money and yours as well. But nothing can stop you. Good-night.”

“You have no pity?” asked Loring curiously.

“I? Nonsense! Of course I have pity. A man who hardens himself to pity has closed one door to happiness. I am as full of pity as a ten year old girl. I am as soft of heart as that Madonna.”

He nodded to a crumbling limestone statue taken from the ruins of some Gothic church in France. From the broken arms of the Virgin the infant Jesus had long since fallen, but the half-obliterated face was still bent with pathetic tenderness. How much Buttrick had spent in furnishing his little palace of Chance behind its sober, brown-stone front, not even Nicholas Zanten, probably, could guess.

Loring looked about him at the marvelous browns and blues and reds of a tapestry which seven centuries had softened; at the andirons of the monstrous fireplace, wrought after the fashion of two gargoyles of Notre Dame de Paris; at a bottle of green Venetian glass, semi-translucent, netted over with gold filigree which framed four cameos of microscopic workmanship. He looked at this beauty and then stared back at the hard face of Nicholas Zanten, knowing that the gambler could appreciate all this beauty tenfold more than he, Samuel Loring, who had kept his hands clean and his heart pure.

“I pity him,” said Zanten, “but I judge him. Beware of tenderness, Mr. Loring. It leads a man to damnation as surely as the path of the Prodigal Son.” He relieved this moralizing with a smile as cold as ice. “A man who pities others is apt on occasion to pity himself,” he concluded. “And what a fall is that, eh?”

Loring flushed in spite of himself. This man was surely not ten years his senior, and yet he made him feel like a child. Then he tossed up his big head as a fighter should.

“You are fortunate, Mr. Zanten,” he said. “I see that you have learned the great lesson and understand how to say ‘no.’ I, however, have had a less classic education.” He took the sting out of this remark by saying frankly: “Good-night, Mr. Zanten. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“You will,” said the other, and trailed his bloodless fingers across the palm of Loring’s hand. But when Loring had turned, Zanten looked after him with a smile that made his white face, for the moment, almost beautiful. Then he went thoughtfully on his way.

In the meantime Loring had reached the group at the roulette wheel.

“The devil take Zanten,” he muttered on the way, “unless he is the devil come on earth, which I half suspect. Besides, what am I when it comes to thinking? A child!”

Therefore he followed his impulse. He had hardly placed a bet on the red–and won–when the clawlike hand of Wilbur closed on his arm. He turned his head but discreetly avoided the face of the gambler.

“My friend,” said Wilbur, forcing a hideous chuckle of good-fellowship, “you had a remarkable run at the cards. Remarkable! Do me a favor, now, and let me share your luck. Take my money; place it!”

“If you wish.”

A ten dollar bill was crammed into his palm by cold, shaking fingers. He played the red again, and won again.

“Once more,” whispered the voice at his ear.

Again on the red and again a winning. Still, with the whisper directing him, he let the bet ride. The ten dollars had grown to a hundred and sixty.

“God bless you,” gasped Wilbur. “God bless you, lad. Now–a single number. A single number!”

Which meant, of course, one chance in thirty-six.

“Not that,” protested Loring.

“By God, I say yes!”

“Then, play it yourself.”

“No, no, my friend! The luck is yours. You’re in a run. You can’t be beaten! Bet all on one number.”

He obeyed, played the nine, and saw the money disappear. Turning to Wilbur he found a face like death. He took the man by the arm–his fingers bit through the skinny muscles to the bone–and helped him to a chair.

“It’s done,” the other kept repeating. “It’s done!”

A criminal in such a voice might echo the verdict of guilty.

“Listen to me,” said Loring, mastering his shudder of contempt, of pity, of disgust. “I have eight thousand dollars of your money. It came to me across the card table. It’s yours.”

He held out the stiff handful of bills. It seemed at first that the other was paralyzed. Then he drew in his breath as one drinking and clutched the money with both hands.

“Is it all here?” he stammered. “All here?” He counted it feverishly. “Yes, eight thousand!”

The life went out of him again, and he sank deeply into the cushions of the chair.

“What is eight thousand? Nothing! Nothing! So much rustle of paper; dust on the wind. Nothing!”

“Good-night,” muttered Loring, feeling a mortal cold draw into his heart.

But the bird-claw fingers of the other seized him again.

“Not yet!” pleaded that hollow and tremulous voice. “My young friend, my dear young friend!”

In spite of his effort, Loring could not keep the disgust out of his voice.

“I am sorry,” he said, “but I am leaving Buttrick’s at once, Mr. Wilbur.”

All the hysterical hope went out of the face of the man and he shrank into his chair as though seeking protection.

“You know me, then?”

“I know your name. Nothing more.”

“Zanten told you. I see. Don’t believe Zanten. He lied. He lies about everything. He’s a devil. A cold devil. I hate Zanten–for reasons. In reality, I’m a man wronged by lies and rumor. Public opinion has crucified me. Look on me, my dear fellow! You see a man stretched on the cross and bleeding from the wounds of rumor!”

He clutched his breast with one of those ugly hands as he spoke and tears of self-pity misted his eyes. They were instantly clear again, probing Loring to see what effect the speech had made on his auditor.

“You believe me?” he went on, raving in the same hurried whisper, and letting his wild glance rove as though he would frighten away eavesdroppers. “Yes, I see that you believe me. When two men meet–in a crowd or in a desert–heart speaks to heart and they know each other at once. The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you to be such a man!”

The flattery sickened Loring. He silently cursed Buttrick’s and the moment he had entered the place.

“And as surely as I knew you then,” rushed on Wilbur, retaining his clutch on Loring to drag himself to his feet, “I know now that you will continue to aid me–a man oppressed. You will take this money of mine and play it. All on single numbers–all on single numbers. What is eight thousand? Nothing! Divide it into eight parts. Play each part on a single number. If one part wins, it will be enough. More than enough. Enough? Ay, salvation!”

In vain Loring argued that even with eight trials at a single number the chance each time was still only one out of thirty-six. He could not press his point effectively against this hysteria, and he dared not meet the eye of a man whose soul was naked in it.

Reluctantly he chose a number and played the first pile of bills. It was gone, and the hand on his shoulder contracted and relaxed. Again, again, again, again, and always he lost and always that pulsing grip on his shoulder, eating toward the bone. The man was gibbering at his ear; not advice. He listened. Wilbur was praying swiftly, whispering the invocations.

And then the last pile of money, all save a few small bills, was placed, and it followed the rest. Loring turned with his eyes on the floor, but to his astonishment there was no cry of anguish.

He found that Wilbur was buttoning his coat close to the throat. He had become appallingly calm.

“Very well,” he said. “You, my friend, I thank. For the rest–”

He left the curse unspoken and hurried out of the room. As for Loring, for a moment he hesitated, then he strode after Wilbur and stopped him at the door.

“The rest of your money,” he said.

He put it in the nerveless hand.

“Now, Mr. Wilbur, take hold of yourself. If there is anything I can do for you–”

“One thing. Let me have peace, sir. Let me have silence.”

The dignity of that speech roused in the younger man a sudden eagerness to save him.

“But your friends! I shall find your friends, any you may name, and–”

“Friends?” echoed Wilbur. “Friends, did you say?”

He broke into hideously soundless laughter and fled down the stairs. Loring waited until the hiss of that laughter had crept out of his ears, and then followed. No matter where the unfortunate Wilbur was fleeing, it would be to his destruction, and in the little interval Loring had vowed solemnly to save the man if he could.