The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  XVIII

  Dick stood with the letter in his hand, staring at it. Who was Bassett?Who was "G"? What had the departure of whoever Bassett might be forNorada to do with David? And who was the person who was to be got out oftown?

  He did not go upstairs. He took the letter into his private office,closed the door, and sitting down at his desk turned his reading lamp onit, as though that physical act might bring some mental light.

  Reread, the cryptic sentences began to take on meaning. An unknown namedBassett, whoever he might be, was going to Norada bent on "mischief,"and another unknown who signed himself "G" was warning David of thatfact. But the mischief was designed, not against David, but against athird unknown, some one who was to be got out of town.

  David had been trying to get him out of town.--The warning referred tohimself.

  His first impulse was to go to David, and months later he was to wonderwhat would have happened had he done so. How far could Bassett havegone? What would have been his own decision when he learned the truth?

  For a little while, then, the shuttle was in Dick's own hand. He went upto David's room, and with his hand on the letter in his pocket, carriedon behind his casual talk the debate that was so vital. But David hada headache and a slightly faster pulse, and that portion of the patternwas never woven.

  The association between anxiety and David's illness had always beenapparent in Dick's mind, but now he began to surmise a concrete shock, aperson, a telegram, or a telephone call. And after dinner that night hewent back to the kitchen.

  "Minnie," he inquired, "do you remember the afternoon Doctor David wastaken sick?"

  "I'll never forget it."

  "Did he receive a telegram that day?"

  "Not that I know of. He often answers the bell himself."

  "Do you know whether he had a visitor, just before you heard him fall?"

  "He had a patient, yes. A man."

  "Who was it?"

  "I don't know. He was a stranger to me."

  "Do you remember what he looked like?"

  Minnie reflected.

  "He was a smallish man, maybe thirty-five or so," she said. "I think hehad gaiters over his shoes, or maybe light tops. He was a nice appearingperson."

  "How soon after that did you hear Doctor David fall?"

  "Right away. First the door slammed, and then he dropped."

  Poor old David! Dick had not the slightest doubt now that David hadreceived some unfortunate news, and that up there in his bedroom eversince, alone and helpless, he had been struggling with some secret dreadhe could not share with any one. Not even with Lucy, probably.

  Nevertheless, Dick made a try with Lucy that evening.

  "Aunt Lucy," he said, "do you know of anything that could have causedDavid's collapse?"

  "What sort of thing?" she asked guardedly.

  "A letter, we'll say, or a visitor?"

  When he saw that she was only puzzled and thinking back, he knew shecould not help him.

  "Never mind," he said. "I was feeling about for some cause. That's all."

  He was satisfied that Lucy knew no more than he did of David's visitor,and that David had kept his own counsel ever since. But the sense ofimpending disaster that had come with the letter did not leave him. Hewent through his evening office hours almost mechanically, with a partof his mind busy on the puzzle. How did it affect the course of actionhe had marked out? Wasn't it even more necessary than ever now to go toWalter Wheeler and tell him how things stood? He hated mystery. He likedto walk in the middle of the road in the sunlight. But even strongerthan that was a growing feeling that he needed a sane and normaljudgment on his situation; a fresh viewpoint and some unprejudicedadvice.

  He visited David before he left, and he was very gentle with him. Inview of this new development he saw David from a different angle, facingand dreading something imminent, and it came to him with a shock thathe might have to clear things up to save David. The burden, whatever itwas, was breaking him.

  He had telephoned, and Mr. Wheeler was waiting for him. Walter Wheelerthought he knew what was coming, and he had well in mind what he wasgoing to say. He had thought it over, pacing the floor alone, with thedog at his heels. He would say:

  "I like and respect you, Livingstone. If you're worrying about whatthese damned gossips say, let's call it a day and forget it. I know aman when I see one, and if it's all right with Elizabeth it's all rightwith me."

  Things, however, did not turn out just that way. Dick came in, grave andclearly preoccupied, and the first thing he said was:

  "I have a story to tell you, Mr. Wheeler. After you've heard it, andgiven me your opinion on it, I'll come to a matter that--well, that Ican't talk about now."

  "If it's the silly talk that I daresay you've heard--"

  "No. I don't give a damn for talk. But there is something else.Something I haven't told Elizabeth, and that I'll have to tell you."

  Walter Wheeler drew himself up rather stiffly. Leslie's defection wasstill in his mind.

  "Don't tell me you're tangled up with another woman."

  "No. At least I think not. I don't know."

  It is doubtful if Walter Wheeler grasped many of the technicalitiesthat followed. Dick talked and he listened, nodding now and then, andendeavoring very hard to get the gist of the matter. It seemed to himcurious rather than serious. Certainly the mind was a strange thing. Hemust read up on it. Now and then he stopped Dick with a question, andDick would break in on his narrative to reply. Thus, once:

  "You've said nothing to Elizabeth at all? About the walling off, as youcall it?"

  "No. At first I was simply ashamed of it. I didn't want her to get theidea that I wasn't normal."

  "I see."

  "Now, as I tell you, I begin to think--I've told you that this wallingoff is an unconscious desire to forget something too painful toremember. It's practically always that. I can't go to her with justthat, can I? I've got to know first what it is."

  "I'd begun to think there was an understanding between you."

  Dick faced him squarely.

  "There is. I didn't intend it. In fact, I was trying to keep away fromher. I didn't mean to speak to her until I'd cleared things up. But ithappened anyhow; I suppose the way those things always happen."

  It was Walter Wheeler's own decision, finally, that he go to Noradawith Dick as soon as David could be safely left. It was the letter whichinfluenced him. Up to that he had viewed the situation with a certaindetachment; now he saw that it threatened the peace of two households.

  "It's a warning, all right."

  "Yes. Undoubtedly."

  "You don't recognize the name Bassett?"

  "No. I've tried, of course."

  The result of some indecision was finally that Elizabeth should not betold anything until they were ready to tell it all. And in the end acertain resentment that she had become involved in an unhappy situationdied in Walter Wheeler before Dick's white face and sunken eyes.

  At ten o'clock the house-door opened and closed, and Walter Wheeler gotup and went out into the hall.

  "Go on upstairs, Margaret," he said to his wife. "I've got a visitor."He did not look at Elizabeth. "You settle down and be comfortable," headded, "and I'll be up before long. Where's Jim?"

  "I don't know. He didn't go to Nina's."

  "He started with you, didn't he?"

  "Yes. But he left us at the corner."

  They exchanged glances. Jim had been worrying them lately. Strange howa man could go along for years, his only worries those of business, histrack a single one through comfortable fields where he reaped only whathe sowed. And then his family grew up, and involved him without warningin new perplexities and new troubles. Nina first, then Jim, and now thisstrange story which so inevitably involved Elizabeth.

  He put his arm around his wife and held her to him.

  "Don't worry about Jim, mother," he said. "He's all right fundamentally.He's going through the bad time between being a boy and being a man.H
e's a good boy."

  He watched her moving up the stairs, his eyes tender and solicitous. Tohim she was just "mother." He had never thought of another woman in alltheir twenty-four years together.

  Elizabeth waited near him, her eyes on his face.

  "Is it Dick?" she asked in a low tone.

  "Yes."

  "You don't mind, daddy, do you?"

  "I only want you to be happy," he said rather hoarsely. "You know that,don't you?"

  She nodded, and turned up her face to be kissed. He knew that she had nodoubt whatever that this interview was to seal her to Dick Livingstonefor ever and ever. She fairly radiated happiness and confidence. He lefther standing there going back to the living-room closed the door.