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Page 19
The embezzler's revulsion of feeling was so keen and the relief so
great that he was able to smile as Holcombe turned and left him. "I
wish you a pleasant voyage," he said, faintly.
Then Holcombe shut the door on him, closing him out from their sight.
He placed his hands on a shoulder of each of the two men and jumped
step by step down the stairs like a boy as they descended silently in
front of him. At the foot of the stairs Carroll turned and confronted
him sternly, staring him in the face. Meakim at one side eyed him
curiously.
"Well?" said Carroll, with one hand upon Holcombe's wrist.
Holcombe shook his hand free, laughing. "Well," he answered, "I
persuaded him to make restitution."
"You persuaded him!" exclaimed Carroll, impatiently. "How?"
Holcombe's eyes avoided those of the two inquisitors. He drew a long
breath, and then burst into a loud fit of hysterical laughter. The two
men surveyed him grimly. "I argued with him, of course," said
Holcombe, gayly. "That is my business, man; you forget that I am a
District Attorney--"
"_We_ didn't forget it," said Carroll, fiercely. "Did _you_?
What did you do?"
Holcombe backed away up the stairs shaking his head and laughing. "I
shall never tell you," he said. He pointed with his hand down the
second flight of stairs. "Meet me in the smoking-room," he continued.
"I will be there in a minute, and we will have a banquet. Ask the
others to come. I have something to do first."
The two men turned reluctantly away, and continued on down the stairs
without speaking and with their faces filled with doubt. Holcombe ran
first to Reese's room and replaced the pistol in its holder. He was
trembling as he threw the thing from him, and had barely reached his
own room and closed the door when a sudden faintness overcame him. The
weight he had laid on his nerves was gone and the laughter had
departed from his face. He stood looking back at what he had escaped
as a man reprieved at the steps of the gallows turns his head to
glance at the rope he has cheated. Holcombe tossed the bundle of
notes, upon the table and took an unsteady step across the room. Then
he turned suddenly and threw himself upon his knees and buried his
face in the pillow.
The sun rose the next morning on a cool, beautiful day, and the
Consul's boat, with the American flag trailing from the stern, rose
and fell on the bluest of blue waters as it carried Holcombe and his
friends to the steamer's side.
"We are going to miss you very much," Mrs. Carroll said. "I hope you
won't forget to send us word of yourself."
Miss Terrill said nothing. She was leaning over the side trailing her
hand in the water, and watching it run between her slim pink fingers.
She raised her eyes to find Holcombe looking at her intently with a
strange expression of wistfulness and pity, at which she smiled
brightly back at him, and began to plan vivaciously with Captain Reese
for a ride that same afternoon.
They separated over the steamer's deck, and Meakim, for the hundredth
time, and in the lack of conversation which comes at such moments,
offered Holcombe a fresh cigar.
"But I have got eight of yours now," said Holcombe.
"That's all right; put it in your pocket," said the Tammany chieftain,
"and smoke it after dinner. You'll need 'em. They're better than those
you'll get on the steamer, and they never went through a
custom-house."
Holcombe cleared his throat in some slight embarrassment. "Is there
anything I can do for you in New York, Meakim?" he asked. "Anybody I
can see, or to whom I can deliver a message?"
"No," said Meakim. "I write pretty often. Don't you worry about me,"
he added, gratefully. "I'll be back there some day myself, when the
law of limitation lets me."
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