Chapter TWENTY-ONE: The House of Cards

The long day had been devoted to the choosing of the twelve men who should say whether John North was innocent or guilty, but at last court adjourned and Marshall Langham, pushing through the crowd that was emptying itself into the street, turned away in the direction of his home.

For no single instant during the day had he been able to take his eyes from his father's face. He had heard almost nothing of what was said, it was only when the coldly impersonal tones of the judge's voice reached him out of, what was to him silence, that he was stung to a full comprehension of what was going on about him. The faces of the crowd had blended until they were as indistinguishable as the face of humanity itself. For him there had been but the one tragic presence in that dingy room; and now--as the dull gray winter twilight enveloped him,--wherever he turned his eyes, on the snow-covered pavement, in the bare branches of the trees,--there he saw, endlessly repeated, the white drawn face of his father.

His capacity for endurance seemed to measure itself against the slow days. A week--two weeks--and the trial would end, but how? If the verdict was guilty, North's friends would still continue their fight for his life. He must sustain himself beyond what he felt to be the utmost limit of his powers; and always, day after day, there would be that face with its sunken eyes and bloodless lips, to summon him into its presence.

He found himself at his own door, and paused uncertainly. He passed a tremulous hand before his eyes. Was he sure of Gilmore,--was he sure of Evelyn, who must know that North was innocent? The thought of her roused in him all his bitter sense of hurt and injury. North had trampled on his confidence and friendship! The lines of his face grew hard. This was to be his revenge,--his by every right, and his fears should rob him of no part of it!

He pushed open the door and entered the unlighted hail, then with a grumbled oath because of the darkness, passed on into the sitting-room. Except for such light as a bed of soft coal in the grate gave out, the room was clothed in uncertainty. He stumbled against a chair and swore again savagely. He was answered by a soft laugh, and then he saw Evelyn seated in the big arm-chair at one side of the fireplace.

"Did you hurt yourself, Marsh?" she asked.

Langham growled an unintelligible reply and dropped heavily into a chair. He brought with him the fumes of whisky and stale tobacco, and as these reached her across the intervening space Evelyn made a little grimace in the half light.

"I declare, Marsh, you are hardly fit to enter a respectable house!" she said.

In spite of his doubt of her, they were not on the worst of terms, there were still times when he resumed his old role of the lover, when he held her drifting fancy in something of the potent spell he had once been able to weave about her. Whatever their life together, it was far from commonplace, with its poverty and extravagance, its quarrelings and its reconciliations, while back of it all, deep-rooted in the very dregs of existence, was his passionate love. Even his brutal indifference was but one of the many phases of his love; it was a manifestation of his revolt against his sense of dependence, a dependence which made it possible for him to love where his faith was destroyed and his trust gone absolutely. Evelyn was vaguely conscious of this and she was not sure but that she required just such a life as theirs had become, but that she would have been infinitely bored with a man far more worth while than Marshall Langham. From his seat by the fire Langham scowled across at her, but the scowl was lost in the darkness.

"Your father was here last evening, Marsh," Evelyn said at length, remembering she had not seen him the night before, and that he had breakfasted and gone before she was up that morning.

"What did he come for?" her husband asked.

"I think to see you. Poor man, he doesn't seem able to get the run of the hours you keep; I told him he could always find you here between four and eight in the morning. I must say this little insight into your domestic habits appeared to distress him, but I tried to comfort him,--I told him you would probably outlive us all." She laughed softly. "Andy was here this afternoon, Marsh," she went on.

"What the devil did he want?"

"I don't know."

"Is he coming back?"

"He didn't mention it, if he is." And again she laughed.

Langham moved impatiently; her low full-throated mirth jarred on his somber mood.

"Were you in court to-day, Marsh?" she inquired, after a short silence.

"Yes," he answered briefly.

"Were there many there?"

"Yes."

"Any ladies, Marsh?" she questioned, with sudden eagerness.

"If you can call them that," he growled.

"Do you know, Marsh, I had a strong impulse to go, too. Would you have been astonished to see me there?" she asked tentatively.

"We won't have any of that,--do you understand?" he said with fierce authority.

"Why not? It's as right for me as it is for any one else, isn't it?"

"I won't _have_ it!" he said, lifting his voice slightly.

She had risen and now stood leaning against the arm of his chair.

"Marsh, he didn't kill McBride; he couldn't,--he wouldn't harm a mouse!"

Her words set him raging.

"Keep quiet, will you,--what do you know about it, anyhow?" he cried with sullen ferocity.

"Don't be rude, Marsh! So you don't want me to come to the trial,--you tell me I can't?"

"Did my father say anything about this matter,--the trial, I mean?" asked Langham haltingly.

"Yes, I think he spoke of it, but I really wasn't interested because you see I am so sure John North is innocent!"

He caught one of her hands in his and drew her down on the arm of his chair where he could look into her eyes.

"There is just one question I want to ask you, Evelyn, but I expect you'll answer it as you choose," he said, with his face close to hers.

"Then why ask it?" she said.

"Why,--because I want to know. Where were you on the day of the murder,--between five and six o'clock?"

"I _wish_ you'd let me go, Marsh; you're hurting me--" she complained.

She struggled for a moment to release herself from his grasp, then realizing that her effort was of no avail, she quietly resumed her former position on the arm of his chair.

"You must answer my question, come--where were you?" Langham commanded.

He brought his face close to hers and she saw that his eyes burnt with an unhealthy light.

"How silly of you, Marsh, you know it was Thanksgiving day,--that we dined with your father."

"I am not asking you about that,--that was later!"

"I suppose I was on my way there at the hour you mention."

"No, you weren't; you were in North's rooms!"

"If you were not drunk, I should be angry with you, Marsh,--you are insulting--"

He quitted his hold on her and staggered to his feet.

"You were with North--" he roared.

"Do you want the servants to hear you?" she asked in an angry whisper.

"Hell!"

He made a step toward her, his hand raised.

"Don't do that, Marsh. I should never forgive you!"

Evelyn faced him, meeting his wild glance with unshaken composure. The clenched hand fell at his side.

"My God, I ought to kill you!" he muttered.

She made him no answer, but kept her eyes fixed steadily on his face.

"You _were_ with North!" Langham repeated.

"Well, since you wish me to say it, I was with John North, but what of that?"

"In his rooms--" he jerked out.

"No,--now you are asking too much of me!"

"I have proof,--proof, that you went to his rooms that day!" he stormed.

"I did nothing of the sort, and I am not going to quarrel with you while you are drunk!"

Drunk he was, but not as she understood drunkenness. In the terrible extremity to which his crime had brought him he was having recourse to drugs.

"You say you have proof,--don't be absurd, Marsh, you know you haven't!" she added uneasily.

"You were with North in his rooms--" he insisted.

He was conscious of a strange wonder at himself that he could believe this, and yet aside from such gusts of rage as these, his doubt of her made no difference in their life together. Surely this was the measure of his degradation.

"I am not going to discuss this matter with you!" Evelyn said.

"Aren't you? Well, I guess you will. Do you know you may be summoned into court?"

"Why?" she demanded, with a nervous start.

"North may want to prove that he was in his rooms at the hour the murder is supposed to have been committed; all he needs is your testimony,--it would make a nice scandal, wouldn't it?"

"Has he asked this?" Evelyn questioned.

"Not yet!"

"Then I don't think he ever will," she said quietly.

"Do you suppose he will be fool enough to go to the penitentiary, or hang, to save _your_ reputation?" Langham asked harshly.

"I think Jack North would be almost fool enough for that," she answered with conviction.

"Well, I don't,--you were too easy,--men don't risk their necks for your sort!" he mocked. "Look here, you had an infatuation for North,--you admitted it,--only this time it went too far! What was the trouble, did he get sick of the business and throw you over?"

"How coarse you are, Marsh!" and she colored angrily, not at his words, however, but at the memory of that last meeting with North.

"It's a damn rotten business, and I'll call it by what name I please! If you are summoned, it will be your word against his; you have told me you were not in his rooms--"

"I was _not_ there--" she said, and as she said it she wondered why she did not tell the truth, admit the whole thing and have it over with. She was tired of the wrangling, and her hatred of North had given way to pity, yet when Langham replied:

"All right. You are my wife, and North can hang, but he shan't save himself by ruining you if _I_ can help it!"

She answered: "I have told you that I wasn't there, Marsh."

"Would you swear that you weren't there?" Langham asked eagerly.

"Yes--"

"Even if it sent him to the penitentiary?" he persisted.

"Yes."

He took her by the shoulders and drew her near to him that he might look deep into her eyes.

"Even if it hanged him?" he rasped out.

She felt his hot breath on her cheek; she looked into his face, fierce, cruel, with the insane selfishness of his one great fear.

"Answer me,--would you let him hang?" and he shook her roughly.

"Would I let him hang--" she repeated.

"Yes--"

"I--I don't know!" she said in a frightened whisper.

"No, damn you, I can't trust you!" and he flung her from him.

There was a brief silence. The intangible, unformed, unthoughtout fear that had kept her silent was crystallizing into a very tangible conviction. Marshall had expressed more than the mere desire to be revenged on North, she saw that he was swayed by the mastering emotion of fear, rather than by his blazing hate of the suspected man. Slowly but surely there came to her an understanding of his swift descent during the last months.

"Marsh--" she began, and hesitated.

A scarcely articulate snarl from Langham seemed to encourage her to go on.

"Marsh, where does the money come from that you--that we--have been spending so lavishly this winter?"

"From my practice," he said, but his face was averted.

She gave a frightened laugh.

"Oh, no, Marsh, I know better than that!"

He swung about on her.

"Well," he stormed, "what do you know?"

"Hush, Marsh!" she implored, in sudden terror of him.

He gave her a sullen glare.

"Oh, very well, bring the whole damn thing rattling down about our ears!" he cried.

"Marsh,--what do you mean? Do you know that John North is innocent?" She spoke with terrifying deliberation.

For a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes. The delicate pallor deepened on her face, and she sank half fainting into a chair, but her accusing gaze was still fixed on Langham.

He strode to her side, and his hand gripped hers with a cruel force.

"Let him prove that he is innocent if he can, but without help from you! You keep still no matter what happens, do you hear? Or God knows where this thing will end--or how!"

"Marsh, what am I to think!"

"You can think what you like so long as you keep still--"

There was a hesitating step in the hall, the door was pushed open, and Judge Langham paused on the threshold.

"May I come in?" he said.

Neither spoke, and his uneasy glance shifted back and forth from husband to wife. In that wordless instant their common knowledge manifested itself to each one of the three.