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Treasure and Trouble Therewith by Geraldine Bonner

G >> Geraldine Bonner >> Treasure and Trouble Therewith




"Who is Mr. Mayer that I met here the other night?"

"Well--he's just Mr. Mayer--a man from the East who's in California for
his health. That's all I know about him, except that he lived a long time
in Europe when he was a boy and a young man."

"How did you come to meet him?"

"Through Mrs. Kirkham, an old friend of Mother's. She brought him here
and then we asked him to dinner." She paused, but the young man, his eyes
on the ground, making no comment, she concluded with, "Did you think he
was interesting?"

He raised his glance to hers and said:

"No--I didn't like him."

Lorry leaned from her chair, her eyebrows lifted, her expression
mischievously confidential.

"Then we have one taste in common--neither do I."

She was surprised to see Mark flush, and his gaze widen to a piercing
fixity. She thought her plain speaking had offended him and hastened to
excuse it:

"I know that isn't a nice thing to say about a guest in your house, and I
don't say it to everybody--only to you. Are you shocked?"

"No, I'm relieved. But I couldn't think you would like him."

"Why? All the other girls do."

"You're not like the other girls. You're--" He stopped abruptly, again
dropped his eyes and said, "He's no good--he's a fake."

"There!" She was quite eager in her agreement. "That's just the
impression he gives me. I felt it the first time I saw him."

"Then why do you have him here?"

The note of reprimand was unconscious, but to the young girl it was plain
and her heart thrilled in response to its authority.

"We needed an extra man for our dinner--the dinner that you refused
to come to."

She laughed at him in roguish triumph, and it was indescribably charming.
He joined in, shame-faced, mumbling something about his work.

"So you see, Mr. Burrage," she said, "in a sort of way it was your
fault."

"It's not my fault that he keeps on coming."

"No, I guess that's mine. I ask him and he has to pay a call. He's
_very_ polite about that."

She laughed again, delighted at this second chance, but now he did not
join in. Instead he became gravely urgent, much more so than so slight a
matter demanded.

"But look here, Miss Alston, what's the sense of doing that? What's the
sense of having a person round you don't like?"

She gave a deprecating shrug.

"Oh, well, it's not as bad as all that. I have really nothing against
him; he's always entertaining and pleasant and makes things go off well.
It's just my own feeling; I have no reason. I can't discriminate against
him because of that."

Mark was silent. It was hateful to him to hear her blaming herself,
offering excuses for the truth of her instinct. But he had agreed with
Crowder not to tell her, and anyway he had satisfied himself as to her
sentiments--she was proof against Mayer's poisonous charm. At this stage
he could enlighten her no further; all that now remained for him to do
was to give her a hint of that guardianship to which he was pledged.

"It's a big responsibility for you, running a place like this, letting
the right people in and keeping the wrong ones out."

"It is, and I don't suppose I do it very well. It was all so new and I
was so green."

"Well, it's not a girl's job. You ought to have a watch dog. How would
I answer?"

She smiled.

"What would you do--bay on the front steps every time Mr. Mayer came?"

"That's right--show my teeth so he couldn't get at the bell. But, joking
apart, I'd like you to look upon me that way--I mean if you ever wanted
anyone to consult with. You're just two girls--you might need a man's
help--things come up."

The smile died from her lips. She was surprised, gratefully, sweetly
surprised.

"Oh, Mr. Burrage, that's very kind of you."

"No, it's not. The kindness would be on your side, the way it has been
right along. I'd think a lot of it if you'd let me feel that if you
wanted help or advice, or anything of that kind, you'd ask it of me."

Had she looked at him the impassioned earnestness of his face would have
increased her surprise. But she was looking at the tassel on the chair
arm, drawing its strands slowly through her fingers.

"Perhaps I will some day," she murmured.

"Honest--not hesitate to send for me if you ever think I could be of any
service to you? Will you promise?"

A woman more experienced, more quick in a perception of surface
indications, might have guessed a weightier matter than the young man's
words implied. Lorry took them as they were, feeling only the heart
behind them.

"Yes, I'll promise," she said.

"Then it's a pact between us. I'll know if you ever want me you'll call
on me. And I'll come; I'll come, no matter where I am."

The room was growing dim, dusk stealing out from its corners into the
space near the long windows where they sat. Their figures, solid and
dark in the larger solidity of the two armchairs, were motionless, and
in the pause following his words, neither stirred or spoke. It was a
silence without embarrassment or constraint, a moment of arrested
external cognizances. Each felt the other as close, suddenly glimpsed
intimate and real, a flash of finer vision that for an instant held them
in subtle communion. Then it passed and they were saying good-by,
moving together into the hall. Fong had not yet lighted the gas and it
was very dim there; Mark had to grope for his hat on the stand. He
touched her hand in farewell, hardly conscious of the physical contact,
heard his own mechanical words and her reply. Then the door opened, shut
and he was gone.

Lorry went upstairs to her own room. Her being was permeated with an
inner content, radiating like light from a center of peace. She closed
her eyes to better feel the comfort of it, to rest upon its infinite
assurance. She had no desire to know whence it rose, did not even ask
herself if he loved her. From a state of dull distress she had suddenly
come into a consciousness of perfect well-being, leaving behind her a
past where she had been troubled and lonely. Their paths, wandering and
uncertain, had met, converging on some higher level, where they stood
together in a deep, enfolding security.

She was still motionless in the gathering dusk when Chrystie entered the
room beyond, filling it with silken rustlings and the tapping of high
heels. Lorry did not know she was there till she came to the open door
and looked in.

"Oh, Lorry, is that you? What are you doing sitting like Patience in a
rocking chair?"

"I don't know--thinking, dreaming."

Chrystie withdrew with mutterings; could be heard moving about. Suddenly
she exclaimed, "It's a glorious afternoon," and then shut a drawer with a
bang. Presently two short, sharp rings sounded from the hall below and
following them her voice rose high and animated:

"That's the mail. I'll go and see if there's anything exciting."

Lorry heard her turbulent descent of the stairs and came back to a
realization of her environment. In a few minutes Chrystie was in her room
again, a little breathless from her race up the long flight.

"There're only two letters," she called. "One for you and one for me."

Lorry was not interested in letters and made no response, and after a
pause heard her sister's voice, raised in the same vivacious note:

"Mine's from Lilly Barlow. She wants me to come down on Tuesday and stay
over till Friday. They're having a dance."

"A dance--oh, that'll be lovely. When is it to be?"

"Tuesday night. I'm to go down on the evening train and they'll meet me
with the motor."

"I'm so glad--you always have a good time there."

Lorry appeared in the doorway. The room was nearly dark, the last blue
light slanting in through the uncurtained window. By its faint
illumination she saw Chrystie's face in the mirror, glum and unsmiling.
It was not the expression with which the youngest Miss Alston generally
greeted calls to festivals.

"What's the matter, Chrystie?" she said. "Don't you want to go?"

The girl wheeled round sharply.

"Of course I do. Why shouldn't I? Did you ever know me not want to go
to a dance?"

"Then you'd better write and accept at once. They're probably putting up
other people and they'll want to know if you're coming."

"I'll do it tonight. There's no such desperate hurry; I can phone down.
There's your letter on the bureau."

She threw herself on the bed, a long, formless shape in the shadowy
corner. She lay there without speaking as Lorry took her letter to the
window and read it. It was from Mrs. Kirkham; a friend had sent her a
box for the opera on Tuesday night and she invited both girls. It would
be a great occasion, everybody was going, Caruso was to sing. Lorry
looked up from it, quite dismayed; it was too bad that Chrystie would
miss it. But Chrystie from the darkness of the bed said she didn't care;
she'd rather dance than hear Caruso, or any other singing man--music
bored her anyhow. Lorry left her and went into her own room to write an
acceptance for herself and regrets for her sister.

At nine that night Mark was sitting by his table, his book on his knee,
his eyes on the smoke wreaths that lay across the air in light layers,
when his dreams were broken by a knock on his door. It was his landlady
with a telegram:

"Mother very sick. Pneumonia. Come at once. SADIE."

There was a train for Stockton in half an hour, and he could make the
distance between the town and the ranch by horse or stage. He made a race
for it and at the station, finding himself a few minutes ahead, took a
call for Crowder at the _Despatch_ office and caught him. In a few words
he told him what had happened, that he didn't know how long he might be
away and that if news came from Jim before his return to let him know.
Crowder promised.




CHAPTER XXV

WHAT JIM SAW


The next morning Crowder sent a letter to Fong advising him of Mark's
departure. Should Jim get back from Sacramento within the next few days
he was to communicate with Crowder at the _Despatch_ office. The young
man had no expectation of early news, but he was going to run no risks
with what promised to be a sensation. His journalist's instincts were
aroused, and he was resolved to keep for his own paper and his own
_kudos_ the most picturesque story that had ever come his way. He went
about his work, restless and impatient, seeing the story on the
_Despatch's_ front page and himself made the star reporter of the staff.

He had not long to wait. On Monday morning he was called from the city
room to the telephone. Through the transmitter came the soft and even
voice of Jim; he had returned from Sacramento the night before, and if it
was convenient for Mr. Crowder could see him that afternoon at two in
Portsmouth Square. Mr. Crowder would make it convenient, and Jim's
good-by hummed gently along the wire.

The small plaza--a bit of the multicolored East embedded in the new, drab
West--was a place where Orient and Occident touched hands. There Chinese
mothers sat on the benches watching their children playing at their feet,
and Chinese fathers carried babies, little bunched-up, fat things with
round faces and glistening onyx eyes. Sons of the Orient, bent on
business, passed along the paths, exchanging greetings in a sing-song of
nasal voices, cues braided with rose-colored silk swinging to their
knees. Above the vivid green of the grass and the dark flat branches of
cypress trees, the back of Chinatown rose, alien and exotic: railings
touched with gold and red, lanterns, round and crimson or oblong with
pale, skin-like coverings, on the window ledges blue and white bowls
upholding sheaves of lilies, the rich emblazonry of signs, the thick
gilded arabesques of a restaurant's screened balconies.

Crowder found his man standing by the pedestal on which the good ship
_Bonaventure_ spreads its shining sails before the winds of romance. A
quiet hail and they were strolling side by side to a bench sheltered by a
growth of laurel.

Mayer had appeared at the Whatcheer House the day before at noon. Jim,
crossing the back of the office, had seen him enter, and loitering heard
him tell the clerk that he would give up his room that afternoon as his
base had shifted to Oregon. Then he had gone upstairs, and Jim had
followed him and seen him go into No. 19, the last door at the end of the
hall on the left-hand side.

The hall was empty and very quiet. It was the lunch hour, a time at which
the place was deserted. Arming himself with a duster Jim had stolen down
the passage to No. 19. Standing by the door he could hear Mayer walking
about inside, and then a sound as if he was moving the furniture. With
the duster held ready for use Jim had looked through the keyhole and seen
Mayer with a chisel in his hand, the bed behind him drawn out from the
wall to the middle of the room.

Emboldened by the hall's silence, Jim had continued to watch. He saw
Mayer go to the corner where the bed had stood, lift the carpet and the
boards below it and take from beneath them two canvas sacks. From these
he shook a stream of gold coins--more than a thousand dollars, maybe two.
He let them lie there while he put back the sacks, replaced the boards
and carpet and pushed the bed into its corner. Then he gathered up the
money, rolling some of it in a piece of linen, which he packed in his
suitcase, and putting the rest in a money belt about his waist. After
that he took up his hat and Jim slipped away to a broom closet at the
upper end of the hall.

From here the Chinaman saw his quarry come out of the room and go down
the stairs. At the desk Mayer stopped, told the clerk he had vacated
No. 19, but would wait in the office for a while as his train was not
due to leave till the afternoon. From the stairhead Jim watched him
take a seat by the window, and, the suitcase at his feet, pick up a
paper and begin to read.

It was a rule of the Whatcheer House that a vacated room was subjected to
a "thorough cleaning." Translated this meant a run over the floor with a
carpet sweeper and a change of sheets. The door of No. 19 had been left
unlocked, and while Mayer sat in the office conning the paper, Jim with
the necessary rags and brooms was putting No. 19 in shape for the next
tenant. An inside bolt on the door made him secure against interruption,
and the bed drawn to the middle of the floor was part of the traditional
rite. Carpet and boards came up easily; his cache empty Mayer had not
troubled to renail them. In the space between the rafters and the
flooring Jim had found no more money, only a bunch of canvas sacks, and a
dirty newspaper. With the Chinaman's meticulous carefulness he had
brought these back to his employers; in proof of which he laid a small,
neatly tied package on Crowder's knee. For the rest his work was done.
He had paid the Whatcheer room boy and seen him reinstated, had followed
Mayer to the depot, viewed his transformation there, and ridden with him
on the night train back to San Francisco.

To Crowder's commending words he murmured a smiling deprecation. What
concerned him most was his "prize money," which was promised on Mark's
return. Then, nodding sagely to the young man's cautioning of secrecy, he
rose, and uninterested, imperturbably enigmatic and bland, passed out of
sight around the laurels.

Crowder, on the bench, slipped down to a comfortable angle and thought.
There was no doubt now--but what the devil did it mean? A concealed
hoard hidden under the floor of a men's lodging house--that could only
be stolen money. Where had he stolen it from? Was he some kind of
gentleman burglar, such as plays and novels had been built around? It
was a plausible explanation. He looked the part so well; lots of
swagger and side, and the whole thing a trifle overdone. _What_ a
story! Crowder licked his lips over it, seeing it splashed across the
front page. At that moment the parcel Jim had given him slipped off his
knee to the ground.

He had forgotten it, and a little shamefaced--for your true detective
studies the details before formulating his theory--picked it up and
opened it. Inside a newspaper, its outer sheets mud-stained and torn,
were six small bags of white canvas, marked with a stenciled "W. F. &
Co." Crowder sat erect and brushed back his pendent lock of hair. He knew
what the stenciled letters stood for as well as he knew his own initials.
Then he spread out the paper. It was the _Sacramento Courier_ of August
25. From the top of a column the heading of his own San Francisco letter
faced him, the bottom part torn away. But that did not interest him. It
was the date that held his eye--August 25--that was last summer--August
25, Wells Fargo--he muttered it over, staring at the paper, his glance
glassily fixed in the intensity of his mental endeavor.

Round date and name his memory circled, drawing toward a focus, curving
closer and closer, coming nearer in decreasing spirals, finally falling
on it. With the pounce a broken sentence fell from his lips: "The tules!
Knapp and Garland!"

For the first moment of startled realization he was so surprised that he
could not see how Mayer was implicated. Then his mind leaped the gap from
the holdup in August to that picturesque narrative still fresh in the
public mind--Knapp's story of the robbed cache. The recollection came
with an impact that held him breathless; incidents, details, dates,
marshaling themselves in a corroborating sequence. When he saw it clear,
unrolled before his mental vision in a series of events, neatly fitting,
accurately dovetailed, he sat up looking stupidly about him like a person
emerging from sleep.

He had work to do at the office, but on the way there stopped at the
Express Company for a word with Robinson, one of the clerks, whom he
knew. He wanted information of any losses by theft or accident sustained
by the company since the middle of the preceding August. Robinson
promised to look up the subject and let him know before the closing hour.
At six Crowder was summoned to one of the telephone booths in the city
room. Robinson had inquired: during the time specified Wells Fargo and
Company had suffered but one loss. This was on the twenty-sixth of
August, when Knapp and Garland had held up the Rocky Bar stage and taken
thousand dollars in coin consigned to the Greenhide Mine at Antelope.

It was Crowder's habit to dine at Philip's Rotisserie at half past six.
They liked him at Philip's. Madame at her desk, fat and gray-haired, with
a bunch of pink roses at one elbow and a sleeping cat at the other,
always had time for a chat with "Monsieur Crowdare." Even Philip himself,
in his chef's cap and apron, would emerge from the kitchen and confer
with the favored guest. But tonight "Monsieur Crowdare" had no words for
anyone. He did no more than nod to Madame, and Gaston, the waiter,
afterward told her he had hardly looked at the menu--just said bring
anything, he didn't care what. Madame was quite worried over it, hoped
"_le cher garcon_" wasn't sick, and comforted herself by thinking he
might be in love.

Never before in his cheery existence had Crowder been so excited. Over
his unsavored dinner he studied the situation, planning his course. He
was resolved on one point--to keep the rights of discovery for the
_Despatch_. He could manage this, making it a condition when he laid his
knowledge before the Express Company people. That would be his next move,
and he ought to do it soon; Mayer's withdrawal of the money might
indicate an intention of disappearing. He would go to Wells Fargo and
tell them what he had found out, asking in return that the results of
their investigation should be given to him for first publication in the
_Despatch_.

It was a pity Mark wasn't there--he didn't like acting without Mark. But
matters were moving too quickly now to take any chances. There was no
telephone at the ranch, or he could have called up long-distance, and a
telegram, to be intelligible, would have to be too explicit. He would
write to Mark tomorrow, or perhaps the next day--after he had seen the
Express people.

To be secret as the grave was the charge Crowder laid upon himself, but
he longed to let loose some of the ferment that seethed within him, and
in his longing remembered the one person to whom he dared go--Pancha.
Hers were the legitimate ears to receive the racy tale. She was not only
to be trusted--a pal as reliable as a man--but it would cure her of her
infatuation, effectually crush out the passion that had devastated her.




CHAPTER XXVI

PANCHA WRITES A LETTER


Pancha had been much alone. Crowder had seen her several times, the
doctor had come, the chambermaid, one or two of her confreres from the
theater. But there had been long, dreary hours when she had lain
motionless, looking at the walls and thinking of her wrongs. She had
gone over and over the old ground, trodden the weary round like a
squirrel in a cage, asked herself the same questions and searched,
tormented, for their answers. As the days passed the weight of her
grievance grew, and her sick soul yearned to hit back at the man who had
so wantonly wounded her.

Gradually, from the turmoil an idea of retaliation was churned into
being. It did not reach the point of action till Monday evening. Then it
rose before her imperious, a vengeance, subtle and if not complete, at
least as satisfying as anything could be to her sore heart. It was that
expression of futile anger and poisoned musings, an anonymous letter. She
wrote it on the pink note paper which she had bought to write to Mayer
on. It ran as follows:

Dear Lady:

This letter is to warn you. It comes from a person friendly to you and
who wants to put you wise to something you ought to know. It's about Boye
Mayer, him that goes to your house and is after your sister. Maybe you
don't know that, but _I_ do--it's truth what I'm telling you every word.
He's no good. Not the kind to go round with your kind. It's your sister's
money he wants. If she had none he'd not trouble to meet her in the
plaza opposite the Greek Church. Watch out for him--don't let her go with
him. Don't let her marry him or you'll curse the day. I know him well and
I know he's bad right through.

Wishing you well,

FROM A FRIEND.


She had written the letter to Lorry as the elder sister, whose name she
had seen in the papers and whom Crowder had described as the intelligent
one with brains and character. Her woman's instinct told her that her
charges might have no weight with the younger girl, under the spell of
those cajoleries and blandishments whose power she knew so well. With the
letter in her hand she crept out to the stairhead and called to the clerk
in the office below. Gushing had not come on duty yet, and it was the day
man who answered her summons. She asked him to post the letter that
night, and he promised to do so. The lives of the group of which this
story tells were drawing in to a point of fusion. In the centripetal
movement this insignificant incident had its importance. The man forgot
his promise, and it was not till the next day at lunch that he thought of
the letter, posting it on his way back to the hotel.

In her room again, Pancha dropped on the sofa, and lay still. The
exertion had taxed her strength and she felt sick and tremulous. But she
thought of what she had done with a grim relish, savored like a burning
morsel on her tongue, the bitter-sweet of revenge.

Here an hour later Crowder found her. She was glad to see him, and told
him she was better, but the doctor would not let her get up yet.

"And even if he would," she said, "I don't want to. I'm that weak,
Charlie, you can't think. It's as if the thing that made me alive was
gone, and I was just the same as dead."

Crowder thought he understood his friend Pancha even as he did his friend
Mark. That she could have complexities and reservations beyond his simple
ken had never occurred to him. What he saw on the surface was what she
was, and being so, the news he was bringing would be as a tonic to her
broken spirit.

"You'll not stay that way long, Panchita," he said. "You'll be on the job
soon now. And what I've come to tell you will help on the good work. I've
got a story for you that'll straighten out all the creases and bring you
up on your feet better than a steam derrick would."

"What is it?" She did not seem especially interested, her glance
listless, her hand lying languid where he had dropped it.

"It's about Mayer."

He was rewarded by seeing her shift her head on the pillow that she might
command him with a vivid, bird-bright eye.

"What about him?"

"Every thing, my dear. We've got him coming and going. We've got him dead
to rights. He's a rogue and a thief."

With her hands spread flat on either side of her she raised herself to a
sitting posture. Her face, framed in its bush of hair, had a look of
strained, almost wild, inquiry.

"Thief!" she exclaimed.

"Yes. It's a honeycooler of a story. Burst out all of a sudden like a
night blooming cereus. But before I say a word you've got to promise on
everything you hold sacred that you won't breathe a word of it."

"I promise."

"It's only for a little while. It'll be public property in a day or
two--Thursday or Friday maybe."

Scottish book of the year goes to Kieron Smith, Boy by James Kelman

The barrister Constance Briscoe has won the libel case brought against her by her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, over her bestselling misery memoir Ugly, in which she accused Briscoe-Mitchell of childhood cruelty and neglect.

Briscoe-Mitchell claimed the allegations were "a piece of fiction", and sued Briscoe and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton for libel.

A 10-day hearing at the high court in London concluded earlier today with a unanimous verdict from the jury after more than a day's deliberation. Speaking outside the court, Briscoe, a part-time judge, said she was "very happy" with the verdict.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career," she said. "I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial, but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors, it should never be swept under the carpet."

The hearing saw Briscoe tell Mr Justice Tugendhat and a jury how her mother beat her with a stick for wetting the bed, called her a "dirty little whore" and drove her to attempt suicide by drinking bleach.

Briscoe's account of her upbringing was published in 2006 and has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.

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Would you have your ashes scattered in Jane Austen's garden?
American film producer to publish version of the Bible in which God says it is better to be gay than straight

The royal family doesn't need a poet

The power of Jane Austen never ceases to amaze: the myriad film and TV adaptations, the biopics, the spin-off self-help books, the novels about Austen book clubs and Austen obsessives and even, next spring, the publication of a book about "how Jane Austen conquered the world" (Jane's Fame, by Clare Harman). And now comes the just-too-weird story that deceased fans of Jane Austen have been banned from having their ashes scattered in her garden. In a letter to the Jane Austen Society, Louise West, the collections manager of Jane Austen's House Museum, wrote: "While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow. It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!" (Or is it? Surely a small quantity of fresh ashes judiciously placed beneath a hydrangea bush is just the ticket?)

Anyway, leaving aside the Gardeners' Question Time minutiae, what on earth is going on here? I like an Austen novel as much as the next person – I probably reread my way through the complete works every couple of years – but I am baffled as to why one would want to be laid to rest among the flowerbeds of Chawton. The only explanation is the currently unstoppable power of the Austen cult, fuelled by Colin Firth in a wet blouse, by Andrew Davies's adaptations, and by Hollywood. I'm all for enjoying books, but the cult of Austen has reached ridiculous proportions. In a post-feminist world that should know better, she seems to be adored as the comforting provider of romantic, happy-endings nonsense instead of the sharp and acerbic social satirist she deserves to be seen as.

(Does anyone actually believe her, by the way, when she foretells a happy marriage for Darcey and Elizabeth? I fear a woman as interesting as Elizabeth would be sorely disappointed with this standard-issue British Repressed Public-school Man - hopeless emotionally, and probably hopeless in bed.)

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