The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  VII

  Louis Bassett was standing at the back of the theater, talking to thepublicity man of The Valley company, Fred Gregory. Bassett was calm andonly slightly interested. By the end of the first act he had realizedthat the star was giving a fine performance, that she had even grown inpower, and that his sentimental memory of her was considerably dearerthan the reality.

  "Going like a house afire," he said, as the curtain fell.

  Beside his robust physique, Gregory, the publicity man, sank intoinsignificance. Even his pale spats, at which Bassett had shot acontemptuous glance, his highly expensive tailoring, failed to make himappear more than he was, a little, dapper man, with a pale cold eye anda rather too frequent smile. "She's the best there is," was his comment.He hesitated, then added: "She's my sister, you know. Naturally, forbusiness reasons, I don't publish the relationship."

  Bassett glanced at him.

  "That so? Well, I'm glad she decided to come back. She's too good tobury."

  But if he expected Gregory to follow the lead he was disappointed. Hiseyes, blank and expressionless, were wandering over the house as thelights flashed up.

  "This whole tour has been a triumph. She's the best there is," Gregoryrepeated, "and they know it."

  "Does she know it?" Bassett inquired.

  "She doesn't throw any temperament, if that's what you mean. She--"

  He checked himself suddenly, and stood, clutching the railing, bentforward and staring into the audience. Bassett watched him, considerablysurprised. It took a great deal to startle a theatrical publicity man,yet here was one who looked as though he had seen a ghost.

  After a time Gregory straightened and moistened his dry lips.

  "There's a man sitting down there--see here, the sixth row, next theaisle; there's a girl in a blue dress beside him. See him? Do you knowwho he is?"

  "Never saw him before."

  For perhaps two minutes Gregory continued to stare. Then he moved overto the side of the house and braced against the wall continued his closeand anxious inspection. After a time he turned away and, passing behindthe boxes, made his way into the wings. Bassett's curiosity was aroused,especially when, shortly after, Gregory reappeared, bringing with hima small man in an untidy suit who was probably, Bassett surmised, thestage manager.

  He saw the small man stare, nod, stand watching, and finally disappear,and Gregory resume his former position and attitude against the sidewall. Throughout the last act Gregory did not once look at the stage. Hecontinued his steady, unwavering study of the man in the sixth row seatnext the aisle, and Bassett continued his study of the little man.

  His long training made him quick to scent a story. He was not sure, ofcourse, but the situation appeared to him at least suggestive. With theend of the play he wandered out with the crowd, edging his way close tothe man and girl who had focused Gregory's attention, and following theminto the street. He saw only a tall man with a certain quiet distinctionof bearing, and a young and pretty girl, still flushed and excited, whowent up the street a short distance and got into a small and shabby car.Bassett noted, carefully, the license number of the car.

  Then, still curious and extremely interested, he walked briskly aroundto the stage entrance, nodded to the doorkeeper, and went in.

  Gregory was not in sight, but the stage manager was there, directing thestriking of the last set.

  "I'm waiting for Gregory," Bassett said. "Hasn't fainted, has he?"

  "What d'you mean, fainted?" inquired the stage manager, with a touch ofhostility.

  "I was with him when he thought he recognized somebody. You know who.You can tell him I got his automobile number."

  The stage manager's hostility faded, and he fell into the trap. "Youknow about it, then?"

  "I was with him when he saw him. Unfortunately I couldn't help him out."

  "It's just possible it's a chance resemblance. I'm darned if I know.Look at the facts! He's supposed to be dead. Ten years dead. His money'sbeen split up a dozen ways from the ace. Then--I knew him, you know--Idon't think even he would have the courage to come here and sit througha performance. Although," he added reflectively, "Jud Clark had thenerve for anything."

  Bassett gave him a cigar and went out into the alley way that led to thestreet. Once there, he stood still and softly whistled. Jud Clark! Ifthat was Judson Clark, he had the story of a lifetime.

  For some time he walked the deserted streets of the city, thinking andpuzzling over the possibility of Gregory's being right. Sometime aftermidnight he went back to the office and to the filing room. There, fortwo hours, he sat reading closely old files of the paper, going throughthem methodically and making occasional brief notes in a memorandum.Then, at two o'clock he put away the files, and sitting back, lighted acigar.

  It was all there; the enormous Clark fortune inherited by a boy who hadgone mad about this same Beverly Carlysle; her marriage to her leadingman, Howard Lucas; the subsequent killing of Lucas by Clark at hisWyoming ranch, and Clark's escape into the mountains. The sensationaldetails of Clark's infatuation, the drama of a crime and Clark'ssubsequent escape, and the later certainty of his death in a mountainstorm had filled the newspapers of the time for weeks. Judson Clark hadbeen famous, notorious, infamous and dead, all in less than two years. Ashameful and somehow a pitiful story.

  But if Judson Clark had died, the story still lived. Every so often itcame up again. Three years before he had been declared legally dead, andhis vast estates, as provided by the will of old Elihu Clark, had goneto universities and hospitals. But now and then came a rumor. Jud Clarkwas living in India; he had a cattle ranch in Venezuela; he had beenseen on the streets of New Orleans.

  Bassett ran over the situation in his mind.

  First then, grant that Clark was still living and had been in thetheater that night. It became necessary to grant other things. To grant,for instance, that Clark was capable of sitting, with a girl beside him,through a performance by the woman for whom he had wrecked his life, ofa play he had once known from the opening line to the tag. To grant thathe could laugh and applaud, and at the drop of the curtain go calmlyaway, with such memories behind him as must be his. To grant, too, thathe had survived miraculously his sensational disappearance, found a newidentity and a new place for himself; even, witness the girl, possiblenew ties.

  At half past two Bassett closed his memorandum book, stuffed it into hispocket, and started for home. As he passed the Ardmore Hotel he lookedup at its windows. Gregory would have told her, probably. He wondered,half amused, whether the stage manager had told him of his inquiries,and whether in that case they might not fear him more than Clarkhimself. After all, they had nothing to fear from Clark, if this wereClark.

  No. What they might see and dread, knowing he had had a hint of apossible situation, was the revival of the old story she had tried sohard to live down. She was ambitious, and a new and rigid morality wassweeping the country. What once might have been an asset stood now to bea bitter liability.

  He slowed down, absorbed in deep thought. It was a queer story. It mightbe even more queer than it seemed. Gregory had been frightened ratherthan startled. The man had even gone pale.

  Motive, motive, that was the word. What motive lay behind action.Conscious and unconscious, every volitional act was the result ofmotive.

  He wondered what she had done when Gregory had told her.

  As a matter of fact, Beverly Carlysle had shown less anxiety thanher brother. Still pale and shocked, he had gone directly to herdressing-room when the curtain was rung down, had tapped and gone in.She was sitting wearily in a chair, a cigarette between her fingers.Around was the usual litter of a stage dressing-room after the play, thelong shelf beneath the mirror crowded with powders, rouge and pencils,a bunch of roses in the corner washstand basin, a wardrobe trunk, and amaid covering with cheese-cloth bags the evening's costumes.

  "It went all right, I think, Fred."

  "Yes," he said absently. "Go on out, Alice. I'll let you come back in a
few minutes."

  He waited until the door closed.

  "What's the matter?" she asked rather indifferently. "If it's morequarreling in the company I don't want to hear it. I'm tired." Then shetook a full look at him, and sat up.

  "Fred! What is it?"

  He gave her the truth, brutally and at once.

  "I think Judson Clark was in the house to-night."

  "I don't believe it."

  "Neither would I, if somebody told me," he agreed sullenly. "I sawhim. Don't you suppose I know him? And if you don't believe me, callSaunders. I got him out front. He knows."

  "You called Saunders!"

  "Why not? I tell you, Bev, I was nearly crazy. I'm nearly crazy now."

  "What did Saunders say?"

  "If he didn't know Clark was dead, he'd say it was Clark."

  She was worried by that time, but far more collected than he was. Shesat, absently tapping the shelf with a nail file, and reflecting.

  "All right," she said. "Suppose he was? What then? He has been in hidingfor ten years. Why shouldn't he continue to hide? What would bring himout now? Unless he needed money. Was he shabby?"

  "No," he said sulkily. "He was with a girl. He was dressed all right."

  "You didn't say anything, except to Saunders?"

  "No I'm not crazy."

  "I'd better see Joe," she reflected. "Go and get him, Fred. And tellAlice she needn't wait."

  She got up and moved about the room, putting things away and findingrelief in movement, a still beautiful woman, with rather accentuatedfeatures and an easy carriage. Without her make-up the stage illusionof her youth was gone, and she showed past suffering and present strain.Just then she was uneasy and resentful, startled but not particularlyalarmed. Her reason told her that Judson Clark, even if he still livedand had been there that night, meant to leave the dead past to care foritself, and wished no more than she to revive it. She was surprised tofind, as she moved about, that she was trembling.

  Her brother came back, and she turned to meet him. To her surprise hewas standing inside the door, white to the lips and staring at her withwild eyes.

  "Saunders!" he said chokingly, "Saunders, the damned fool! He's given itaway."

  He staggered to a chair, and ran a handkerchief across his shaking lips.

  "He told Bassett, of the Times-Republican," he managed to say. "Doyou--do you know what that means? And Bassett got Clark's automobilenumber. He said so."

  He looked up at her, his face twitching. "They're hound dogs on a scent,Bev. They'll get the story, and blow it wide open."

  "You know I'm prepared for that. I have been for ten years."

  "I know." He was suddenly emotional. He reached out and took her hand."Poor old Bev!" he said. "After the way you've come back, too. It's adamned shame."

  She was calmer than he was, less convinced for one thing, and betterbalanced always. She let him stroke her hand, standing near him with hereyes absent and a little hard.

  "I'd better make sure that was Jud first," he offered, after a time,"and then warn him."

  "Why?"

  "Bassett will be after him."

  "No!" she commanded sharply. "No, Fred. You let the thing alone. You'vebuilt up an imaginary situation, and you're not thinking straight.Plenty of things might happen. What probably has happened is that thisBassett is at home and in bed."

  She sent him out for a taxi soon after, and they went back to the hotel.But, alone later on in her suite in the Ardmore she did not immediatelygo to bed. She put on a dressing gown and stood for a long time by herwindow, looking out. Instead of the city lights, however, she saw arange of snow-capped mountains, and sheltered at their foot the Clarkranch house, built by the old millionaire as a place of occasionalrefuge from the pressure of his life. There he had raised his finehorses, and trained them for the track. There, when late in life hemarried, he had taken his wife for their honeymoon and two years later,for the birth of their son. And there, when she died, he had returnedwith the child, himself broken and prematurely aged, to be killed by oneof his own stallions when the boy was fifteen.

  Six years his own master, Judson had been twenty-one to her twenty, whenshe first met him. Going the usual pace, too, and throwing money rightand left. He had financed her as a star, ransacking Europe for herstage properties, and then he fell in love with her. She shivered as sheremembered it. It had been desperate and terrible, because she had caredfor some one else.

  Standing by the window, she wondered as she had done over and over againfor ten years, what would have happened if, instead of marrying Howard,she had married Judson Clark? Would he have settled down? She had feltsometimes that in his wildest moments he was only playing a game thatamused him; that the hard-headed part of him inherited from his fathersometimes stood off and watched, with a sort of interested detachment,the follies of the other. That he played his wild game with his tonguein his cheek.

  She left the window, turned out the lights and got into her bed. Shewas depressed and lonely, and she cried a little. After a time sheremembered that she had not put any cream on her face. She crawled outagain and went through the familiar motions in the dark.