The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales

by Maurice Leblanc

  Recollection of the long-forgotten words swept her with a sudden revulsion of feeling, and she sprang to her feet. In that instant she realized for the first time why she had come to love Don Lavalle. It was because in his fresh, ardent, impulsive devotion he was so like the Martin Wilmerding who had kissed her hand and ring with a vow of lifetime fealty that had left her clinging to him in tearful ecstasy.

  “Don,” she said, “if you really love me, go—now, now.”

  Lavalle’s arms, eagerly outstretched toward her, dropped to his side. It was not the answer he had awaited so confidently. A vague resentment against her tinged his disappointment with new bitterness.

  “That is final, is it, Marian?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes. Don’t make it harder for me. Please go,” she cried almost hysterically.

  He slipped into his overcoat.

  “Perhaps you will tell me why,” he suggested with increasing asperity.

  “Because of the boy and this,” the woman said brokenly, laying a finger on her wedding-ring.

  “Nonsense,” he cried angrily. “What tie does that ring represent that Martin Wilmerding has not violated a hundred times? You have been faithful to it, we know, even though you admit you care for me. But has he? I have not the pleasure of your husband’s acquaintance, but no man ever neglected a wife like you without a reason.”

  “Go, please, quickly,” she pleaded, shivering.

  “I will,” he said, instinctively avoiding the blunder of combating her decision with argument.

  He caught her in his arms, and stooping quickly, kissed her on the lips. She reeled away from him, sobbing.

  “Our first and last kiss. Good-by, Marian,” he said gently, and left the room.

  She followed, clutching at the walls for support as she watched him from the doorway. He adjusted his muffler and caught up his hat without a backward glance, and she pressed her two hands to her lips to choke back a cry. Then as he opened the outer door, the crushing misery of her loneliness swept over her, overpowering self-restraint and resolution.

  “Don, oh, Don!” she pleaded, stumbling toward him with outstretched arms.

  In a second he was at her side, and she was crying against his breast.

  “I can’t let you go,” she sobbed. “I tried, but I can’t. Take me, Don. I will do as you wish.”

  From his hiding-place Blackie saw them re-enter the room. The woman stopped by the fireplace, drew off her wedding-ring and after holding it a second between shaking fingers, dropped it into the ashes.

  “Dead and gone!” she said. “Dead as the love of the man who put it on my finger.”

  “My ring will replace it,” said Lavalle tenderly, but with triumph in his eyes. “Wilmerding will want a divorce. He shall have it, and then you’ll wear the wedding-ring of the man who loves you and whom you love—the only ring in the world that shouldn’t be broken.”

  “Don, promise me that you will never leave me alone,” she pleaded falteringly. “I don’t ever want a chance to think, to reflect, to regret. I only want to be with you—and forget everything else in the world. Promise me.”

  “Love like mine knows no such word as separation,” he answered. “From this hour we will never be apart. Don’t fear regrets, Marian. There will be none.”

  “My boy,” she suggested, “he will go with us. Poor little Martin! I wouldn’t leave him behind fatherless and motherless.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “And now you must get a few necessaries together quickly—just the things you will require on the steamer. You can get all you need when we reach Honolulu, but there is no time for anything now, for under the circumstances it is best that we go aboard the steamer before morning. Can you be ready in an hour?”

  “In an hour!” she cried in surprise. “Yes, I can, but—but—how can we go aboard the steamer tonight? We can’t, Don. Your passage is booked, but not mine.”

  “My passage is booked for Don Lavalle and wife,” he informed her smilingly.

  She turned away her head to hide the flush that colored her face.

  “You were so sure as that!” she murmured, with a strangely new sense of disappointment.

  “Yes,” Lavalle answered, “for I knew love like mine could not fail to win yours. Will you pack a single trunk while I run back to my hotel and get my own things together? I can be back in an hour or less. Will you be ready?”

  “Yes, I will be ready,” she promised wearily. “I will only take a few things. I want nothing that my—husband ever gave me. I shall only take a few of my own things and the jewels in the safe that were in Mother’s collection. They are my own, and they’re very valuable, Don. It will not be safe to risk packing them in my baggage. I’ll get them now and give them to you to keep until we can leave them in the purser’s safe tomorrow. Be very careful of them, Don. They couldn’t be replaced for a fortune.”

  Boston Blackie saw her hurry to the wall—saw the sliding door roll back; with a quickly indrawn breath, he watched the woman fumble nervously with the combination-dial. The safe-door swung open, and she rapidly sorted out a half-dozen jewel-cases and re-closed the safe.

  “Here they are, Don,” she said, handing the gems to Lavalle. “I have taken only those that came from my own people. And now you must leave me. I must pack, and I can’t call the servants under these circumstances. I must get the boy up and ready; and also,”—she hesitated a second and then added, “I must write a note to Mr. Wilmerding telling him what I have done and why.”

  “Don’t mail it until we are at the dock,” warned the man. “Where is he—at his club or out of town?”

  “He’s at the Del Monte Hotel near Monterey—or was,” she answered. “The letter won’t reach him till tomorrow night.”

  “And tomorrow night we will be far out of sight of land,” Lavalle cried. “That is as it should be. I am glad I never met him, for now I need never do so.

  He stuffed the jewel-cases into his overcoat.

  “I’ll be back in my car in an hour,” he warned. “Hurry, Marian, my love. Each minute until I am with you again will be a day.”

  He caught up his hat and ran down the steps to the street, where his car stood at the curbstone.

  As the door closed behind him, Marian Wilmerding sank into a chair and clutched her throat to stifle choking sobs. Intuitive womanly fear of what she was to do paralyzed her. For many minutes she lay shaking convulsively as she tried to overcome the dread that chilled her heart. Then the dismal atmosphere of the masterless home began to oppress her with a sense of wretched loneliness.

  She rose and with hard, reckless eyes shining hotly from behind wet lashes, ran upstairs to pack.

  As Donald Lavalle threw open the door of his empty car, a man who had slipped behind him around the corner of the Wilmerding residence stepped to his side.

  “I’m sorry to have to trouble you for my wife’s jewels, Lavalle,” he said.

  The triumphant smile on Lavalle’s face faded, and he shrank back in speechless consternation.

  “Your wife’s jewels!” he ejaculated, trying to recover from the shock of the utterly unexpected interruption. “You are—”

  “Yes, I am Martin Wilmerding; and the happy chance that brought me home tonight also gave me the pleasure of listening from the window-seat of the living-room to your interesting tete-a-tete with my wife.”

  A gun flashed into Boston Blackie’s hand and was jabbed sharply into Lavalle’s ribs.

  “Give me Marian’s jewels,” the pseudo-husband cried. “Hand them over before I blow your heart out. That’s what I ought to do—and I may, anyway.”

  Lavalle handed over the cases that contained the Wilmerding collection of gems.

  “Now,” continued his captor, “I want a word with you.”

  A gun was thr
ust so savagely into Lavalle’s face that it left a long red bruise.

  “I have heard all you said tonight. I know all your plans for stealing away my wife,” the inexorable voice continued, “and I’ve just a word of warning for you. You are dealing with a man, not a woman, from now on; and if you phone, write, telegraph or ever again communicate in any way with Marian, I’ll blow your worthless brains out if I have to follow you round the world to do it. Do you get that, Mr. Don Lavalle?”

  “I understand you,” said Lavalle helplessly.

  Again the gun-muzzle bruised the flesh of his cheek.

  “And as a last and kindly warning, Lavalle,” Blackie continued, “I suggest that you take extreme precautions to see that you do not miss the Manchuria when she sails in the morning; because if you are not on board, you won’t live to see another sunset if I have to kill you in your own club. Will you sail or die?”

  “I’ll sail,” said Lavalle.

  “Very well. That’s about all that requires words between us, I believe. Go, and remember your life is in your own hands. One word of any kind to Marian, and you forfeit it. I don’t know why I don’t kill you now. I would if it were not for the scandal all this would cause when it came out before the jury that would acquit me. Now go.”

  Lavalle pressed the button that started the motor as Boston Blackie stepped back from his side.

  “I’ve just one word I want to say to you, Wilmerding,” Lavalle began, his foot on the clutch. “It’s this: You have only yourself to blame. Don’t accuse Marian. You forced her into the situation you discovered this evening, by your neglect of the finest little woman I ever met. I was forced into it by a love I admit frankly. Don’t blame Marian far what you yourself have caused. I won’t ever see or communicate with her again.”

  “That’s the most decent speech I’ve heard from your lips tonight,” said the man beside the car, dropping his gun back into an outside pocket. “I don’t blame her. I’ve learned many important facts tonight—one of which is that the right place for a man is in his own home with his own wife. I’m going to remember that; and the wedding-ring that was dropped into the ashes tonight is going back on the finger it fits. Good night.”

  Lavalle without a word threw in the clutch, and his car sped away and was enveloped and hidden by the fog.

  Halfway down the block, Boston Blackie came to another car standing at the curb with a well-muffled chauffeur sitting behind the wheel. As he climbed in, the driver, Mary, uttered a low, thankful cry.

  “No trouble. I have the jewels here—feel the packages; and a whole lot happened,” said Blackie with deep satisfaction. “I’ve a new story to tell you when we get home, Mary. It’s the story of a big burglar named Blackie and a little boy named Martin Wilmerding and a still littler woolly dog named Rex, and a woman who guessed wrong. I think it will interest you. Let’s go. I have several things to do before we go home.”

  When they reached the downtown district, Blackie had Mary drive him to the Palace Hotel. There he sought out the night stenographer.

  “Will you take a telegram for me, please,” he said. Then he dictated:

  “‘To Martin Wilmerding, Del Monte Hotel, Monterey:

  “‘The boy needs you. I do too. Please come.

  “Marian.’”

  Though there was a telegraph-office in the hotel, he summoned a messenger-boy from a saloon and sent the message.

  Then he went to another hotel and found a second stenographer, to whom he dictated a second message. “‘Mrs. Marian Wilmerding, 3420 Broadway, San Francisco:

  “‘The packages you gave me were what I really wanted. Thank you and good-by.

  “D. L.’”

  Summoning another boy, he sent the second message from a different telegraph office.

  “Those telegrams, and how they came to be sent, will be a mystery in the Wilmerding home to the end of time,” he thought, deeply contented.

  “Let’s go home, Mary,” he said then, returning to his car and climbing in, “I think I’ve finished my night’s work, and I don’t believe I’ve done such a bad job either.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “I’ve given a wife to a husband,” he said half to himself. “I’ve given a father to a child; I’ve given a mother the right to look her son in the face without shame; and I’ve played square with the gamest little pal I ever want to know, Martin Wilmerding, Jr., and his dog, Rex. And for my pay I’ve taken the Wilmerding jewel-collection. I wonder who’s the debtor.”

  CHAPTER IV

  THE CUSHIONS KID

  Boston Blackie dropped the paper he had been reading, a satisfied smile lighting his face. Two months had elapsed since the evening, still treasured in his memory, on which he had met and comforted his “little pal” at the Wilmerding home. And now in the daily column of society notes he read “Mr. and Mrs. Martin Wilmerding, accompanied by their son are leaving the city for a month at their country home in Monterey County.”

  “It succeeded,” he cried joyously to himself. “It couldn’t help it—not with a boy like that drawing them together. I wish Mary were back. This news will make her even happier than it has me.”

  Impatiently he began to pace the floor, visions of a tiny youngster in nightclothes and with a woolly dog, filling his mind as he waited for his wife. A step sounded in the corridor.

  “Mary at last!” exclaimed Blackie in tones caressingly tender.

  Then his ear caught the sound of a second light step on the stairway. He listened with every faculty strained and abnormally alert. His hand, which instinctively, at the sound of the strange footfall, had sought the revolver which lay nearby, let the gun slip back to its place.

  “A woman with her,” he added. “Strange! But she comes for a good reason, if she comes with Mary.”

  He rose and unbarred the door at the light, distinctive rap of the elect among crooks. Mary threw herself into his arms and clung to him, sobbing. Behind her entered a second woman, with the face and figure of a young girl, but with eyes old and tired and world-weary from heartache and suffering. She too was weeping, but quietly, hopelessly, as women who love do for their dead. Blackie recognized her at once.

  “Why, it’s little Miss Happy!” he exclaimed, using the name with which crookdom had rechristened her when she was first introduced to its circles by the Cushions Kid, youthful pal of Blackie in bygone days. “What’s wrong, little girl? What’s happened to the Kid?”

  The girl covered her face with tiny hands, frail and thin and almost transparent, and sobbed silently. Mary released one arm from Blackie and encircled the thin shoulders that seemed so pitifully childish for the burden of grief they bore. The girl’s head fell on Mary’s shoulder.

  “Oh, Blackie,” cried Mary, “the Cushions Kid is in Folsom Prison, and he’s sentenced to—to—” Her lips failed as she strove to speak the dreaded words.

  The other girl raised her head and laid her hand on Boston Blackie’s arm.

  “The Kid’s sentenced to be hanged, Blackie,” she said, forcing out the words slowly, one by one, as though each tore her heart. “Only fourteen days left, Blackie. Only fourteen little days! Oh!” Her voice rose as self-restraint snapped. “Day and night I see him standing on the trap, bound and helpless. I see the black cap sliding down over his dear face. I see—the—the.…” She covered her eyes as though thus she could shut out the picture imagination seared on her brain.

  “I love him so, Blackie. I love him so,” she moaned. “You won’t let them kill him. You’ll save him for me, won’t you, Blackie?”

  Her blind confidence in the power of a hunted crook to wrest her lover from the hand of the law was as a little child’s belief in the omnipotence of a father.

  “Make her some coffee, Mary,” he said, “and you’re going to lie here and tell me all about it. You look t
erribly sick, child.”

  “I’ve been starving myself. I needed every dollar I could make for the Kid’s mouthpieces” (lawyers). “Every day they wanted more jack, more jack, more jack” (money), “and there was no one but me to make it. The Kid’s pal turned out a rat, you see.”

  Boston Blackie raised himself and stared at the girl, his eyes aglow with admiration. He had felt the agonizing torture she had chosen to endure for the sake of a love that knew no higher law than sacrifice and service.

  “Game little girl!” he muttered. “The worst of us see the day when we thank God for our women. Tell me about the Kid’s fall, Happy,” he added aloud. “Why wasn’t it in the papers?”

  “It was. They were full of it, but he called himself Jimmy Grimes, and the coppers never made him. They don’t know who he is yet. It was the express car robbery on the overland rattler at Sacramento. The messenger was killed. But Blackie, the Kid didn’t do it. He wasn’t even in the car, though he was in on the job. Whispering Malone bumped the messenger and tossed the package and jack and jewels to the Kid, who was waiting for them at the river bridge. They got the Kid at the hop-joint that night with the stuff still on him. Malone blew, after the pinch—the yellow-hearted rat! And now the Kid’s up at the Big House with a death-sentence that isn’t coming to him because he’s too right to snitch even on a rat.”

  The girl lifted herself on her elbow and raised one frail hand as though taking an oath.

  “So help me God,” she cried, “I’d go straight to the coppers and tell them who killed that messenger, I’d tell them how the job was pulled, I’d tell them everything—enough to put Whispering Malone where my poor boy is now—but if I did, the Kid would quit me. You know he would, Blackie. That’s all that stops me. You may say I’m a copper at heart, but I can’t help it. I would! I would!” The girl’s voice rose as emotion mastered her.