The Deaves Affair

A lady swept into the room like a northwest gale, one whose attire put the rose and the lily to shame; comely in her own person too after a somewhat hard and glassy style. Evan guessed this was Mrs. George Deaves, otherwise Maud. At the sight of her stormy brows father and son looked like two schoolboys caught in the act.

"What's going on?" she peremptorily demanded. "What are all the men servants waiting in the hall for?"

"Nothing, my dear," said George Deaves in a casual tone belied by his anxious eye. "They are merely waiting for their orders."

"My maid told me there was a policeman sitting in the housekeeper's room."

"Must be a friend of Mrs. Liffey's," her husband said with feeble humour.

"Friend nothing!" was the contemptuous reply. She marched up to her father-in-law, who silently snarled and gave ground like a cat. "You've been up to your old tricks!" she cried. "Another disgraceful street scene! I see it in both your faces. Another blackmailing letter, I suppose!"

Young Deaves unobtrusively sought to turn over the letter on his desk, but she caught the movement out of the tail of her eye, and, whirling round, snatched it up.

"Let me see that!"

Her husband looked as helpless as a sheep. He had lost his pomposity. "Happy little family!" thought Evan.

Having read it, she threw back her head and laughed in bitter chagrin. "I thought so!" she cried. "The third time this summer! When is this going to end? Where's the story?"

"My dear, what's the use?" said her husband tremblingly. "It would only anger you."

"Be quiet!" she cried. "I will see it. Where is it?" Her eye picked it out from among the papers on his desk, and she pounced on it. More harsh and bitter laughter accompanied the reading of it.

"Bought a new suit at an immigrant outfitters! I see he has it on. Got into a row with a fruit-vendor over a penny change. Rescued by a young man and taken home. Made his rescuer pay the fares on the trolley. Oh, this is rich, rich!" she cried, trembling with anger. "This is the best story yet. This will be meat and drink to the populace! And this is what they're going to send to the Social Register, to everybody I know. It's enough to make me wish I'd died before I took the name of Deaves!"

"My dear, we are not alone!" cried George Deaves in a panic.

She threw an indifferent glance at Evan. She thought he was a servant, and she was of that arrogant type which acts as if servants were something less than human. "Do you think anything can be hidden in this house?" she said. "The men-servants are listening at the door."

George Deaves had forgotten about them. He hastened to the door and sent them downstairs.

Mrs. Deaves addressed her father-in-law. "Well, if you can't control your avaricious tendencies you'll have to pay," she said. "Send to the bank and get the money so George can take it to them."

"Pay! Pay! Pay! That's all anybody asks of me!" cried the old man in a passion. "Five thousand dollars! None of you know what that means. Money to you is like the winds of Heaven that come and go. But I know what five thousand dollars is. For I have saved it up dollar by dollar at the cost of my sweat and self-denial. And will I give it up to these scoundrels, these sewer rats who threaten me? No! I'd as lief give them my blood!"

Mrs. Deaves' face turned crimson. "You'll pay!" she cried, "or I leave this house!"

"And where will you go?" sneered the old man. "Back to share your father's genteel poverty?"

"Who made him poor?" she cried. "Who robbed him?"

George Deaves, with the tail of his eye on Evan, was sweating with terror. "Maud, I beg of you – !" he whispered.

It did seem to occur to her then that she had gone too far. She glared at Evan as if defying him to judge her, and marching up to him said bluntly: "Who are you?" This woman was magnificent in her insolence if in nothing else.

Evan coolly met her eye. "I'm the young man who paid the fares," he said, smiling.

She scowled at him. Clearly she had no humour.

Evan explained further: "I have been engaged to accompany Mr. Deaves on his walks hereafter."

"Oh, locking the stable door after the horse is stolen," she sneered. "He needs a keeper." She indicated the typewritten sheets. "Then you were present at this affair?"

"I was."

"Is this story true?"

"I have not seen it."

She handed him the pages. Evan skimmed over it hastily. Since the incidents have already been related, the opening paragraph will be sufficient to convey the style of the whole:

"Our esteemed fellow-citizen, Simeon Deaves, is known as a great dandy among his friends. He has always refused to divulge the identity of the creator of the svelte garments that grace his manly form, but yesterday the secret came out. Not in the fashionable purlieus of Fifth Avenue or Madison does Mr. Deaves' tailor hang out his sign. No; it is in Greenwich Street near the Battery where the unwary immigrant makes his first acquaintance with American business methods, that Mr. Deaves buys his clothes. He was seen to buy an elegant mustard coloured suit there yesterday for $4.49. Of course not everybody could afford this sum, but the goods were worth it. Take it from us, high-water pants will be all the rage the coming Fall."

And so on. And so on. Evan bit his lip to keep from smiling, and handed the sheets back. It was easy to understand how the story affected these people like salt in a wound.

"Is it true?" Mrs. Deaves again demanded of Evan.

"The facts are true so far as I know," he replied. "Of course, the humour was supplied by the author."

"This young man has offered to help us," began George Deaves.

The remark was unfortunate; Mrs. Deaves exploded again. "I won't have any bungling amateur detective work here!" she cried. "There's too much at stake. If the story is true there's only one thing to be done, pay!" She addressed the old man. "You understand; you have disgraced us, and you shall pay."

But Simeon Deaves' dander was up and he refused to be intimidated. "What for?" he snarled. "I stand by my own acts. I ain't ashamed of them. If people don't like it they can lump it. What do I care what they say about me? They're only envious. They'd give their eyes to have what I've got. Let them publish their story. Who's hurt by it? Nobody but your feelings. Am I going to pay through the nose to soothe your feelings? Not five thousand dollars' worth! I'll be damned if I'll pay!"

He went out through the smaller door, slamming it behind him.

Mrs. Deaves turned hard inimical eyes on her husband. "Then it's up to you to find the money," she said.

"But, my dear," he whined, "you know my circumstances. How can I? Where? It is out of the question!"

"I don't care where you get it; you get it," she returned callously. "If that story is published I leave this house. You know what that means."

She marched out by the main door.

Evan could not but feel for the poor, crushed, flabby creature at the desk. In Evan's own phrase George got it coming and going. He was like a pricked bladder; all his pomposity had escaped like gas.

"What am I to do?" he murmured.

"Get the money together," said Evan, "and pay it over according to their orders. Then let me see if I can't get it back again – and get them, too."

CHAPTER VI

THE LITTLE FELLOW IN GREY

It turned out that George Deaves could lay his hands on the money, though perhaps it was not easy for him to do so. George's principal fortune consisted in being the son of his father; he could get almost unlimited credit on the strength of that connection. When Simeon Deaves saw that he was determined to pay the money to the blackmailers, he urged him to accept Evan's offer to run them down, and in the end, notwithstanding his terror of Maud Deaves, George gave in. Father and son, who had begun the day by accusing Evan of the crime, ended by depending on Evan to run down the criminals.

At ten o'clock George Deaves and Evan set out for the bank. It was not far and they proceeded on foot down the Avenue. Evan kept his eyes open about him, and before they had gone more than a block or two he spotted the well-remembered little figure in the grey suit still dogging their footsteps. Drawing George Deaves up to a shop window as if to show him something inside, he called his attention to the stripling with the pale and watchful face. Deaves shivered.