_ CHAPTER XXVII. PHRONY TRIPPER AND THE REV. MR. RIMMON
As Keith stepped from his office one afternoon, he thought he heard his name called--called somewhat timidly. When, however, he turned and glanced around among the hurrying throng that filled the street, he saw no one whom he knew. Men and women were bustling along with that ceaseless haste that always struck him in New York--haste to go, haste to return, haste to hasten: the trade-mark of New York life: the hope of outstripping in the race.
A moment later he was conscious of a woman's step close behind him. He turned as the woman came up beside him, and faced--Phrony Tripper. She was so worn and bedraggled and aged that for a moment he did not recognize her. Then, as she spoke, he knew her.
"Why, Phrony!" He held out his hand. She seized it almost hungrily.
"Oh, Mr. Keith! Is it really you? I hardly dared hope it was. I have not seen any one I knew for so long--so long!" Her face worked, and she began to whimper; but Keith soothed her.
He drew her away from the crowded thoroughfare into a side street.
"You knew--?" she said, and gazed at him with a silent appeal.
"Yes, I knew. He deceived you and deluded you into running away with him."
"I thought he loved me, and he did when he married me. I am sure he did. But when he met that lady--"
"When he did what?" asked Keith, who could scarcely believe his own ears. "Did he marry you? Ferdy Wickersham? Who married you? When? Where was it? Who was present?"
"Yes; I would not come until he promised--"
"Yes, I knew he would promise. But did he marry you afterwards? Who was present? Have you any witnesses?"
"Yes. Oh, yes. I was married here in New York--one night--about ten o'clock--the night we got here. Mr. Plume was our only witness. Mr. Plume had a paper the preacher gave him; but he lost it."
"He did! Who married you? Where was it?"
"His name was Rimm--Rimm-something--I cannot remember much; my memory is all gone. He was a young man. He married us in his room. Mr. Plume got him for me. He offered to marry us himself--said he was a preacher; but I wouldn't have him, and said I would go home or kill myself if they didn't have a preacher. Then Mr. Plume went and came back, and we all got in a carriage and drove a little way, and got out and went into a house, and after some talk we were married. I don't know the street. But I would know him if I saw him. He was a young, fat man, that smiled and stood on his toes." The picture brought up to Keith the fat and unctuous Rimmon.
"Well, then you went abroad, and your husband left you over there?"
"Yes; I was in heaven for--for a little while, and then he left me--for another woman. I am sure he cared for me, and he did not mean to treat me so; but she was rich and so beautiful, and--what was I?" She gave an expressive gesture of self-abnegation.
"Poor fool!" said Keith to himself. "Poor girl!" he said aloud.
"I have written; but, maybe, he never got my letter. He would not have let me suffer so."
Keith's mouth shut closer.
She went on to tell of Wickersham's leaving her; of her hopes that after her child was born he would come back to her. But the child was born and died. Then of her despair; of how she had spent everything, and sold everything she had to come home.
"I think if I could see him and tell him what I have been through, maybe he would--be different. I know he cared for me for a while.--But I can't find him," she went on hopelessly. "I don't want to go to him where there are others to see me, for I'm not fit to see even if they'd let me in--which they wouldn't." (She glanced down at her worn and shabby frock.) "I have watched for him 'most all day, but I haven't seen him, and the police ordered me away."
"I will find him for you," said Keith, grimly.
"Oh, no! You mustn't--you mustn't say anything to him. It would make him--it wouldn't do any good, and he'd never forgive me." She coughed deeply.
"Phrony, you must go home," said Keith.
For a second a spasm shot over her face; then a ray of light seemed to flit across it, and then it died out.
She shook her head.
"No, I'll never go back there," she said.
"Oh, yes, you will--you must. I will take you back. The mountain air will restore you, and--" She was shaking her head, but the look in her eyes showed that she was thinking of something far off.
"No--no!"
"I will take you," repeated Keith. "Your grandfather will be--he will be all right. He has just been here hunting for you."
The expression on her face was so singular that Keith put his hand on her arm. To his horror, she burst into a laugh. It was so unreal that men passing glanced at her quickly, and, as they passed on, turned and looked back again.
"Well, good-by; I must find my husband," she said, holding out her hand nervously and speaking in a hurried manner. "He's got the baby with him. Tell 'em at home I'm right well, and the baby is exactly like grandmother, but prettier, of course." She laughed again as she turned away and started off hastily.
Keith caught up with her.
"But, Phrony--" But she hurried on, shaking her head, and talking to herself about finding her baby and about its beauty. Keith kept up with her, put his hand in his pocket, and taking out several bills, handed them to her.
"Here, you must take this, and tell me where you are staying."
She took the money mechanically.
"Where am I? Oh!--where am I staying? Sixteen Himmelstrasse, third floor--yes, that's it. No:--18 Rue Petits Champs, troisieme etage. Oh, no:--241 Hill Street. I'll show you the baby. I must get it now." And she sped away, coughing.
Keith, having watched her till she disappeared, walked on in deep reflection, hardly knowing what course to take. Presently his brow cleared. He turned and went rapidly back to the great office building where Wickersham had his offices on the first floor. He asked for Mr. Wickersham. A clerk came forward. Mr. Wickersham was not in town. No, he did not know when he would be back.
After a few more questions as to the possible time of his return, Keith left his card.
That evening Keith went to the address that Phrony had given him. It was a small lodging-house of, perhaps, the tenth rate. The dowdy woman in charge remembered a young woman such as he described. She was ill and rather crazy and had left several weeks before. She had no idea where she had gone. She did not know her name. Sometimes she called herself "Miss Tripper," sometimes "Mrs. Wickersham."
Keith took a cab and drove to the detective agency where Dave Dennison had his office. Keith told him why he had come, and Dave listened with tightened lips and eyes in which the flame burned deeper and deeper.
"I'll find her," he said.
Having set Dennison to work, Keith next directed his steps toward the commodious house to which the Rev. William H. Rimmon had succeeded, along with the fashionable church and the fashionable congregation which his uncle had left.
He was almost sure, from the name she had mentioned, that Mr. Rimmon had performed the ceremony. Rimmon had from time to time connected his name with matrimonial affairs which reflected little credit on him.
From the time Mr. Rimmon had found his flattery and patience rewarded, the pulpit from which Dr. Little had for years delivered a well-weighed, if a somewhat dry, spiritual pabulum had changed.
Mr. Rimmon knew his congregation too well to tax their patience with any such doctrinal sermons as his uncle had been given to. He treated his people instead to pleasant little discourses which were as much like Epictetus and Seneca as St. John or St. Paul.
Fifteen minutes was his limit,--eighteen at the outside,--weighed out like a ration. Doubtless, Mr. Rimmon had his own idea of doing good. His assistants worked hard in back streets and trod the dusty byways, succoring the small fry, while he stepped on velvet carpets and cast his net for the larger fish.
Was not Dives as well worth saving as Lazarus--and better worth it for Rimmon's purposes! And surely he was a more agreeable dinner-companion. Besides, nothing was really proved against Dives; and the crumbs from his table fed many a Lazarus.
But there were times when the Rev. William H. Rimmon had a vision of other things: when the Rev. Mr. Rimmon, with his plump cheeks and plump stomach, with his embroidered stoles and fine surplices, his rich cassocks and hand-worked slippers, had a vision of another life. He remembered the brief period when, thrown with a number of earnest young men who had consecrated their lives to the work of their Divine Master, he had had aspirations for something essentially different from the life he now led. Sometimes, as he would meet some hard-working, threadbare brother toiling among the poor, who yet, for all his toil and narrowness of means, had in his face that light that comes only from feasting on the living bread, he envied him for a moment, and would gladly have exchanged for a brief time the "good things" that he had fallen heir to for that look of peace. These moments, however, were rare, and were generally those that followed some evening of even greater conviviality than usual, or some report that the stocks he had gotten Ferdy Wickersham to buy for him had unexpectedly gone down, so that he must make up his margins. When the margins had been made up and the stocks had reacted, Mr. Rimmon was sufficiently well satisfied with his own lot.
And of late Mr. Rimmon had determined to settle down. There were those who said that Mr. Rimmon's voice took on a peculiarly unctuous tone when a certain young widow, as noted for her wealth as for her good looks and good nature entered the portals of his church.
Keith now having rung the bell at Mr. Rimmon's pleasant rectory and asked if he was at home, the servant said he would see. It is astonishing how little servants in the city know of the movements of their employers. How much better they must know their characters!
A moment later the servant returned.
"Yes, Mr. Rimmon is in. He will be down directly; will the gentleman wait?"
Keith took his seat and inspected the books on the table--a number of magazines, a large work on Exegesis, several volumes of poetry, the Social Register, and a society journal that contained the gossip and scandal of the town.
Presently Mr. Rimmon was heard descending the stair. He had a light footfall, extraordinarily light in one so stout; for he had grown rounder with the years.
"Ah, Mr. Keith. I believe we have met before. What can I do for you?" He held Keith's card in his hand, and was not only civil, but almost cordial. But he did not ask Keith to sit down.
Keith said he had come to him hoping to obtain a little information which he was seeking for a friend. He was almost certain that Mr. Rimmon could give it to him.
"Oh, yes. Well? I shall be very glad, I am sure, if I can be of service to you. It is a part of our profession, you know. What is it?"
"Why," said Keith, "it is in regard to a marriage ceremony--a marriage that took place in this city three or four years ago, about the middle of November three years ago. I think you possibly performed the ceremony."
"Yes, yes. What are the names of the contracting parties? You see, I solemnize a good many marriage ceremonies. For some reason, a good many persons come to me. My church is rather--popular, you see. I hate to have 'fashionable' applied to holy things. I cannot tell without their names."
"Why, of course," said Keith, struck by the sudden assumption of a business manner. "The parties were Ferdinand C. Wickersham and a young girl, named Euphronia Tripper."
Keith was not consciously watching Mr. Rimmon, but the change in him was so remarkable that it astonished him. His round jaw actually dropped for a second. Keith knew instantly that he was the man. His inquiry had struck home. The next moment, however, Mr. Rimmon had recovered himself. A single glance shot out of his eyes, so keen and suspicious that Keith was startled. Then his eyes half closed again, veiling their flash of hostility.
"F.C. Wickershaw and Euphronia Trimmer?" he repeated half aloud, shaking his head. "No, I don't remember any such names. No, I never united in the bonds of matrimony any persons of those names. I am quite positive." He spoke decisively.
"No, not Wicker_shaw_--F.C. Wicker_sham_ and Euphronia Tripper. Ferdy Wickersham--you know him. And the girl was named Tripper; she might have called herself 'Phrony' Tripper."
"My dear sir, I cannot undertake to remember the names of all the persons whom I happen to come in contact with in the performance of my sacred functions," began Mr. Rimmon. His voice had changed, and a certain querulousness had crept into it.
"No, I know that," said Keith, calmly; "but you must at least remember whether within four years you performed a marriage ceremony for a man whom you know as well as you know Ferdy Wickersham--?"
"Ferdy Wickersham! Why don't you go and ask him?" demanded the other, suddenly. "You appear to know him quite as well as I, and certainly Mr. Wickersham knows quite as well as I whether or not he is married. I know nothing of your reasons for persisting in this investigation. It is quite irregular, I assure you. I don't know that ever in the course of my life I knew quite such a case. A clergyman performs many functions simply as a ministerial official. I should think that the most natural way of procedure would be to ask Mr. Wickersham."
"Certainly it might be. But whatever my reason may be, I have come to ask you. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wickersham took this young girl away from her home. I taught her when she was a school-girl. Her grandfather, who brought her up, is a friend of mine. I wish to clear her good name. I have reason to think that she was legally married here in New York, and that you performed the ceremony, and I came to ask you whether you did so or not. It is a simple question. You can at least say whether you did so or did not. I assumed that as a minister you would be glad to help clear a young woman's good name."
"And I have already answered you," said Mr. Rimmon, who, while Keith was speaking, had been forming his reply.
Keith flushed.
"Why, you have not answered me at all. If you have, you can certainly have no objection to doing me the favor of repeating it. Will you do me the favor to repeat it? Did you or did you not marry Ferdy Wickersham to a young girl about three years ago?"
"My dear sir, I have told you that I do not recognize your right to interrogate me in this manner. I know nothing about your authority to pursue this investigation, and I refuse to continue this conversation any longer."
"Then you refuse to give me any information whatever?" Keith was now very angry, and, as usual, very quiet, with a certain line about his mouth, and his eyes very keen.
"I do most emphatically refuse to give you any information whatever. I decline, indeed, to hold any further communication with you," (Keith was yet quieter,) "and I may add that I consider your entrance here an intrusion and your manner little short of an impertinence." He rose on his toes and fell on his heels, with, the motion which Keith had remarked the first time he met him.
Keith fastened his eye on him.
"You do?" he said. "You think all that? You consider even my entrance to ask you, a minister of the Gospel, a question that any good man would have been glad to answer, 'an intrusion'? Now I am going; but before I go I wish to tell you one or two things. I have heard reports about you, but I did not believe them. I have known men of your cloth, the holiest men on earth, saints of God, who devoted their lives to doing good. I was brought up to believe that a clergyman must be a good man. I could not credit the stories I have heard coupled with your name. I now believe them true, or, at least, possible."
Mr. Riminon's face was purple with rage. He stepped forward with uplifted hand.
"How dare you, sir!" he began.
"I dare much more," said Keith, quietly.
"You take advantage of my cloth--!"
"Oh, no; I do not. I have one more thing to say to you before I go. I wish to tell you that one of the shrewdest detectives in New York is at work on this case. I advise you to be careful, for when you fall you will fall far. Good day."
He left Mr. Rimmon shaken and white. His indefinite threats had struck him more deeply than any direct charge could have done. For Mr. Rimmon knew of acts of which Keith could not have dreamed.
When he rose he went to his sideboard, and, taking out a bottle, poured out a stiff drink and tossed it off. "I feel badly," he said to himself: "I have allowed that--that fellow to excite me, and Dr. Splint said I must not get excited. I did pretty well, though; I gave him not the least information, and yet I did not tell a falsehood, an actual falsehood."
With the composure that the stimulant brought, a thought occurred to him. He sat down and wrote a note to Wickersham, and, marking it, "Private," sent it by a messenger.
The note read:
"DEAR FERDY: I must see you without an hour's delay on a matter of the greatest possible importance. Tripper-business. Your friend K. has started investigation; claims to have inside facts. I shall wait at my house for reply. If impossible for you to come immediately, I will run down to your office.
"Yours, RIMMON."
When Mr. Wickersham received this note, he was in his office. He frowned as he glanced at the handwriting. He said to himself:
"He wants more money, I suppose. He is always after money, curse him. He must deal in some other office as well as in this." He started to toss the note aside, but on second thought he tore it open. For a moment he looked puzzled, then a blank expression passed over his face.
He turned to the messenger-boy, who was waiting and chewing gum with the stolidity of an automaton.
"Did they tell you to wait for an answer?"
"Sure!"
He leant over and scribbled a line and sealed it. "Take that back."
"Yes, sir." The automaton departed, glancing from side to side and chewing diligently.
The note read: "Will meet you at club at five."
As the messenger passed up the street, a smallish man who had come down-town on the same car with him, and had been reading a newspaper on the street for some little time, crossed over and accosted him.
"Can you take a note for me?"
"Where to?"
"Up-town. Where are you going?"
The boy showed his note.
"Um--hum! Well, my note will be right on your way." He scribbled a line. It read: "Can't be back till eight. Look out for Shepherd. Pay boy 25 if delivered before four."
"You drop this at that number before four o'clock and you'll get a quarter."
Then he passed on.
That afternoon Keith walked up toward the Park. All day he had been trying to find Phrony, and laying plans for her relief when she should be found. The avenue was thronged with gay equipages and richly dressed women, yet among all his friends in New York there was but one woman to whom he could apply in such a case--Alice Lancaster. Old Mrs. Wentworth would have been another, but he could not go to her now, since his breach with Norman. He knew that there were hundreds of good, kind women; they were all about him, but he did not know them. He had chosen his friends in another set. The fact that he knew no others to whom he could apply struck a sort of chill to his heart. He felt lonely and depressed. He determined to go to Dr. Templeton. There, at least, he was sure of sympathy.
He turned to go back down-town, and at a little distance caught sight of Lois Huntington. Suddenly a light appeared to break in on his gloom. Here was a woman to whom he could confide his trouble with the certainty of sympathy. As they walked along he told her of Phrony; of her elopement; of her being deserted; and of his chance meeting with her and her disappearance again. He did not mention Wickersham, for he felt that until he had the proof of his marriage he had no right to do so.
"Why, I remember that old, man, Mr. Rawson," said Lois. "It was where my father stayed for a while?" Her voice was full of tenderness.
"Yes. It is his granddaughter."
"I remember her kindness to me. We must find her. I will help you." Her face was sweet with tender sympathy, her eyes luminous with firm resolve.
Keith gazed at her with a warm feeling surging about his heart. Suddenly the color deepened in her cheeks; her expression changed; a sudden flame seemed to dart into her eyes.
"I wish I knew that man!"
"What would you do?" demanded Keith, smiling at her fierceness.
"I'd make him suffer all his life." She looked the incarnation of vengeance.
"Such a man would be hard to make suffer," hazarded Keith.
"Not if I could find him."
Keith soon left her to carry out his determination, and Lois went to see Mrs. Lancaster, and told her the story she had heard. It found sympathetic ears, and the next day Lois and Mrs. Lancaster were hard at work quietly trying to find the unfortunate woman. They went to Dr. Templeton; but, unfortunately, the old man was ill in bed.
The next afternoon, Keith caught sight of Lois walking up the street with some one; and when he got nearer her it was Wickersham. They were so absorbed that Keith passed without either of them seeing him. He walked on with more than wonder in his heart. The meeting, however, had been wholly accidental on Lois's part.
Wickersham of late had frequently fallen in with Lois when she was out walking. And this afternoon he had hardly joined her when she began to speak of the subject that had been uppermost in her mind all day. She did not mention any names, but told the story just as she had heard it.
Fortunately for Wickersham, she was so much engrossed in her recital that she did not observe her companion's face until he had recovered himself. He had fallen a little behind her and did not interrupt her until he had quite mastered himself. Then he asked quietly:
"Where did you get that story?"
"Mr. Keith told me."
"And he said the man who did that was a 'gentleman'?"
"No, he did not say that; he did not give me the least idea who it was. Do you know who it was?"
The question was so unexpected that Wickersham for a moment was confounded. Then he saw that she was quite innocent. He almost gasped.
"I? How could I? I have heard that story--that is, something of it. It is not as Mr. Keith related it. He has some of the facts wrong. I will tell you the true story if you will promise not to say anything about it."
Lois promised.
"Well, the truth is that the poor creature was crazy; she took it into her head that she was married to some one, and ran away from home to try and find him. At one time she said it was a Mr. Wagram; then it was a man named Plume, a drunken sot; then I think she for a time fancied it was Mr. Keith himself; and"--he glanced at her quickly--"I am not sure she did not claim me once. I knew her slightly. Poor thing! she was quite insane."
"Poor thing!" sighed Lois, softly. She felt more kindly toward Wickersham than she had ever done before.
"I shall do what I can to help you find her," he added.
"Thank you. I hope you may be successful."
"I hope so," said Wickersham, sincerely.
That evening Wickersham called on Mr. Rimmon, and the two were together for some time. The meeting was not wholly an amicable one. Wickersham demanded something that Mr. Rimmon was unwilling to comply with, though the former made him an offer at which his eyes glistened. He had offered to carry his stock for him as long as he wanted it carried. Mr. Rimmon showed him his register to satisfy him that no entry had been made there of the ceremony he had performed that night a few years before; but he was unwilling to write him a certificate that he had not performed such a ceremony. He was not willing to write a falsehood.
Wickersham grew angry.
"Now look here, Rimmon," he said, "you know perfectly well that I never meant to marry that--to marry any one. You know that I was drunk that night, and did not know what I was doing, and that what I did was out of kindness of heart to quiet the poor little fool."
"But you married her in the presence of a witness," said Mr. Rimmon, slowly. "And I gave him her certificate."
"You must have been mistaken. I have the affidavit of the man that he signed nothing of the kind. I give you my word of honor as to that. Write me the letter I want." He pushed the decanter on the table nearer to Rimmon, who poured out a drink and took it slowly. It appeared to give him courage, for after a moment he shook his head.
"I cannot."
Wickersham looked at him with level eyes.
"You will do it, or I will sell you out," he said coldly.
"You cannot. You promised to carry that stock for me till I could pay up the margins."
"Write me that letter, or I will turn you out of your pulpit. You know what will happen if I tell what I know of you."
The other man's face turned white.
"You would not be so base."
Wickersham rose and buttoned up his coat.
"It will be in the papers day after to-morrow."
"Wait," gasped Rimmon. "I will see what I can say." He poured a drink out of the decanter, and gulped it down. Then he seized a pen and a sheet of paper and began to write. He wrote with care.
"Will this do?" he asked tremulously.
"Yes."
"You promise not to use it unless you have to?"
"Yes."
"And to carry the stock for me till it reacts and lets me out?"
"I will make no more promises."
"But you did promise--," began Mr. Rimmon.
Wickersham put the letter in his pocket, and taking up his hat, walked out without a word. But his eyes glinted with a curious light. _