THE RED LEDGER. Frank L. Packard
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them again—and now, as they seemed to leap back at him in mockery, his look of incredulous dismay became an angry flush. He had been right at first, the man was mad—or was making a fool of him. The great red book was a ledger, and on the page open before him were scarcely a half dozen words. His father's name was at the top; beneath was a date, and, opposite the date, was a credit entry consisting of the two words: "One Dime." The debit side of the ledger was a blank.
Without a word, just a short, savage laugh, Stranway wheeled abruptly for the door—and, as abruptly, spun around again. With a grip, surprising in its strength for one of his age, Charlebois had caught him by the arm and faced him about.
"My boy," he demanded gravely, "have I offered you ten cents? You are too impulsive, too emotional. Have you still to learn that value is not calculated by rule of mathematics? Listen! This book is the record of a period of my life when I was homeless, destitute, and physically unable to earn my bread because my lungs were seriously affected and I was too ill and weak either to secure or do enough work to support me. It is a large book, is it not? Well, it would need be, for many debts, very many debts, were incurred in that period. I was careful then not to forget them, for I knew the day was to come when I should repay. You are beginning to understand—to understand what ten cents that your father gave me once might mean? That day, the beginning of repayment came years ago now, when wealth with a sudden flood poured upon me—but of that at some other time! You are interested now in yourself and why I sent for you. There are many names in this book, many accounts still unbalanced. In that filing case yonder are almost daily records of the lives of those men and women whose names are written here. It has grown to be a stupendous work. It has called into being a far-reaching and highly trained organisation. And now the time is here when I need some one very close to me, a confidant, one upon whom I can implicitly rely. This is what I hope to offer you—first, for your father's sake; second, because I believe I shall find in you the one I have been seeking. Should I prove to be right in my opinion of you, and should you then accept the offer, it is but fair I should tell you that I shall demand much—but also I will give much. I would demand absolute, unquestioning obedience; invulnerable loyalty; your sworn oath of secrecy under any circumstances that might arise."
A whim? A vagary? No; it was more than that. There was no feebleness of brain behind the steady eyes that played on Stranway and seemed to read him through to his soul. Resolve, purpose, inflexible will, and a grim something he could not quite define were written on the other's face.
"And also," added Charlebois quietly, "it would be equally unfair before we go farther to disguise from you the fact that, should you associate yourself with me, you face the possibility of grave danger, of perhaps even death."
Death! Danger! The words struck Stranway with a cold shock, just as it seemed he was beginning to understand a little something of this quaint character before him.
"Death? Danger?" he echoed in a bewildered way.
The hard, flint-like expression was back in Charlebois' features.
"Even so—death and danger," he repeated. "You have only seen one entry in the ledger, and that was on the credit side. There are debit entries there as well. Debit entries, as surely debts as the others; as surely to be settled, to be balanced as the others—and with the same impartial justice. Should I forget the one and not the other? I have forgotten neither. They are all there—all!" His clenched hand fell suddenly upon the Red Ledger. "And all are paid—at maturity. Powerful men to-day are amongst those names on the debit side, men who strike in the black of night, who fight with unbuttoned foils, who turn like rats at bay to save themselves; and from these, their craft and resources, comes the danger I have warned——"
Charlebois stopped abruptly. One of the two telephones on the desk—one of a style and manufacture generally used for connecting up different parts of an establishment—rang sharply. Stranway had not noticed the difference in the instruments before, and now he did so with a curious sense of surprise. The house was very small for such an installation; there were, he judged, perhaps four rooms in all, there could hardly be more.
His eyes, from the instrument, lifted to Charlebois' face—and he stepped back involuntarily. It seemed as though it were another man who now stood before him. Old before, Charlebois' face appeared aged almost beyond recognition; the hand that held the receiver to his ear was trembling violently; the other hand, still on top of the Red Ledger, opened and shut, opened and shut spasmodically; the man's stature seemed absolutely to shrink, and his whole frame shook as with the ague. Spellbound, dumb with amazement, Stranway stared. The receiver clattered from a nerveless hand to the desk. Charlebois tottered, recovered himself, and with a wild, hunted look around the room, turned to Stranway.
"Wait! Wait!" The words came stammering through twitching lips, and the next instant Charlebois had darted behind the red silken portière and was gone from the room.
For perhaps a minute, Stranway stood there motionless, confused, his mind in turmoil—and then, suddenly, like a galvanic shock, clearing his brain, stirring him to action, a wild scream rang through the room.
It came again—from behind the portière—full of terror, agony, despair—a woman's scream. A bare second, every muscle rigid, Stranway stood poised; then with a spring he reached the portière and tore it aside. A door was before him, its upper portion glass-panelled.
"My God!" he cried fearfully, and wrenched at the door with all his strength. It would not yield. Sweat beads of horror sprang out upon his forehead.
Before him, in the room beyond, two forms were struggling—that of Charlebois and a woman; a woman, young, slender, lithe, with a face that even in its pallor now was beautiful; a woman, gowned in black, without touch of colour about her save, grim in irony, a delicate purple orchid that, half wrenched from her corsage, dangled now from its broken stem. Charlebois' hand, clutching a revolver, tore suddenly free as they swayed. Like a madman Stranway flung himself at the door again. And again it resisted his attack. There was a flash, a puff of smoke, a sharp report. He heard a gurgling cry from the woman's lips. She reeled, crumpled up, pitched forward, lay a motionless, inert heap upon the floor—and a dark crimson stain gushed out upon the carpet.
Instantly, then, Stranway turned and raced back across the room to the other door. He had not closed it after him when he had entered—but now it was locked! He wasted a minute in a blind, futile effort to force it; then, his brain working rationally again, he jumped for the desk, snatched up the city telephone and whipped off the receiver.
"Hello! Hello! Central!" he called frantically. "Cent——"
"Put that down!" The words came in a monotone, deadly cold, as Charlebois, with working face, his revolver covering Stranway, stepped into the room, and whipped the portière violently across the glass-panelled door behind him.
Stranway's hand dropped.
Charlebois came nearer, close to the desk, and a paroxysm of fury seemed to seize him.
"You have seen! You have seen!" His voice, high-pitched, was almost a scream. "You would give me to the law, you would send me to the chair! Your oath, your solemn oath that no word of this will ever pass your lips, or you shall not leave this room alive!"
Stranway's face, already colourless, greyed; but, now, his lips straightened doggedly in a firm line and he looked Charlebois steadily in the eyes—it was answer enough.
"You won't?" snarled Charlebois. "You won't? I will give you until I count three. It is my life or yours. My life or yours, you fool, do you not see that? One!"
Stranway's mouth was dry. The room was swimming around him.
"No!" he said hoarsely.
"Two!"
There was only one chance—to launch himself suddenly at the other and risk the shot. Stranway's muscles tautened—but he did not spring.
With a broken cry, Charlebois suddenly thrust the revolver into his jacket pocket, and, lurching forward into the desk chair, buried his face in his hands.
"I can't—I can't! No, no; no more blood!"