Parrot & Co., Harlod MacGrath [the red fox clan .txt] 📗

place indeed. Like the man you expect to marry! What woman in your place would have acted otherwise? And I have made my statements as bald and brutal as an examining magistrate! Instead of one apology I offer a thousand."

"I accept each and all of them. More, I believe that you and I could get on capitally. I can very well imagine the soldier you used to be. I am going to ask you what you know about Mr. Warrington."

"This, that he is not a fit companion for a young woman like yourself; that a detractable rumor follows hard upon his heels wherever he goes. I learned something about him in Rangoon. He is known to the riff-raff as Parrot & Co., and I don't know what else. All of us on shipboard learned his previous history."

"Ah!" She was quite certain of the historian. "And not from respectable quarters, either."

"If I had been elderly and without physical attractions?" Elsa inquired sarcastically.

"We are dealing with human nature, mediocrity, and not with speculation. It is in the very nature of things to distrust that which we do not understand. You say, old and without physical attractions. Beauty is of all things most drawing. We crowd about it, we crown it, we flatter it. The old and unattractive we pass by. If I had not seen you here to-night, heard you talk, saw in a kind of rebellious enchantment over your knowledge of the world and your distinguished acquaintance, I should have gone to my grave believing that my suspicions were correct. I dare say that I shall make the same mistake again."

"But do not judge so hastily."

"That I promise."

"Did you learn among other things what Mr. Warrington had done?"

"Yes. A sordid affair. Ordinary peculations that were wasted over gaming-tables."

Warrington had told her the truth. At least, the story told by others coincided with his own. But what was it that kept doubt in her mind? Why should she not be ready to believe what others believed, what the man himself had confessed? What was it to her that he looked like Arthur, that he was guilty or innocent?

"And his name?" She wondered if the colonel knew that also.

"Warrington is assumed. His real name is Paul Ellison."

"Paul Ellison." She repeated it slowly. Her voice did not seem her own. The table, the lights, the faces, all receded and became a blur.


XV

A BIT OF A LARK

Mallow gave Craig one of his favorite cigars. The gambler turned it over and inspected the carnelian label, realizing that this was expected of him. Mallow smiled complacently. They might smoke as good as that at the government-house, but he rather doubted it. Trust a Britisher to know a good pipe-charge; but his selection of cigars was seldom to be depended upon.

"Don't see many of these out here," was Craig's comment, and he tucked away the cigar in a vest pocket.

"They cost me forty-three cents apiece, without duty." The vulgarian's pleasure lies not in the article itself so much as in the price paid for it. On the plantation Mallow smoked Burma cheroots because he really preferred them. There, he drank rye whisky, consorted with his employees, gambled with them and was not above cheating when he had them drunk enough. Away from home, however, he was the man of money; he bought vintage wines when he could, wore silks, jingled the sovereigns whenever he thought some one might listen, bullied the servants, all with the childish belief that he was following the footsteps of aristocracy, hoodwinking no one, not even his kind. "I'm worth a quarter of a million," he went on. "Luck and plugging did it. One of these fine days I'm going to sell out and take a whack at that gay Paris. There's the place to spend your pile. You can't get your money's worth any place else."

Paris. Craig's thought flew back to the prosperous days when he was plying his trade between New York and Cherbourg, on the Atlantic liners, the annual fortnight in Paris and the Grand-Prix. He had had his diamonds, then, and his wallet of yellow-backs; and when he had called for vintage wines and choice Havanas it had been for genuine love of them. In his heart he despised Mallow. He knew himself to be a rogue, but Mallow without money would have been a bold predatory scoundrel. Craig knew also that he himself was at soul too cowardly to be more than despicably bad. He envied Mallow's absolute fearlessness, his frank brutality, his strength upon which dissipation had as yet left no mark; and Mallow was easily forty-five. Paris. He might never see that city again. He had just enough to carry him to Hongkong and keep him on his feet until the races. He sent a bitter glance toward the sea where the moonlight gave an ashen hue to the forest of rigging. The beauty of the scene did not enter his eye. His mind was recalling the luxurious smoke-rooms.

"When you go to Paris, I'd like to go along."

"You've never let on why they sent you hiking out here," Mallow suggested.

"One of my habits is keeping my mouth shut."

"Regarding your own affairs, yes. But you're willing enough to talk when it comes to giving away the other chap."

"You can play that hand as well as I can." Craig scowled toward the dining-room doors.

"Ha! There they come," said Mallow, as a group of men and women issued out into the cafe-veranda. "By gad! she is a beauty, and no mistake. And will you look at our friend, the colonel, toddling behind her?"

"You're welcome."

"You're a fine lady-killer." Mallow tore the band from a fresh cigar and struck a match.

"I know when I've got enough. If you could get a good look at her when she's angry, you'd change your tune."

Mallow sighed audibly. "Most women are tame, and that's why I've fought shy of the yoke. Yonder's the sort for me. The man who marries her will have his work cut out. It'll take a year or two to find out who's boss; and if she wins, lord help the man!"

Craig eyed the group which was now seated. Two Chinamen were serving coffee and cordials. Mallow was right; beautiful was the word. A vague regret came to him, as it comes to all men outside the pale, that such a woman could never be his. He poured out for himself a stiff peg and drank it with very little soda. Craig always fled, as it were, from introspection.

"Haven't seen the crow anywhere, have you?"

"No, nor want to. Leave him alone."

"Afraid of him, eh?"

"I'm truthful enough to say that I'm damned afraid of him. Don't mistake me. I'd like to see him flat, beaten, down and out for good. I'd like to see him lose that windfall, every cent of it. But I don't want to get in his way just now."

"Rot! Don't you worry; no beach-comber like that can stand up long in front of me. He threatened on board that he was going to collect that fifty pounds. He hasn't been very spry about it."

"I should like to be with you when you meet."

Mallow grinned. "Not above seeing a pal get walloped, eh? Well, you get a ring-side ticket. It'll be worth it."

"I don't want to see you get licked," denied Craig irritably. "All I ask is that you shelve some of your cock-sureness. I'm not so dead-broke that I must swallow all of it. I've warned you that he is a strong man. He used to be one of the best college athletes in America."

"College!" exploded Mallow. "What the devil does a college athlete know about a dock-fight?"

"Ever see a game of football?"

"No."

"Well, take it from me that it's the roughest game going. It's a game where you put your boot in a man's face when he's not looking. Mallow, they kill each other in that game. And Ellison was one of the best, fifteen years ago. He used to wade through a ton of solid, scrapping, plunging flesh. And nine times out of ten he used to get through. I want you to beat him up, and it's because I do that I'm warning you not to underestimate him. On shipboard he handled me as you would a bag of salt; damn him! He's a surprise to me. He looks as if he had lived clean out here. There's no booze-sign hanging out on him, like there is on you and me."

"Booze never hurt me any."

"You're galvanized inside," said Craig, staring again at Elsa. He wished he knew how to hurt her, too. But he might as well throw stones at the stars.

"How would you like to put one over on this chap Ellison?"

"In what way?"

Mallow smoked for a moment, then touched his breast pocket significantly.

"Not for mine," returned Craig. "Cards are my long suit. I'm no second-story man, not yet."

"I know. But supposing you could get it without risk?"

"In the first place, the bulk of his cash is tied up in letters of credit."

"Ah, you know that?"

"What good would it do to pinch those? In Europe there would be some chance, but not here where boats are two weeks apart. A cable to Rangoon would shut off all drawing. He could have others made out. In cash he may have a few hundreds."

"All gamblers are more or less yellow," sneered Mallow. "The streak in you is pretty wide. I tell you, you needn't risk your skin. Are you game to put one over that will cost him a lot of worry and trouble?"

"So long as I can stand outside the ropes and look on."

"He has a thousand pounds in his belt. No matter how I found out. How'd you like to put your hand on it if you were sure it would not burn your fingers?"

"I'd like to, all right. But it's got to be mighty certain. And the belt must be handed to me by some one else. I've half a wonder if you're not aiming to get rid of me," with an evil glance at his tempter.

"If I wanted to get rid of you, this'd be the way," said Mallow, opening and shutting his powerful hands. "I'm just hungering for a bit of a lark. Come on. A thousand pounds for taking a little rickshaw ride. Ever hear of Wong's? Opium, pearls, oils and shark-fins?"

"No."

"Not many do. I know Singapore like the lines on my hands. Wong is the shrewdest, most lawless Chinaman this side of Canton and Macao. Pipes, pearls and shark-fins. Did you know that the bay out there is so full