Chapter 15

SUCH STUFF AS PLOTS ARE MADE OF

"How is it?" P. Sybarite asked solicitously.

"Aches," replied the boy huddled in his corner of the cab.

Then he found spirit enough for a pale, thin smile, faintly visible in a milky splash from an electric arc rocking by the vehicle in its flight.

"Aches like hell," he added. "Makes one feel a bit sickish."

"Anything I can do?"

"No--thanks. I'll be all right--as soon as I find a surgeon to draw that slug and plaster me up."

"That's the point: where am I to take you?"

"Home--the Monastery--Forty-third Street."

"Bachelor apartments?"

"Yes; I herd by my lonesome."

"Praises be!" muttered P. Sybarite, relieved.

For several minutes he had been entertaining a vision of himself escorting this battered and bloody young person to a home of shrieking feminine relations, and poignantly surmising the sort of welcome apt to be accorded the good Samaritan in such instances.

And while he was about it, he took time briefly to offer up thanks that the shock of his wound seemed to have sobered the boy completely.

Opening the door, he craned his neck out to establish communication with the ear of the chauffeur; to whom he repeated the address, adding an admonition to avoid the Monastery until certain he had shaken off pursuit, if any; and dodged back.

At this juncture the taxicab was slipping busily up Eighth Avenue, having gained that thoroughfare via Forty-first Street. A little later it turned eastwards....

"No better, I presume?" P. Sybarite enquired.

"Not so's you'd notice it," the boy returned bravely.... "First time anything like this ever happened to me," he went on. "Funny sensation--precisely as if somebody had lammed me for a home run--with a steel girder for a bat ..."

"Must be tough!" said P. Sybarite blankly, experiencing a qualm at the thought of a soft-nosed bullet mushrooming through living flesh.

"Guess I can stand it.... Where are we?"

P. Sybarite took observations."

"Forty-seventh, near Sixth Avenue," he reported finally.

"Good: we'll be home in five minutes."

"Think you can hold out that long?"

"Sure--got to; if I keel over before we reach my digs ... chances are it'll get you into trouble ... besides, I want to fight shy of the papers ... no good airing this scandal ..."

"None whatever," affirmed P. Sybarite heartily. "But--how did you get into it?"

"Just by way of being a natural-born ass."

"Oh, well! If it comes to that, I admit it's none of my business--"

"The deuce it isn't! After all you've done for me! Good Lord, man, where would I be...!"

"Sleeping the sleep of the doped in some filthy corner of Dutch House, most likely."

"And you saved me from that!"

"And got this hole drilled through you instead."

"Got me away; I'd've collected the lead anyhow--wasn't meaning to stay without a fight."

"Then you weren't as drunk as you seemed?"

"Didn't you catch me making a move the minute you created a diversion? Of course, I'd no idea you were friendly--"

"Look here," P. Sybarite interrupted sharply: "doesn't it hurt you to talk?"

"No--helps me forget this ache."

"All right, then--tell me how this came about. What has Red November got on you, to make him so anxious--?"

"Nothing, as far as I know; unless it was Brian Shaynon's doing--"

"A-ah!"

"You know that old blighter?"

"Slightly--very slightly."

"Friend of yours?"

"Not exactly."

The accent of P. Sybarite's laugh rendered the disclaimer conclusive.

"Glad to hear that," said the boy gravely: "I'd despise to be beholden to any friend of his ..."

"Well.... But what's the trouble between you and old man Shaynon?"

"Search me--unless he thought I was spying on him. I say!" the boy exclaimed excitedly--"what business could he have had with Red November there, to-night?"

"That is a question," P. Sybarite allowed.

"Something urgent, I'll be bound!--else he wouldn't ever have dared show his bare map in that dump."

"One would think so...."

"I'd like to figure this thing out. Perhaps you can help. To begin with--I went to a party to-night."

"I know," said P. Sybarite, with a quiet chuckle: "the Hadley-Owen masquerade."

"How did you know?"

"Kismet! It had to be."

"Are you by any chance--mad?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. Anyhow, I'm a bit mad I wasn't invited. Everybody I know or meet--almost--is either bidden to that party or knows somebody who is. Forgive the interruption.... Anyway," he added, "we're here."

The taxicab was drawing up before an apartment house entrance.

Hastily recovering his hoard of gold-pieces, P. Sybarite jumped out and presented one to the driver.

"Can't change that," said the latter, staring. "Besides, this was a charge call."

"I know," said P. Sybarite apologetically; "but this is for you."

"Good God!" cried the chauffeur.

"And yet," mused P. Sybarite, "they'd have you believe all taxicab chauffeurs mercenary!"

Recklessly he forced the money into the man's not altogether inhospitable palm.

"For being a good little tight-mouth," he explained gravely.

"Forever and ever, amen!" protested the latter fervently. "And thank you!"

"If you're satisfied, we're quits," returned P. Sybarite, offering a hand to the boy.

"I can manage," protested this last, descending without assistance. "And it's better so," he explained as they crossed to the door; "I don't want the hallboys here to suspect--and I can hold up a few minutes longer, never fear."

"Business of taking off my hat to you," said P. Sybarite in unfeigned admiration; "for pure grit, you're a young wonder."

A liveried hallboy opened the door. A second waited in the elevator. Promptly ascending, they were set down at one of the upper floors.

Throughout the boy carried himself with never a quiver, his countenance composed and betraying what pain he suffered only to eyes keen to discern its trace of pallor. Now as he left the elevator and fitted a key to the lock of his private front door, he addressed the attendant, over his shoulder, in a manner admirably casual:

"By the way, Jimmy--"

"Sir?"

"Call up Dr. Higgins for me."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him I've an attack of indigestion and will be glad if he'll turn out and see if he can't fix me up for the night."

"Very good, Mr. Kenny."

The gate clanged and the cage dropped from sight as Mr. Kenny opened the door and stood aside to let P. Sybarite precede him.

"Rot!" objected the little man forcibly. "Go in and turn up the lights. Punctilio from a man in your condition--!"

The boy nodded wearily, passed in, and switched up the lights in a comfortably furnished sitting-room.

"As a matter of fact," he said thoughtfully, when P. Sybarite had followed him in and shut the door--"I'm wondering how much of a bluff I may be, after all."

"Meaning--?"

"By all literary precedent I ought to faint now, after my magnificent exhibition of superhuman endurance. But I'm not going to."

"That's rather sporting of you," P. Sybarite grinned.

"Not at all; I just don't want to--don't feel like it. That sick feeling is gone--nothing but a steady agony like a hot iron through my shoulder--something any man with teeth to grit could stand."

"We'll find out soon enough. I don't pretend to be any sort of a dab at repairs on punctured humanity, but I read enough popular fiction myself to know that the only proper thing to do is to ruin that handsome coat of yours by cutting it off your back. We can anticipate the doctor to that extent, at least."

"That's one thing, at least, that the popular novelist knows right," asserted Mr. Kenny with conviction. "Sorry for the coat--but you'll find scissors yonder, on my desk."

And when P. Sybarite fetched them, he sat himself sideways in a straight-backed chair and cheerfully endured the little man's impromptu essays in first-aid measures.

A very little snipping and slashing sufficed to do away with the shoulder and sleeve of the boy's coat and to lay open his waistcoat as well, exposing a bloodstained shirt. And then, at the instant when P. Sybarite was noting with relief that the stain showed both in back and in front, the telephone shrilled.

"If you don't mind answering that--" grunted Mr. Kenny.

P. Sybarite was already at the instrument.

"Yes?" he answered. "Dr. Higgins?"

"Sorry, sir," replied a strange voice: "Dr. Higgins isn't in yet. Any message?"

"Tell him Mr. Kenny needs him at the Monastery, and the matter's urgent.... Doctor not in," he reported superfluously, returning to cut away collar, tie, shirt, and undershirt. "Never mind, I shouldn't be surprised if we could manage to do without him, after all."

"Meaning it's not so bad--?"

"Meaning," said the other, exposing the naked shoulder, "I'm beginning to hope you've had a marvellously narrow escape."

"Feels like it," said Kenny, ironic.

P. Sybarite withheld response while he made close examination. At the base of Mr. Kenny's neck, well above the shoulder-blade, dark blood was welling slowly from an ugly puncture. And in front there was a corresponding puncture, but smaller. And presently his deft and gentle fingers, exploring the folds of the boy's undershirt, closed upon the bullet itself.

"I don't believe," he announced, displaying his find, "you deserve such luck. Somehow you managed to catch this just right for it to slip through without either breaking bone or severing artery. And by a special dispensation of an all-wise Providence, Red November must have been preoccupied when he loaded that gun, for somehow a steel-jacketed instead of a soft-nosed bullet got into the chamber he wasted on you. Otherwise you'd have been pretty badly smashed. As it is, you'll probably be laid up only a few days."

"I told you I wasn't so badly hurt--"

"God's good to the Irish. Where's your bathroom?"

With a gesture Kenny indicated its location.

"And handkerchiefs--?"

"Upper bureau drawer in the bedroom."

In a twinkling P. Sybarite was off and back again with materials for an antiseptic wash and a rude bandage.

"How'd you know I was Irish?" demanded the patient.

"By yoursilf's name," quoth P. Sybarite in a thick brogue as natural as grass, while he worked away busily. "'Tis black Irish, and well I know it. 'Twas me mither's maiden name--Kenny. She had a brother, Michael he was and be way av bein' a rich conthractor in this very town as ever was, befure he died--God rist his sowl! He left two children--a young leddy who mis-spells her name M-a-e A-l-y-s--keep still!--and Peter, yersilf, me cousin, if it's not mistaken I am."

"The Lord save us!" said the boy. "You're never Percy Sybarite!"

P. Sybarite winced. "Not so loud!" he pleaded in a stage whisper. "Some one might hear you."

"What the devil's the matter with you?"

"I am that man you named--but, prithee, Percy me no Percevals, an' you'd be my friend. For fifteen years I've kept my hideous secret well. If it becomes public now ..."

Peter Kenny laughed in spite of his pain.

"I'll keep your secret, too," he volunteered, "since you feel that way about it.... But, I say: what have you been doing with yourself since--since--" He stammered.

"Since the fall of the House of Sybarite?"

"Yes. I didn't know you were in New York, even."

"Your mother and Mae Alys knew it--but kept it quiet, the same as me," said the little man.

"But--well--what have you been doing, then?"

"Going to and fro like a raging lion--more or less--seeking what I might devour."

"And the devourings have been good, eh? You're high-spirited enough."

"I think," said P. Sybarite quietly--"I may say--though you can't see it--that my present smile would, to a shrewd observer, seem to indicate I'd swallowed a canary-bird ... a nice, fat, golden canary-bird!" he repeated, smacking his lips with unction.

"You talk as if you'd swallowed a dictagraph," said Peter Kenny.

"It's my feeling," sighed P. Sybarite. "But yourself? Let's see; when I saw you last you were the only authentic child pest of your day and generation--six or seven at most. How long have you been out of college?"

"A year--not quite."

"And sporting bachelor rooms of your own!"

"I'm of age. Besides, if you must know, mother and Mae Alys are both dotty on the society game, and I'm not. I won't be rushed round to pink teas and--and all that sort of thing."

"Far more wholesome than pink whiskeys at Dutch House."

"You don't understand--"

"No; but I mean to. There!" announced P. Sybarite, finishing the bandage with a tidy flat knot--make yourself comfortable on that couch, tell me where you keep your whiskey, and I'll mix myself a drink and listen to your degrading confession....

"Now," he added, when Peter Kenny, stretched out on the couch, had suffered himself to be covered up--"not being an M.D., I've no conscience at all about letting you talk yourself to death; eaten alive as I am with curiosity; and knowing besides that you can't kill a Kenny but with kindness."

"You'll find the whiskey on the buffet," said the boy.

"Obliged to you," P. Sybarite replied, finding it.

"And I suppose I--"

"You're quite right; you've had enough. Alcohol is nothing to help mend a wound. If your friend Higgins permits it, when he comes--well and good.... Meanwhile," he added, taking a seat near the head of the couch, and fixing his youthful relation with a stern enquiring eye--"what were you doing in Dutch House the night?"

"I've been trying to tell you--"

"And now you must.... Is there a cigar handy?... Thanks.... This whiskey is prime stuff.... Go on. I'm waiting."

"Well," Peter Kenny confessed sheepishly. "I'm in love--"

"And you proposed to her to-night at the ball?"

"Yes, and--"

"She refused you."

"Yes, but--"

"So you decided to do the manly thing--go out and pollute yourself with drink?"

"That's about the size of it," Peter admitted, shamefaced.

"It's no good reason," announced P. Sybarite. "Now, if you'd been celebrating your happy escape, I'd be the last to blame you."

"You don't understand, and you won't give me a chance--"

"I'm waiting--all ears--but not the way you mean."

"It wasn't as if she'd left me any excuse to hope ... but she told me flat she didn't care for me."

"That's bad, Peter. Forgive my ill-timed levity: I didn't mean it meanly, boy," P. Sybarite protested.

"It's worse than you think," Peter complained. "I can stand her not caring for me. Why should she?"

"Why, indeed?"

"It's because she's gone and promised to marry Bayard Shaynon."

P. Sybarite looked dazed.

"She? Bayard Shaynon? Who's the girl?"

"Marian Blessington. Why do you ask? Do you know her?"

There was a pause. P. Sybarite blinked furiously.

"I've heard that name," he said quietly, at length. "Isn't she old Brian's ward--the girl who disappeared recently?"

"She didn't disappear, really. She's been staying with friends--told me so herself. That's all the foundation the Journal had for its story."

"Friends?"

"So she said."

"Did she name them?"

"No--"

"Or say where?"

"No; but some place out of town, of course."

"Of course," P. Sybarite repeated mechanically. He eyed fixedly the ash on the end of his cigar. "And she told you she meant to marry Bayard Shaynon, did she!"

"She said she'd promised.... And that," the boy broke out, "was what drove me crazy. He's--he's--well, you know what he is."

"His father's son," said P. Sybarite gloomily.

"He was there to-night--the old man, too; and after what Marian had told me, I just couldn't trust myself to meet or speak to either of them. So I bolted back here, took a stiff drink, changed from costume to these clothes, and went out to make a besotted ass of myself. Naturally I landed in Dutch House. And there--the first thing I noticed when I went in was old Shaynon, sitting at the same table you took, later--waiting. Imagine my surprise--I'd left him at the Bizarre not thirty minutes before!"

"I'm imagining it, Peter. Get ahead."

"I hailed him, but he wouldn't recognise me--simply glared. Presently Red November came in and they went upstairs together. So I stuck around, hoping to get hold of Red and make him drunk enough to talk. Curiously enough when Shaynon left, Red came directly to my table and sat down. But by that time I'd had some champagne on top of whiskey and was beginning to know that if I pumped in anything more, it'd be November's party instead of mine. And when he tried to insist on my drinking more, I got scared--feeling what I'd had as much as I did."

"You're not the fool you try to seem," P. Sybarite conceded. "I heard November promise Shaynon, at the door, that you wouldn't remember much when you came to. The old scoundrel didn't want to be seen--hadn't expected to be recognised and, when he found you'd followed, planned to fix things so that you'd never tell on him."

"But why?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. There's some sort of shenanigan brewing, or my first name's Peter, the same as yours--which I wish it was so.... Be quiet a bit and let me think."

For a little while P. Sybarite sat pondering with vacant eyes; and the wounded boy stared upward with a frown, as though endeavouring to puzzle the answer to this riddle out of the blankness of the ceiling.

"What time does this Hadley-Owen party break up?"

"Not till daylight. It's the last big fixture of the social season, and ordinarily they keep it up till sunrise."

"It'll be still going, then?"

"Strong. They'll be in full swing, now, of after-supper dancing."

"That settles it: I'm going."

The boy lifted on his elbow in amaze, then subsided with a grunt of pain.

"You're going?"

"You say you've got a costume of some sort here? I'll borrow it. We're much of a size."

"Heaven knows you're welcome, but--"

"But what?"

"You have no invitation."

Rising, P. Sybarite smiled loftily. "Don't worry about that. If I can't bribe my way past a cordon of mercenary foreign waiters--and talk down any other opposition--I'm neither as flush as I think nor as Irish."

"But what under the sun do you want there?"

"To see what's doing--find out for myself what devilment Brian Shaynon's hatching. Maybe I'll do no good--and maybe I'll be able to put a spoke in his wheel. To do that--once--right--I'd be willing to die as poor as I've lived till this blessed night!"

He paused an instant on the threshold of his cousin's bedroom; turned back a sombre visage.

"I've little love for Brian Shaynon, myself, or none. You know what he did to me--and mine."