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Pagan Madonna, The

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<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2></div> Cunningham sat down. “The spirit is willing, Cleigh, but the flesh is weak. You’ll never get my hide. How will you go about it? Stop a moment and mull it over. How are you going to prove that I’ve borrowed the rug and the paintings? These are your choicest possessions. You have many at home worth more, but these things you love. Out of spite, will you inform the British, the French, the Italian governments that you had these objects and that I relieved you of them? In that event you’ll have my hide, but you’ll never set eyes upon the oils again except upon their lawful walls—the rug, never! On the other hand, there is every chance in the world of my returning them to you.” “Your word?” interrupted Jane, ironically. So Cleigh was right? A quarter of a million in art treasures! “My word! I never before realized,” continued Cunningham, “what a fine thing it is to possess something to stand on firmly—a moral plank.” Dennison’s laughter was sardonic. 233 “Moral plank is good,” was his comment. “Miss Norman,” said Cunningham, maliciously, “I slept beside the captain this morning, and he snores outrageously.” The rogue tilted his chin and the opal fire leaped into his eyes. “Do you want me to tell you all about the Great Adventure Company, or do you want me to shut up and merely proceed with the company’s business without further ado? Why the devil should I care what you think of me? Still, I do care. I want you to get my point of view—a rollicking adventure, in which nobody loses anything and I have a great desire fulfilled. Hang it, it’s a colossal joke, and in the end the laugh will be on nobody! Even Eisenfeldt will laugh,” he added, enigmatically. “Do you intend to take the oils and the rug and later return them?” demanded Jane. “Absolutely! That’s the whole story. Only Cleigh here will not believe it until the rug and oils are dumped on the door-step of his New York home. I needed money. Nobody would offer to finance a chart with a red cross on it. So I had to work it out in my own fashion. The moment Eisenfeldt sees these oils and the rug he becomes my financier, but he’ll never put his claw on them except for one thing—that act of God they mention on the back of your ticket. Some raider may 234 have poked into this lagoon of mine. In that case Eisenfeldt wins.” Cleigh smiled. “A pretty case, Cunningham, but it won’t hold water. It is inevitable that Eisenfeldt gets the rug and the paintings, and you are made comfortable for the rest of your days. A shabby business, and you shall rue it.” “My word?” “I don’t believe in it any longer,” returned Cleigh. Cunningham appealed to Jane. “Give me the whole story, then I’ll tell you what I believe,” she said. “You may be telling the truth.” What a queer idea—wanting his word believed! Why should it matter to him whether they believed in the honour of his word or not, when he held the whip hand and could act as he pleased? The poor thing! And as that phrase was uttered in thought, the glamour of him was dissipated; she saw Cunningham as he was, a poor benighted thing, half boy, half demon, a thing desperately running away from his hurt and lashing out at friends and enemies alike on the way. “Tell your story—all of it.” Cunningham began: “About a year ago the best friend I had—perhaps 235 the only friend I had—died. He left me his chart and papers. The atoll is known, but uncharted, because it is far outside the routes. I have no actual proofs that there will be shell in the lagoon; I have only my friend’s word—the word of a man as honest as sunshine. Where this shell lies there is never any law. Some pearl thiever may have fallen upon the shell since my friend discovered it.” “In that case,” said Cleigh, “I lose?” “Frankly, yes! All financial ventures are attended by certain risks.” “Money? Why didn’t you come to me for that?” “What! To you?” Cunningham’s astonishment was perfect. “Yes. There was a time when I would have staked a good deal on your word.” Cunningham rested his elbows on the table and clutched his hair—a despairing gesture. “No use! I can’t get it to you! I can’t make you people understand! It isn’t the pearls, it’s the game; it’s all the things that go toward the pearls. I want to put over a game no man ever played before.” Jane began to find herself again drawn toward him, but no longer with the feeling of unsettled mystery. She knew now why he drew her. He 236 was the male of the species to which she belonged—the out-trailer, the hater of humdrum, of dull orbits and of routine. The thrilling years he had spent—business! This was the adventure of which he had always dreamed, and since it would never arrive as a sequence, he had proceeded to dramatize it! He was Tom Sawyer grown up; and for a raft on the Mississippi substitute a seagoing yacht. There was then in this matter-of-fact world such a man, and he sat across the table from her! “Supposing I had come to you and you had advanced the money?” said Cunningham, earnestly. “All cut and dried, not a thrill, not a laugh, nothing but the pearls! I have never had a boyhood dream realized but, hang it, I’m going to realize this one!” He struck the table violently. “Set the British after me, and you’ll never see this stuff again. You’ll learn whether my word is worth anything or not. Lay off for eight months, and if your treasures are not yours again within that time you won’t have to chase me. I’ll come to you and have the tooth pulled without gas.” Dennison’s eyes softened a little. Neither had he realized any of his boyhood dreams. For all that, the fellow was as mad as a hatter. “Of course I’m a colossal ass, and half the fun is knowing that I am.” The banter returned to 237 Cunningham’s tongue. “But this thing will go through—I feel it. I will have had my fun, and you will have loaned your treasures to me for eight months, and Eisenfeldt will have his principal back without interest. The treasures go directly to a bank vault. There will be two receipts, one dated September—mine; and one dated November—Eisenfeldt’s. I hate Eisenfeldt. He’s tricky; his word isn’t worth a puff of smoke; he’s ready at all times to play both ends from the middle. I want to pay him out for crossing my path in several affairs. He’s betting that I will find no pearls. So to-morrow I will exhibit the rug and the Da Vinci to convince him, and he will advance the cash. Can’t you see the sport of it?” “That would make very good reading,” said Cleigh, scraping the shell of his avocado pear. “I can get you on piracy.” “Prove it! You can say I stole the yacht, but you can’t prove it. The crew is yours; you hired it. The yacht returns to you to-morrow without a scratch on her paint. And the new crew will know absolutely nothing, being as innocent as newborn babes. Cleigh, you’re no fool. What earthly chance have you got? You love that rug. You’re not going to risk losing it positively, merely to satisfy a thirst for vengeance. You’re human. You’ll rave and storm about for a few days, then 238 you’ll accept the game as it lies. Think of all the excitement you’ll have when a telegram arrives or the phone rings! I told you it was a whale of a joke; and in late October you’ll chuckle. I know you, Cleigh. Down under all that tungsten there is the place of laughter. It will be better to laugh by yourself than to have the world laugh at you. Hoist by his own petard! There isn’t a newspaper syndicate on earth that wouldn’t give me a fortune for just the yarn. Now, I don’t want the world to laugh at you, Cleigh.” “Considerate of you.” “Because I know what that sort of laughter is. Could you pick up the old life, the clubs? Could a strong man like you exist in an atmosphere of suppressed chuckles? Mull it over. If these treasures were honourably yours I’d never have thought of touching them. But you haven’t any more right to them than I have, or Eisenfeldt.” Dennison leaned back in his chair. He began to laugh. “Cunningham, my apologies,” he said. “I thought you were a scoundrel, and you are only a fool—the same brand as I! I’ve been aching to wring your neck, but that would have been a pity. For eight months life will be full of interest for me—like waiting for the end of a story in the magazines.” 239 “But there is one thing missing out of the tale,” Jane interposed. “And what is that?” asked Cunningham. “Those beads.” “Oh, those beads! They belonged to an empress of France, and the French Government is offering sixty thousand for their return. Napoleonic. And now will you answer a question of mine? Where have you hidden them?” Jane did not answer, but rose and left the dining salon. Silence fell upon the men until she returned. In her hand she held Ling Foo’s brass hand warmer. She set it on the table and pried back the jigsawed lid. From the heap of punk and charcoal ashes she rescued the beads and laid them on the cloth. “Very clever. They are yours,” said Cunningham. “Mine?” “Why not? Findings is keepings. They are as much yours as mine.” Jane pushed the string toward Cleigh. “For me?” he said. “Yes—for nothing.” “There is sixty thousand dollars in gold in my safe. When we land in San Francisco I will turn over the money to you. You have every right in the world to it.” 240 Cleigh blew the ash from the glass beads and circled them in his palm. “I repeat,” she said, “they are yours.” Cunningham stood up. “Well, what’s it to be?” “I have decided to reserve my decision,” answered Cleigh, dryly. “To hang you ’twixt wind and water will add to the thrill, for evidently that’s what you’re after.” “If it’s on your own you’ll only be wasting coal.” Cleigh toyed with the beads. “The Haarlem. Maybe I can save you a lot of trouble,” said Cunningham. “The name is only on her freeboard and stern, not on her master’s ticket. The moment we are hull down the old name goes back.” Cunningham turned to Jane. “Do you believe I’ve put my cards on the table?” “Yes.” “And that if I humanly can I’ll keep my word?” “Yes.” “That’s worth many pearls of price!” “Supposing,” said Cleigh, trickling the beads from palm to palm—“supposing I offered you the equivalent in cash?” “No, Eisenfeldt has my word.” “You refuse?” Plainly Cleigh was jarred out of his calm. “You refuse?” 241 “I’ve already explained,” said Cunningham, wearily. “I’ve told you that I like sharp knives to play with. If you handle them carelessly you’re cut. How about you?” Cunningham addressed the question to Dennison. “Oh, I’m neutral and interested. I’ve always had a sneaking admiration for a tomfool. They were Shakespeare’s best characters. Consider me neutral.” Cleigh rose abruptly and stalked from the salon. Cunningham lurched and twisted to the forward passage and disappeared. When next Jane saw him in the light he was bloody and terrible. <hr class='major' /> <div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> 242 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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