The red paper

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE CONFESSION 5

II. A TRAGEDY 18

Chapter I The Confession

IT was growing late, and the September night held the breathless character of heat and humid ity with which New York is usually cursed in July. Even the Great White Way, awakening to the new "season," sagged under the depressing influence of the weather. The crowds moved slug gishly, finding exertion attended with inconvenience and discomfort; there was little unnecessary traffic; conventional society perspired within doors; the less fortunate element patronized front stoops, while the proletariat took to the house-tops. In the up-town side streets it was very quiet.

As John Wentworth turned into Madison Avenue and came before his own door he saw a man smoking a cigarette as he lounged against the low, cut-stone wall bounding the narrow strip of earth between the pavement and the building, the heavy air bringing to his nostrils the odor of Cuban tobacco.

Wentworth barely noticed him and was about to go up the broad steps when the stranger discon nected himself from the wall, moved forward and accosted him.

"Senor, will you kindly tell me the hour?"

There was nothing offensive or threatening in the request, nor did the man who made it look dangerous ; but being a thorough New Yorker and wise in his own generation, Wentworth did not attempt to con sult his watch. "It is half-past ten," he said, making a shrewd guess, at the same instant, in a compre hensive glance, taking in the details of the questioner.

By his accent, manner and appearance the latter was plainly a foreigner. His dark hair hung almost to his shoulders, and there was just light enough for Wentworth to catch his expression and to see that his face was adorned with a mustache and goatee. The young man smiled as he realized that he had been suspicious of one whose slight, welldressed body would have been no match for his own muscular and athletic figure.

At the answer the stranger waved a small, wellshaped hand. "Much thanks, Senor. Buenos noches." At that he turned and strolled up the avenue with the deliberate slowness of one without an object other than a desire to kill time.

Wentworth reached the top step, and while feeling for his latch-key turned and looked after him. The young man appeared to be the embodiment of all that was fortunate, yet, in truth, while at the high

THE CONFESSION T

tide of physical health and harmony, subconsciously he was far from being satisfied with himself. Even as he stood there watching the receding figure he was vaguely aware that he was wasting his powers in ease, or at an avocation which at best was hardly more than piffling; but he lacked the incentive to put his latent strength of mind and body into effective play. He had nothing to ruffle him in the way of a lack of money, nothing to disturb his temper in the way of enmity or jealousy, nothing to stir his blood through being loved by or loving a woman. He was moving on a sluggish current of self-ease, and, unknown to himself, was being mildly punished by the law demanding sacrifice as an exchange for happiness.

Born to the purple and the silver spoon, his life had been such as naturally to extinguish high ambi tion; but his pride of self and family was great, fantastically so; it represented honor, and its honor had never been impugned. Had John Wentworth known what he lacked, he would have supplied the want; but at present he only felt the surge of some thing the nature of which he did not realize. It was not social aspiration. For "society" he cared nothing, having but few close friends and but one intimate. He did not know what he wished; there was no recognized want he could name, but the un important incident of meeting the stranger, who by this was out of sight, seemed somehow to accen tuate a rising protest at his own uselessness, though there was nothing in the trifling circumstance of the encounter that seemed to bear any relation to himself or his affairs. With an impatient jerk at the bunch of keys which had become jammed in his pocket, he turned and let himself into the house.

The front hall was dark, and Wentworth was about to go upstairs to his own rooms when he noticed the library door was open, the soft light from within showing at the further end of the broad passage. It told him that his father had not yet retired. He hung up his hat and went down the hall for a good night word with his parent.

Captain Wentworth was nervously writing at a broad mahogany table desk strewn with papers, the glow from an intricately twisted electrolier falling on his thick and disordered white hair. His bushy white eyebrows were contracted, and he was fiercely biting the short ends of his closely trimmed white mustache. His was a handsome head, but one could see by his paleness and the lines of his face that he was physically depleted; indeed, he had the appearance of one whose nerves were being ground to a fine edge. A small lacquered table stood at his elbow and on it were a decanter of wine, a cut-glass ice-pitcher covered with beads of moisture, some glasses, and a plate of sweet biscuits. The air of the sumptuously furnished room was hot and close, notwithstanding the swung-back French windows.

As the front door closed the old gentleman abruptly ceased writing and listened, and as he heard his son's footsteps coming down the marble floor of the hall he hurriedly but carefully slipped the sheet on which he had been at work under the leather-lined, pink blotting pad before him. He had but just concealed the paper when the young man appeared.

"You are pegging at it a bit too hard, dad," said John affectionately as he paused by his father and noted the strained expression of his face. "You should be abed, sir."

Captain Wentworth ran his hand nervously up the thin gold chain attached to his eye-glasses, and removing them, settled back in his pivoted chair and swung round to face his son.

"I know it, Jack, I know it." He spoke with a gasp, as though short of breath from excitement or exertion.

"What's the necessity, dad?"

In return the old gentleman looked at the young man as though he envied the fine lines of the tall, athletic figure; then, ignoring the question, he passed his hand over his eyes and asked abruptly: "Where have you come from, Jack?"

"From the Grand Central, after seeing Tom Harper off on his hunt. We had been at my laboratory, or studio, or whatever you may choose to call it."

"Delectable amusement there, I suppose!" The elder man looked at his son as if measuring him for a purpose, his face very serious; the other, who was selecting a cigarette from the case he took from his pocket, did not notice the critical glance. His answer was nonchalant.

"I have comfortable quarters there, certainly. When are you going to honor me with a call ?"

"I don't know. What does it all amount to, Jack?"

John Wentworth smiled. "Amount to? Is that a conundrum? Well, I hardly hope to get a painting hung in the Academy, or have more than honorable mention in the photographers' exhibition. I can't say I possess a high order of ambition — but — delect able amusement, most decidedly!"

The old gentleman made no direct answer to this, but continued to gaze fixedly at his son, his broad chest heaving with every breath as if his lungs lacked air.

"Has Thomas gone to bed?" he finally asked.

"I presume so. The house seems locked for the night, save here." John glanced at the opened windows.

"Then shut the door."

The words were so abrupt that the young man looked closely at his father before he obeyed. As he turned back from the door and lighted his ciga rette he noticed the captain's labored breathing.

"You are done up, dad."

"I am. God! If I could have but your youth, your strength!" The outburst was sudden and apparently uncalled for. The young man bent forward and looked with astonishment at his father, but the old gentleman's eye reassured him.

"Why this dramatic desperation, dad?" he asked.

"Desperate, indeed, my son!" was the serious return. "Sit down, Jack. I've got to talk to you —if I can — but I haven't been able to take a deep breath all day."

"The old trouble?"

The captain nodded and tapped his chest over his heart. "My boy," he began, with an air of dogged determination, "I have never given you an intimate insight into my affairs; not because I was afraid to trust you; not because I thought you lacked either sense or sympathy, but because your tastes and mine have been along such different lines. My days have been devoted to business — yours have been passed in ambling along the easy road of a dilettante. To me you were unpractical, though I have not disturbed you by attempting to force your thoughts into different channels. But the time has come, Jack, when against my wish and by the force of necessity I am compelled to talk to you. Indeed, the necessity has existed for some time — but I have shied at it — I have feared it."

The speaker paused and struggled for a deep breath. His son looked at him, his face showing a mixture of perplexity, anxiety and interrogation, but he said nothing, and the cigarette between his lips burned on uninhaled. The captain evidently saw the suppressed question in the young man's face, for after a spasmodic heaving of his broad shoul ders he continued:

"I saw the doctor again to-day. He told me I must quit at once — go to Europe — or somewhere, but he won't guarantee my life for an hour. I know my condition quite as well as he, and — He hesitated.

"Well?" The word came after a moment of deep silence, the blood slowly leaving the face of the young man as he stared at his father.

"And I don't care how soon it is over!" said the captain, with a determination and abruptness that spoke volumes of his mental state.

"Dad!" The exclamation was explosive and pro testing. The old gentleman lifted his hand in deprecation.

"No— I mean it, Jack. When a man gets to be sixty years of age he has become disillusioned, no matter how optimistic he has been. If it were not for one's youth and consequent blindness life would be voted a failure by nearly every honest man arriving at my age. But that aside, Jack. You have your mother's patrimony; you have used it as suited yourself. How does it stand?"

"I have increased it a trifle, sir," was the rather mechanical response, as the young man threw away the cigarette which was scorching his mustache.

"That is good, Jack! That is good— and for tunate — for from me you will get next to nothing. j — i_ jje stopped, mastered by his emotion.

"Are you trying to explain to me that you have met with losses?" asked the other, a new light spring ing to his eye. "Why beat about the bush, dad? All I have shall be at your command, and -

The old gentleman stopped him by again lifting his hand. " No, Jack. If it were only that it would be simple enough. You have the generosity of the unselfish and the unthinking. I thank you. But it is not that, nor do I mean that my state of health is hopeless. I may live for some years, or I may not, but— Again he hesitated.

The oppressive grip on John Wentworth's heart loosened a trifle. If the matter troubling his father was not a question of money or a question of health it could not be serious. The young man's voice took a soothing tone as he cast off his load, lighted another cigarette, and said:

" You are far overwrought, dad. The heat is something awful. You've had a bad day — you've had them before. Don't talk any more to night. "

The captain shook his white head. "It is not altogether that. It is not the heat, nor the bad day— I'm used to them. Listen to me. I must tell you, for if anything should happen to me, the matter would devolve on you for a time — until a new trustee could be appointed. "

"Trustee! For whom?"

"Grace Merridale. She soon comes of age. Her papers are in the deposit vaults. You didn't know of this — you don't know her — but you have heard me speak of David Merridale — of Texas — my old friend — since the days we were at sea together? He was indeed my David!"

"Yes. I know."

"Well, he made me trustee for his daughter, Grace, under his will. The amount of the scheduled estate is small — but there is another matter — a paper — he gave me to hold for his daughter. This is a trust outside of the trust at law — it is a personal trust. David handed the paper to me while he was dying — dying in my arms, Jack — dying from exhaustion after a trip across the Texas desert."

The old gentleman labored as he spoke. He stopped, and, turning to the table at his elbow, poured out a glass of wine which he drank off. It appeared to stimulate him, for with something more of vigor and less of distress, he went on. "Jack, you would scarcely believe that so much was involved in a bit of paper not a legal document — a paper that would be meaningless to you — a square of red paper, for that is all it appears to be; and stranger yet will you consider the place where it is deposited."

"And where is that?" asked the young man, hardly curious after his recent strain. There could be nothing serious in this. He knew his father's sense of punctilious honor, a sense he had himself inherited, and thought that perhaps the old gentleman might have placed the paper in some institution the name of which he was about to tell. Captain Wentworth lifted his hand and pointed to a painting hung on the wall behind his son.

"John, in the back of that picture the paper in question is hidden." He stopped as if to witness the effect of the strange statement.

Young Wentworth's eyes were again filled with troubled wonder as he mechanically turned and glanced at the picture indicated. He knew it well enough. It had been one of his own first efforts, and had been kept by his father more as a souvenir than for any artistic value. It was hung high over the mantel and out of easy reach.

"Something of a romantic cast, this, dad," he said, with a strained endeavor at ease of manner, for he had little doubt that for the moment his father was suffering from some sudden mental disturbance; the whole interview had been strange. "Isn't it a queer place for you to hide a paper of worth?"

"You may think it strange, Jack. Perhaps it is. To you the thing would appear meaningless — merely a bit of colored paper, only, but I repeat, it belongs to Grace Merridale on her coming of age, and does not go to her as a legal right — it is not included in her father's will. It becomes a matter of honor to me — • or to you — to see that she gets it. My son, that paper is of incalculable value to any one with a full knowledge of its character and contents."

"Then, why have you not kept it in the depositvaults — with the legal matter?" interrupted the other, now somewhat impressed.

He had known of the Merridales, father and daughter; but, as they had always lived in Texas, he had never seen them. He knew that David Merridale had, indeed, been a David to Captain Wentworth's Jonathan; that they had been loyal friends since the days when they had been on the sea, though both had long since forsaken the ocean. But why such an intensely practical man as was his father should conceive the romantic idea of hiding a valuable document in a picture in his own library, where it might meet with destruction, he was at a loss to understand.

At the question put by his son, the captain wet his lips with his tongue, and his paleness was for a moment overcome by a slight flush.

"I had it in the vaults," he said impressively, "but I could not keep it there. I am telling you this that you may know— He ceased abruptly; then, grasping the arms of his chair in a grip so firm that it turned his knuckles white, he leaned forward. "My Heaven! John! The worry over that paper — - the temptation of it — is killing me. My peace lies in parting with it — yet my honor guards it."

The captain had cast aside restraint; his voice was raised. His son looked at him as if fascinated; in reality, he was stunned by this exhibition, and his half-consumed cigarette fell to the floor as he bit through it. There was hardly a moment of silence before the captain went on, an inward excitement becoming more and more outwardly visible. He held his hands toward his son as though in appeal. "John, I have come to it at last! I am a ruined man! Not through speculation or unwise investment; I never was money-mad or had enough to play with, but — but I have been haunted until that paper alone can satisfy the demand of the vampire who has sucked my blood for ten years. Ten years, Jack! I am almost spent — ruined by a blackmailer!"

The young man got unsteadily to his feet. "Black mailed! You, blackmailed!" he exclaimed, his dark eyes distended with astonishment. The old man, now pale from exertion, nodded.

"Yes; for an unwarranted act in my early life. I dare not tell you. It has been hanging over my conscience for forty years, and for the last ten has threatened me like the sword of Damocles. Under it I have been broken physically and financially — and the finish is near. I am at the end of my resources. I have robbed your future, but — but" — his hands clenched — "the final price I will not pay. / will not pay! It is a matter of my honor."

Chapter II A Tragedy

FOR a few moments the two men looked at each other, the younger one standing, his eyes wide and his emotion too great to admit of action. Had his father struck him he would have been less incapable of thought and speech.

He felt like one who had gone gaily along a pleasant path to find himself suddenly confronting a yawning precipice, and he was as well aware in that moment that his easy, devil-may-care life had come to a full stop as he was later when the prospect became a certainty.

It was the captain who first broke the oppressive silence — a silence so profound that the ticking of the French clock on the cabinet mantel dominated all other sounds. He raised himself slowly, and smiled a wan, forced smile.

"I need not have been so violent — so brutally violent," he said, quite calmly and with a slight wave of his hand. "The matter got the better of me. The excitement was bad — bad! I was told to guard against it. But I am glad I spoke, John. I think

I feel better for it, though it took all my nerveforce."

The young man seemed to awake from a dream.

"I am not sure I know what has happened," he said, passing his hand over his eyes. "I hope I have misunderstood you, sir."

"I spoke plainly enough, I think," returned the other, with the uncalled-for testiness of the heart sufferer, who can usually brook neither stupidity nor opposition.

"Possibly," returned the young man, ignoring his father's tone, "but I still feel somewhat abroad, and have not yet got the thing into proper mental focus. I only made out two concrete facts, sir. First, a paper is hidden in a picture; and, second, that you have been the victim of someone — you did not mention whom. What are the relations be tween the two? I'll answer for the settlement of your enemy, if you will give me his name and tell me where he can be found."

"Which is tantamount to expressing a desire to ruin your family's reputation! It was to save this that has brought me so low!"

"But, sir, I have a right to know, even if you forbid me to act."

"Yes — but not to-night. I am not equal to it. I have spent myself."

"And when, then?" There was little softness in the young man's voice, and his attitude was truculent, though the latter did not reflect on the old gentleman who now sat in his chair in a semicollapsed state; but the question was eagerly put, and demanded an answer.

"To-morrow, perhaps. Yes, to-morrow. But not this way, John. I can write and be calm. I will write it all."

"And the name of — him?"

"Yes — everything."

"You promise?"

"I promise. I have only this to say now. Never part with that paper until you can place it in the hands of Grace Merridale. She will be of age in two months. Your responsibility will be short. I will write an explanation of its nature, for she would know nothing about it — no more than you. And be careful, for if that monstrous villain should become aware —

"No more to-night, dad," interrupted the young man, as he saw signs of a return of his father's excitement. "Write it all out to-morrow. Let me help you upstairs."

"No — no; I am all right again," said the old gentleman, impatient at the interruption. "Go to bed yourself. I will follow soon. It is not yet eleven. I will read awhile; I could not sleep now. Good night, John."

It was a curt dismissal, but it might as well have been a command, for the son had always respected his father's slightest wish. He hesitated a moment, then laid one hand on the captain's shoulder and held out the other. He had not been so demon strative in years.

"Good-night, dad. Whatever has been — or what ever is to be, we are as one in this."

His father grasped the outstretched hand and his eyes became moist. "Good-night, Jack. God bless you, my lad. I have been foolish to bear this load alone for I might have known I could depend on you to help me out. I wish I had spoken before. I might have been saved much."

With a feeling too deep to be expressed in words the young man turned and left the library, but he did not go to his own apartments. Sleep, or even bed, was out of the question for him. Like one dazed by a blow which still left him part of his faculties, he took his hat from the broad antlers which hung in the hall, and went into the hot, still night, closing the door softly behind him. As he did so he felt that he had forever shut out his old life — that a new epoch had dawned for him; but the idea was misty and lacked detail; it did not startle him.

As the white-haired man in the library heard the front door close behind his son he threw aside the book he had taken from the table, shook his fist at the imaginary presence of someone; then with an air of determination and with a grim smile on his handsome mouth he drew a sheet of paper before him and began to write to his son. It was perhaps fortunate that he did not take out and complete the letter he was writing earlier in the evening.

John Wentworth walked up the avenue with his head in something of a whirl. He had received a distinct shock. To him it seemed impossible that his father could have laid himself open to blackmail, and that the honorable name of his family was in danger of being publicly smirched. The young man had been too bewildered to inquire into the nature of the fault (he dared not call it crime) for which his father suffered, and he knew that even had he thought to, he could not have asked. Unless his father voluntarily revealed this mysterious act of his youth, he, his son, could not force his confidence.

And to John Wentworth it made little difference whether or not his parent was guilty; he was too loyal to his blood, too proud of his name, to fail to spring to the defense of that which was dear to him. It was all too mysterious for his open nature. He tried to throw it from his mind, but failed. Like the refrain of a popular air which sometimes catches the brain and echoes through it until it becomes un bearable, the words " blackmail" and "crime" sang in John Wentworth's ears. He was impatient for the morrow when he hoped he would know all and could determine how to act; and after that — what?

He walked along like a man in a dream and without more definite object than to keep moving. Of the presumably important subject — the paper concealed in the painting — he did not think at all, and the name of Merridale did not once enter his head. At Fifty-ninth Street he turned into Central Park and strode through the black shadows without realizing his whereabouts. What paths he traced he never knew, but he was finally brought to himself by a policeman, who demanded his business there at that hour. He pulled out his watch. It was one o'clock. Wentworth came to himself. "I think I have no business here," he said. "I did not realize how late it was."

"Walkin' off a still, like as not! Don't you know where you are?" asked the patrolman.

"I'm afraid not," said Wentworth, looking around.

"Well, yer at the upper end of Central Park, and you'll get right out into the street. Who are you, anyhow?"

"I am a respectable citizen, at least," returned the young man, a trifle upset in his dignity, as he produced his card bearing his name and residence.

"We'll let it go at that," said the other. "You had better be home and in bed. Go straight ahead and out, me man, and don't let me see you around here again."

Indignant, yet feeling a vague sense of humility, Wentworth left the park and turned east to Fifth Avenue. From there he strode homeward, his brain in better order from his encounter, though it was far from being settled. Nearly an hour later he swung into his own street; and as he neared his home, he saw the lights in his father's library were still burning at full blast, and that the windows were yet wide open. There was something in the sight that hurried his heart and steps, and turning the corner, he bounded up the stoop.

In a moment more he was in the hall, dark now, as the library door was closed. Feeling his way through the gloom, Wentworth reached the door, and, without the formality of knocking, threw it open. The conditions meeting his sight caused him to stagger back with a quick cry.

At first glance the room seemed to be in great confusion. Papers covered the carpet; the deskchair was upset, the drawers of the writing-table were either wide open or pulled out entirely and lay on the floor. In front of the open fireplace was the body of Captain Wentworth, flat on his back, arms outstretched and collar and necktie torn as if from a struggle.

With a bound John was at his father's side; but he knew the old gentleman was dead, even before he placed his hand over the still heart. When he did so he drew it back quickly. It was wet, not with blood, but with ice-water. The captain's shirt and vest were soaked, his white hair was matted with water, and water still hung in drops on his set face, while a lump of ice, which had not yet had time to melt, lay on the floor a few feet away.

With his sight quickened by the conditions, the young man noticed that the cut-glass ice-pitcher lay on the floor near the body of his father, and that a little beyond the carpet was black and soaking with water. On the body itself there were no immediately discernible marks of violence beyond the torn collar and necktie, and that ordinary robbery had not been the motive of assault — if assault there had been— was plain from the fact that the captain's heavy gold watch-chain and watch were still on his person, and his open coat gave no evidence of his pockets having been rifled.

With each nerve in his robust body tingling, yet with a calmness for which he never could account, John raised himself and looked about. A single glance showed the young man, whose every sense had suddenly become abnormally acute, that beyond the capsized pivot-chair, the scattered papers, the open drawers, and the misplaced ice-pitcher, there was nothing about the room that indicated any unusual happening.