May 15, 2025 • 11 mins
Transplanted from New York to save his familys business in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Price Ruyler quickly ascends to the top of the citys bachelor list. Yet, he remains immune to the local girls advances and their mothers schemes. That is, until he encounters the enchanting Helene, leading to a whirlwind proposal within just a week. As they journey into their fourth year of marriage, Prices love for Helene remains steadfast. However, he begins to sense a shift, sparking questions about her enigmatic past and whether any family secrets were lost in the earthquakes aftermath.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of The Avalanche by Gertrude horn Afferton. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Lynne Thompson,
Chapter nine. They had intended to go to the theater,
but Riyla put her to bed at once. He offered
to read to her, but she turned her back on
him with cold disdain, and he went to the little
(00:22):
invisible cupboard where she kept her own jewels, and took
out the heavy gold box, which had been the wedding
present of one of his California business friends, who owned
a quartz mine. I shall put this in the safe,
he said incisively. For while I admire your staunchness in friendship,
even for such an unworthy object as Polly Robert's, I
(00:42):
do not propose that my wife shall be selling or
pawning her jewels for any reason whatever. Think over the
proposal I made downstairs. If Polly is willing, I'll lend
Roberts the money to morrow. She had thrown an arm
over her face, and she made no reply. He went
downstairs and put the box in the safe. It occurred
(01:03):
to him that she had watched him open and close
the safe several times, but she certainly had never written
the combination down, and it had taken him a long
while to commit it to memory himself. He glanced over
the contents of the box before he locked it in.
The jewels were all there, the string of pearls that
he had given her on their marriage day, a few
(01:25):
wedding presents, and several rings and trinkets he had bought
for her, since the value was perhaps twenty thousand dollars,
For he had told her that she must wait several
years before he could give her the jewels of a
Great Lady when she was thirty and really needed them
to make up for fading charms. It had been one
of their pleasant little jokes. As Rayelah sat the combination,
(01:48):
he sighed and wondered whether their days of joking were over.
Their life had suddenly shut out of focus, and it
would require all his ingenuity and patience, aided by friendly circumstance,
to swing in into line again. He did not believe
a word of the necklace story. Somebody was blackmailing the
poor child. If he could only find out who, He
(02:09):
made up his mind suddenly to put this problem also
in the hands of Spalding for solution. The question of
his mother in law's antecedents was important enough, but that
of his wife's happiness and his own was paramount. He
decided to go to the theater himself, for he was
in no condition for sleep or the society of men
at the club, nor could any book hold his attention.
(02:34):
He prayed that the play would be reasonably diverting. He
walked down town, and as he entered the lobby of
the Columbia at the close of the first act, he
saw Jean Bisbee and D. V. Bimmer, who was now
managing a hotel in San Francisco, standing together. He also
saw Bisbee nudge Bimmer, and they both stared at him openly,
(02:55):
the famous hotel man with some sympathy in his wise
secretive eyes, the reformed peer of the underworld with a
certain speculative contempt. Riyler, to his intense irritation, felt himself
flushing and wondered, if the man's regard might be translated,
just how much shall I be able to touch him?
For he wished he would show his hand and dissipate
(03:19):
the damnable web of mystery, which fate seemed weaving hourly
out of her blow to pouch. But he doubted if
Bisbee or whoever it was that tormented his wife would
approach him save as a last resource. They were clever
enough to know that her keenest desire would be to
keep the disgraceful past from the knowledge of her husband,
(03:40):
rather than from a society seasoned these many years to
arabescent pasts. Moreover, it is always easier to blackmail a
woman than a man, and price Riyler could not have
looked an easy mark. To the most optimistic of social brigands.
He found it impossible to fix his mind on the play.
The cues of the first eluded him, and the characters
(04:02):
and dialogue were too commonplace to make the story negligible.
At the end of the second act, Rila made up
his mind to go home and try to coax his
wife back into her customary good temper, pet her, and
make her forget her little tragedy. He still hesitated to
broach the subject to her directly, but it was possible
(04:22):
that by some diplomatically analogous tale he could surprise her
into telling him the truth. During the long drive, he
turned over in his mind the data spoiling her place
before him. During the afternoon, he rejected the theory that
Madame Delano was Missus Lawton as utterly fantastic, but admitted
a connection. Elene had spoken more than once of Missus
(04:45):
Lawton's kindness to Mamant when her baby was born during
her enforced stay in San Francisco, and it was quite
possible that the two had been friends, and that the
young mother had adopted the name of Dubois when calling
upon the nuns of the co Sir Peter, either because
it would naturally occur to her, or from some deeper
design which he could not fathom. Yes, the connection with
(05:09):
Missus Lawton was indisputable, and it remained for him to
figure out, as Spalding would say, which of these women,
the Gambler's wife, the notorious Madame Gabrielle, the brief coruscating
Pauline Marie, or the Englishman's mistress, a woman of Missus
Lawton's position would be most likely to befriend. The first
(05:30):
three might be dismissed without argument. She had been no
frequenter of gambling joints, whatever her peccadillos. Gabrielle, he happened
to know, had died some eight or ten years ago,
and Mademoiselle Pauline Marie if she had had a child,
which was extremely doubtful, was the thought that sends unwelcome
offspring post haste to the foundling asylum. There remained only
(05:53):
the spurious Missus Medford, and she was the probability on
all counts. What more likely than that she she and
Missus Lawton had met at one of the great winter
hotels in southern California and foe gathered. Certainly they would
be congenial spirits when the baby came, Missus Lawton would
naturally see her through her trouble and advise her later
(06:14):
what to do with the child. No doubt Medford found
it in the way. After that, Rila could only fumble.
Did Medford desert the woman driving her to the stage
or elsewhere? Did they start for Japan? And did he
die on the voyage? Did he merely give the woman
a pension and tell her to go back to rule
(06:34):
or to the devil? It was positive that when l
M was five years old, Madame Delano had gone back
to her relatives with some trumped up story and been
received by them. Moreover, this theory coincided with his belief
that Ellen's father was a gentleman, no doubt. He had
been already married when he met the young French girl, superbly,
(06:56):
handsome and intelligent, possibly at one of the French word
watering places, even in Ruin itself, swarming with tourists in summer.
They might have met in the spacious isles of the cathedral.
She risen from her prayers, he wandering about Bidica in
hand and fallen in love at sight, one of Earth's
(07:17):
million romances, regenerating the aged planet for a moment, only
to sink back and disappear into her forgotten dust. His
own romance. What was to be the end of that?
But he returned to his argument. He wanted a coherent
story to tell his wife, and he wanted also to
believe that his wife's father had been a gentleman. Medford,
(07:39):
like so many of his eloping kind, had made instinctively
for California with the beautiful woman he loved but could
not marry. Santa Barbara Riyla had heard had been the
favorite haven for two generations of couples fleeing from irking
bonds in the societies of England and the continent of Europe.
Southern California combined a wild independence with a languor that
(08:03):
blunted two sensitive nerves, offered an equable climate with months
on end of out of door life, boating, shooting, riding, driving, motoring,
romantic excursions, and even sport if a distinguished looking couple
played the game well and told a plausible story. Breeding
was a part of Ryler's religion, as component in his
(08:25):
code of honor, patriotism, loyalty, or the obligation of the
strong to protect the weak. Far better the ben sinister
in his own class than a legitimate parent of the
type of Jean Bisbee or d. V. Bimmer. Ryler was
a good mixer when business required that particular form of diplomacy,
and the familiarities of Jake Spalding left his nerves unscathed,
(08:49):
but in bone and brain cells. He was of the
intensely respectable aristocracy of Manhattan Island, and he never forgot it.
He had surrendered to a girl of no position without
a struggle, and made her his wife. But it is
doubtful if he would even have fallen in love with
her if she had been under bred in appearance or manner.
(09:10):
He had never regretted his marriage for a moment, not
even since his avalanche of mystery and portending scandal had
descended upon him. If possible, he loved his trouble john
wife more than ever. With a sudden instinct that worse
was to come, he vowed that nothing should ever make
him love her less. When he arrived at his house,
(09:31):
he found two notes on the hall table addressed to himself.
The first was from Elene, and read poly telephoned that
she would send her car for me to go down
to the Fairmonton Dance. I cannot sleep, so I am going.
She cannot sleep either. Forgive me if I was cross,
but I am terribly worried for her. Don't wait up
for me, Ellene. He read this note with a frown,
(09:55):
but without surprise. It was to be expected that she
would seek excitement until her present fears were allayed and
her persecutor's silence. He determined to order Spalding to have
her shadowed constantly for at least a fortnight. A note
made of every person in whose company she appeared to
be at all uneasy, whether they were of her own
(10:16):
set or not. It would also be worthwhile to have
Madame Delano's rooms watched, for it was possible that she
would summon Elene there to meet Bisbee or others of
his ilk. Then he picked up the other note. It
was from Spaulding, and as he read it, all his
fine spun theories vanished, and once more he was adrift
(10:37):
on an uncharted sea without landmark in sight. Dear sir,
began the detective, who was always formal on paper. I've
just got the information required from Holbrook Center. We didn't
half believe there was such a place. If you remember well,
there is. And according to the Parish Register, Mary Jeanne
(10:57):
Perra was married to James Delano on July twenty fifth,
eighteen ninety one. She was there visiting some French relations.
They went back soon after, and he had left there
when he was about sixteen, and had only come back
at once to see his mother, who was dying. Nothing
seems to have been known about him in his home town,
(11:18):
except a sort of rumor that he was a bad
lot and lived somewheres in California. Can you beat it?
But don't think I'm stumped. I'm working on a new
line and I'm not going to say another word until
I've got somewheres yours truly, j Spalding. Delano's father was
a forty niner and lived in California till eighteen sixty.
(11:41):
Then he went home to eighth she and died soon after.
There were some wild stories about him too, end of
Chapter nine
Chapter nine of The Avalanche by Gertrude horn Afferton. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Lynne Thompson,
Chapter nine. They had intended to go to the theater,
but Riyla put her to bed at once. He offered
to read to her, but she turned her back on
him with cold disdain, and he went to the little
(00:22):
invisible cupboard where she kept her own jewels, and took
out the heavy gold box, which had been the wedding
present of one of his California business friends, who owned
a quartz mine. I shall put this in the safe,
he said incisively. For while I admire your staunchness in friendship,
even for such an unworthy object as Polly Robert's, I
(00:42):
do not propose that my wife shall be selling or
pawning her jewels for any reason whatever. Think over the
proposal I made downstairs. If Polly is willing, I'll lend
Roberts the money to morrow. She had thrown an arm
over her face, and she made no reply. He went
downstairs and put the box in the safe. It occurred
(01:03):
to him that she had watched him open and close
the safe several times, but she certainly had never written
the combination down, and it had taken him a long
while to commit it to memory himself. He glanced over
the contents of the box before he locked it in.
The jewels were all there, the string of pearls that
he had given her on their marriage day, a few
(01:25):
wedding presents, and several rings and trinkets he had bought
for her, since the value was perhaps twenty thousand dollars,
For he had told her that she must wait several
years before he could give her the jewels of a
Great Lady when she was thirty and really needed them
to make up for fading charms. It had been one
of their pleasant little jokes. As Rayelah sat the combination,
(01:48):
he sighed and wondered whether their days of joking were over.
Their life had suddenly shut out of focus, and it
would require all his ingenuity and patience, aided by friendly circumstance,
to swing in into line again. He did not believe
a word of the necklace story. Somebody was blackmailing the
poor child. If he could only find out who, He
(02:09):
made up his mind suddenly to put this problem also
in the hands of Spalding for solution. The question of
his mother in law's antecedents was important enough, but that
of his wife's happiness and his own was paramount. He
decided to go to the theater himself, for he was
in no condition for sleep or the society of men
at the club, nor could any book hold his attention.
(02:34):
He prayed that the play would be reasonably diverting. He
walked down town, and as he entered the lobby of
the Columbia at the close of the first act, he
saw Jean Bisbee and D. V. Bimmer, who was now
managing a hotel in San Francisco, standing together. He also
saw Bisbee nudge Bimmer, and they both stared at him openly,
(02:55):
the famous hotel man with some sympathy in his wise
secretive eyes, the reformed peer of the underworld with a
certain speculative contempt. Riyler, to his intense irritation, felt himself
flushing and wondered, if the man's regard might be translated,
just how much shall I be able to touch him?
For he wished he would show his hand and dissipate
(03:19):
the damnable web of mystery, which fate seemed weaving hourly
out of her blow to pouch. But he doubted if
Bisbee or whoever it was that tormented his wife would
approach him save as a last resource. They were clever
enough to know that her keenest desire would be to
keep the disgraceful past from the knowledge of her husband,
(03:40):
rather than from a society seasoned these many years to
arabescent pasts. Moreover, it is always easier to blackmail a
woman than a man, and price Riyler could not have
looked an easy mark. To the most optimistic of social brigands.
He found it impossible to fix his mind on the play.
The cues of the first eluded him, and the characters
(04:02):
and dialogue were too commonplace to make the story negligible.
At the end of the second act, Rila made up
his mind to go home and try to coax his
wife back into her customary good temper, pet her, and
make her forget her little tragedy. He still hesitated to
broach the subject to her directly, but it was possible
(04:22):
that by some diplomatically analogous tale he could surprise her
into telling him the truth. During the long drive, he
turned over in his mind the data spoiling her place
before him. During the afternoon, he rejected the theory that
Madame Delano was Missus Lawton as utterly fantastic, but admitted
a connection. Elene had spoken more than once of Missus
(04:45):
Lawton's kindness to Mamant when her baby was born during
her enforced stay in San Francisco, and it was quite
possible that the two had been friends, and that the
young mother had adopted the name of Dubois when calling
upon the nuns of the co Sir Peter, either because
it would naturally occur to her, or from some deeper
design which he could not fathom. Yes, the connection with
(05:09):
Missus Lawton was indisputable, and it remained for him to
figure out, as Spalding would say, which of these women,
the Gambler's wife, the notorious Madame Gabrielle, the brief coruscating
Pauline Marie, or the Englishman's mistress, a woman of Missus
Lawton's position would be most likely to befriend. The first
(05:30):
three might be dismissed without argument. She had been no
frequenter of gambling joints, whatever her peccadillos. Gabrielle, he happened
to know, had died some eight or ten years ago,
and Mademoiselle Pauline Marie if she had had a child,
which was extremely doubtful, was the thought that sends unwelcome
offspring post haste to the foundling asylum. There remained only
(05:53):
the spurious Missus Medford, and she was the probability on
all counts. What more likely than that she she and
Missus Lawton had met at one of the great winter
hotels in southern California and foe gathered. Certainly they would
be congenial spirits when the baby came, Missus Lawton would
naturally see her through her trouble and advise her later
(06:14):
what to do with the child. No doubt Medford found
it in the way. After that, Rila could only fumble.
Did Medford desert the woman driving her to the stage
or elsewhere? Did they start for Japan? And did he
die on the voyage? Did he merely give the woman
a pension and tell her to go back to rule
(06:34):
or to the devil? It was positive that when l
M was five years old, Madame Delano had gone back
to her relatives with some trumped up story and been
received by them. Moreover, this theory coincided with his belief
that Ellen's father was a gentleman, no doubt. He had
been already married when he met the young French girl, superbly,
(06:56):
handsome and intelligent, possibly at one of the French word
watering places, even in Ruin itself, swarming with tourists in summer.
They might have met in the spacious isles of the cathedral.
She risen from her prayers, he wandering about Bidica in
hand and fallen in love at sight, one of Earth's
(07:17):
million romances, regenerating the aged planet for a moment, only
to sink back and disappear into her forgotten dust. His
own romance. What was to be the end of that?
But he returned to his argument. He wanted a coherent
story to tell his wife, and he wanted also to
believe that his wife's father had been a gentleman. Medford,
(07:39):
like so many of his eloping kind, had made instinctively
for California with the beautiful woman he loved but could
not marry. Santa Barbara Riyla had heard had been the
favorite haven for two generations of couples fleeing from irking
bonds in the societies of England and the continent of Europe.
Southern California combined a wild independence with a languor that
(08:03):
blunted two sensitive nerves, offered an equable climate with months
on end of out of door life, boating, shooting, riding, driving, motoring,
romantic excursions, and even sport if a distinguished looking couple
played the game well and told a plausible story. Breeding
was a part of Ryler's religion, as component in his
(08:25):
code of honor, patriotism, loyalty, or the obligation of the
strong to protect the weak. Far better the ben sinister
in his own class than a legitimate parent of the
type of Jean Bisbee or d. V. Bimmer. Ryler was
a good mixer when business required that particular form of diplomacy,
and the familiarities of Jake Spalding left his nerves unscathed,
(08:49):
but in bone and brain cells. He was of the
intensely respectable aristocracy of Manhattan Island, and he never forgot it.
He had surrendered to a girl of no position without
a struggle, and made her his wife. But it is
doubtful if he would even have fallen in love with
her if she had been under bred in appearance or manner.
(09:10):
He had never regretted his marriage for a moment, not
even since his avalanche of mystery and portending scandal had
descended upon him. If possible, he loved his trouble john
wife more than ever. With a sudden instinct that worse
was to come, he vowed that nothing should ever make
him love her less. When he arrived at his house,
(09:31):
he found two notes on the hall table addressed to himself.
The first was from Elene, and read poly telephoned that
she would send her car for me to go down
to the Fairmonton Dance. I cannot sleep, so I am going.
She cannot sleep either. Forgive me if I was cross,
but I am terribly worried for her. Don't wait up
for me, Ellene. He read this note with a frown,
(09:55):
but without surprise. It was to be expected that she
would seek excitement until her present fears were allayed and
her persecutor's silence. He determined to order Spalding to have
her shadowed constantly for at least a fortnight. A note
made of every person in whose company she appeared to
be at all uneasy, whether they were of her own
(10:16):
set or not. It would also be worthwhile to have
Madame Delano's rooms watched, for it was possible that she
would summon Elene there to meet Bisbee or others of
his ilk. Then he picked up the other note. It
was from Spaulding, and as he read it, all his
fine spun theories vanished, and once more he was adrift
(10:37):
on an uncharted sea without landmark in sight. Dear sir,
began the detective, who was always formal on paper. I've
just got the information required from Holbrook Center. We didn't
half believe there was such a place. If you remember well,
there is. And according to the Parish Register, Mary Jeanne
(10:57):
Perra was married to James Delano on July twenty fifth,
eighteen ninety one. She was there visiting some French relations.
They went back soon after, and he had left there
when he was about sixteen, and had only come back
at once to see his mother, who was dying. Nothing
seems to have been known about him in his home town,
(11:18):
except a sort of rumor that he was a bad
lot and lived somewheres in California. Can you beat it?
But don't think I'm stumped. I'm working on a new
line and I'm not going to say another word until
I've got somewheres yours truly, j Spalding. Delano's father was
a forty niner and lived in California till eighteen sixty.
(11:41):
Then he went home to eighth she and died soon after.
There were some wild stories about him too, end of
Chapter nine
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