Substitute Guest (27 page)

“Sure thing!” said Lance, putting his foot on the starter. “You wouldn’t think anything could induce me to go chasing after that ill-tempered bum, do you? I thank my lucky stars I’m not going to have him for a brother-in-law. Now, let’s go!”

Alan, meantime, had been having a rare time getting ready for his party. He almost neglected his business, thinking and planning for the coming of these dear people who had taken him into their home and hearts.

He saw that his apartment and the one across the hall were in perfect order, with flowers in every room. He arranged with the restaurant on the first floor to serve dinner up in the apartment on Friday evening, and provide perfect service so that everything would move smoothly. He went to the delicatessen down the street and stocked up his refrigerator with all the delicacies he could think of for midnight suppers and quiet meals by themselves when they didn’t want to go down to the hotel dining room. Then he went around and put little touches in the rooms, a picture here, a book there, magazines, a little crystal bud vase with a single yellow bud in it for Daryl’s room. He had seen it in the window of a shop he passed and couldn’t resist it. He even bought a jigsaw puzzle or two, and wished at the last minute that he had thought to rent a piano and have it sent up. He felt as if he had never been so happy in his life, preparing for his guests. And then he clipped the day short, gave his curious secretary a holiday, and got home before four o’clock, though he knew they couldn’t likely arrive before half-past at the earliest.

On the way home he had stopped and bought a large box of candy, the duplicate of the one he had bought at Christmas. It seemed that he could not think of anything more to do. And then he sat down to watch out the window for their car to arrive. He hadn’t thought of Demeter Cass all day. He hadn’t once thought of the paper he had brought away with him from her apartment. He had locked it away in the safe in his room and had meant to examine it more carefully at his leisure, but the whole affair had passed entirely out of his world for the time being. It was then that the telephone rang and he heard her voice speaking.

“Alan, is that you? Oh, I’m glad you’re there! I’m coming up to your apartment now. I’ll be there within five minutes. I’m bringing the count with me. We have something very important to tell you. Are you going to be there all the evening?”

“No!” said Alan shortly. “I’m going to be out all the evening. I’m having guests for dinner who will be arriving at any minute now, and we are going out for the evening. It will be impossible for me to see you now.”

“But Alan, we must! You’ll simply have to arrange for us to see you privately for a few minutes at least, perhaps downstairs in one of the private reception rooms. We are in a terrible predicament. We have lost a most important paper, and I must ask you if it was one of those I showed you. I cannot tell you over the telephone. I must see you at once! For the love of mercy, fix it up somehow. We are starting at once!”

And just then there were voices outside the door and the bell of the apartment rang loudly.

“I am sorry,” said Alan quickly, “I cannot see you tonight. My friends have just arrived. You’ll have to excuse me!” And he hung up and hurried to meet his guests.

H
arold Warner drove off down the white road into the white, white countryside. He was more shaken than he had been since the time when his grandmother came to visit when he was seven and took him aside and administered the sound spanking of which he very much stood in need. He drove on and on and couldn’t quite make up his mind where to go.

For the truth was he had lost his job that day. He had not merely been laid off for a time with a hope for the future, but he had out-and-out
lost
his job. Been fired, he told himself unbelievingly. He was always unbelieving when he was fired from a job. It wasn’t by any means the first time this had happened either! But then, there would be more jobs, he told himself. There were always more jobs. People talked of how hard it was to find a job, but he never had any trouble. He was so good-looking they took him on whether they needed him or not, just to have him around to look at. That was the way he thought about it, when he had to think about it at all. But he did usually find it easy to get good jobs. The trouble was in persuading his employers to keep him when they got to know him. But he didn’t consider that part. He generally made enough to keep him in neckties, with a little left over for flowers and candy for girls. But he really was up against it now. His job and his girl lost all in one day! It was hard lines.

Of course there were plenty more girls, too, when one thought about it. But Daryl really had been a peach! Such great eyes! It was her eyes that had got him. And her father was so well fixed! That pleasant home! He had figured on staying there a week or two until he got rested up from his last job and ready to go back to the city and hunt a new one, and it certainly was hard having them go off like that. Fire low and nothing in the house to eat. He had lied about having had lunch, of course. The fact was he had barely enough in his pocket to buy gas, and he had planned on a good meal when he got to the Devereauxs’. Mother Devereaux was a good cook, and fairly hospitable if she was rather a frost in other ways.

Yes, it was hard lines to have all this happen at once, especially right on top of the boss’s daughter giving him the air, just when he had thought he was getting along so nicely with her. If it hadn’t been for thinking she was really interested in him he wouldn’t have stayed away from Daryl quite so long. That was probably what got her. Two or three days might have been enough to give her a lesson. He had carried the discipline a little too far! She was high-spirited, that girl! A pang of sadness went through him at her loss. Maybe—but no, she had meant it. He could tell that. Just as he had known the boss meant it when he fired him that morning. It was final, and there was no use going back and trying it over. Just a waste of time. Of course he still had his good looks, and his college education.

But he was hungry! And the only place he knew where he could get a free meal was home. Home was a long way off. It would take an hour and a half of hard traveling to get there, and every cent he had for gas. Still, if he spent the gas money for a meal he wouldn’t have any place to sleep that night, and he wouldn’t have the gas to get anywhere else. Too bad now he had bought that car and used his last month’s salary for the first installment on it! Perhaps it would have been wiser to have returned it, but well, he hadn’t. He’d better go home and see the folks and get a good meal, borrow a little money from his father, and after he was rested get himself another job, and maybe another girl. There were always as good fish in the sea as ever were caught.

Of course there was Elsie Bracken, in the old hometown. She was probably still waiting for him. Good little Elsie! She wasn’t so bad either. Had sweet blue eyes, something like Daryl’s. Maybe that was who Daryl always made him think of. He’d never figured it out clearly before. Elsie’d been off to school, trying to fit herself for him, he supposed. He hadn’t seen her for some time now, and he hadn’t written so often either. Of course he had told her he was very busy and all that, and she hadn’t made much kick. She had been faithful enough writing herself, had really kept him in touch with the hometown. His mother wasn’t much on corresponding unless somebody died or she needed some money. Strange his mother had never been able to understand that it took a lot of money to live in town and keep up to a fine job and go around in good society.

Well, he’d better go home now, anyway, for a day or two. He might look Elsie over again, and if she was all right maybe it would be as good to marry her and have the question settled. Her father wasn’t so badly fixed either, and he would probably give her something pretty handsome for a wedding present. He could tip her off to ask for it in money and let them pick their own. Of course, it would be a little awkward not to have money for a wedding trip and all the fixings. But they had the car. It wouldn’t take so much for gas, and they could really have a pretty good time traveling around and seeing things. They could stay at tourist camps and it wouldn’t cost much. Elsie wouldn’t expect grand hotels of the kind Daryl and his boss’s daughter would rate. But Elsie was a pretty good sport! If she had a bit of money it would be all right. And in case he could work it to get married right away in a few days it would be a pretty good hit back at Daryl, too! The thought intrigued him. He began to plan the letter he would write her. He thought of several phrases that would be good to use. It would be nice to tell her that Elsie reminded him of her, and that she was his oldest sweetheart. Yes, he would go home!

So he turned at last into a narrow, rough, scarcely broken road, and plowed his way through the snow mile after mile, trying to figure out just how he was going to manage to get through a wedding without any money. Of course he could hock the ring, Daryl’s ring, but he wouldn’t get much for it out in a country town, and the people were always so nosey in a little village like that. They might ask impertinent questions. The only trouble about it all was that the ring wasn’t all paid for yet, but that wouldn’t matter. They could go to another state and it would be several weeks or months before the lending company that financed it would find him. By that time he would have another job and plenty of money. Of course having a good-looking wife might help him to get on, too, and be respected.

Well, that was that. He had lost his job and his girl, but there were plenty more in their offing, and he still had his good looks. When he got something to eat it would be all right! Beefsteak and onions would be good. He would get his mother to fix some up as soon as he got in the house. Beefsteak didn’t take long to cook. He would stop at the market when he passed through the village and get the beefsteak, charge it to his father, and save time.

Just then, with the taste of the onions fairly in his mouth and the smell of the beefsteak cooking, he ran over a big rock beneath the snow, nearly upsetting his car, and with a loud bang his rear tire exploded and went down with a long exhausted sigh like something dying. And he was seven miles from the nearest garage, and no spare tire! He finished the soliloquy he had begun at the Devereauxs’ with a single phrase as he stood in the snow and glowered at his limp tire:

“Can you beat it?”

Demeter Cass and her count had been having a stormy time. The count had arrived that afternoon, quite unexpectedly, and in a desperate hurry! He demanded all the papers and photographs and letters that he had given to Demeter, and he wanted to know just exactly what she had said to that fool lawyer she had persisted in dragging into the case.

Demeter was used to dominating a situation, but the count was now dominating Demeter. He had gotten all he could out of her, it seemed, and now a situation had arisen which meant that if she could do nothing more for him, he was done with her.

“There is one paper missing,” he said cuttingly, and looked at her with his cold, prominent eyes that were a cross between milky marbles and peeled onions. “It is the most important paper of all!”

When he was angry or annoyed the count had a strong Spanish accent, though at times he could speak beautiful English. He used the accent now, and Demeter lifted her chin haughtily. She did not care for his accent.

“The papers are all there! Everything that you gave me.”

“They are not!” said the count. “The most incriminating one of all is missing. Where is it? I demand it!”

“I tell you that is everything I had,” said Demeter. “What would be the point in my holding on to one of them? It certainly would not do me any good if you are going away.”

“It certainly would not. On the contrary it would do you great harm if this thing came to trial and that paper was found in your possession.”

Demeter looked frightened.

“Is there danger of this thing coming to court?” she asked sharply.

“There certainly is, unless we can do something at once!”

“But you told me there was no danger whatever!”

“I told you! Yes, I told you! What I supposed was true! While that man Bryerly stayed in Europe there was no danger whatever. He had bought heavily with us, and whatever he did the rest did. But now he has suddenly arrived on the scene, and he is starting out to investigate these mines and these oil wells, and when he finds they are not there where he thinks they are you know what kind of a storm will be raised! He had money, and he will prosecute! He will do more than that! He will hound us to the ends of the earth. He is that kind of a man!”

“Us!” said Demeter respectfully. “Where do you get that
us?
I certainly do not appear in this matter except as an owner of stock!”

“You don’t, don’t you? Whose picture is that on the photo we have been using in vouching for this? Whose signature is signed to some of the letters we have written to your friends? Do you think you can get by and go free if I get into trouble? You are known to be my friend. We have been everywhere together! You have been hand-and-glove with me in this matter! And did you think you would go free if we got caught!”