MAXFARGUS

By

OWEN JOHNSON

Author of "Arrows of the Almighty" and "In the Name of Liberty."

New York THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY UNION SQUARE NORTH

[Pg iv]

Copyright, 1906, by The Baker & Taylor Company ——— Published, September, 1906

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

[Pg v]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 9]

MAX FARGUS

CHAPTER I THE HOUSE OF THE TIN SAILOR

In a street, uniform and dedicated it would seem to commonplace existences, there was taking place, on a certain evening in March, 187-, a chapter in one of the most perplexing and mysterious of dramas which the scramble for wealth has known; whose denouement, unsuspected by neighbors and hidden from the press, holds the secret of the rise of one of the most forceful and brutal individualities that have dominated the city.

Near Stuyvesant Square, which then presented in the waste of New York, a charming oasis, serene and calm with the quiet of Colonial dignity; in one of the side streets east of Second Avenue there extended an unbroken march of[Pg 10] red brick houses, uniform as though homes were fashioned wholesale. The block was clear of the skirts of fashion which gathered about the square, yet rescued from the squalor into which the street suddenly sank as it passed east under the brutal yoke of the Elevated.

It belonged to mediocre life, to those who earned two thousand a year, who paid a third of their income in rent, went rarely to the theater and always to church, where occasionally the children fetched the family beer in pail and pitcher; a street of one servant or none at all; one of those indistinct half-way stations of the city where fortune and misfortune, ascending and descending, pass; where one finds the small shopkeeper, the clerk who is rising next to the doctor whose patients have left him, or the lawyer who has missed his leap. Towards the east a saloon made the corner, while a few doors nearer a brothel displayed its red ensign, before which, in the daytime, the children romped without distinction. [Pg 11]Already several doorways invited board and lodging, signs of the invasion which sooner or later would claim the street.

A third of the way down the block, on the north side, there projected above a doorway the figure of a tin sailor, balancing two paddles which the breeze caused to revolve. Some one in whom the instinct of home was strong had placed it there in protest against the tyranny of uniformity, while succeeding tenants, grateful for the indication, had left it undisturbed.

By eleven o'clock of the night on which this story opens, beside the distant red lantern of the brothel and a few top-story lights there was only the parlor window, under the odd weather-vane, whose bright edge cut into the blackness of the street. The shade, contrary to custom, was lowered, but at each approaching step the silhouette of a woman crossed it hurriedly in the direction of the door.

Shortly after the bells of a dozen churches had cried the hour, a man coming from the[Pg 12] west passed under the lamp-post, carrying a satchel and striding with that nervous intensity which the tumult of New York injects into the legs.

As he perceived the lighted window his advance suddenly relaxed, until opposite the door, in default of a number, he began to seek in the shadow the presence of the creaking boatman. Then, noticing the silhouette on the shade, as though assured of his destination he sprang up the steps. Before he could seize the bell the door was thrown open and he passed into the house.

A woman in the thirties, pretty, dressed in white, closed the door after him and remained weakly leaning against the wall, awaiting in agitation his first word. He gave her a nod, took a step, turned and looked at her sharply, then busied himself with his coat. Suddenly the woman stretched out her hand and cried, with the hopelessness of one for whom the question can bring but one answer:

"Bofinger, what is it? Tell me!"

[Pg 13]

"Oh, it's good news," he said laconically, placing his bag on the floor, "good enough."

"He's alive—my husband is alive!" she stammered, her eyes filling with nervous, incredulous tears.

"Alive!" he exclaimed, rising his voice to a shout, while his head jerked about. But in a moment the amazement gave way to unbelief and he continued, with the irony of one impatient with feminine hypocrisy, "Max Fargus, my dear Sheila, is dead; done for by bandits, accommodating little greasers, bless their souls!"

He turned his back on her scornfully, busying himself with finding a hook in the dark hallway. The woman had received the news like a blow in the face. She swayed back against the door, her hands went to her lips, then to her throat as though to stifle a cry, and for a moment she seemed about to fall. Then suddenly her eyes returned in fear to the contemptuous back of the lawyer and she controlled herself by a violent effort, passing[Pg 14] before him into the parlor to hide the agitation on her face.

"Shed a few tears for the public, my dear," he called out, following her with the impertinence of a man who has a right to dispense with civilities. "You can afford them; for eventually you'll come into as tidy a fortune as was ever won in six months' time. But before we get down to business, Sheila my dear, I am starving; could you get me a bite."

Seizing further opportunity to prepare herself for the encounter she passed into the dining-room, after bidding him be seated with a conventionality as marked as his affectation of intimacy. As he was settling in a chair he suddenly remembered his bag and returned to the vestibule.

The parlor breathed an air of imitation and a striving for luxury, which after the first impression of ridicule had a certain note of pathos. Everything was of the factory, with the odor of the bargain-counter. One saw the decoration before the body, overwhelmed by a [Pg 15]confused sense of plush and gilt, of reds and greens, of false cherubs and artificial flowers, of airy, bejeweled furniture for which, in the department stores, one imagines in vain a purchaser. In the medallion carpet all the colors fought, in the portieres the Byzantine wrestled with the Gothic, the Roman with the Greek.

Before selecting a comfortable chair, Bofinger peeled off a pair of yellow gloves, looked about in indecision and placed them gingerly on an étagère. Next, whisking out a lilac handkerchief, he slapped vigorously the dust from his shoes. Then bringing forth a number of documents from the bag he smoothed them nervously on his knee, replaced them, and suddenly raised his head to follow the movements of the woman with a perplexed intensity, in which there was both irritation and anxiety.

On the body of a dandy was set the head of a comedian. One and the other produced a like impression of sham. He was too solicitous of his clothes, too conscious of his manner.[Pg 16] His collar was worn with discomfort, his checked tweed cutaway was too tight, his shoes too new; while, on establishing himself in his chair, he had thrown open his coat on a buckskin vest, heavily sealed, and a purple tie, held in four-in-hand by a fat horseshoe, with the ill-at-ease of the man who never quite familiarizes himself with his own audacity.

The head had the prominent bones of the Yankee with a suggestion of the Italian in the sallowness of the complexion and the limpidity of the eyes, which when most gracious had a warning of treachery. He smiled much, but the smile was as constrained as his dress. Though not far in the thirties, his face was sown with lines, while at each thought flurries showed on the forehead and the cheeks, which from constant conscription had come to never remaining still. His ears were so small that they seemed almost a deformity. The nose, which was impressive and slightly pointed, told more of cunning than of sagacity; the mouth, open and pliant, was the mouth of the[Pg 17] demagogue and the orator, which lets escape the torrent of phrases.

One divined the man who played at will the tyrant or the servitor, who browbeat the timid and flattered the strong, who bellowed in a police court, but who tiptoed for a favor and could on occasion listen obsequiously. Finally his jet hair, which he enforced into parting in the middle and plastered to his scalp, in the back rose like the comb of a cockatoo. This rebellious movement to the repression of the front was significant of the whole man.

When Mrs. Fargus returned with a tray all traces of emotion had vanished. Watching her, the lawyer voiced the amazement that had been in his mind from the first.

"Sheila, you are astonishingly pretty to-night."

"Really!" she said, and despite her alarm she sent a glance to the mirror.

Over the loose white muslin, free at the throat and at the elbows, she wore a filmy scarf of red chiffon, subtle as a mist, which,[Pg 18] encircling her shoulders, came to a loose knot and fell to her feet in a sanguine line. It was a striking effect which perplexed the eye, and threw in bold relief the waves of her black hair and the rather high color of her complexion; but emphasized in the general voluptuousness the surprising contrast of the eyes which, gray with a slight blue tinge, were cold, without passion or enticement.

Intrigued at the contrast of her indifference with her first agitation, Bofinger was careful not to open the conversation, knowing that it is easier to penetrate the hypocrisy of an enforced question than to discover truth in a guarded answer.

Mrs. Fargus, seeing at last that the situation compelled her to speak, rested her chin on her palm and said as though to herself:

"So Fargus is dead!"

"Eh, eh!" the lawyer cried instantly, shooting a sharp look, "a moment ago that overwhelmed you. But you are reconciled already, I suppose."

[Pg 19]

She showed some confusion, but returned immediately:

"Sure I'm shocked; poor fellow, after all he did love me."

Displeased to find her self-possessed, the lawyer, not to waken her mistrust, seemed to accept her attitude by launching into a diatribe.

"Yes, yes, cling to your respectability. You women are all the same. Virtue always! Do you do it to fool us or yourselves? Come now, you know that old Fargus's death is a stroke of luck! Why the deuce, then, don't you admit it?"

"You don't understand," she said coldly.

He searched her face with aroused curiosity, saying to himself, "No, my lady, you bet I don't." Then continuing his plan of battle he occupied himself with his plate.

"You brought him, the body, back," she asked presently.

"No," he answered irritably, and pushed back his plate with impatience.

[Pg 20]

"Why not?" she asked, noticing his annoyance.

"That is a long story and goes with the rest," he said rising. "Now, my dear, we'll get down to it."

In the parlor, as he was taking a chair, he recollected himself and demanded with a jerk of his head:

"Any one up there?"

"I sent the girl away," she answered, "as you said."

"Nevertheless," he replied slowly, "I guess I'll satisfy myself of that."

"Yes, I supposed you would," she said with a shrug, "I left the gas on."

The unlooked-for reply halted him. He vacillated a moment suspiciously, wondering whether to accept the situation, but, the shyster prevailing, he turned on his heel and went up the stairs.

The woman smiled with the consciousness of a first advantage. But no sooner did the steps creak than she abandoned herself to a[Pg 21] paroxysm of despair, twisting and turning the scarf in her hands until it cut them, as though to fight with the physical sting the agony of the mind. Yet in this violent return to her first agitation there was nothing to suggest grief for another; rather she seemed a prey to the torments of the gambler who, by a sudden upset, sees a fortune elude his fingers, dissipating in the air. She was, at the first glance, of that gay and fragile class who comprehend nothing but pleasure and see pleasure bounded only by the narrow limits of youth, into which they wish to compress all emotions, all desires, and all sensations; who pursue their ideals, palpitating and with bandaged eyes, and are consumed alike by their gratification and their hunger. On them weigh perhaps the heaviest the inequalities of society. Mixtures of desires and scruples, peculiarly American, swayed by conflicting ideals and prejudices, they

wish to taste of the glittering world at any price except at the price of outward respectability. A young man attracted to Sheila[Pg 22] Fargus by her facile beauty would have mistaken her for an adventuress or a saint. A man of the world, knowing her weakness and her fetishes, would have recognized that she might become either.

As soon as the step of Bofinger was heard returning, she drew herself hastily together, but the lawyer, to further satisfy himself, passed into the kitchen.

She rose, inhaled a long breath, extended her arms as though to shake off the rigidity of her emotion, and finding herself pale, pinched her cheeks. The lawyer returned too conscious of his tactical disadvantage to notice the traces of her agitation.

"So you feel at rest now," she said maliciously.

"My dear, take it as a tribute to you," he answered. "You had the air of truth but you might have been—"

"More clever?"

"Exactly," he said. "You can't be sure with a woman."

[Pg 23]

To shut off further reference he cast himself back in his chair, brought his fingers to a cage, and demanded, as though from impulse, "Sheila, answer this—and carefully, for it is vital. Before Fargus left for Mexico did he show any suspicion?"

"Why, no," she answered, too visibly surprised not to be telling the truth; "sure he didn't."

"What, not the slightest suspicion of our relations?" he persisted. "Think well,—Fargus who was suspicion itself! And he didn't at some time suspect either you or me!"

She reflected a moment, started to answer, and then shook her head.

"No, no, not once."

The hesitation was not lost on the lawyer, who continued:

"But did he seem much in love?"

"Why, he adored me!" she cried. She examined him curiously, noting again his restrained irritation, and asked, "What funny questions! Why do you ask them?"

[Pg 24]

"On account of a number of suspicious circumstances," he answered irritably. "Well, you know Fargus; he was not an ordinary man. However—"

He took up his documents, sifting them to count them. Then, at the moment when Sheila, preparing to listen, was off her guard, he launched the question he had held in reserve.

"Did he tell you why he went to Mexico?"

"Why," she said, "I suppose, on business."

"He told you what business."

"No."

The two looked in each other's eyes.

"She lies," thought the lawyer.

"He knows I lie," she said to herself, palpitating, but she did not dare avert her glance.

[Pg 25]

CHAPTER II IN THE EYES OF THE LAW

To Sheila's surprise, instead of the browbeating she had learned to expect, she saw that for some incomprehensible reason it suited him to accept the denial.

"He went to investigate a silver mine," he said after a moment.

"A mine!" she exclaimed; and the knowledge that he had not challenged the lie gave to the exclamation a vehemence so well simulated that it left him somewhat shaken in his first impression.

"That at least is my conviction," he said. "Now for the story."

He spoke rapidly, recounting in trivial detail the various steps by which he had traced Fargus to Mexico and into the dangerous mining region of Durango. From time to time[Pg 26] Sheila, who suffered under these numerous details, interrupted, saying:

"Leave that."

"Be more brief."

"But tell me, tell me first of his death!"

"Here we are," Bofinger said finally, after completing without deviation his methodical recital. "On the twenty-fifth day of January, the last day of his life, he quarreled with his attendants and dismissed them. Despite all warnings he then pushed on in the sole company of an Indian breed and arrived at two o'clock at the ranch of a Mexican, Manuel Stroba. Here is his affidavit, the importance of which you'll see later."

As he prepared to read it, she snatched it from his hand, crying:

"Afterward! Go on; oh, do go on!"

"At three o'clock, Fargus left the ranch, intending to make a mission five miles away. The next morning Stroba, in passing through a defile six miles on, the scene of a dozen hold-ups, found the bodies of the two horses. The[Pg 27] packs were scattered on the ground alongside of the coat and hat of Fargus stained with blood, in fact everything to indicate a violent conflict, except—except not the slightest trace of Fargus or the half-breed."

She sprang up.

"But then," she cried all in one breath, "he could be alive!"

He looked at her, astonished again at her emotion.

"If it happened yesterday—perhaps," he admitted; adding quickly, with the emphasis a man gives to a statement of which he is determined to be convinced, "but this happened on the twenty-sixth of January and we are now the end of March. If he was taken by bandits, it was for ransom, and if he lived they would have served notice immediately. No, Fargus is dead—dead without a doubt. For me, I suspect the half-breed. He could have murdered him, buried the body, shot the horses, and arranged things to make it seem as though he had shared the same fate. Unfortunately,"[Pg 28] he added moodily, "unfortunately there is no conceivable way of proving that most necessary fact!"

The ominous significance of his last remark was lost on her. The flash of hope which had so mystified the lawyer disappeared in the dejection caused by his logic. There passed through her an immense breath, which like a tumultuous burst of wind seemed to whirl away a multitude of longings and desires. She remained silent, overwhelmed and convinced.

"But you said there were suspicious circumstances," she said at last. "What circumstances?"

"First," he replied, watching her, "why should he have taken such a journey, at such a risk?"

She shook her head.

"And the next?"

"This. No one in the mines, not a soul, knew of his coming;—in fact, no one had ever heard of the existence of Max Fargus."

[Pg 29]

This time she could not repress an exclamation.

"So, that does surprise you," he said quickly.

"Why, yes—of course," she admitted grudgingly. She rose, took a step, and reseated herself. "Still, if he were thinking of buying a mine, wouldn't it be like him to look it over first without being known. That might be it."

Bofinger understood that she wished thus to convey to him her knowledge, but without appearing to notice the contradiction, he suddenly broke out:

"What luck, what damnable luck! And I did everything, scoured the country, offered a dozen rewards for the body! No use, not a trace, not a single clew!"

Sheila, who had expected to find him triumphant, recognized again with growing anxiety the note of disaster in his voice.

"Something is wrong?" she said, leaning forward suddenly.

He rose, gave her a glance as though to estimate the probabilities of her attitude, then,[Pg 30] oblivious to her presence, suddenly allowed all his anger and defeat to appear.

"It is inconceivable, monstrous, absurd! It is enough to make me superstitious! But that's the way it goes in this world! I surmount everything. I put to sleep the suspicions of a crazy man, play him till he marries you. Good! Everything succeeds like magic. He goes to Mexico on some tantrum and is killed. So far magnificent! Fargus out of the way, the property ours. Nothing could be better. One would say heaven had ordained it. And then—there comes an impossible, an absurd turn,—a preposterous, idiotic bit of luck, and we are stranded high and dry!" He flung himself down and, jarring the table with his fists, cried: "It is enough to make me believe in Providence!"

"But what, what has happened?" she cried, now thoroughly alarmed. "Is there a will?"

"True, you don't see it. You're not a lawyer," he said, stopping short. "Ah, the law is a beautiful thing, a marvelously beautiful[Pg 31] thing, my dear! You are satisfied he is dead, aren't you?"

She hesitated, looking at him, wondering if there might be a doubt.