第71章

THE FALLEN KING.

Toward noon the next day Dumont emerged from the stupor into which Doctor Sackett's opiate had plunged him.At once his mind began to grope about for the broken clues of his business.His valet appeared.

"The morning papers," said Dumont.

"Yes, sir," replied the valet, and disappeared.

After a few seconds Culver came and halted just within the doorway."I'm sorry, sir, but Doctor Sackett left strict orders that you were to be quiet.Your life depends on it."Dumont scowled and his lower lip projected--the crowning touch in his most imperious expression."The papers, all of 'em,--quick!" he commanded.

Culver took a last look at the blue-white face and bloodshot eyes to give him courage to stand firm."The doctor'll be here in a few minutes," he said, bowed and went out.

Choking with impotent rage, Dumont rang for his valet and forced him to help him dress.He was so weak when he finished that only his will kept him from fainting.He took a stiff drink of the brandy--the odor was sickening to him and he could hardly force it down.But once down, it strengthened him.

"No, nothing to eat," he said thickly, and with slow but fairly steady step left his room and descended to the library.Culver was there--sat agape at sight of his master."But you--you must not--" he began.

Dumont gave him an ugly grin."But I will!" he said, and again drank brandy.He turned and went out and toward the front door, Culver following with stammering protests which he heeded not at all.On the sidewalk he hailed a passing hansom."To the Edison Building," he said and drove off, Culver, bareheaded at the curb, looking dazedly after him.Before he reached Fifty-ninth Street he was half-sitting, half-reclining in the corner of the seat, his eyes closed and his senses sinking into a stupor from the fumes of the powerful doses of brandy.As the hansom drove down the avenue many recognized him, wondered and pitied as they noted his color, his collapsed body, head fallen on one side, mouth open and lips greenish gray:.As the hansom slowly crossed the tracks at Twenty-third Street the heavy jolt roused him.

"The newspapers," he muttered, and hurled up through the trap in the roof an order to the driver to stop.He leaned over the doors and bought half a dozen newspapers of the woman at the Flat-iron stand.As the hansom moved on he glanced at the head-lines--they were big and staring, but his blurred eyes could not read them.He fell asleep again, his hands clasped loosely about the huge proclamations of yesterday's battle and his rout.

The hansom was caught in a jam at Chambers Street.The clamor of shouting, swearing drivers roused him.The breeze from the open sea, blowing straight up Broadway into his face, braced him like the tonic that it is.He straightened himself, recovered his train of thought, stared at one of the newspapers and tried to grasp the meaning of its head-lines.But they made only a vague impression on him.

"It's all lies," he muttered."Lies! How could those fellows smash ME!" And he flung the newspapers out of the hansom into the faces of two boys seated upon the tail of a truck.

"You're drunk early," yelled one of the boys.

"That's no one-day jag," shouted the other."It's a hang-over."He made a wild, threatening gesture and, as his hansom drove on, muttered and mumbled to himself, vague profanity aimed at nothing and at everything.At the Edison Building he got out.

"Wait!" he said to the driver.He did not see the impudent smirk on the face of the elevator boy nor the hesitating, sheepish salutation of the door-man, uncertain how to greet the fallen king.He went straight to his office, unlocked his desk and, just in time to save himself from fainting, seized and half-emptied a flask of brandy he kept in a drawer.It had been there--but untouched ever since he came to New York and took those offices; he never drank in business hours.

His head was aching horribly and at every throb of his pulse a pain tore through him.He rang for his messenger.

"Tell Mr.Giddings I want to see him--you!" he said, his teeth clenched and his eyes blazing--he looked insane.

Giddings came.His conscience was clear--he had never liked Dumont, owed him nothing, yet had stood by him until further fidelity would have ruined himself, would not have saved Dumont, or prevented the Herron-Cassell raiders from getting control.

Now that he could afford to look at his revenge-books he was deeply resenting the insults and indignities heaped upon him in the past five years.But he was unable to gloat, was moved to pity, at sight of the physical and mental wreck in that chair which he had always seen occupied by the most robust of despots.

"Well," said Dumont in a dull, far-away voice, without looking at him."What's happened?"Giddings cast about for a smooth beginning but could find none.

"They did us up--that's all," he said funereally.

Dumont lifted himself into a momentary semblance of his old look and manner."You lie, damn you!" he shouted, his mouth raw and ragged as a hungry tiger's.

Giddings began to cringe, remembered the changed conditions, bounded to his feet.

"I'll tolerate such language from no man!" he exclaimed."Iwish you good morning, sir!" And he was on his way to the door.

"Come back!" commanded Dumont.And Giddings, the habit of implicit obedience to that voice still strong upon him, hesitated and half turned.

Dumont was more impressed with the truth of the cataclysm by Giddings' revolt than by the newspaper head-lines or by Giddings'

words.And from somewhere in the depths of his reserve-self he summoned the last of his coolness and self-control."Beg pardon, Giddings," said he."You see I'm not well."Giddings returned--he had taken orders all his life, he had submitted to this master slavishly; the concession of an apology mollified him and flattered him in spite of himself.

"Oh, don't mention it," he said, seating himself again."As Iwas saying, the raid was a success.I did the best I could.