Hearts of Three 51

Hearts of Three 51

But Henry, advancing swiftly, asserted:

 

“I like dirty jobs equally. And this is a dirty job particularly to my

liking.”

 

Both the Morgans were about to fall on Torres, when the Queen held up

her hand.

 

“First,” she said, “let him return to me, from there in his belt, the

dagger he stole from me.”

 

“Ah,” said Enrico, when this had been accomplished. “Should he not also

return to you, lovely lady, the gems he filched?”

 

Torres did not hesitate. Dipping into his pocket, he laid a handful of

the jewels on the table. Enrico glanced at the Queen, who merely waited

expectantly.

 

“More,” said Enrico.

 

And three more of the beautiful uncut stones Torres added to the others

on the table.

 

“Would you search me like a common pickpocket?” he demanded in frantic

indignation, turning both trousers’ pockets emptily inside out.

 

“Me,” said Francis.

 

“I insist,” said Henry.

 

“Oh, all very well,” Francis conceded. “Then we’ll do it together. We

can throw him farther off the steps.”

 

Acting as one, they clutched Torres by collar and trousers and started

in a propulsive rush for the door.

 

All others in the room ran to the windows to behold Torres’ exit; but

Enrico, quickest of all, gained a window first. And, afterward, into the

middle of the room, the Queen scooped the gems from the table into both

her hands, and gave the double handful to Leoncia, saying:

 

“From Francis and me to you and Henry——your wedding present.”

 

* * * * *

 

Yi Poon, having left the crone by the beach and crept back to peer at

the house from the bushes, chuckled gratifiedly to himself when he saw

the rich caballero thrown off the steps with such a will as to be sent

sprawling far out into the gravel. But Yi Poon was too clever to let on

that he had seen. Hurrying away, he was half down the hill ere overtaken

by Torres on his horse.

 

The celestial addressed him humbly, and Torres, in his general rage,

lifted his riding whip savagely to slash him across the face. But Yi

Poon did not quail.

 

“The Senorita Leoncia,” he said quickly, and arrested the blow. “I have

great secret.” Torres waited, the whip still lifted as a threat. “You

like ‘m some other man marry that very nice Senorita Leoncia?”

 

Torres dropped the whip to his side.

 

“Go on,” he commanded harshly. “What is the secret?”

 

“You no want ‘m other man marry that Senorita Leoncia?”

 

“Suppose I don’t?”

 

“Then, suppose you have secret, you can stop other man.”

 

“Well, what is it? Spit it out.”

 

“But first,” Yi Poon shook his head, “you pay me six hundred dollars

gold. Then I tell you secret.”

 

“I’ll pay you,” Torres said readily, although without the slightest

thought of keeping his word. “You tell me first, then, if no lie, I’ll

pay you.—See!”

 

From his breast pocket he drew a wallet bulging with paper bills; and Yi

Poon, uneasily acquiescing, led him down the road to the crone on the

beach.

 

“This old woman,” he explained, “she no lie. She sick woman. Pretty soon

she die. She is afraid. She talk to priest along Colon. Priest say she

must tell secret, or die and go to hell. So she no lie.”

 

“Well, if she doesn’t lie, what is it she must tell?”

 

“You pay me?”

 

“Sure. Six hundred gold.”

 

“Well, she born Cadiz in old country. She number one servant, number one

baby nurse. One time she take job with English family that come

traveling in her country. Long time she work with that family. She go

back along England. Then, bime by——you know Spanish blood very hot——she

get very mad. That family have one little baby girl. She steal little

baby girl and run away to Panama. That little baby girl Senor Solano he

adopt just the same his own daughter. He have plenty sons and no

daughter. So that little baby girl he make his daughter. But that old

woman she no tell what name belong little girl’s family. That family

very high blood, very rich, everybody in England know that family. That

family’s name ‘Morgan.’ You know that name? In Colon comes San Antonio

men who say Senor Solano’s daughter marry English Gringo named Morgan.

That Gringo Morgan the Senorita Leoncia’s brother.”

 

“Ah!” said Torres with maleficent delight.

 

“You pay me now six hundred gold,” said Yi Poon.

 

“Thank you for the fool you are,” said Torres with untold mockery in his

voice. “You will learn better perhaps some day the business of selling

secrets. Secrets are not shoes or mahogany timber. A secret told is no

more than a whisper in the air. It comes. It goes. It is gone. It is a

ghost. Who has seen it? You can claim back shoes or mahogany timber. You

can never claim back a secret when you have told it.”

 

“We talk of ghosts, you and I,” said Yi Poon calmly. “And the ghosts are

gone. I have told you no secret. You have dreamed a dream. When you tell

men they will ask you who told you. And you will say, ‘Yi Poon.’ But Yi

Poon will say, ‘No.’ And they will say, ‘Ghosts,’ and laugh at you.”

 

Yi Poon, feeling the other yield to his superior subtlety of thought,

deliberately paused.

 

“We have talked whispers,” he resumed after a few seconds. “You speak

true when you say whispers are ghosts. When I sell secrets I do not sell

ghosts. I sell shoes. I sell mahogany timber. My proofs are what I sell.

They are solid. On the scales they will weigh weight. You can tear the

paper of them, which is legal paper of record, on which they are

written. Some of them, not paper, you can bite with your teeth and break

your teeth upon. For the whispers are already gone like morning mists. I

have proofs. You will pay me six hundred gold for the proofs, or men

will laugh at you for lending your ears to ghosts.”

 

“All right,” Torres capitulated, convinced. “Show me the proofs that I

can tear and bite.”

 

“Pay me the six hundred gold.”

 

“When you have shown me the proofs.”

 

“The proofs you can tear and bite are yours after you have put the six

hundred gold into my hand. You promise. A promise is a whisper, a ghost.

I do not do business with ghost money. You pay me real money I can tear

or bite.”

 

And in the end Torres surrendered, paying in advance for what did

satisfy him when he had examined the documents, the old letters, the

baby locket and the baby trinkets. And Torres not only assured Yi Poon

that he was satisfied, but paid him in advance, on the latter’s

insistence, an additional hundred gold to execute a commission for him.

 

* * * * *

 

Meanwhile, in the bathroom which connected their bedrooms, clad in fresh

underlinen and shaving with safety razors, Henry and Francis were

singing:

 

“Back to back against the mainmast,

Held at bay the entire crew....”

 

In her charming quarters, aided and abetted by a couple of Indian

seamstresses, Leoncia, half in mirth, half in sadness, and in all

sweetness and wholesomeness of generosity, was initiating the Queen into

the charmingness of civilized woman’s dress. The Queen, a true woman to

her heart’s core, was wild with delight in the countless pretties of

texture and adornment with which Leoncia’s wardrobe was stored. It was a

maiden frolic for the pair of them, and a stitch here and a take-up

there modified certain of Leoncia’s gowns to the Queen’s slenderness.

 

“No,” said Leoncia judicially. “You will not need a corset. You are the

one woman in a hundred for whom a corset is not necessary. You have the

roundest lines for a thin woman that I ever saw. You ...” Leoncia

paused, apparently deflected by her need for a pin from her dressing

table, for which she turned; but at the same time she swallowed the

swelling that choked in her throat, so that she was able to continue:

“You are a beautiful bride, and Francis can only grow prouder of you.”

 

In the bathroom, Francis, finished shaving first, broke off the song to

respond to the knock at his bedroom door and received a telegram from

Fernando, the next to the youngest of the Solano brothers. And Francis

read:

 

_Important your immediate return. Need more margins. While market

very weak but a strong attack on all your stocks except Tampico

Petroleum, which is strong as ever. Wire me when to expect you.

Situation is serious. Think I can hold out if you start to return at

once. Wire me at once._

 

_Bascom._

 

In the living room the two Morgans found Enrico and his sons opening

wine.