Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

It was Friday — the second Friday since Guy had entered into an agreement with Allen; and as midnight approached his nervousness increased.

  Time and again, during that long evening, he mentally reiterated his determination that once this venture was concluded, he would never embark upon another of a similar nature. The several thousand dollars which it would net him would make it possible for him to marry Eva and settle down to a serious and uninterrupted effort at writing — the one vocation for which he believed himself best fitted by inclination and preparation; but never again, he assured himself repeatedly, would he allow himself to be cajoled or threatened into such an agreement.

  As he sat waiting for the arrival of the second consignment, he pictured the little cavalcade winding downward along hidden trails through the chaparral of dark, mountain ravines. His nervousness increased as he realized the risk of discovery some time during the six months that it would take to move the contraband to the edge of the valley in this way — thirty-six cases at a time, packed out on six burros.

  He had little fear of the failure of his plan for hiding the liquor in the old hay barn and moving it out again the following day. For three years there had been stored in one end of the barn some fifty tons of baled melilotus. It had been sown as a cover crop by a former foreman, and allowed to grow to such proportions as to render the plowing of it under a practical impossibility. As hay it was in little or no demand, but there was a possibility of a hay shortage that year. It was against this possibility that Evans had had it baled and stored away in the barn, where it had lain ever since, awaiting an offer that would at least cover the cost of growing, harvesting, and baling. A hard day’s work had so re-arranged the bales as to form a hidden chamber in the center of the pile, ingress to which could readily be had by removing a couple of bales near the floor.

  A little after eleven o’clock Guy left the house and made his way to the barn, where he paced nervously to and fro in the dark interior. He hoped that the men would come early and get the thing over, for it was this part of the operation that seemed most fraught with danger.

  The whiskey was in Guy’s possession for less than twelve hours a week; but during those twelve hours he earned the commission of a dollar a bottle that Allen allowed him, for his great fear was that sooner or later some one would discover and follow the six burros as they came down to the barn. There were often campers in the hills. During the deer season, if they did not have it all removed by that time, they would be almost certain of discovery, since every courageous ribbon-counter clerk in Los Angeles hied valiantly to the mountains with a high-powered rifle, to track the ferocious deer to its lair.

  At a quarter past twelve Evans heard the sounds for which he had been so expectantly waiting. He opened a small door in the end of the hay barn, through which there filed in silence six burdened burros, led by one swarthy Mexican and followed by another. Quietly the men unpacked the burros and stored the thirty-six cases in the chamber beneath the hay. Inside this same chamber, by the light of a flash lamp, Evans counted out to one of them the proceeds from the sale of the previous week. The whole transaction consumed less than half an hour, and was carried on with the exchange of less than a dozen words. As silently as they had come the men departed, with their burros, into the darkness toward the hills, and young Evans made his way to his room and to bed.

  CHAPTER 10

  As the weeks passed, the routine of ranch life weighed more and more heavily on Custer Pennington. The dull monotony of it took the zest from the things that he had formerly regarded as the pleasures of existence. The buoyant Apache no longer had power to thrill. The long rides were but obnoxious duties to be performed. The hills had lost their beauty.

  The frequent letters that came from Grace during her first days in Hollywood had breathed a spirit of hopefulness and enthusiasm that might have proven contagious, but for the fact that he saw in her success a longer and probably a permanent separation. If she should be speedily discouraged she might return to the foothills and put the idea of a career forever from her mind; but if she received even the slightest encouragement, Custer was confident that nothing could wean her from her ambition. He was the more sure of this because in his own mind he could picture no inducement sufficiently powerful to attract any one to return to the humdrum existence of the ranch. Better be a failure in the midst of life, he put it to himself, than a success in the unpeopled spaces of its outer edge.

  Ensuing weeks brought fewer letters, and there was less of enthusiasm, though hope was still unquenched. She had not yet met the right people, Grace said, and there was a general depression in the entire picture industry.

  The little gatherings of the neighbors at Ganado continued. Other young people of the valley and the foothills came and danced, or swam, or played tennis. Their elders came, too, equally enjoying the hospitality of the Penningtons; and among these was the new owner of the little orchard beyond the Evans ranch.

  As she came oftener, and came to know the Penningtons better, she depended more and more on the colonel for advice in matters pertaining to her orchard and her finances. Of personal matters she never spoke. They knew that she had a daughter living in Los Angeles; but of the girl they knew nothing, for deep in the heart of Mrs. George Burke, who had been born Charity Cooper, was a strain of Puritanism that could not look with aught but horror upon the stage and its naughty little sister, the screen — though in her letters to that loved daughter there was no suggestion of the pain that the fond heart held because of the career the girl had chosen.

  While life upon Ganado took its peaceful way, outwardly unruffled, the girl whose image was in the hearts of them all strove valiantly in the face of recurring disappointment toward the high goal upon which her eyes were set.

  She was interviewing, for the dozenth time, the casting director of the K. K. S. Studio, who had come to know her by sight, and perhaps to feel a little compassion for her — though there are those who will tell you that casting directors, having no hearts, can never experience so human an emotion as compassion.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Evans,” he said; “but I haven’t a thing for you to-day.” As she turned away, he raised his hand. “Wait!” he said. “Mr. Crumb is casting his new picture himself. He’s out on the lot now. Go out and see him — he might be able to use you.”

  A few minutes later she found the man she sought. She had never seen Wilson Crumb before, and her first impression was a pleasant one, for he was courteous and affable. She told him that she had been to the casting director, and that he had said that Mr. Crumb might be able to use her. As she spoke, the man watched her intently, his eyes running quickly over her figure without suggesting offense.

  “What experience have you had?” he asked.

  “Just a few times as an extra,” she replied.

  He shook his head.

  “I am afraid I can’t use you,” he said; “unless” — he hesitated— “unless you would care to work in the semi-nude, which would necessitate making a test — in the nude.”

  “Is that absolutely essential?” she asked.

  “Quite so,” he replied.

  Still she hesitated. Her chance! If she let it pass, she might as well pack up and return home. What a little thing to do, after all, when one really considered it! It was purely professional. There would be nothing personal in it, if she could only succeed in overcoming her self-consciousness; but could she do it?

  Two hours later Grace Evans, left the K.K.S. lot. She was to start work on the morrow at fifty dollars a week for the full period of the picture. Wilson Crumb had told her that she had a wonderful future, and that she was fortunate to have fallen in with a director who could make a great star of her. As she went, she left behind all her self-respect and part of her natural modesty.

  Wilson Crumb, watching her go, rubbed the ball of his right thumb to and fro across the back of his left hand, and smiled.

  The Apache danced along the wagon trail that led back into the hills. He tugged at the
bit and tossed his head impatiently, flecking his rider’s shirt with foam. He lifted his feet high and twisted and wriggled like an eel. He wanted to be off, and he wondered what had come over his old pal that there was no more swift gay gallops, and that washes were crossed sedately by way of their gravelly bottoms, instead of being taken with a flying leap.

  It was Friday. From the hill beyond Jackknife a man had watched through binoculars his every move. Three other men had been waiting below the watcher along the new-made trail.

  “It was young Pennington,” he said. The speaker was Allen. “I was thinking that it would be a fool trick to kill him, unless we have to. I have a better scheme. Listen — if he ever learns anything that he shouldn’t know, this is what you are to do, if I am away.”

  Very carefully and in great detail he elaborated his plan. “Do you understand?” he asked.

  They did, and they grinned.

  The following night, after the Penningtons had dined, a ranch hand came up from Mrs. Burke’s to tell them that their new neighbor was quite ill, and that the woman who did her housework wanted Mrs. Pennington to come down at once as she was worried about her mistress.

  “We will be right down,” said Colonel Pennington.

  They found Mrs. Burke breathing with difficulty, and the colonel immediately telephoned for a local doctor. After the physician had examined her, he came to them in the living room.

  “You had better send for Jones, of Los Angeles,” he said. “It is her heart. I can do nothing. I doubt if he can; but he is a specialist. And,” he added, “if she has any near relatives, I think I should notify them — at once.”

  The housekeeper had joined them, and was wiping tears from her face with her apron.

  “She has a daughter in Los Angeles,” said the colonel; “but we do not know her address.”

  “She wrote to her to-day, just before this spell,” said the housekeeper. “The letter hasn’t been mailed yet — here it is.”

  She picked it up from the center table and handed it to the colonel.

  “Miss Shannon Burke, 1580 Panizo Circle, Hollywood,” he read. “I will take the responsibility of wiring both Miss Burke and Dr. Jones. Can you get a good nurse locally?”

  The doctor could, and so it was arranged.

  CHAPTER 11

  Gaza de Lure was sitting at the piano when Crumb arrived at the bungalow at 1421 Vista del Paso at a little after six in the evening of the last Saturday in July. The smoke from a half burned cigarette lying on the ebony case was rising in a thin, indolent column above the masses of her black hair. Her fingers idled through a dreamy waltz. Crumb gave her a surly nod as he closed the door behind him. He was tired and cross after a hard day at the studio. The girl, knowing that he would be all right presently, merely returned his nod and continued playing. He went immediately to his room, and a moment later she heard him enter the bathroom through another doorway.

  Half an hour later he emerged, shaved, spruce, and smiling. A tiny powder had effected a transformation, just as she had known that it would. He came and leaned across the piano, close to her. She was very beautiful. It seemed to the man that she grew more beautiful and more desirable each day. The fact that she had been unattainable had fed the fires of his desire, transforming infatuation into as near a thing to love as a man of his type can ever feel.

  “Well, little girl!” he cried gaily. “I have good news for you.”

  She smiled a crooked little smile, and shook her head.

  “The only good news that I can think of would be that the government had established a comfortable home for superannuated hop-heads, where they would be furnished, without cost, with all the snow they could use.”

  The effects of her last shot were wearing off. He laughed good- naturedly.

  “Really,” he insisted; “on the level, I’ve got the best news you’ve heard in moons.”

  “Well?” she asked wearily.

  “Old Battle-Axe has got her divorce,” he announced, referring thus affectionately to his wife.

  “Well,” said the girl, “that’s good news — for her — if it’s true.” Crumb frowned.

  “It’s good news for you,” he said. “It means that I can marry you now.”

  The girl leaned back on the piano bench and laughed aloud. It was not a pleasant laugh. She laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “What is there funny about that?” growled the man. “It would mean a lot to you — respectability, for one thing, and success, for another. The day you become Mrs. Wilson Crumb I’ll star you in the greatest picture that was ever made.”

  “Respectability!” she sneered. “Your name would make me respectable, would it? It would be the insult added to all the injury you have done me. And as for starring — poof!” She snapped her fingers. “I have but one ambition, thanks to you, you dirty hound, and that is snow!” She leaned toward him, her two clenched fists almost shaking in his face. “Give me all the snow I need,” she cried, “and the rest of them may have their fame and their laurels!”

  “Oh, very well,” he said. “If you feel that way about it, all right; but” — he turned suddenly upon her— “you’ll have to get out of here and stay out — do you understand? From this day on you can only enter this house as Mrs. Wilson Crumb, and you can rustle your own dope if you don’t come back - understand?”

  She looked at him through narrowed lids. She reminded him of a tigress about to spring, and he backed away.

  “Listen to me,” she commanded in slow, level tones. “In the first place, you’re lying to me about your wife getting her divorce. I’d have guessed as much if I hadn’t known, for a hop-head can’t tell the truth; but I do know. You got a letter from your attorney to-day telling you that your wife still insists not only that she will never divorce you, but that she will never allow you a divorce.”

  “You mean to say that you opened one of my letters?” he demanded angrily.

  “Sure I opened it! I open ’em all — I steam ’em open. What do you expect,” she almost screamed, “from the thing you have made of me? Do you expect honor and self-respect, or any other virtue in a hype?”

  “You can get out of here!” he cried. “You get out now — this minute!”

  She rose from the bench and came and stood quite close to him.

  “You’ll see that I get all the snow I want, if I go?” she asked. He laughed nastily.

  “You don’t ever get another bindle,” he replied.

  “Wait!” she admonished. “I wasn’t through with what I started to say a minute ago. You’ve been hitting it long enough, Wilson, to know what one of our kind will do to get it. You know that either you or I would sacrifice soul and body if there was no other way. We would lie, or steal, or — murder! Do you get that, Wilson — murder? There is just one thing I won’t do, but that one thing is not murder, Wilson. Listen!” She lifted her face close to his and looked him straight in the eyes. “If you ever try to take it away from me, or keep it from me, Wilson, I shall kill you.”

  Her tone was cold and unemotional, and because of that, perhaps, the threat seemed very real. The man paled.

  “Aw, come!” he cried. “What’s the use of our scrapping? I was only kidding, anyway. Run along and take a shot — it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I need one; but don’t get it into your head that I was kidding. I wasn’t. I’d just as lief kill you as not — the only trouble is that killing’s too damned good for you, Wilson!”

  She walked toward the bathroom door.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said, pausing. “Allen called up this afternoon. He’s in town, and will be up after dinner. He wants his money.”

  She entered the bathroom and closed the door. Crumb lighted another cigarette and threw himself into an easy chair, where he sat scowling at a temple dog on a Chinese rug.

  A moment later Gaza joined Crumb in the little dining room. They both smoked throughout the meal, which they scarcely ever tasted. The
girl was vivacious and apparently happy. She seemed to have forgotten the recent scene in the living room. She asked questions about the new picture.

  “We’re going to commence shooting Monday,” he told her. Momentarily he waxed almost enthusiastic. “I’m going to have trouble with that boob author, though,” he said. “If they’d kick him off the lot, and give me a little more money, I’d make ’em the greatest picture ever screened!” Then he relapsed into brooding silence.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Worrying about Allen?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I’ll stall him off again.”

  “He isn’t going to be easy to stall this time,” she observed, “if I gathered the correct idea from his line of talk over the phone to-day. I can’t see what you’ve done with all the coin, Wilson.”

  “You got yours, didn’t you?” he growled.

  “Sure I got mine,” she answered, “and it’s nothing to me what you did with Allen’s share; but I’m here to tell you that you’ve pulled a boner if you’ve double-crossed him. I’m not much of a character reader, as proved by my erstwhile belief that you were a high-minded gentleman; but it strikes me the veriest boob could see that that man Allen is a bad actor. You’d better look out for him.”

  “I ain’t afraid of him,” blustered Crumb.

  “No, of course you’re not,” she agreed sarcastically. “You’re a regular little lion-hearted Reginald, Wilson — that’s what you are!”

  The doorbell rang. “There he is now,” said the girl.

  Crumb paled.

  “What makes you think he’s a bad man?” he asked.

  “Look at his face — look at his eyes,” she admonished. “Hard? He’s got a face like a brick-bat.”

  They rose from the table and entered the living room as the Japanese opened the front door. The caller was Slick Allen. Crumb rushed forward and greeted him effusively.

  “Hello, old man!” he cried. “I’m mighty glad to see you. Miss de Lure told me that you had phoned. Can’t tell you how delighted I am!”