Blow the Man Down, Holman Day [e ink epub reader TXT] 📗

me. Good luck!"
They shook hands and turned their backs on each other with sailor repression in the matter of the emotions.
The young man went on his way, wondering in numbed despair how he could have left Alma Marston with merely a curt word of farewell.
Mayo lurked that evening in the purlieus of Jersey City, and entered the metropolis after midnight on a ferryboat which had few passengers and afforded him a dark corner where he was alone. He found lodgings in humble quarters on the East Side.
In the morning he nerved himself to the ordeal of appearing in the streets. His belief in his own innocence made his suffering greater as he waited for the clap of a heavy hand on his shoulder and the summons of an officer's voice. He knew that the eyes of Uncle Sam are sharp and his reach a long one. He had firm belief in the almost uncanny vigilance of government officers. He was rather surprised to find himself at last in the outer office of Marston & Waller.
He sat down on a bench and waited for a time in order to regain his self-possession. He wanted to control features and voice before accosting one of the guardians of the magnate. But the espionage of the attendants did not permit loiterers to remain long in that place without explanation. A man tiptoed to him and asked his name and his business.
"My name doesn't matter," said Mayo. "But I have important business with Mr. Marston. If you will tell him that the business is most important--that it is something he ought to know, and that--"
"You haven't any appointment, then?"
"No."
"Do you think for one moment that you can get in to see Mr. Marston without giving your name and explaining beforehand the nature of your business?"
"I hoped so, for it is important."
"What is it?"
"It's private--it's something for Mr. Marston."
"Impossible!" was the man's curt rejoinder. He went back to his post. In a few moments he returned to Mayo. "You mustn't remain here. You cannot see Mr. Marston."
"Won't you take in a message from me? I'll explain--"
"Explain to me. That's what I'm here for."
Telling that cold-blooded person that this visitor was the broken master of the _Montana_ was out of the question. To mention the case of the _Montana_ to this watchdog was dangerous. But Mayo dreaded to go back to the street again.
"I'll stay here a little while and perhaps I can--" he began.
"If you stay here without explaining your business I'll have you escorted down to the street by an officer, my friend."
Mayo rose and hurried out.
"An officer!" Even in his despairing and innocent quest of a hearing he was threatened with arrest! He sneaked back to his lodgings and hid himself in the squalid apartment and nursed the misery of his soul.
That night Mayo sat till late, toiling over a letter addressed to Julius Marston.
He despatched it by messenger at an early hour, and mustered his courage in the middle of the forenoon and followed in person. He assumed a boldness he did not feel in his quaking heart when he approached the guardian of the outer office.
"Will you ask Mr. Marston if he will see the man who sent him a letter by messenger this morning?" "What letter? Signed by what name?" "He will understand what letter I refer to." "He will, will he?" The attendant gave this applicant sharp scrutiny. The coast-guard captain's liberty garments were not impressive, nor did they fit very well. Mayo displayed the embarrassment of the man who knew he was hunted. "Do you think Mr. Marston receives only one letter by messenger in a morning? Look here, my man, you were in here yesterday, and I look on you as a suspicious character. You cannot see Mr. Marston on any such excuse. Get out of that door inside of one minute or I'll send in a police call!"
And once more Mayo fled from the danger which threatened him. He bought a stock of newspapers at a sidewalk news-stand; his hours of loneliness in his little room the day before had tortured him mentally. He sat himself down and read them. The news that the Vose line had gone into the steamship combination was interesting and significant. Evidently the _Montana's_ lay-up had discouraged the mass of stockholders. He had time to kill and thoughts to stifle; he went on reading scrupulously, lingering over matters in which he had no interest, striving to occupy his mind and drive the bitter memories and his fears away from him. Never in his life before had he read the society tattle in the newspapers. However, dragging along the columns, he found a paragraph on which he dwelt for a long time. It stated that Miss Marston of Fifth Avenue had returned by motor from a house-party in the Catskills, accompanied by Miss Lana Vanadistine, who would be a house guest of Miss Marston's for a few days.
That bit of news was significant. She had established her alibi; she had reinstated herself and had turned a smooth front to the world.
Mayo was certain in his soul that he knew her kind. His illusions were departing. Now that her tragic experience was behind her, now that she was back among her own, now that the fervor of romance was cool, she was thanking God, so he told himself, that she had not sacrificed herself for anybody. He was honestly glad that she was at home, glad of the hint which the paragraph gave--that her secret was still her own, so far as family and the social world were concerned.
That night Mayo took further counsel with himself. In the morning his final decision was made. He would endeavor once more to see Julius Maxston. He determined that he would march into the outer office, boldly announce his name, assert that he was there to expose a crime, and tell them that if Mr. Marston refused to hear him he should tell what he knew to the public through the newspapers; then he would ask them to send for the police, if the door of Marston's office remained closed to him. He would call attention to himself and to his case by all the uproar he could make. When he went to jail he would go with plenty of folks looking on. Let Marston and his fellow-financiers see how they liked that!
It was a desperate and a crude plan, but Mayo was not a diplomat--he was a sailor.
He marched forth on his errand with his chin up and resolve flaming within him.
Other men, prosperous-looking and rotund men, rode up in the elevator with him and went into Marston & Waller's office ahead of him, for he had modestly stepped to one side to allow them to pass.
He heard some talk of a "board meeting." It was plain that Mr. Marston was to be occupied for a time. This was not a favorable moment in which to project himself upon the attention of the financier; he needed a clear field. Therefore he tramped up and down the corridor of the office building, watching the elevator door, waiting to see the rotund gentlemen go on their way. And with attention thus focused he saw Miss Alma Marston arrive.
She waited until the elevator had passed on, and then she came directly to him. Her expression did not reveal her mood except to hint that she was self-possessed.
"I am not especially surprised to find you here," she told him. "I believe you said to Captain Downs--so he informed me--that you were going to try to see my father. And men who try to see my father, without proper introduction, usually kick their heels outside his office for some days."
There was a bit of hauteur in her voice. She preserved much of the acerbity which had marked her demeanor when they had said good-by to each other. He would not acknowledge to himself that he hoped she would meet him on another plane; he meekly accepted her attitude as the proper one. He was a sailor, and she was the daughter of Julius Marston.
"Do you blame me for being suspicious in regard to what you intend to say to my father?" she demanded. "I tell you frankly that I came here looking for you. We must settle our affair."
"I am trying to get word with him about my own business--simply my own business, Miss Marston."
"But as to me! What are you going to say to him about me? You remember I told you that I intended to protect myself," she declared, with some insolence.
"I thought you had a better opinion of me," he protested. "Miss Marston, as far as I am concerned, you never were on that schooner. I know nothing about you. I do not even know you. Do you understand?"
He started away hastily. "Don't stay here. Don't speak to me. Somebody may see you."
"'Come back here!"
He stopped.
"I demand an explicit promise from you that if you are able to talk with my father you will never mention my name to him or try to take advantage of the dreadful mistake I made."
"I promise, on my honor," he said, straightening.
"Thank you, sir."
"And now that I have promised," he added, red in his tanned cheeks, "I want to say to you, Miss Marston, that you have insulted me gratuitously. I suppose I'm not much in the way of a gentleman as you meet them in society. I'm only a sailor. But I'm neither a tattler nor a blackmailer. I know the square thing to do where a woman is concerned, and I would have done it without being put under a pledge." He bowed and walked away.
She gazed after him, a queer sparkle in her eyes. "We'll see about you, you big child!" she murmured.
She entered the waiting-room of the Marston & Waller suite, and was informed that her father was busy with a board meeting.
"But it's merely a bit of routine business. It will soon be over, Miss Marston--if you will be so good as to wait."
After a time the gentlemen filed out, but she waited on.
"Tell my father that I'm here and will be in presently," she commanded the guardian.
Before the messenger returned Mayo came in, rather apprehensively. He tried to avoid her, but she met him face to face and accosted him with spirit.
"Now that I have put you on your honor, I'm not afraid to have you talk your business over with my father. Come with me. I will take you to him. Then we will call accounts square between us."
"Very well," he consented. "After what I have been through here, I feel that one service matches the other." Mayo followed her and came into The Presence.
Julius Marston was alone, intrenched behind his desk, on his throne of business; the dark back of the chair, towering over his head, set off in contrast his gray garb and his cold face; to Mayo, who halted respectfully just inside the door, he appeared a sort of bas-relief against that background--something insensate, without ears to listen or heart to bestow compassion.
The girl, hurrying to him, engaged his attention until she had seated herself on the arm of his chair. Then he saw Mayo, recognized him, and tried to rise, but she pushed him back, urging him with eager appeal.
"You must listen to me, father! It is serious! It is important!"
He groped for the row of desk buttons, but she held his hand from them.
Captain Mayo strode forward, determined to speak for himself, rendered bold by the courageous sacrifice the girl was making.
"Not a word! Not a word! The supreme impudence of