The Crevice.

by William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander.

CHAPTER I

PENNINGTON LAWTON AND THE GRIM REAPER

Had New Illington been part of an empire instead of one of the most important cities in the greatest republic in the world, the cry "The King is dead! Long live the King!" might well have resounded through its streets on that bleak November morning when Pennington Lawton was found dead, seated quietly in his arm-chair by the hearth in the library, where so many vast deals of national import had been first conceived, and the details arranged which had carried them on and on to brilliant consummation.

Lawton, the magnate, the supreme power in the financial world of the whole country, had been suddenly cut down in his prime.

The news of his pa.s.sing traveled more quickly than the extras which rolled damp from the presses could convey it through the avenues and alleys of the city, whose wealthiest citizen he had been, and through the highways and byways of the country, which his marvelous mentality and finesse had so manifestly strengthened in its position as a world power.

At the banks and trust companies there were hurriedly-called directors' meetings, where men sat about long mahogany tables, and talked constrainedly about the immediate future and the vast changes which the death of this great man would necessarily bring. In the political clubs, his pa.s.sing was discussed with bated breath.

At the hospitals and charitable inst.i.tutions which he had so generously helped to maintain, in the art clubs and museums, in the Cosmopolitan Opera House--in the founding of which he had been leading spirit and unfailingly thereafter, its most generous contributor--he was mourned with a sincerity no less deep because of its admixture of self-interest.

In aristocratic drawing-rooms, there were whispers over the tea-cups; the luck of Ramon Hamilton, the rising young lawyer, whose engagement to Anita Lawton, daughter and sole heiress of the dead financier, had just been announced, was remarked upon with the frankness of envy, left momentarily unguarded by the sudden shock.

For three days Pennington Lawton lay in simple, but veritable state.

Telegrams poured in from the highest representatives of State, clergy and finance. Then, while the banks and charitable inst.i.tutions momentarily closed their doors, and flags throughout the city were lowered in respect to the man who had gone, the funeral procession wound its solemn way from the aristocratic church of St. James, to the graveyard. The last extras were issued, detailing the service; the last obituaries printed, the final paeans of praise were sung, and the world went on its way.

During the two days thereafter, mult.i.tudinous affairs of more imperative public import were brought to light; a celebrated murder was committed; a notorious band of criminals was rounded up; a political boss toppled and fell from his self-made pedestal; a diplomatic scandal of far-reaching effect was unearthed, and in the press of pa.s.sing events, the fact that Lawton had been eliminated from the scheme of things faded into comparative insignificance, from the point of view of the general public.

In the great house on Belleair Avenue, which the man who was gone had called home, a tall, slender young girl sat listlessly conversing with a pompous little man, whose clerical garb proclaimed the reason for his coming. The girl's sable garments pathetically betrayed her youth, and in her soft eyes was the pained and wounded look of a child face to face with its first comprehended sorrow.

The Rev. Dr. Franklin laid an obsequious hand upon her arm.

"The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Anita Lawton shivered slightly, and raised a trembling, protesting hand.

"Please," she said, softly, "I know--I heard you say that at St.

James' two days ago. I try to believe, to think, that in some inscrutable way, G.o.d meant it for the best when he took my father so ruthlessly from me, with no premonition, no sign of warning. It is hard, Dr. Franklin. I cannot coordinate my thoughts just yet. You must give me a little time."

The minister bent his short body still lower before her.

"My dear child, do you remember, also, a later prayer in the same service?"--unconsciously he a.s.sumed the full rich, rounded, pulpit tones, which were habitual with him. "'Lord, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another; before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and world were made--'"

A low knocking upon the door interrupted him, and the butler appeared.

"Mr. Rockamore and Mr. Mallowe," Anita Lawton read aloud from the cards he presented. "Oh, I can't see them now. Tell them, Wilkes, that my minister is with me, and they must forgive me for denying myself to them."

The butler retired, and the Rev. Dr. Franklin, at the mention of two of the most prominent and influential men in the city since the death of Lawton, turned bulging, inquiring eyes upon the girl.

"My dear child, is it wise for you to refuse to see two of your father's best friends? You will need their help, their kindness--a woman alone in the world, no matter how exalted her position, needs friends. Mr. Mallowe is not one of my parishioners, but I understand that as president of the Street Railways, he was closely a.s.sociated with your dear father in many affairs of finance. Mr. Rockamore I know to be a man of almost unlimited power in the world in which Mr. Lawton moved. Should you not see them? Remember that you are under my protection in every way, of course, but since our Heavenly Father has seen fit to take unto Himself your dear one, I feel that it would be advisable for you to place yourself under the temporal guidance of those whom he trusted, at any rate for the time being."

"Oh, I feel that they were my father's friends, but not mine. Since mother and my little sister and brother were lost at sea, so many years ago, I have learned to depend wholly upon my father, who was more comrade than parent. Then, as you know, I met Ramon--Mr.

Hamilton, and of course I trust him as implicitly as I must trust you.

But although, on many occasions, I a.s.sisted my father to receive his financial confreres on a social basis, I cannot feel at a time like this that I care to talk with any except those who are nearest and dearest to me."

"But suppose they have come, not wholly to offer you consolation, but to confer with you upon some business matters upon which it would be advantageous for you to inform yourself? Your grief and desire for seclusion are most natural, under the circ.u.mstances, but one must sometimes consider earthly things also." The minister's evidently eager desire to be present at an interview with the great men and to place himself on a more familiar footing with them was so obvious that Anita's gesture of dissent held also something of repugnance.

"I could not, Dr. Franklin. Perhaps later, when the first shock has pa.s.sed, but not yet. You understand that I like them both most cordially. Those whom father trusted must be men of sterling worth, but just now I feel as must an animal which has been beaten. I want to creep off into a dark and silent place until my misery dulls a little."

"You have borne up wonderfully well, dear child, under the severe shock of this tragedy. Mrs. Franklin and I have remarked upon it. You have exhibited the same self-mastery and strength of character which made your father the man he was." Dr. Franklin arose from his chair with a sigh which was not altogether perfunctory. "Think well over what I have said. Try to realize that your only consolation and strength in this hour of your deepest sorrow come from on High, and believe that if you take your poor, crushed heart to the Throne of Grace it shall be healed. That has been promised us. Think, also, of what I have just said to you concerning your father's a.s.sociates, and when next they call, as they will, of course, do very shortly, try to receive them with your usual gracious charms, and should they offer you any advice upon worldly matters, which we must not permit ourselves to neglect, send for me. I will leave you now. Mrs.

Franklin will call upon you to-morrow. Try to be brave and calm, and pray for the guidance which will be vouchsafed you, should you ask it, frankly and freely."

Anita Lawton gave him her hand and accompanied him in silence to the door. There, with a few gentle words, she dismissed him, and when the sound of his measured footsteps had diminished, she closed the door with a little gasp of half relief, and turned to the window. It had been an effort to her to see and talk with her spiritual adviser, whose hypocrisy she had vaguely felt.

If only Ramon had come--Ramon, whose wife she would be in so short a time, and who must now be father as well as husband to her. She glanced at the little French clock on the mantel. He was late--he had promised to be there at four. As she parted the heavy curtains, the telephone upon her father's desk, in the corner, shrilled sharply.

When she took the receiver off the hook, the voice of her lover came to the girl as clearly, tenderly, as if he, himself, stood beside her.

"Anita, dear, may I come to you now?"

"Oh, please do, Ramon; I have been waiting for you. Dr. Franklin called this afternoon, and while he was here with me Mr. Rockamore and Mr. Mallowe came, but I could not see them. There is something I feel I must talk over with you."

She hung up the receiver with a little sigh, and for the first time in days a faint suspicion of a smile lightened her face. As she turned away, however, her eyes fell upon the great leather chair by the hearth, and her expression changed as she gave an uncontrollable shudder. It was in that chair her father had been found on that fateful morning, about a week ago, clad still in the dinner-clothes of the previous evening, a faint, introspective smile upon his keen, inscrutable face; his eyes wide, with a politely inquiring stare, as if he had looked upon things which until then had been withheld from his vision. She walked over to the chair, and laid her hand where his head had rested. Then, all at once, the tension within her seemed to snap and she flung herself within its capacious, wide-reaching arms, in a torrent of tears--the first she had shed.

It was thus that Ramon Hamilton found her, on his arrival twenty minutes later, and without ado, he gathered her up, carried her to the window-seat, and made her cry out her heart upon his shoulder.

When she was somewhat quieted he said to her gently, "Dearest, why will you insist upon coming to this room, of all others, at least just for a little time? The memories here will only add to your suffering."

"I don't know; I can't explain it. That chair there in which poor father was found has a peculiar, dreadful fascination for me. I have heard that murderers invariably return sooner or later to the scene of their crime. May we not also have the same desire to stay close to the place whence some one we love has departed?"

"You are morbid, dear. Bring your maid and come to my mother's house for a little, as she has repeatedly asked you to do. It will make it so much easier for you."

"Perhaps it would. Your mother has been so very kind, and yet I feel that I must remain here, that there is something for me to do."

"I don't understand. What do you mean, dearest?"

She turned swiftly and placed her hands upon his broad shoulders. Her childish eyes were steely with an intensity of purpose hitherto foreign to them.

"Ramon, there is something I have not told you or any one; but I feel that the time has come for me to speak. It is not nervousness, or imagination; it is a fact which occurred on the night of my father's death."

"Why speak of it, Anita?" He took her hands from his shoulders, and pressed them gently, but with quiet strength. "It is all over now, you know. We must not dwell too much upon what is past; I shall have to help you to put it all from your mind--not to forget, but to make your memories tender and beautiful."

"But I must speak of it. It will be on my mind day and night until I have told you. Ramon, you dined with us that night--the night before.

Did my father seem ill to you?"

"Of course not. I had never known him to be in better health and spirits." Ramon glanced at her in involuntary surprise.

"Are you sure?"

"Why do you ask me that? You know that heart-disease may attack one at any time without warning."