第83章

Pike had taken charge of Roger Tabor's affairs because the commissions as agent were not too inconsiderable to be neglected.To make the task simpler, he had sold, as time went on, the various properties of the estate, gradually converting all of them into cash.Then, the opportunity offering, he bought a stock which paid excellent dividends, had it transferred in blank, because if it should prove to Roger's advantage to sell it, his agent could do so without any formal delays between Paris and Canaan.At least, that is what the Judge had told himself at the time, though it may be that some lurking whisperer in his soul had hinted that it might be well to preserve the great amount of cash in hand, and Roger's stock was practically that.Then came the evil days.Laboriously, he had built up a name for conservatism which most of the town accepted, but secretly he had always been a gambler: Wall Street was his goal; to adventure there, as one of the great single-eyed Cyclopean man-eaters, his fond ambition; and he had conceived the distillery trust as a means to attain it; but the structure tumbled about his ears; other edifices of his crumbled at the same time; he found himself beset, his solvency endangered, and there was the Tabor stock, quite as good as gold; Roger had just died, and it was enough to save him.--Save? That was a strange way to be remembering it to-day, when Fate grinned at him out of a dreadful mask contorted like the face of Norbert Flitcroft.

Martin Pike knew himself for a fool.What chance had he, though he destroyed the check a thousand times over, to escape the records by which the coil of modern trade duplicates and quadruplicates each slip of scribbled paper? What chance had he against the memories of men?

Would the man of whom he had bought, forget that the check was signed by Roger's agent? Had the bank-clerk forgotten? Thrice fool, Martin Pike, to dream that in a town like Canaan, Norbert or any of his kind could touch an order for so great a sum and forget it! But Martin Pike had not dreamed that; had dreamed nothing.When failure confronted him his mind refused to consider anything but his vital need at the time, and he had supplied that need.And now he grew busy with the future: he saw first the civil suit for restitution, pressed with the ferocity and cunning of one who intended to satisfy a grudge of years;then, perhaps, a criminal prosecution....But he would fight it! Did they think that such a man was to be overthrown by a breath of air? By a girl, a bank-clerk, and a shyster lawyer? They would find their case difficult to prove in court.

He did not believe they COULD prove it.They would be discredited for the attempt upon him and he would win clear; these Beaver Beach scandals would die of inertia presently; there would he a lucky trick in wheat, and Martin Pike would be Martin Pike once more; reinstated, dictator of church, politics, business; all those things which were the breath of his life restored.He would show this pitiful pack what manner of man they hounded! Norbert Flitcroft....

The Judge put his big hand up to his eyes and rubbed them.Curious mechanisms the eyes....

That deer in line with the vision--not a zebra?

A zebra after all these years? And yet...curious, indeed, the eyes!...a zebra....Who ever heard of a deer with stripes? The big hand rose from the eyes and ran through the hair which he had always worn rather long.It would seem strange to have it cut very short....Did they use clippers, perhaps?...

He started suddenly and realized that his next-door neighbor had passed along the sidewalk with head averted, pretending not to see him.A few weeks ago the man would not have missed the chance of looking in to bow--with proper deference, too! Did he know? He could not know THIS!

It must be the Beaver Beach scandal.It must be.

It could not be THIS--not yet! But it MIGHT be.

How many knew? Louden, Norbert, Ariel--who else?

And again the deer took on the strange zebra look.