Chapter 19

"My father was a famous doctor here in New York," Mrs. Cleaver began. "He was what you call a self-made man; he had risen from obscurity and pulled my mother up with him. I was their only child. When I was growing up my father was making a princely income, and we lived like millionaires. The best people in New York were among his patients, and we went everywhere.

"I married at twenty—the usual fashionable marriage. Mr. Cleaver was the last of a fine old family of wealth and position, and I was considered to have done well for myself. But I loved him in a heedless, unthinking sort of way. He was young like myself, and extremely good-looking.

"My first real experience of life came with the death of my father, four years after my marriage. It was discovered that he had lived up to every cent of his great income. He left nothing but debts and an art collection. The proceeds of that went to purchase my mother a modest annuity. Even that was wasted, for she lived less than a year after my father.

"That left me with no one in the world to turn to but my husband. The tragedy of self-made people is that they have no lifelong friends. My husband was good to me in his way; we got along together well enough, but in his disappointment and chagrin at the disclosure of my father's affairs, I received my first suspicion that all was not well with our own.

"But I closed my eyes to it, and we continued to live as before, denying ourselves nothing. It was the only way I knew how to live. We had our big houses in town and in the country, a mob of servants, automobiles, horses. I knew nothing about business and my husband never spoke of it. One thing that helped to ease my mind was the fact that we were never bothered by creditors as I knew some of my friends were. My husband paid up everything on the nail. It was a point of pride with him.

"When he had spent his last dollar, literally his last, he shot himself.

"Well, there I was. Mr. Cleaver had no near relatives. His cousins had always frowned on our extravagance, and I could expect no aid from them. As for my so-called friends, at the first hint of disaster they began to melt away. I was so helpless I didn't even know how to close up my great house. I couldn't summon resolution enough to discharge the servants. I lived for a while on the proceeds of my dresses and jewels. It is tragic how much such things cost, and how little they bring!

"I was at the end of my rope, driven nearly frantic by worry. The unpaid servants were becoming impudent, and that seemed like the last straw. I have always been so dependent on servants! I was actually considering taking my husband's way out—when this man came to see me.

"He sent up no name. But in the frightful state I was in, one jumps at anything for a moment's distraction. I had him brought up. You have already described him; his silvery hair, brushed in an odd way, his sober, well-made clothes of no particular style. His old-fashioned manner prevented me from placing him socially; he might have been almost anybody. The piercing blue eyes were remarkable. His was most kind and courteous, fatherly one might say.

"Though it is three years ago, every detail of that interview is still fresh in my mind. He thanked me first for my indulgence in consenting to receive him incognito. I would agree, he said, when I had learned the object of his visit, that it were better he should remain unknown. He asked me to think of him simply as 'Mr. B.'

"He went on to say that through mutual friends he had learned of my difficult situation, and had been much moved thereby. It was the hardest case he had ever heard of, he said, and I had his sincerest sympathy. I was too desperate in my mind to even pretend to be indignant at the intrusion of a stranger into my affairs. Indeed I found his sympathy comforting. I hadn't received much. Most people had acted as if my misfortunes were due to my own fault. He soothed me like a nice old uncle.

"He said he was a very rich man, so rich in fact, that his money made him uneasy. He didn't want to die with it, he said, and he was looking around for some honorable way of getting rid of it. He used that very word, 'honorable'; it made me smile. He said it was easier to make a fortune than to get rid of it.

"Fancy how my heart began to beat at this. When one is desperate one cannot be particular. I could scarcely believe my ears. It seemed like the miracle I had been hoping for—like an answer to my prayer. He said that the more popular forms of philanthropy, such as colleges, hospitals, libraries, etc., were distasteful to him, as smacking too much of ostentation and publicity. He wanted to make his distribution in secret.

"'Everybody looks after the poor,' he said, 'and nobody thinks of the rich when they are overtaken by misfortune. They are the worthiest objects of help, and I intend to devote myself to the relief of the impoverished rich. You are my first case. Will a thousand dollars a week be sufficient?'

"I thought I was dreaming. I managed to stammer out a question about what conditions were attached to the loan or gift.

"'No conditions! No conditions!' he said,—'that is only one condition; that you will preserve absolute secrecy concerning it.'

"I promised of course. I scarcely knew what I was saying. I thought perhaps he was harmlessly insane. I certainly never expected anything to come of it. But when he had gone I found on the table a little packet containing a thousand dollars in bills.

"I still thought I had been visited by an amiable lunatic. I used the money to pay some of my most pressing obligations. I discharged the insolent servants, and got others. I didn't expect to hear from him again.

"But one week from that day a messenger boy brought me a packet containing a similar sum, and it has been coming ever since with absolute regularity.

"I can see that you are incredulous about there having been no conditions attached to the gift, but I have stated just what happened. I can see now that I was a fool, but then it was easy for me to believe that I had been relieved out of pure philanthropy. As if there was any such thing!

"At first the money came unaccompanied by any communication, but later, when he knew, I suppose, that I had become absolutely dependent on it, I began to receive instructions. In the beginning he still used the language of philanthropy—he wanted to help this young man or that young woman to gain a footing in good society—but latterly, feeling more sure of me, I suppose, he has become frankly peremptory. Oh! if I had only sent the money back in the first place!"

"What sort of instructions?" asked Jack.

"Principally for me to receive certain young people that he would send me, and introduce them to society; sometimes to introduce them to particular persons. This seemed harmless enough. People will do anything to get into society, you know."

"But when you saw these young people didn't you begin to be suspicious?"

"Oh, I didn't want to be suspicious! Their manners were good enough. They didn't shame me. And nowadays society is such a go-as-you-please affair, nobody held me responsible."

"What other kind of instructions did you get?"

"To ask certain people, generally some well-known rich man, to my house. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to go to the Madagascar and scrape acquaintance with Bobo in the corridor. I nearly died at that, but it was too late to turn back. I was terrified by the way the man always knew instantly when I had not obeyed him."

"The spies he had in your house would keep him informed," said Jack. "How did you know that day which of the two of us was Bobo?"

"He had described him to me."

"Does 'Mr. B.' still come here?"

"No, I have never seen him but the once. He writes to me, and very often he calls me up to learn if I have anything to report. I have no way of communicating with him unless he calls up."

"Now about Miriam?" said Jack.

Mrs. Cleaver sat up, and her tired eyes sparkled with hatred. "That woman!" she cried. "If you knew what I have had to put up with from her! I loathe her! Oh, I would like to see her brought low. What have you got against her? Tell me!"

Jack shook his head, smiling grimly. "All in good time," he said. "You're telling me your story now."

"Oh, Miriam's just another of them. She came the day before I received my instructions to get hold of Bobo. I was ordered to take her into my house, and give it out that she was a cousin. That was the final humiliation!"

"Is that all you can tell me about Miriam?"

She nodded. "We don't confide in each other," she said with tight lips.

There was a considerable silence between the two before the fire.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Mrs. Cleaver nervously at last.

"Just trying to dope out a plan to get him—with your help."

"Oh, I'm afraid!" she wailed. "When my income is cut off what shall I do?"

"I promised you—in Bobo's name—to take care of that."

"To the same amount?" she asked sharply.

Jack smiled dryly. "I'm afraid I'd hardly feel justified in recommending that Bobo keep up all this—but, say, ten thousand a year."

"Ten thousand!" she cried, aghast. "That's nothing!"

A grimmer tone crept into Jack's voice. "Sorry, but we don't owe you anything, you know. If you refuse to help me, I should have to have you arrested."

If she had defied him Jack's position would have been a little awkward, for he was not prepared to go as far as he had said. But Mrs. Cleaver's spirit was broken now. She only shuddered and wept the louder.

"Ten thousand!" she wailed. "I'll have to give up everything that makes life worth living!"

"You told me you were sick of all this."

"I'll have to move into a miserable apartment!"

"Come now, plenty of people have a whale of a time on ten thousand—or even the half of that."

"Suburbanites!" she said with the utmost scorn.

"Has 'Mr. B.' any regular time for calling up?" asked Jack.

"No. Every few days. I haven't heard in nearly a week. I shall probably hear to-morrow."

"Very good. Now listen. When he calls up, make out you're in great anxiety. But don't give him too many details over the 'phone. Suggest that it's not safe to do so. You can let him understand though that it has something to do with Bobo or me. Tell him that you think I am having you watched. Tell him that you must see him in order to find out how to act. Don't ask him to come here; that would surely excite his suspicions. Name some public place; a hotel would be the best."

"Will I have to face him?" she faltered. "I'm afraid."

"I'll be there," said Jack. "You may leave him to me."